Shakes the Clown (1991)

shakes-the-clownWriter/director/star Bobcat Goldthwait takes the jealousy, insecurity, self-destruction and dysfunction of stand-up comedians and projects it all onto the world of children’s party clowns in this black comedy. Everyone’s broke, everyone’s miserable, everyone says “fuck” every other sentence, everyone’s a drunk and everyone wakes up hungover and puking all over their big red shoes. It’s not a great movie and, even for a low-budget film, it bombed hard in its original release, but it’s since found a cult following for its dark humor and absurdist sensibility. If you ask me though, it’s a grating experience overall. Almost every scene in the movie is an argument.

It’s Goldthwait’s first movie as a director and he filled the cast with his comedian friends (including the likes of Adam Sandler and Kathy Griffin, before they were well-known), whether they could act or not.