Creepy Clowns Give Good Clowns in Town a Bad Name

ST. CLOUD -- Reports of creepy, scary clown sightings have been popping up in St. Cloud and it's giving the good clowns in town a bad name.

Wesley Newman owner of Just 4 Laffs Entertainment, an event planning company in St. Cloud that offers clowns as entertainment for events, says the people dressing up as these menacing clowns are making being a happy clown difficult. He says it's feeding into the superstition that all clowns are scary.

"It really makes my job that much harder when I'm at an event and I'm in full clown character, I'm making kids happy and I have someone who comes up to me, interrupts me having fun with the kids to say, I'm scared of clowns, clowns are scary or creepy. Little kids hear that and then they think well it must be [true] I need to be scared of clowns too then."

Newman says for the most part his clowns are not scared to go out into public but many other professional clowns that work at haunted mazes or other Halloween themed events fear for their safety if they go out in full costume.

"Honestly from what I've seen, the people that work the haunted fun houses [such as Molitors or The Harvest of Horrors] the people that dress as the scary clowns for the entertainment of those events are scared to go out into public as well because you don't know who is going to attack somebody just because of the look."

Just 4 Laffs Entertainment has seven clowns on staff and all are considered circus clowns or party clowns. Newman says the style of the fun, circus clown has changed over the years.

"In the last 20-30 years the make-up has changed from being the circus gaudy, able to see expressions from the back of the circus tent, to a lot soften look, a lot lighter look, a lot more I'm going to say, humane look. You don't have the big pointy smiles or the rip to skin smile like the Joker from Batman. It's a lot softer image."

The company also offers magicians, face painters and balloon artists. If you're interested in booking entertainment for an upcoming event you can call Just 4 Laffs Entertainment at 320-493-9278 or visit their website by clicking here.