Send in the clown

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal, April 15, 2009


I once assessed my "skill set" as I reworked my resume in anticipation of a job search. I could juggle, ride a unicycle, was good with kids, and could do magic. Great, I realized - I'm qualified to be a clown.

Shannon Anderson, owner of the Old Thyme Fun Shop on Main Street in Fredericksburg, went through a similar process.

"When I moved to Fredericksburg, I wondered what do I already know how to do to make a living?" she said. "Well, I already know magic, and I know balloons... I'll be a clown!"

Her first attempt at clowning was not much fun. In fact, she called it a "disaster."

"I was at this house full of fifth-graders, and they had every video game and a big screen TV, and here's this clown doing magic tricks," she recalled. "All of them were saying 'when are you going to leave?'" She chuckled. "I said, 'Now! Close your eyes and count to 10,' and I was out the door! I went home and said I'm never doing this again! Kids are mean!"

Luckily, Anderson - aka Sunshine the Clown - couldn't walk away from her clowning career as easy as that. She already had another gig booked.

She decided that to be funny, she would have to work at it. So she studied other clowns, read books and watched tapes, and attended conventions to learn the art of the clown.

"Some people think anybody can do it; you just slap on some makeup and funny clothes," she said. "It's not that way. There really is an art to it."

Anderson has begun sharing her clowning expertise with young and old. This summer, she will offer Magic for Beginners and Balloon Sculpting - the art of twisting dogs and giraffes out of balloons. In the fall she hopes to add local clowning courses for adults.

Meanwhile, you can see Sunshine rule her kingdom of kitsch in the Old Thyme Fun Shop. It's the kind of store you loved to go into when you were a kid.

There is the fake fly in the ice cube, the spilled coffee, the finger-shaped nose hair trimmer, a plastic rat, and the doormat that read, "Come Back With a Warrant." And then there are the classics: the handshake buzzer, fake vomit, and, of course, the rubber chicken.

A steady stream of kids and giggling grownups hauled away bags of fake bagels with the cockroach, hillbilly teeth, rolling eyeballs, and piles of T-shirts with naughty messages.

Anderson was busy showing a customer how to perform the national anthem on a whoopee cushion. Obviously, clowning is the central part of Anderson's life.

"Laughter is therapeutic, it shakes up all your organs and makes a chemical reaction in your body that no drug can replace," she said. "Letting yourself play as an adult is one of the greatest things we can do for ourselves in this hectic, serious world. There's humor in everything, like it or not."

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