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Bedtime for Bozo — but nowhere near the sick kiddies, please
9:01AM ON
03/31/2008
BY
Dave Segal
I was never as scared of clowns as my little sister was — I have this especially vivid memory of Fourth of July in Rockville, MD circa 1987. I was a mumbler even then, and shocked that the fireworks illuminated the clouds in the night sky. “You can see the clouds! You can see the clouds!” My little sister heard ‘clowns,’ freaked out, and ran over to my mom. Who told me to shut the heck up.
So it wasn’t a surprise to me — nor, do I imagine, to the rest of the planet — when Harper’s printed this in its Findings a month back:
“British researchers determined that children universally dislike clowns, finding them “unknowable“
It’s true, and from a study on prospective hospital wallpaper designs. The clowns — in typical form not knowing when to chill out — are fighting back:
But their findings, published in a nursing magazine on Wednesday, has put the red noses of the clowning community out of joint.
In a deluge of emails to Reuters, they say they misrepresent just how popular they really are.
“The ‘universe’ of 250 children used for the Sheffield University study was miniscule compared to the 250,000 one-to-one bedside visits made by Clown Care to hospitalized children annually,” said Joel Dein, director of communications at the Big Apple Circus in New York.
Talk to their psychotherapists in 20 years.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:40PM
matthew lawrence Says:
What would Diane Keaton say?!
[Reply]