For the next couple days I’m going to be hanging out with a few hundred people with strange fashion sense at a clown convention. So many clowns, but I shouldn’t have any trouble telling them all apart. You see, to copy another clown’s look is about the worst thing you could do in the funny business.
One form of protection a clown can use is to save their face on an egg. Yes, I just said what I said. There is an “egg registry” for clowns. Around 1946 a member of the International Circus Clowns Club in England started painting his fellow members onto chicken eggs. Each calcified work of art sought to perfectly copy each clown’s look including make-up, wigs, and hats.
It grew to contain thousands of eggs, and became a bit of an official way to lay claim to one’s unique appearance. There is at least one documented court case where the egg was involved to prove intellectual property of a pilfered make-up design. Don’t mess with a clown and his egg!
There is also a separate egg registry started in the U.S. that has grown in the last 25 years to over 700 faces. To see the miniature works of art, I direct you to this photo gallery.
- Source: The story of Clown Eggs from National Clown Week
P.S. In case you’re curious… I’m not a clown myself. At least not in the sense of putting on make-up. I’m attending the convention to teach a workshop on improvisational theatre.
