The K(C)ok(c)o Nexus: Further Explorations of the Clown Realm

 The K(C)oK(c)o Nexus

The subject of clowns as it pertains to the deeply weird never seems to have an end to it, once one foolishly stumbles into the Very Serious Funny Business of studying it. 

I have, half-jokingly, referred to this quandary as “The Clown Realm” over the years- and while one might question the wisdom of continually returning to the subject of strange clown ephemera, there does seem to be a sort of wisdom in foolishness itself. It’s a fool’s errand, for instance, to try to adequately describe a cluster of synchronicities. As I sat trying to decide how to begin today’s exposition of clown weirdness, without getting too bogged down in describing synchronicities, a large black beetle that had somehow gotten into the house crawled onto my lap. Those familiar with the work of C. G. Jung, and how he came to coin the term synchronicity, will see this as a synch in itself. Whether it’s a strong one or not depends on the reader. I’ve been fortunate in my time writing and talking about Weird Stuff, in that I have found people who are willing to follow along with these meandering threads of meaning and malarky, and even more so to have found others with similar experiences.

The Clown in this sense is emblematic of synchronicity, or at least an aspect of it. It becomes very important to recognize nuance, and understand how symbolic values can carry over from seemingly unrelated things; one must be able to accept the multitude of emanations from larger archetypal figures, and understand the shapeshifting nature of the numinous. One must also knock one’s self down a peg when pedantry creeps into one’s writing, while deftly traversing the banana peel-laden territory…

All of this is to say that the study of clowns is at once a foolish endeavor and a worthwhile one, and when the Clown Realm starts to respond to your inquiries it can feel less like a chosen path and more like one Fate chose for you. It seems my lot in life is to follow the phantasmal clown car wherever it goes- and if I don’t, the clowns will find me.

My recent conversation with Phil Snyder on The AP Strange Show illustrates well the difficulty of parsing these things out. Phil’s experiences mirror mine in many ways, and there really was no succinct way of laying it all out. Whether discussing clown weirdness or synchronicities, or especially weird clown synchronicities, a certain amount of digression and expository explanation is necessary. For his part, Phil had concerns that he wasn’t being clear or direct enough, that various tangents could be cut. The episode ended up being the longest one I’ve done, even with some significant trimming, but I felt that the various tangents were important to the overall picture. If listeners are willing to follow along with such a strange and unique topic at all, they would surely be willing to stick it out for all of the adjacent weirdness- in for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes. I am grateful that Phil took the time to share his story, and happy to have found another Clown Realm veteran. 

As stated above, sometimes the thing you’re looking at is part of a greater Thing- and while various things may seem unrelated, they weave together in a spectral fashion which takes a particular sort of clownish psychic surgery to unstitch. The weblike threads of the Clown Realm include within them a plethora of topics which appear in the conversation Phil and I had, which forms a patchwork of symbolism for synchronicity to ping off of like so many pinball counters after scoring a bonus. Strange weather events, UFOs and particularly Men in Black, gorillas or men in gorilla suits, masks and monsters, and spirituality all seem intertwined as symbols and themes. It would be particularly foolish to try to categorize these in the form of a chart, as they tend to bleed over into one another so seamlessly. Suffice to say, the brief list will provide context for those who perhaps didn’t listen to the show. This sort of brevity is part and parcel of the reason I seem cursed to always return to this subject; in the interest of writing shorter, more digestible reports on the Clown Realm so much weirdness must necessarily be left on the table…

This brings us, finally, to the subject of today’s meditation: The K(C)oK(c)o Nexus. For all of these threads of synchronicity to form a web, there must of course be places where they intersect- and the chance observation of the name “Coco” or “Koko” during the interview with Phil provides just such a nexus point. Toward the end of our recorded discussion, Phil describes a chance encounter with clowns at a restaurant called Coco’s, and I noted that the name held resonance with clowns and clowning. I wear an enamel pin of KoKo the Clown from the old Fleischer cartoons on my lapel often, and in mentioning it Phil recalled that one of the photos he included in his Eyewash zine article about clowns was of a clown with “COCO” written across his hat. This chance observation didn’t seem to warrant further exploration at the time, which provided a perfect place for synchronicity to catch me unawares.

Within a few days of recording with Phil, but prior to editing and publishing the episode, my wife Pam had been out thrifting and sourcing material for her own reselling business. She came across a curious vintage Hallmark greeting card of a clown holding a sign saying “Happy birthday to you!”, which she naturally picked up for me. The card was part of a line Hallmark produced called “Rock ‘n’ Play” cards, with movable parts- in this case, the clown’s head was separate from the body of the card and could tip to one side or the other. At least, the idea was for one head to do such a thing, but this particular card had a manufacturing error and an additional head was attached. I was thrilled to receive a two-headed clown card, as both clowns and two-headedness are things I’ve written about before. I was unprepared, however, for the contents of the card:

Koko is a circus clown

Who’s come to visit you

And bring this “Happy Birthday” wish

Especially for you, too.

