THE FUNNIES

Funny Business Newsletter
January 2006     Volume 16 Number 8
Meeting Place
All American Balloon Supply, 1101 S. Grand Ave. Suite A, Santa Ana,
Click for map .
Next meeting Monday, January 9th 2006, 7:00 PM

 

Hi Funny Business members! Well as I promised, I will be doing a demonstration on how I put on my make up, particularly my newest face, the "Lite Auguste". If any of you use Ben Nye, and Ben Nye make up pencils and want to try it out, please bring them with you at the meeting on Monday. As I had talked about before at the November meeting, this new category is about dressing down and putting on less makeup but still looking good.
Pam our president will be bringing some of Jim Howle's make up for all of you to see the difference between poor make up and professional make up. This should be a very good and informative meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you soon!
Butterscotch

Happy New Year! I am sure that everyone had a happy and very busy holiday season. I sure did! I first want to thank Jackie "Sweetheart" Mc Doniel for allowing us to have our holiday party at her house. She had it decorated beautifully and it had a "cozy" and holiday feel to it. Thank you Jackie! It was a very nice & fun time had by all who attended. We had lots of fantastic food and kid e. Clown showed us her pictures from her trip to Japan. Very nice! And the members brought the gifts for the family of 10 that we voted to sponsoring for the holidays. It was lots of nice gifts! I forgot last month to mention that Becky "Poka Dotz" Lucia also went and helped the volunteer clowns of Orange County when they separated & packed items for the holidays for shelters & such. A hard to answer question: "If olive oil is made out of olives, what is baby oil made of?" How many of you, as clowns, did some volunteering during the holidays that really helped people less fortunate than we all are? We need to remember others that are less fortunate than we are & sometimes give something of ourselves to them. The good feelings you will get from this are fantastic.

 


Body language is communication without words. We nod our heads "yes", wave our hands "good-bye", rub our eyes if we are sleepy, hold our stomach if it's upset & walk with a limp if we have a broken hip. Remember, physical comedy uses body language to communicate humor.

Facial expressions are a great tool in communicating with the audience. When a speaker talks in a monotone, it has the same effect to the audience as a face with little or no expression. If you notice, all great speakers put a lot of expression into their speaking voices. And the way clowns need to be effective at physical comedy, they must use a variety of facial expressions.

If you notice, the face expresses thoughts, feelings & emotions. This is the single most important means of nonverbal communication. And because of the great importance of facial expressions. All children's entertainers should spend lots of time practicing.

What you need to do is to go to a mirror and practice emotions. Remember to look at yourself from someone else's perspective. Would the other person be able to identify the emotions expressed by you? Some expressions are revenge, pain, happiness, excitement, laughter, confusion, anger, remorse, sadness, surprise, pleasure and fear.

All the feelings I have mentioned can be expressed by your face alone, but your body movements can assist or enhance in conveying the proper mood. Stand in front of a mirror and add entire body movements to the emotions above that you have put on your face.

And think of character & personality traits such as stubborn, nervous, clumsy, snobbish, disoriented, determined, talkative, conceited, sneaky, sly, stylish, and confident. These can be displayed with a proper combination of body and facial movements. Now, go back to the mirror and practice some more.

Basically, just use your past experiences and imagination to practice these traits. Make every movement project a thought or feeling. And you can also practice activities, feelings and thoughts in front of a friend and ask them to try to identify your feelings or actions. Here is a list for you to get started on. And doing this will also help develop your mime skills. The list is as follows: smelling, hot, drunkenness, surprise, fighting, eating, driving, swimming, sewing, skating, hunger, digging, sleepiness and digging.

So, it is now time for you to practice the things in this article. And remember, the more that you learn and practice, the better you get.


 

This month we will be discussing performing for individual companies.

Working for one company can mean performing in their booth or, sometimes, strolling through the facility to promote that company and/or its products. My partner and I were hired by a casino to entertain at their booth at a trade show. We planned a variety of activities because we were going to be there for three days. Since we knew this company's goal was attracting people to their casino by distributing promotion and marketing materials to them, we asked if they had playing cards, decks of cards or poker chips imprinted with the casino's name. Our plan was to give them out while doing card and coin tricks.

Well, instead of poker chips, we got one dollar tokens! There were great for sleight of hand tricks because of their weight. And, there were plenty of playing cards for our card tricks. We also made balloon hats that we decorated with playing cards. We used only black, red and white balloons (the colors of the playing cards) and laced an ace and a face card (equaling 21 -blackjack) dangling from the top of the balloon hat for all to see. It was a wonderful event because the focus was on the company and we got to play while promoting the company that hired us. Most of the time however, giveaways like we got from the casino are not available, so be creative! Give-aways are great at trade shows.

