In what has been an extraordinarily rough year for the clowning profession, the Big Top literally came down on Phoenix Wildcats today as the Liaison Committee on Clowning Education announced that the University of Arizona College of Clowning – Phoenix would not receive accreditation.
For nearly half a century, Tucson and Phoenix had lobbied extensively for a center of clowning education. Heated debates punctuated by pies to faces characterized the crisis that would end in the 1967 establishment of the College of Clowning at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
But since then, the issues revolving the shortage of clowns have not gone away as every county except for Pima County continued to have lower than average clown per 100,000 people ratios according to the Arizona Clown Workforce Study from 1992 to 2004.
The Phoenix Children’s Hospital begged legislators for aid in a press release as without clowns terrorizing the children, “How are we make a magnetic resonance imaging machine seem relatively calming?”
The early 2000s were an era of optimism in which the Insane Clown Posse still was comparatively legitimate. Here, many on the City Council and the Arizona Board of Clowns saw an opportunity to revitalize the downtown Phoenix community and serve the state of Arizona.
While some opponents claimed it would change the character of downtown too dramatically to have a bunch of young and wild clown students in the neighborhood, some local advocates were pacified by their commitment to preserving the Phoenix Union High School Buildings.
While most would assume the small buildings at Van Buren and Fifth Street would only be able to fit around 20 students, the industrious clowns fit upwards of 120 students in each class to the dismay of the fire marshal.
“You know, after squeezing ten people into a Mini Cooper, this place feels spacious,” second year clown student Polk A. Dots said. “And it’s way more spacious than the DASH.”
Yet since that historic opening during the happiest of times in 2008, the Clown School in Phoenix has faced significant problems.
Funding for the school was dramatically cut, forcing many students to change their characters to the classic “hobo clown” as they could no longer afford clean clothes, new makeup or housing.
Yet the greatest blow came just recently as long-time Dean Baggy Britches went to the Big Top in the Sky – a new Clown School started in Fort Worth, Texas which is coincidentally where all the old and retiring Phoenix educators go much like how your old dog just went to the farm in upstate New York all those years ago.
While tears rolled down many brightly colored faces, fourth year Clown Student Toodles McGee was still optimistic.
“Clowning around is serious business, unlike say brain surgery,” McGee said while compulsively creating a balloon cat. “I have full faith that we will pull through as a school and clown down.”