If you think Koko’s funny, 

He’ll be mighty happy too.

For Koko’s come to ROCK ‘N’ PLAY

A long, long time with you.

The strength of such a synchronicity is, as always, for the reader to judge. It’s not unusual for Pam to find some clown-related ephemera in her travels and grab it for me, and the additional head was a bonus bit of weirdness that doesn’t immediately signify much meaning- but the name of the clown was rather extraordinary and made the last two lines of the little poem a bit ominous. At the very least, it gave me a good image to use for the episode art for my conversation with Phil, and got me thinking more about this whole Koko / Coco business. 

There were two notable clowns that came to mind when I had pointed out the significance of the restaurant name. One of the two was Nicolai Poliakoff, who had a fascinating life story and went on to become one of the most famous clowns in England during the middle of the 20th century. He ran away with the circus as a child, posing as an orphan, and learned circus trades. Multiple times he was conscripted into armies, fighting for both the Russian Red Army and the White at different points during the Russian Civil War, and escaping back into the circus disguised as a girl. He studied under Rudolfo Truzzi, a circus man of great renown in Russia at the time. It was he who gave Poliakoff the nickname Kokishka, a diminutive version of the Russian word for “cat”. This was later shortened to Koko, and upon his arrival in the United Kingdom was anglicized to Coco. His son Michael followed in his size 56 footprints, originally performing as “Coconut”, but later just Coco as well- and, incidentally, is the clown whose photo Phil included in his 1990s clown article. This Coco was commissioned in the 1960s to revamp the costume and character of Ronald McDonald for the McDonald’s fast food franchise, and even appeared as Ronald several times on television. 

It’s interesting to note here the way these “name game” synchronicities work. Whether using C’s or K’s, the Koko name returns similar values when referring to clowns. The Russian version of Poliakoff’s nickname originally referred to a small cat, and retained the K’s- but the English version with C’s allowed for a play on words for his son, in reference to the fruit of the palm tree, and incidentally the “coco” in coconut came from a Spanish or Portuguese word to describe the apparent grinning or grimacing face made by the indentations of the husk. Naturally such husks or shells provide material for mask making as well, with various cultures carving or painting them in their folk art.

As I was beginning to pick up on this nexus, I conferred with my good friend and colleague in Kookery Stephanie Quick. She got a mention on the show, because she had picked up on a cluster of strange events in Concord, CA which served to illustrate some of the connections Phil and I were making. She points to Willow Pass Road as it provides the setting to events as seemingly disparate as UFO abduction, fatal accidents, weather manipulation, and of course a creepy clown encounter. In this case, a clown tried to snatch an infant from its mother! These instances occurred near or involved a restaurant on that road which Steph believes to be the Denny’s, and hence, it has jokingly been referred to as the Denny’s Portal. After listening to Phil and I on the show, she reached out to let me know that Concord is located in Contra Costa County, also known as Coco County. Once again, the synchro drops into place, encouraging me to continue. Later that night, I attended the fall concert at my son’s high school where he was performing in the chorus. As I settled in to hear my son sing with the group, the teacher addressed us with “Our first song tonight is ‘Remember Me’, from the movie Coco…”

A new thread seems to emerge as we go along here- that of restaurants. I had been inspired to mention the name because Phil had told a story about a restaurant, and here we see that the Son of Coco the Clown, also named Coco, became an emblem of the biggest fast food restaurant chain in the world, while Stephanie’s Coco County cluster centers around a Denny’s. It calls to mind for me the low-lit family dining experience that was the Ground Round in Shrewsbury, MA. They would bring out free bowls of popcorn for families along with the menus, and had a demeaning practice of charging for children by body weight. The low lighting was due to the fact that they were always projecting cartoons onto a screen in the dining area, but none of them were relevant to children in the 80s- they were the cheaply aquired, nearly forgotten cartoons of Fleischer studios, such as Popeye and Betty Boop. The most memorable and infamous aspect to the dining experience at Ground Round was the resident clown, who would go table to table to entertain children. An informal survey of folks my age who had the experience reveals very few who felt entertained by such a thing as a child, and in fact most were either terrified or at least very anxious. I always kind of hoped the clown would skip our table, but he never did. I could buy him off with a quick forced laugh, and in the flickering lights of the projector, transmuted to moving images on the screen behind him, I would invariably see another Koko.

