Nov_Dec_1998

November/December , 1998
Larceny:
A problem
for joeys?
By Bruce "Charlle" Johnson
1602 Locust Way
Lynnwood, WA 98036-9017
Bruce Johnson is known as one of America's most
creative clowns. He is the author/publisher of The Clown
In Times, a quarterly journal devoted to clowning. How to
be more creative as a clown is a major emphasis of the
publication.
before, the combination is a creation belonging to the
originator and shouldn't be copied.
When you copy another clown , you are cheating
yourself. A copy is always inferior. When Dick Van Dyke
imitated his friend Stan Laurel on The Dick Van Dyke Show,
he was careful to get everything just right. When he called
Stan for his reaction, Stan said, "It was just fine Dicky,
except..." Stan spent the next 20 minutes telling Dick what
he had done wrong.
Today few people remember Billy Ritchie, Billy West,
and Charles Amador.They imitated Charlie Chaplin in silent
movies. For years.Chaplin entertained his friends by
imitating his imitators, pointing out all their flaws.
While you can't do what others do as well as they do,
there is something you can do better than anybody else.
Copying prevents you from doing what you can do best. It
blocks you from reaching your full potential.
It has been said that in entertainment there is nothing
new, everything has been done before. That line is often If you gain a reputation for stealing ideas, you hurt
quoted by people who want to justify stealing ideas. yourself because you cut off the flow of ideas available to
Somebody once excused stealing one of my ideas by you. I know of one alley that has several people who steal
telling their alley, "This is one of .-----------------, ideas. As part of their educational
Charlie's routines. I'm sure he won't program, the alley wanted people
mind if I steal it, because he probably to perform part of their birthday
stole it himself." They were wrong. It party shows. They had difficulty
was my original creation, and I didn't like getting volunteers because
them stealing it. I have released many everyone knew anything
of my routines for use by other clowns, performed would be copied.
but that particular routine was a bit that
has become one of my trademarks, so I
reserve it for my own use.
This defense of unethical behavior
is not new.In 1916, Charles Amador
changed his name to Charlie Aplin,
copied Chaplin's appearance, and tried
to reproduce Chaplin's routines in his
own movies. When Chaplin sued him,
his defense was that Chaplin's
appearance was composed of things
Chaplin had copied from others, so it
could be copied. His lawyers listed every element of
Chaplin's costume and the name of somebody who had
used it previously.
If people are afraid you will steal
their ideas, they become
secretive. When you copy ideas,
you take without giving anything
back. People resent that. They
soon exclude you from the flow of
ideas.
As a group, clowns tend to
condemn people who steal
L-------------------' another clown's makeup and
costume, but think nothing of
people who steal another clown's ideas. Yet Paul Jung said,
"The plagiarism of ideas hurts clowning more than copying
makeup and costuming."
For example, George Beban had used the brush
mustache in 1890. The Nibble Brothers had used a flexible
cane by the turn of the century. The judge ruled that while
the elements had been previously used, the "costume en
ensemble" had been created by Chaplin, and combined
with his name was his exclusive property, protected under
the law of unfair competition.
Using the same standard for clown routines means that
even though each separate element may have been used
How does plagiarism hurt clowning in general?
When ideas can be freely copied, we discourage
people from making the effort to create new routines. There
is little incentive to try to be unique if everybody is going to
immediately copy what you do so you are no longer unique
The art as a whole then stagnates.
Nothing takes the joy out of creation sooner than to
hear,"Oh, we just saw somebody else do that." (This
20 The New Calliope