When I joined Ringling Brothers Circus in 1971 as a clown I learned a wonderful new lexicon of slapstick jargon.
One of the first terms I acquired was "blow-off". The ending of a clown gag. Was it tight, was it loose, or did it have too much spaghetti? (Too confusing.)
To pull a funny face was to do a "take 'em".
A "track gag" was a traveling piece of whimsy paraded around the entire arena, such as a midget dressed as a baby in a self-propelled perambulator, smoking an outsize cigar.
The accoutrements of clowning included goo goo glasses, the squirt, devil dust, old slop, and cream puffs. The veteran clowns kept most of these items handy during the show, in case there was an unexpected break in the performance; then the clowns would be whistled out to "play the accordion"; that is, stretch out a gag for as long or as short as needed to allow the next act to get into the ring.
When that happened the boss clown would issue crisp commands:
"Break out the goo goo glasses!" (Horn rim spectacles that spit out water to imitate tears.)
"Get yourself a squirt!" (A turkey baster filled with water -- always a handy tool in slapstick improvisation.)
"Pack some devil dust in the chicken!" (This referred to a specially treated flour that could be sprayed over a match flame to create a geyser of fire, but at a relatively low temperature; issuing from the mouth of a rubber chicken, it never failed to send audiences into a panic.)
"Get that old slop whipped up quick!" (Old slop was derived from Old Spice shaving soap bars, which were grated into a barrel of water and then whipped into a fragrant froth used for pie throwing and any other contingency that demanded a sturdy goo.)
"Gimme a dozen cream puffs!" (Black gunpowder squibs wrapped in duct tape; when attached to an electrical wire and then touched to a battery terminal, they made a terrific noise and towering clouds of smoke; their one drawback was that constant use left professional clowns hard of hearing.)
Or our marching orders might be to start a balloon chase. A vendor planted in the audience with a string of balloons would be hectored by the clowns and then his balloons stolen from him -- precipitating a wild chase up and down the aisles and around the track and rings, with one clown handing off the balloons to another clown like Olympic torch bearers until the last luckless clown trips and falls onto the balloons -- exploding them all.
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To "take a buster" meant any kind of a pratfall. By the end of each season my wrists would be constantly sore and almost twice their regular size from breaking innumerable falls with my hands. And that is how the inimitable Buster Keaton got his stage name; from the amazing scope and versatility of his pratfalls.
There were long shirts and fright wigs and fart whistles -- a medley of words that kept the business of clowning so enchanting to me and so mystifying to the "townies" for over forty years.
Today though,, my hands have lost their cunning from arthritis and my knees are unreliable, so all I can do is sit down with my grand kids, and say, with a Mack Sennett twinkle in my eye: "Did I ever tell you about the skeleton chase?"