This Koko (variously also presented as Ko-Ko, or KoKo) is an extravagant phantasmal creature who as it happens was foundational to modern animation. Created by Max Fleischer, Koko developed when the cartoonist was tasked with finding a way to create animations that seemed more fluid and natural. This led to the invention of the Rotoscope, a device that projected movie film onto paper and allowed Max to trace the human figure, frame by frame, with whatever cartoon character he wanted. These frames could then be recorded and played in rapid succession to animate the cartoon, with a kind of precision lacking in other cartoons of the time. Max’s brother Dave, who had performed as a clown on Coney Island, performed the movements in costume so that Max could build his Koko around him. The name wouldn’t be applied to the cartoon clown for several years, but he was featured in a series called Out of the Inkwell which combined the animations with live action footage of Max in his studio.

From the very start, Koko is portrayed as a sort of imp which springs from the inkwell on Fleischer’s desk. He is capable of shape-shifting, creating things out of nothing (including a small dog, which later became a kind of sidekick for him), and even reverting to the form of an amorphous blob of ink. This is extremely fitting, as all of these weird things- clowns, synchronicities, UFOs, etc- are kind of an inkblot Rorschach test for the recipient. I’m keenly aware that for some, these meandering explorations seem tiresome and pointless, while for others they provide insights and illumination. Of course, there’s a whole spectrum in-between, and for Koko’s part he has no such quandaries. He springs out of virtually nothing, can become nothing, can always appear from or vanish into the blackness of the inkwell- and while he’s free in the studio he can either antagonize his creator or merely react to his actions.

While Dave Fleischer provided the movements for Koko, the overall look of the clown was at least partly inspired by the Yama Yama Man. Koko was born over a century ago, during a time where live performances were some of the only forms of public entertainment. A hugely popular song and dance routine of the time was the Yama Yama Man, which originated from a musical called The Three Twins back in 1908. While the musical itself, which was based on a play called Incog, fell into obscurity over the ensuing decades the song and its associated dance seemed to live on. Actress Bessie McCoy originally performed the character, dressed in Pierrot-style clown garb with oversized gloves and a signature dance. Over the years, the character (and McCoy herself) would be reinvented and imitated in various ways by Ada Jones, Marylin Miller, Irene Castle, and Ginger Rogers. When I brought the Yama Yama Man to the attention of Phil, he remarked on the strangeness of the repeated revival of the oddball character- almost as though it were fulfilling some kind of ritual.

So what is a Yama Yama Man? In the musical, he is portrayed as a kind of bogeyman, and may represent a very early pop culture creepy clown. The name itself came about through happenstance; originally the character was supposed to be the Pajama Man, but because of similarities to a song in a current feature of the time the writers were compelled to change it up. Newspapers of the time, funnily enough, frame this as a sort of ‘discovery’, as though the Yama Yama Man was a timeless entity waiting for a creative force to bring him through to our realm, like a clownish imp popping out of an inkwell.

While playing around with the word “pajama”, the writers arrived at “yama yama”, which meant nothing to them or anyone else. The nonsense words were perfect for an original character; it wouldn’t conflict with existing songs or performances. To give an idea of what thrilled audiences from 1908 through the 1930s, here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Ev’ry little tot at night,

Is afraid of the dark you know. 

Some big Yama Man they see

When off to bed they go.

Refrain:

Yama, Yama, the Yama Man

Terrible eyes and a face of tan

If you don’t watch out he’ll get you without a doubt

If he can.

Maybe he’s hiding behind the chair

Ready to spring out at you unaware

Run to your mama,

For here comes the Yama Yama Man.

While the writers of the song may have considered “yama” to be mere nonsense language, it is also a Sanskrit name for the Lord of Death in Hindu traditions. It’s worth noting that he acts along with his twin sister, Yami, as the play from which Yama Yama Man manifests is The Three Twins. Yama decides whether you join the Pitris in the realm of ghosts, or go to Hell, or are reborn on Earth. Buddhist traditions such as the Vajrayana practices of Tibet include a version of this same deity, in the form of Yama Dharmaraja or Kalarupa. Getting into the nitty-gritty of Tibetan iconography and the various aspects of such figures is mercifully beyond the scope of today’s meditation, but it is enough to say that this entity is also tied to and symbolic of the cycle of rebirth and death. It’s also a particularly odd connection for me to stumble on, as I sit at my computer in my living room, with a mask of Yama Dharmaraja on the wall behind me- literally looking over my shoulder.

