Clown News

[00:00] Okay, so yeah, I've been writing some things now, we've had time, we can't answer stuff
[00:08] for you, you know?
[00:10] So typically we do, you know, word or phrase origins, but I wanted to switch it up.
[00:18] Have we done halftime shows, where halftime shows come from?
[00:24] No.
[00:25] Yeah, okay.
[00:26] Like this in general?
[00:28] Let's do that, yeah, yeah.
[00:32] So like halftime shows at a basketball game?
[00:35] Yeah, basketball games, yeah, specifically, but I mean, in general, like the idea of like,
[00:40] you know, when did we start adding entertainment to the halftime, I imagine, probably started
[00:47] with football, maybe, is probably the, maybe it goes back to soccer, I don't know, European
[00:55] football, if you will, because they had a halftime, you know, baseball was the the game
[01:01] of choice and in the United States until, you know, probably the 50s or something like that.
[01:06] Well, I guess really until the 70s or 80s, but they don't really have a halftime, they
[01:11] do it, they sing a song, seventh inning stretch, they're boring consistently the whole time.
[01:17] So nothing entertaining is allowed to be on the field.
[01:24] Is this, my impression, my guess is that for the NBA specifically, that this was actually
[01:31] ported over from the ABA, this seems like a very ABA thing to do, to like, get fans into
[01:38] the stadium, like say, you know, halftime featuring, you know, Jackie moon, I forget the name of
[01:46] the lady that, that, that throws the bowls and catches them on her head or whatever.
[01:50] Oh yeah.
[01:51] Yeah.
[01:52] And the quick change.
[01:53] Oh yeah, the quick change.
[01:54] You got the dogs throwing frisbees.
[01:56] Yeah.
[01:57] Frisbee dog.
[01:58] Is there a hall of fame for halftime?
[01:59] And if not, why?
[02:02] There should be.
[02:03] There's not.
[02:04] Is there a wing at the back of the hall of fame for these shows?
[02:07] No, no, that's all I know.
[02:11] I love it.
[02:12] So my assumption, I agree with you that, that it may come from either the ABA or
[02:18] football because I think that as you, you know, you think of the tradition of the
[02:23] big Superbowl halftime show.
[02:25] I wonder how far that goes back, you know, when they started doing that and if that
[02:30] could have affected the NBA, but you're right.
[02:32] It may just be a way to get people into the stands and in the ABA that it reminds me
[02:36] of, yeah, you mentioned Jackie moon, semi-probe, you know, he was just like doing a contest
[02:44] and somebody hit the half court shot and he was like, yeah, we can't give him the
[02:48] check or whatever.
[02:49] Like, we don't have that kind of money.
[02:52] You can see them pull in a lot of stuff like that.
[02:55] Yeah. And I feel like football, especially college football, right?
[03:00] I feel like maybe the halftime show originated with the band, the marching band.
[03:03] Band comes out in the middle of the game.
[03:05] Sure. Yeah.
[03:08] And that's a good thing for a big stadium, right?
[03:10] Because you can you can sort of see them moving in formation and stuff like that.
[03:15] A basketball arena is a little bit more intimate, so you can start doing more
[03:20] I don't know, artistic sort of things, I guess.
[03:23] I don't know that guy that stacks the chairs up and climbs all the way top.
[03:30] It just makes me so nervous.
[03:33] Yeah. Yeah.
[03:34] Yeah. A lot of these things are too anxiety inducing to watch at halftime,
[03:38] especially when you're down, your team's losing that one lady that shoots
[03:43] a bow and arrow with her feet.
[03:45] That's pretty cool.
[03:47] I don't know that I've seen.
[03:48] Oh, yeah, you got to check that out.
[03:50] Pretty cool.
[03:50] I like the jump rope kids.
[03:52] They always have a couple of troops that jump rope kids,
[03:55] like maybe from Chicago or something.
[03:57] What's the other one?
[03:58] The one that does like the one guy who's got like does like the whole YMCA
[04:03] dance by himself, because he's got like you guys seen that one where he's got
[04:07] like puppets or is like sort of like person sized puppets in front of him.
[04:11] But then he has like he's holding like rails.
[04:13] So he does.
[04:14] I think I have seen that.
[04:15] Yeah, it's it can be.
[04:18] And then there's the guy that does the Simon Says like.
[04:22] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[04:24] What is that one?
[04:24] Like that's his whole thing.
[04:25] Like his job is he goes around and does Simon Says at halftime.
[04:30] Right.
