Crisis: America Faces National Clown Shortage Emergency

(Photo: Melissa Wiese)

I do not wish to unduly alarm you, dear readers. But nor do I want for our attention to deviate from an emerging crisis: America is running out of clowns.

The largest clown professional organizations report rapidly shrinking numbers of members. For example, the World Clown Association has dropped from 3,500 to 2,500 members over the past decade. The problem, it and other clowning organizations claim, is that older clowns are dying off and younger people are not taking up the rubber nose of honor:

“American kids these days are thinking about different careers altogether,” said Zavieh, 44, who has worked under the moniker Cido for nearly two decades.

“They’re thinking about everything other than clowning.”

At the same time, professional standards for clowns have become more stringent:

The 95-year-old Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has even implemented a more rigorous hiring process to find just the right jester.

As a result of the more challenging tryouts, just 11 clowns out of 14 who were selected from 531 applicants to attend a rigorous 14-day boot camp at the Ringling Bros. Clown College last year were offered jobs with the world-famous circus.

How can America avert a critical clowning shortage?

-via American Digest


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In other news, bouts of explosive diarrhea are in a worrisome decline. And later... herpes! We'll show you how. Now here's Ted to tell you about the four exciting new snow storms East Coasters will be celebrating over the next six days.
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By odd coincidence I was just looking at the wikipedia page for jesters, trying to learn the history of that classic 3 sectioned drooping hat. No luck there, but I did learn about this California group called The Fools Guild that looked like fun. They have a party coming up soon. http://www.foolsguild.org/ Not quite the same thing as a circus clown, but reminded me.
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