Why haven’t you reviewed … | clown ministry

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A few days ago, I received a very nice email thanking me for the site, and especially the section on Red Skelton (one of my favorite TV clowns). The nice lady emailing asked me why I hadn’t reviewed some of his books and movies, most notably The Clown—by all reports an excellent movie, with great amounts of humor and pathos, showcasing the acting talents of Red Skelton in ways rarely seen. The answer is very simple: I’ve never seen it.

I thought I’d take this as an excuse to talk about how and why I review things on the Clown Ministry site. The focus of the site is ministry, through the art of clowning. I personally believe that, in order to be a good clown minister, you have to first be a good clown, just like a music minister has to be able to sing. As part of that, I believe in learning from the best, which is why I have a small library of the films of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, etc. But I haven’t seen every film they’ve ever made.

For those films or TV shows, if there’s an editorial review from Amazon.com, I’ll use that as a ‘placeholder’ until I can actually see the movie. For instance, I’ve had an editorial review of the Danny Kaye movie, The Court Jester, for several years—but I only actually saw the movie last weekend. (By the way, it’s absolutely hilarious, and highly recommended—now that I’ve seen it, I can go and update the actual review.

And that’s the point. If I haven’t seen it, and if there’s no editorial review available on Amazon.com (as an affiliate, they give me permission to use their images and editorial reviews), I really can’t review it. I may have heard good things about it (like The Clown), but I really don’t have anything to say.

One last closing thought—if you have a DVD, book, clown prop, magic trick, etc. that you’d like me to review, please feel free to send me an evaluation copy, and I’ll gladly do so—I’ve done that with several books, some DVD’s (most recently Here Comes the Clown), etc. Also note that this doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get a glowing review—for example, I thought that Here Comes the Clown isn’t long enough, and I’ve panned some books that I’ve reviewed. I call them as I see them. :)

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