[04:33] Well, it's wondered if they have.
[04:37] If that's their whole if for like in general, is that like your whole gig?
[04:42] I mean, I would assume for some of these that they travel around like Red
[04:46] Panda, right, who's the the the place where I finally remembered her.
[04:50] Yeah, yeah.
[04:52] They travel or they do this in like basically every NBA arena.
[04:56] Right. Yeah.
[04:56] There's a circuit, I think, for when they're probably also doing other things.
[05:00] Right. Not just the NBA. Right.
[05:02] Sure. There's your rodeos.
[05:04] Yeah. Sure. Sure.
[05:05] Yeah.
[05:07] Carnival adjacent theater.
[05:09] Right. Yeah.
[05:10] Rodeo is a nice poll, though.
[05:12] Are these, you know, because this does seem sort of like
[05:16] if these are rodeo clown.
[05:17] Yeah, like an extension of a rodeo.
[05:20] Yeah. Or, you know, I mean, I guess kind of, yeah, rodeo clown in general,
[05:24] like I was thinking like the circus, like the clowns come out and like, you know,
[05:26] in between, you know, acts, they just run around and do stupid stuff.
[05:31] And the circus has been around a lot longer than.
[05:34] Basketball.
[05:35] Yeah. Cheerleaders also have to fit in here somewhere, right?
[05:39] OK, sure. Sure.
[05:41] So if football started with marching bands,
[05:45] maybe basketball came up with the cheerleaders.
[05:51] Do you mean?
[05:52] Yeah, I mean, I was just wondering if the marching band
[05:54] and the cheerleaders were kind of all together in high school football.
[05:59] You know, did they, Joey, do you know, do they do anything at halftime
[06:03] of like, say, any European.
[06:06] Soccer matches drink and fight in any of the.
[06:10] Yeah, I mean, I know like for like do lots of chanting Spanish leagues.
[06:14] Not that I've been, but I think it's Spanish because it's just like a chance
[06:18] to like eat a sandwich, like people just bring sandwiches in
[06:20] and they just like eat the sandwich and like hang out and chat and fight.
[06:24] Because they're like, there's anything they're like.
[06:27] They're not like Americans.
[06:28] They don't need to be constantly entertained.
[06:30] They can like talk to their neighbors.
[06:31] And he's.
[06:34] And whatnot.
[06:35] Yeah, I know.
[06:38] Come on. Yeah, tell me something.
[06:39] It's been five seconds.
[06:41] Right.
[06:42] I need some sort of things dropping from the ceiling now.
[06:47] Yeah, right.
[06:48] I need little things with parachutes.
[06:51] I need, you know, I need my coupons, the great clips
[06:55] dropping from the feelings of parachutes now.
[06:59] There's a 30 second time out.
[07:00] Have something happen.
[07:02] Someone slingshot a T-shirt to me.
[07:03] Please definitely shoot stuff at me.
[07:12] Yeah, I don't think in the European soccer,
[07:16] there's there's like a much of a half.
[07:18] I don't think there's a halftime show.
[07:19] I think it's just kind of a break.
[07:20] And.
[07:22] OK, OK, what if this is Shakespeare?
[07:26] Right.
[07:26] In what?
[07:27] Well, like, OK, maybe like, you know, you think about,
[07:32] you know, a Shakespeare play, there are acts, there are breaks.
[07:37] Even, you know, I mean, you go you go to a play or musical
[07:42] modern day, there's there's a time to go to the bathroom.
[07:45] It's the P break, as we call it, in the biz.
[07:48] I wonder if if you're at an outdoor arena and there's a crowd
[07:52] and maybe wonder if they have like a like a juggler would come out
[07:56] or something like that and like keep people entertained while the
[08:00] they do set changes and stuff.
[08:02] Hmm. That's not bad.
[08:05] I bet that existed, you know.
[08:07] And so that from that, you're getting the idea of
[08:10] we need to do something for our audience in the interim.
[08:13] While everybody else gets their acts together.
[08:16] Yeah, right. Yeah.
[08:18] OK, that's pretty wild that I could see that happening, though, for sure.
[08:25] Do you think that maybe those that crowd could get rowdy?
[08:28] Oh, without a doubt.
[08:29] Like, I mean, you need to keep the crowd like stuff going on.
[08:32] They're all standing around.
[08:33] They've got tomatoes. They're drinking.
[08:35] You know, right.
[08:36] Do you think they were doing set changes at the globe?
[08:39] I see. I do.
[08:40] I do think there was. Yeah, for sure.