So we see that the cartoon Koko has a broad array of associations, which are very strange- the brainchild of an inventor, melding a Coney Island Clown with a Broadway Bogeyman, with a dash of unintentional allusion to Eastern spiritual cosmology- but there is still one left to explore. As animation became more sophisticated, and the Fleischers added more talent to their stable of cartoonists, they got away from dependence on the Rotoscope. Koko began appearing in fully animated shorts, often with bizarre plot lines. In Koko’s Earth Control (1928), Koko and his pup get access to the observatory that controls all of the world’s weather- and even contains a self-destruct lever for the whole planet. Other cartoons have him dealing with ghosts, demons, or even Father Time. Koko occupies a place within the ephemeral universe that clearly lends itself to great power and manipulation over reality itself!

By the 1930s, he was tamed into more of a side character in the Betty Boop cartoons- and it is these appearances which have endured in the popular imagination. In Snow-White (1933), Betty Boop is in the titular role with Koko acting as a sympathetic character employed by her adversary. For this cartoon, the Rotoscope was brought back and employed on footage of singer Cab Calloway, performing the song St. James Infirmary Blues. In the course of the dance Koko is transformed into a ghost, and back again, and this segment seems popular around Halloween, appearing in various forms across social media. Cab’s hit song Minnie the Moocher also featured in a Boop cartoon the year prior, rotoscoped onto a Walrus character. In this cartoon Koko only appears briefly, popping out of an inkwell and returning back into it.

Minnie the Moocher was a hit largely because of the “hi-dee-hi-dee-ho” call-and-response scat singing contained within it. This, as with many things, resulted purely through chance- at a live performance Cab had forgotten the lyrics, and started to sing nonsense words while encouraging the audience to repeat them. It’s likely that he must have belted out a "yama yama" at some point, but either way, the Koko connection to Cab Calloway adds another interesting dimension since Cab had a prominent role in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980). In the movie, he plays Curtis, a man that acted as a surrogate father for Jake and Elwood Blues as they grew up in a Catholic orphanage. I have written before about the modus operandi of Men in Black and that of Phantom Clowns, and in conversation with Phil these loose connections came up again- so it seems particularly notable that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s characters are always dressed in black, with plain black ties, black hats, and sunglasses. In the movie, it’s clear that they adopted this look from Curtis, with Cab appearing in a similarly MiB-styled couture. By the end of the film, Cab performs his classic call-and-response song on stage in order to stall for Jake and Elwood, who haven’t yet made it inside. In so doing, the entire stage, band, and his clothing transform into a picture of elegance, replete with tuxes with tailcoats. It’s an odd, dreamlike sequence that features an older Cab Calloway still slinking along the stage, no longer a man in black but also not quite the rotoscoped clown who becomes a ghost. There is something Koko-esque about this manipulation of reality in a movie that otherwise plays it straight. There’s a sort of magic borne out of such things as nonsense words, necessity, and invention, and as we all stumble through samsara, tripping over our own clown shoes, we’d do well to remember that.

I’ll certainly be looking at the enamel pin of Koko with a slightly different eye, now that I know more about him. It certainly seems like, as the greeting card suggested, Koko has indeed come to rock ‘n’ play a long, long time with me. Cursory researches discovered several other Coco’s and Koko’s that could have been folded in to this exploration of synchronicity, meaning, and Clown Realm foolishness but perhaps its best to quit while we’re ahead. Should I have included anything about the famous gorilla named Koko who knew some form of sign language? It does touch on one of our major themes, but perhaps it’s best to just mention her here at the end. As much as I may sometimes want to get away from the Clown Realm, or question whether anyone will bother to read what I write about it, I know I’ll be back again anyway. This foray into the K(C)ok(c)o Nexus is by no means the final word- it is merely a drop from the cosmic inkwell, and to the inkwell it will return, only to be blotted out again in another form…

Further Clown Realm reading from this site:

Creeping Into the Valley of the Uncanny - the original clown post which compared clowns to MiB...

Clowns to the Left of Me, Joker to the Right - the original observation of the Clown Realm, which I foolishly thought would be short-lived.

Emanations From the Clown Realm: Legend Tripping, Hilarious Magic, and Synchronicity - which includes my journey to the Clown Portal, weather magic, and more!

Stumbling Through Life With a Smile - the strange origin of "The Clown's Prayer"!