(Laugh Makers Magazine - Vol. 16 - No. 1 - Fall 1998)

 


This holiday season our club sponsored a family of ten (father, mother & eight children). There were many gifts brought to our party. An actual Christmas Party was held on December 17th at the trailer park where our family lives for all the residents. Clowns in attendance from Funny Business were Snikkers, Twinkles D' Klown, Poka Dotz, Diamond Lil' & our Newest Clown, Angel. From the Joy Klowns Of Seal Beach We Had Lu-C-Luv & Gigi. And from the H.M.O. Clowns in Riverside we had Shoo who was dressed as Mrs. Claus and her two elves. We did face painting, balloons, walk arounds and residents had their pictures taken with Mrs. Claus & her elves. Gift bags from the volunteer clowns of Orange County were given out to each of the children (and young adults also) living in the park. After the Christmas Party ended we took the family of 10 off to the side and gave them their gifts. They were shocked and pleased at the same time. The mother began crying and saying, "We really will have a good Christmas this year" & she kept repeating it and crying and thanking our club and me. The children were there and smiling and looking at all of the gifts and they kept on thanking me. What a sight to see. It was so overwhelming I was even ready to cry, as was Diamond Lil'. I want to thank everyone who gave gifts. You did make a family truly happy and they had a very nice Christmas because of our club. And I personally want to thank each and every clown, Mrs. Claus & the elves also, for being at and assisting at the Christmas party for these less fortunate families. It really was worth being part of this Christmas party. And we want to add a special thanks to Helen Ricks who organized the party and made sure it "happened". -President Pam-


At the December Holiday Party the snacks for the January meeting was brought up. Nobody volunteered to bring the food for this months meeting. The board always comes through in the end but this month we will not be doing it. We will only have snacks if one of you, our members, decides to bring some snacks. Remember, our clubs is only as good as you make it. Soooooo.. If you want some snacks at the January meeting, then "step up to the plate" and bring some snacks to the meeting. The choice is yours! The board cannot keep on bailing out the club. Take a stand on your own

 

WITH MORE & MORE DISASTERS HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD, RED NOSE RELIEF IS NEEDED MORE THAN EVER.

Red nose relief is alive and well! Just to remind you that red nose relief is a charity/service organization. Simply stated, it will be clowns serving their fellow man in times of crisis caused by disaster. Diamond Lil & myself' will be taking the Red Cross classes and will become certified. All of you who would like to do this, sign up with your local red cross and take the course. My goal would be to have every clown that is or will be involved with red nose relief in California to be red cross certified. We will someday have "the big one" and the red nose relief clowns should be ready to assist at all levels with our response to disasters.

La Casa Garcia Restaurant in Anaheim contacted me again. Many of the club members were involved in their Thanksgiving Day at the pond event. They were having Santa Claus at their restaurant on Sunday, December 18th. Snikkers, Diamond Lil' and Twinkles D' Klown went there and participated in the event. Santa was giving out gifts to the homeless and low income families. We went as Red Nose Relief and Funny Business Clowns. We gave joy as clowns that day. It was worth being part of such a worthwhile cause.

And I told Frank Garcia that Red Nose Relief wants to be involved with them helping out in whatever way clowns can do. His group is "We Give Thanks, Inc.". Anyone who would like to assist throughout the year with all the good things that "We Give Thanks, Inc." Does, let me know and I will be sure you are involved with us. Frank Garcia helps from his heart and we as clowns do the same thing. We joining with "We Give Thanks, Inc." would be awesome! Pam House - State Red Nose Relief Coordinator.

Your Funny Business Board and Associates:

Pam "Twinkles d'Klown" House, President
562-431-6955 klassyklowns1@yahoo.com

Candy "Butterscotch" Will, Vice President and COAI Regional Vice President
949-489-9971 Btrsctch4h@cox.net

Wendy Olson "Wendy" Secretary/Treasurer
714/524-2897 dolson970@sbcglobal.net

Jackie McDoniel "Sweetheart" Co-secretary
714-636-7966 jackiemc@socal.rr.com


Send all Articles by the last Monday in the previous month to:
Paulette "Pom-Pom" Rosen, Newsletter Editor
and Webdesigner and Webmaster for "Clown Pages" our Funny Business Website
714/539-4472 pom-pom@pom-pomclown.com
Funny Business Website http://clownpages.com

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