[08:42] I mean, you know, there was there was some pageantry around all that.
[08:45] You got to you got to move some sets around.
[08:48] It costume changes for sure.
[08:50] All right. All right.
[08:51] So that's going to be I'm going to Shakespeare.
[08:55] You need Shakespeare is the original halftime show. Mm hmm.
[08:58] It's not a bad idea.
[09:01] Joey's definitely going clowns.
[09:03] Joey likes clowns or hates clowns.
[09:06] I wouldn't phrase it that way.
[09:07] I know. I mean, you often talk to me about clowns off off air.
[09:11] Usually the first thing you see, you actually with the clown news
[09:14] is normally how we start our phone conversations. Right.
[09:18] I don't even get to say hi before you're telling me the clown news clown.
[09:22] I was like, what's got new in the clown world?
[09:26] I need to. I feel cut off.
[09:30] Yeah, I'm going to go with the money.
[09:34] OK, it's definitely a way to like bring in sponsors.
[09:37] And somehow they created a synergy around halftime shows
[09:42] like, you know, the hitting the shot from half court, right,
[09:46] to help get people in the stands.
[09:50] So do you like that as ABA or I think I do like that idea.
[09:54] I mean, I think I agree that probably like football
[09:57] half times have been happening for like a longer period of time.
[10:01] I just think that they're different. Sure. That makes sense.
[10:06] So the basketball halftime shows, we know that we create the circuit
[10:10] of all the people doing the weird stuff was probably from the ABA.
[10:14] Yeah, I like it. Yeah.
[10:16] I think it's also fun for like
[10:21] like kids who may or may not be interested in the game.
[10:24] Like they may be interested in a dog catching frisbees like.
[10:29] I'm interested in a dog catching frisbees. Right.
[10:31] It's still pretty cool. Yeah, it is pretty cool.
[10:36] Many football historians believe halftime shows originated
[10:39] with the U-Rang Indians of the early National Football League.
[10:44] The team is a marketing play by Walter Lingo to sell and promote his air dales.
[10:50] He would lure audiences to his games
[10:51] with the promise of an outrageous halftime show
[10:54] instead of the promise of a good football game.
[10:57] He was a halftime entertainment
[10:58] that made this such a huge attraction in the 20s.
[11:00] They were shooting expeditions with the dogs retrieving the targets.
[11:04] There were Native American dances and tomahawk and knife
[11:07] throwing demonstrations.
[11:09] Really?
[11:11] Looks like organized cheerleading
[11:14] might have begun as early as the 1870s, but women weren't allowed
[11:18] because what? Because America.
[11:23] It looks like not until the 20s
[11:25] were they letting women do some cheerleading.
[11:28] And in 65, Fred Gostoff invented the vinyl pom pom.
[11:34] All right. Well, Shakespeare guess was wrong.
[11:36] It sounds like ABA and football were were more accurate.
[11:42] Not so much ABA.
[11:43] I'm not I'm not finding a lot on ABA.
[11:49] You know, halftime gimmicks or anything like that.
[11:54] It sounds like football has got a long history of it,
[11:57] partially to bring in the fans,
[11:59] even if you didn't have the product on the field.
[12:04] Remember, the ABA dot com
[12:07] has a article on Victor the Wrestling Bear.
[12:12] Mm hmm.
[12:14] Over the years, the Indiana Pacers
[12:15] had a few interesting halftime events,
[12:17] including fans, sock hops and cow milking contests.
[12:22] In April 1975, the Pacers had a special halftime show
[12:25] featuring Victor Victor the Wrestling Bear.
[12:28] The game program stated that Victor will be at the game
[12:31] to take on such noted wrestlers as Chet
[12:36] Kapuk and sports director at Wish TV, Reb Porter.
[12:41] Cool. What could possibly go on?
[12:43] He would it was also be willing to wrestle a couple of fans.
[12:48] All right. All right.
[12:49] So we're going with who was it?
[12:51] Harper that we John.
[12:53] Indian, there's a plan like that.
[12:55] Yep. Nailed it, nailed it.
[13:01] And that was the halftime of what?
[13:04] I was a football football.
[13:06] There's a football.
[13:07] OK. Walter Lingo was the owner.
[13:13] I like that. That makes sense to me.
[13:14] It's a very, very American idea that we have to
[13:18] move to cram in entertainment at every possible moment
[13:20] and potentially advertising dollars as well.
[13:23] Mm hmm. All right, cool. Thanks, y'all.
[13:29] You know how we do.