A Catalog of Talking Dogs

 A Catalog of Talking Dogs

A wall of "Dogs Playing Poker" at the American Treasure Tour Museum, Oaks, PA

Man’s best friend, the dog, has never been much for conversation. Generally we think of good friends, let alone best friends, as someone we can converse with– and dogs are sorely ill-equipped to reciprocate on that front. Still, many dog owners talk to their furry friends, and part of the charm of the average canine is that they must rely on other forms of communication to respond. We may not know, from our human frame of reference, what the dog thinks. We don’t know if the dog considers the question “who’s a good boy?”, or whether he merely reacts to the tones and affect of his best friend’s voice in asking. Still, he cocks his head, gets excited, seemingly eager to prove that it is he who is the good boy. And he is. What more could one want out of friendship?

Dogs and humanity have a sacred bond, going back through the millennia to the earliest hunter-gatherer societies. They have always helped us along, whether through hunting or the pulling of sleds, or in protecting us from predators; as time went on dogs became designed through selective breeding and training for specific tasks to help their masters. It is no wonder then that as technology progressed, and we found other ways to accomplish tasks formerly in the domain of the pooch, that we continued keeping them just as companions. In all that time there was agreement, non-verbal and primal, that the two species were the best of friends. It stands to reason that at some point, some humans would want to hear even a few words from

their canine counterpart and, as it happens, some have.

One such example took the world by storm in 1911- Don, the Talking Dog, hailing from Germany. Don belonged to a gamekeeper named Ebers, who lived in Theerhutte, near Hamburg, Germany. According to him, Don spontaneously started to speak (in German, of course) at a young age. While begging for scraps at the table, Ebers said to the dog “You want something, don’t you?” and Don replied with “Haben, haben!” - or, in English, “Want, want!” Impressed by the pup’s wild talents, Ebers coached the dog on elocution and taught him other German words, some of which could be made into phrases. He was examined by zoologists in Hamburg and declared to be a “true prodigy”, and the newspapers ran with the scientific marvel of Don the Talking Dog. It was only a matter of time before Don hit the big time, traveling with Ebers’ daughter and exhibited on stage with Loney Haskell. He became famous enough that references can be found in newspapers of the era to “the famous talking dog”, and no name is needed. While reporting about Don is quick to mention that the dog was not the greatest conversationalist, his vocabulary of 8 German words- which he could use in context- were still considered remarkable. 

 

Don’s monopoly on fame in regard to canine elocution wouldn’t last forever, though. Soon other talking dogs began to appear in the news, seemingly unconnected to one another; reports across several decades often contain the phrase “who’s ever heard of a talking dog?” It seems the novelty of such things was largely regional, and such news rarely went “viral” in the early 20th century the way it does now. Nevertheless, a few other dogs were notable for their linguistic achievements. There probably were dozens of such wonderful animals, but a brief survey will suffice for our catalog here.

One notable and most puzzling example of a talking dog was reported in 1908, by a trio of policemen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Detectives Ehernfeld and Aymer, along with a Lt. Shields, were investigating a string of robberies in the East End when a Newfoundland dog walked up and said “good morning” before it “disappeared”. The stunned law enforcement officers clearly didn’t know what to make of the event, and without more information it remains a most mysterious happening. Robert Anton Wilson examines this report in Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati as he tries to grapple with the reality of his own baffling encounters, and entertains the thought experiment of UFOnauts projecting the idea of a talking dog to trained detectives just to see what happens. In Wilson’s rendering of the tale, the dog disappears in a puff of green smoke- which is interesting to this writer, who once received a report of a green, barking mist interrupting a party of drunken teens in a central Massachusetts wooded area. While most of the dogs in our catalog have far less in the way of paranormal qualities, it’s interesting to find that some do- including Pim, the Polish Talking Dog, who was apparently also psychic. Pim made headlines by failing to appear before The International Congress for Psychical Research in 1927, which the Spiritualists of the time had hoped the more materialistic members of the Congress would find convincing. Introducing a talking dog in the hopes of being taken more seriously may seem like an odd angle, but various psi experiments have been done with animals. Another German dog named Max was tested for his homing abilities, being driven miles from his home to see if he could find his way back- and he did. Other experiments specifically with dogs relate to their uncanny ability to know when their owner is arriving home, even under conditions when sensory clues are obscured. In our long friendship with the canine, many humans have seemingly exhibited such wild talents- so why wouldn’t our furry counterparts do the same?

Following on the heels of such weirdness, and during the last year of Don the Talking Dog’s life, enters Spike, the talking dog from Allentown.

