famous clowns - interview with Jeff McMullen, part 2 | clown ministry

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(continued from Interview with Jeff McMullen, part 1)

Clown Ministry: Now you said you came back to Wisconsin. Are you from Appleton?

Jeff McMullen: Yes. Born and raised here. And while I was growing up I was saying, "Dad, why do you stay here? There’s nothing here! Why are you here?" And then I left. And lived in a circus train, and lived in Phoenix, and L.A. and New York, and then I realized when my wife Debbie and I, we’ve been now married almost 20 years, I realized Nothing is the attraction! (laughs) I think it’s like gardening—you kind of grow into it. You don’t understand it as a kid, but as you get older, you go "Aaah," you kind of take that neon "Stupid" sign off of Dad’s forehead and say, "Genius," you know. Right now Keegan is entering that. Do you have children?

Tom: I have 5.

Jeff McMullen: 5, congratulations. (Jeff then pretends to do an ‘arabic bow’, saying "I’m not worthy")—laughter. Boy, you know I spent 20 years in the kid business before we had our own children, and I thought I knew what it was like to entertain kids, or to raise kids—didn’t have a clue. Not a stinkin’ clue.

Clown Ministry: Reality rears its’ ugly head.

Jeff McMullen: Man. So, Keegan’s at that point now where he’s starting to challenge a little bit, and you just look at him and go "Dahh!" (slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand, followed by laughter) "But Dad, I don’t want to learn from your mistakes, I want to learn from my own!" (laughter)

Clown Ministry: Remember, "we must learn from the mistakes of others, we can’t live long enough to commit them all yourself."

Jeff McMullen: That’s right. Anything more technical? I want to give you want you want, what you’re asking for.

Clown Ministry: I’m not sure myself :o) I’ve got a question for you. As part of this, I generate a little weekly newsletter for this, I’ve got about 1,000 clowns subscribed.

Jeff McMullen: That’s cool.

Clown Ministry: And one thing I’ve been doing on it, I get questions on everything under the sun. And I don’t profess to know it all, because I don’t. I clown 4,5,6 times a month maybe. Primarily church things, or birthday parties for kids. And to this point it’s been fine and lovely. Somebody sent me an e-mail with the question, "OK, I want to know how do I actually get started doing this as a business?" And my basic response was, "I’m the wrong person to ask." There’s a couple of good books I can recommend, like Birthday Party Business and Handbook for the Magical Party Clown.

Jeff McMullen: It’s funny that you mention that. I just came out with a beta version this year of, I’ve been teaching a program called Business Fun-damentals, I’ve taught it at camp a number of times, and at World Clown, and everybody always asks, "How do we set up a business plan? How do we figure out how to attack a market place?" So I created a CD version of this program, and it’s goal setting, it talks about how to figure out what you want to do, and it’s a movie, where you put it in, it’s got a printable workbook with it …

Jeff McMullen: When I look back, all of my friends are clowns. Do you know Earl Cheney?

Clown Ministry: Not personally.

Jeff McMullen: Earl actually got me in with McDonald’s. He introduced me to Leon, Leon and I go way back, Jim Howle and I talk probably twice a week, he hates it. "What do you want now?" "Nothing, I’m just calling to see how you’re doing." He hates talking on the phone, so I just call and babble about nothing. "Are you done now?" "Yeah." "Okay, bye!" Grumpy old man.

Clown Ministry: You’ve got to love Jim. Oh, yes. He was my favorite part of Clown Camp.

Jeff McMullen: He’s a good man. He’s got a good heart. … I’ll send you a copy of that; it’s probably going to be next week, Tom. Right now we’re selling, literally, my house is in boxes. We’re transitioning to a new house, and I didn’t realize how many boxes of clown stuff I have.

Clown Ministry: There’s always E-bay.

Jeff McMullen: Yeah, but most of it isn’t even stuff I’d want to sell. Most of it is just junk, just boxes.

Clown Ministry: Donate it to Clown College for their auction.

Jeff McMullen: Yeah, yeah, you go to like K-Mart after Hallowe’en, and I bought, they had these little felt clown masks, OK, the kind you put over your eyes to go to sleep with, but they had little clown noses, I thought "those are cute," someday I might use this in like a plate spinning act and put one on all the kids or whatever—that’d be cute. Yeah, that’d be cute, but I don’t need 60 of ‘em! (laughs) So I got a case of those, and bubbles, well you never have enough bubble juice, so 3 cases of bubbles—you don’t need this stuff. And old costumes, and wardrobe.

Clown Ministry: Let me riddle you with 2 other questions. We were talking about David Ginn’s (web site). Do you have a web site?

Jeff McMullen: Not for clowning, just for the speaking business. I’m starting one. I’ve learned not to put it out until it’s ready. And, on the other extreme of that, you’ve got to put it out, ‘cause it’s never going to be ready!

Clown Ministry: I know the feeling. My little web site has been up for going on 7 years now, finally moved it to its’ own domain about 3 years ago, it’s undergone at least 3 major changes and I’m in the middle of doing the 4th.

Jeff McMullen: They’re like kids, I mean they continue to grow and they make, you know, like my speaking one I’d change only every 14 to 16 months, okay? I mean I update little things, but I mean do a graphic (interface update) over a year. Takes me a long time to figure out what the next step is with it, as I’m sure you get. I get e-mail every week from somebody, "How come your web site hasn’t changed?" "When are you going to update?" (laughs) Soon. But this is a , you’ve got a great community here. Have you lived here your whole life?

Clown Ministry: Turning this back onto you, who were some of your inspirations?

Jeff McMullen: Probably the greatest influence on my life was Otto Griebling. I never had a chance to meet Otto, I just have kind of lived a relationship vicariously through stories that my friends have shared. But I’ve had great, the year I was on the Ringling show I got to work with Frosty, I was Prince Paul’s last partner before we took him off the show. I guess that’s probably the one thing that’s very meaningful to me. He had a pacemaker put in the year before I came on the show, not uncommon in little people, and unfortunately it affected his mind, and he started to wander, mentally. So we felt it was best to make a recommendation to his family that they take him off the show. He died shortly thereafter. Sandor and Elizabeth taught me, I became good friends with Sandor, Elizabeth was much more shy and reserved, but Sandor taught me an awful lot about just overcoming things and accepting things. We used to sit and talk well into the early hours in the vestibule of the train as it was going through … that was another thing about the circus that was pretty exciting to me and impacts me a lot even today is, we’d be sitting the vestibule between the cars, riding, and you’d come through a little town, like even smaller than Wausau, at 5 or 4 in the morning, and at every intersection people would be lined up to see the circus train ride through the town, and I realized, Tom, as I was looking out watching, going "What in the world are you doing? It’s 5 o’clock in the morning! You’re supposed to be at home asleep!" What I realized is that I was living every one of their dreams. I was doing that they said, "Someday I hope I can," or "I should have when I had the chance." And every time I would do a show I would think about the fact that I’m living everybody else’s dream. And that’s why it’s so important to me to do a good job. And I think that was one of the neatest lessons I learned, or philosophical things I learned about myself, how fortunate I was to have that opportunity, and to be able to do it.

Clown Ministry: Thank you for all your time.

Jeff McMullen: You’re very welcome.