Spike’s owner, Edward Huff, claimed to have taught Spike how to speak through his study of occultism. Huff thought that through mastery of the mind and occult sciences, a great many things could be accomplished. Setting out to prove this, he used this weird science to give Spike the power of speech. Spike could say a number of words, often manifesting as a normal whine or growl which would through difficulty become recognizable as “no”, “mama”, “papa”, or “good night”. Huff admitted that some words, such as “yes”, were perhaps impossible for even such occult-informed pups, so in conversation Spike would bark twice for yes, and once for no. While his celebrity didn’t bring him to the stage, it did make him popular with the locals- so much so, he couldn’t find room in his schedule for everyone who wished to speak with him. As an added bonus, during Spike’s day Allentown also boasted a walking dog named Nero, who would often spontaneously take to his hind legs when crossing streets.

Perhaps there was something in the water in Allentown, PA back in the nineteen-teens, or maybe as Huff would suggest, most dogs could be taught such things as simple speech.

As evidence to the variety of dog breeds capable of such speech, examples from the 1920s form an unlikely pairing of a Great Dane and a French Bulldog. Princess Jacqueline, a Frenchie from Maine, boasted the title of “only known talking dog” after being exhibited at a dog show in Boston. She had been examined by doctors from Johns Hopkins University, and determined to have unique and human-like vocal chords. This might explain her ability to pronounce such words as “Bangor”, “Ball”, “I will”, and when feeling feisty, “I won’t!”. She seemed also to live up to the etiquette her royal title implied, greeting visitors to her Portland home with “hello”, and seeing them off with a “goodbye” or “come again”. Boulderwall, on the other hand, learned speech out of necessity- as a Great Dane living in a New York apartment, her owners discouraged her from barking. Boulderwall’s human, lawyer Stuart Willard Tomkins, didn’t think it was newsworthy until he read reports touting Princess Jacqueline’s singular skill. I suppose it made sense to him, that with the mighty bark of the Dane stifled, that the dog would take to the English language. First, it was a request for water, which came out sounding like “wawer”- but eventually, Boulderwall could say “How do you do?” and “Hello, Henrietta”, when greeting Tomkins daughter of that name. One can’t help imagining a Scooby Doo voice here, but a newspaper of the time said that she couldn’t be coaxed into speech with snacks in front of reporters. Instead, she eventually stood up and said “I want to go out.” The New York reporters, who had seen just about everything, left the West 85th Street apartment with “skepticisms… shaken to their foundations.”

Around this time, a different kind of talking dog appeared on the Silver Screen, in a series of MGM shorts called the Dogville Comedies. Directed by Zion Myers and Jules White, who would later have success directing the Three Stooges, these “barkies” (a play on the recent addition of sound to film, referred to as “talkies”) featured dogs dressed in human clothing and performing vignettes which parodied everything from war films to courtroom dramas. While none of the dogs could talk in real life, the films stand as a cultural oddity similar to the famous Dogs Playing Poker paintings by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge decades prior. It speaks to humanity’s inherent tendency to anthropomorphize creatures and things, to remake even our best bestial friends in the image of ourselves. Undoubtedly, the methods used in the Dogville Comedies to achieve such effects would be considered cruel by today’s standards, and perhaps it’s best to let the dogs speak for themselves.

While on the subject of dogs and entertainment, though, a recurring theme emerges in the annals of talking dog history which must be something of an urban legend or joke which got reworked and repeated in the news going back to the mid nineteenth century: the story of a ventriloquist conning a tavern owner with a “talking dog”. Variations of this story appear over and over, with early reports claiming to have originated during a court battle in France. Nearly a century later, the same story is told with famous ventriloquist The Great Lester as the perpetrator of the con. The story goes that a down-on-his luck vent befriends a dog, then walks into a pub. He orders a drink (or food) and invites the proprietor to ask the dog what he wants. In convincing the proprietor that the dog can talk, a deal is eventually struck to buy the animal- only the pooch refuses to talk once the man has left with his newfound windfall. It’s a charming and fun little story, but given the variations over such a long span of time is probably just fiction.

More talking dogs are to be found in the 1940s- Sam, a shepherd from Champaign, Illinois, was taught to talk by her owner Jeanne Nowy, who worked as a speech therapist. Keeping with showbiz themes, and the changing times that began to bring televisions into American homes, our most audacious and stylish talking dog takes the stage: Tippy, the “2nd Most Useful Dog in the U.S.A.”. It’s unclear who the Most Useful Dog was at the time, but Tippy certainly seemed extraordinary and helpful to have around. While living in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, Tippy would help her owner Mrs. Higgins in caring for an elderly relative who was hard of hearing. Tippy would carry notes back and forth, fetch slippers, and even retrieve packages from the local store. If that’s not enough, she could dance by repeating the steps of Mrs. Higgins; she could climb ladders, ride ponies, somersault, and take mail from the postman. Her speech seemed to have been limited, especially compared to other dogs in our catalog- she mostly would say “mom, mom”, but her comprehension of words said to her seemed uncanny. What she lacked in elocution, though, she made up for in style, often wearing dresses and painted claws. In 1948 she was hoping for her own TV show, and it seems unlikely that it ever came to be.

Her services could have proved useful though, a year earlier, when the estate of one Carlton Bainbridge was lost in court. Bainbridge had left his wealth to his Irish Terriers, Pat and Gunner, who he claimed could talk. The dogs unfortunately remained mum in court, and Bainbridge was deemed to have been of unsound mind when he willed his money to them.

Who could blame the court? Even with all of the examples here given, the idea of a talking dog seems crazy. It might be surprising then to learn that one of the earliest well-documented accounts of a dog with powers of speech was that of Trouve, a Skye Terrier taught to talk by none other than famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Trouve could say “how are you, Grandmama?”- sort of. Bell trained the dog to continuously growl, then through manipulating the dog’s mouth and vocal chords could produce a convincing enough version of the phrase to pass muster with visitors to his home. Through this sort of gimmick, however, Bell began his foray into sonic transmission- proving once again the usefulness of man’s best friend. If it weren’t for Trouve, who knows what modern communication might have become?

Of course it’s possible that dogs can all talk anyway, and most of them just refuse to. A folktale this writer was unable to verify was found, regarding an Island of Dogs off the coast of the Komchatka Peninsula in Russia. According to this rendering of a legend, once upon a time, all dogs could speak. They could argue their case when humans tried to put them to work. They enjoyed hunting, but as man got better at it they became less useful- and the people tried to employ them as sled dogs. The unwilling mutts swam to a barren island, which became known as the Island of the Talking Dogs. Without much in the way of food or resources, the dogs became feral and cannibalistic. When the humans tried to offer them a home back on the mainland, the dogs pretended not to know them, angering the “Dog God Chami”, who took away their powers of speech for lying. Ever since then, they have been servants to mankind, unable to voice their opinions about it. They often seem happy enough, though, and our limited catalog only covers the beginning of the 20th century- many more talking dogs have come and gone since the days of Tippy, to be sure. Perhaps many went unreported, or an increasingly cynical society became less impressed with the guttural utterances of these pups. In today’s world of short attention spans and barrages of “content”, we must surely find examples, but none that shine as brightly as that German dog Don did in his time. 

Every dog has his day, as the saying goes- but not every dog has something to say about it.

Stumbling Through Life with a Smile

 Another International Clown Week has come and gone. Since the 1950s, the first week of August has been celebrated by clowns all over the world as a time to celebrate the craft of clowning. As might be expected, your humble writer here had his share of clown synchronicities this past week, but also saw a lot of clowns online celebrating in their own ways. Clowns and clowning have been a running theme on this here blog, though it wasn't intended originally- as I've learned, there are those of us who have little choice in the matter. One must accept one's own buffoonery with grace, one supposes, because either way one gets a pie in the face.

To set aside the personal for a moment, let us examine the Clown's Prayer. As religious creeds go, it's a lovely one- and just maybe the most appropriate one for our times. For those unfamiliar, please enjoy its recitation by none other than Clownvis Presley:

 

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Or, if you prefer to read it, it goes like this:

As I stumble through this life,

help me to create more laughter than tears,

dispense more happiness than gloom,

spread more cheer than despair.

Never let me become so indifferent,

that I will fail to see the wonders in the eyes of a child,

or the twinkle in the eyes of the aged.

Never let me forget that my total effort is to cheer people,

make them happy, and forget momentarily,

all the unpleasantness in their lives.

And in my final moment,

may I hear You whisper:

“When you made My people smile,

you made Me smile.

Some versions of The Clown's Prayer include an additional verse, which should be placed second-to-last:

Never let me acquire success to the point that

I discontinue calling on my Creator in the hour of need,

Acknowledging and thanking Him in the hour of plenty.

It's a lovely sentiment, and a simple one. Aside from what I would consider to be the bare minimum of spiritual and moral behavior- that of "Be nice to each other"- it's about as pure and true as words to live by come. One need not belabor the point that the world is cruel, and increasingly chaotic and awful; it seems equally obvious that we live in an era uniquely suited to creating and sustaining anxiety, fear, and worry. Clowns have much to teach us, and regardless of the reader's religious background this prayer offers an example of good humor as an antidote to society's ills. A brief investigation of the origins of The Clown's Prayer bear this out nicely.

The earliest appearance of the prayer that I had been aware of was at Stan Laurel's funeral in 1965, when Dick Van Dyke read it as a eulogy. The prayer has been recited and used in a number of ways over the years, and many have found solace and inspiration in its words. It seems Chris Farley used to keep a printed version of it in his wallet at all times. I had the sense that it was much older than the 1960s, and thought I remembered coming across a version from the 19th century. So naturally, even though I don't really have time for it, I stumbled down a rabbit hole looking for its provenance- and found myself some fool's gold. Bear in mind, this is only a cursory investigation, a thread worth pulling on later- but certainly worthy of a day-after International Clown Week blog post now!

Searching newspapers dot come for "clown's prayer" in the 1800s did not yield any results for the familiar prayer, but it did reveal a rather interesting story which appeared in the pages of quite a few newspapers back in 1883. A clown named Dan Rice, variously referred to with the honorific of "Colonel" or "Uncle", apparently brought a man back from the brink of death with the power of prayer. Rice was one of the most well-known entertainers in the United States during his lifetime, leading biographer David Carlyon to call his book about him The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of. His circus rivaled that of Barnum, and in addition to clowning he also worked over the years as a strongman, did an act with a Learned Pig, produced satirical versions of Shakespeare plays, and even ran for President. Some have suggested that he was among several whose face gave us the depiction of Uncle Sam, and if that's not enough, he's responsible for the popularity of phrases such as "get on the bandwagon" and originated the circus cry "Hey Rube!"

By 1883, if this news clipping is to be trusted, Rice had been kicked out of his role in Nathan's Circus due to "habitual drunkenness", which Rice denied. He found himself in his hometown, visiting family, when he became aware of a certain "Squire Ryan", a Justice who was at death's door. The news account says that

"the old clown said "Let us pray," and he forthwith put out a most pathetic invocation, that moved the family and friends to tears. Ministers and deacons had prayed at the bedside before him, but had the melting tenderness and touching pathos of the clown's supplication. Some of those who heard it and sobbed like children saw him in the ring but a few days ago, and had tears brought to their eyes from the excessive laughter over the gibes of this "fellow of infinite jest". The Squire is reported better and out of danger."

Sadly, the content of Rice's prayer is lost to the ages, along with the memory of his former ubiquity. While it brought me no closer to finding the author of The Clown's Prayer, it was a prayer from a clown that may well have saved a man's life- and that's not nothing!

Moving forward in time, I found other clown's prayers which bore little resemblance to the familiar one which is our subject here. One of them was a strange odd plea from a clown to God to save the clown's child, which isn't so much in the spirit of things here. Along the way others from England were discovered, as The Holy Trinity Church, Dalston, holds an annual service in memory of deceased clowns every February. The location is significant, as a sort of Mecca for Clowns- Joseph Grimaldi, who was instrumental in developing what we know of as modern white-faced clowning, is buried nearby. The annual services for Clowns International has been held there since the 1940s, and since 1959 Dalston has also been home to the Clowns-Gallery Museum and the Clown Egg Register.

Here's a clipping from 1935 from the Bucks Examiner, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, which is almost as charming as The Clown's Prayer I was hunting for:

Finally, I found what appears to be the original Clown's Prayer published just five years prior to Stan Laurel's funeral, attributed to a clown named Dan "Pappy" Kerr:

Asheville Citizen-Times, Asheville NC 10-16-1960

As the reader can see, it's a bit longer and more personalized. It seems like a retirement speech in a way, which perhaps is partly what it is. A brief bit of research into who Kerr was brought me to a remembrance from a friend and fellow clown, Rev. Austin Miles. Kerr had performed as Pappy for decades following his service in World War II, where he apparently invented the veggie burger. While meat rations were low, he fashioned a patty out of oatmeal that was similar to the real thing- way before it became a trend! Rev. Miles, who had performed as Kokomo the Clown, writes that Pappy had worked on the railroad after returning from fighting in Europe, and that it was a life of sinful cussin', smoking, and drinking- but one day a miraculous event turned his life around. While on a moving train and carrying on with his coworkers, they spotted a black man in a white suit waving and signaling them to stop the train. It was surprising as they were nowhere near a town where one might expect to see someone by the rails, so they stopped and looked for him. He was nowhere to be found, but they did discover that a bridge around the corner had been completely washed out, and they would have been killed had they not stopped. 

Pappy Kerr

Pappy was convinced the mysterious man in white was an angel who had saved their lives, and gave up the rough and tumble life he had been living and started attending church regularly- and those same events led him down the sacred path of clowning. Ultimately, the path of faith and the path of clown led him to compose a lovely prayer which is still recited by clowns across the world today which is, again, not nothing. We could all use more smiles, more laughs, and I for one intend to do my part to try to inspire them.