It’s a ‘dying art,’ but dunk-booth clown in GA still gets paid to turn insults into laughs

Quips from the wisecracking clown in the Soak The Bloke dunking booth can go unheard. Though they blare from a speaker, the pokes emanating from the dunk-tank jester can blend into the carnival midway’s din of blasting music, whirring thrill-ride engines and teenagers’ shrieks. So the clown’s come-ons are sometimes drowned.

On a recent gray afternoon at the Georgia National Fair, rain is threatening. But the smart-mouthed clown on the microphone in the $1-a-throw tank is already dripping wet. Business is good. Cut-downs flow. Customers keep coming to hear themselves made fun of and, if so inclined, laugh about it or try to get even. All while dropping cash at the only carnival game with no prizes — save for the satisfaction of making the clown go kerplunk.

A lanky kid, a high-schooler who is at the fair with a group of classmates, steps up to the booth and hollers, or rather boasts, “Have fun getting soaked!”

The clown fires back: “Boy, it’s a good thing I don’t understand skinny dum-dums. ... I’m not gonna let you play. You know why? You’ll get them skinny arms wrapped around that pencil neck of yours and choke yourself.”

Of course, the lanky kid does play. He forks over $5 to toss five rubber baseballs.

Each fling misses the target that is about 20 feet away and roughly the size of a grapefruit.

Soon, a larger teen steps up, plunks down five bucks and the clown lays into him.

“Get out of the way of Chubby,” the clown says, “he needs a lot of room to wiggle.”

The larger teen misses the target five times, digs into his pocket for more money and tries again.

“It’s a bona fide truth,” the clown goes on, “chubby boys always come back for seconds.”

The teen’s friend laughs.

The clown yammers on: “Hey, let me give you a secret. You chubby boys gotta hit this target like you do the dinner table. Fast and hard.”

The teen’s friend giggles some more.

“My job is so easy,” the clown says. “All I gotta do is say, ‘More money, Chubby!’ It’s like taking a Popsicle from a chubby kid.”

Before he walks away, having missed all 10 of his throws, the teen says the clown’s barbs don’t bother him.

“It gets me mad,” the teen says, “when I don’t hit the target.”

Dunking-booth clowns, whose schtick has long traveled on insults to stir the ire and attract the coin of customers, are sinking into obscurity. The sense is that people’s appetite for being made fun of has waned, that such spiels are impolite. Or, worse, that the acts are inappropriate and offensive. Some carnivals have shut them down. Others post signs in front of their dunking booths, warning passersby that they may hear things that disturb them.

There are no such disclaimers at the Georgia National Fair. It is an open-ear market.

The operator of the dunk tank at the Perry fair for the past few years has herself overseen dunking-booth clown acts for decades. She comes up from Florida each fall.

“It’s a dying art,” Donnel Miller-Zack says. “Some people think the object is to make people mad, and it’s not. We want to make people laugh. ... We love what we do and we’re trying to revive it.”

For much of this year’s stop in Georgia, the lead clown was a native upstate New Yorker who for years rode the carnival circuit as a dunk-tank bozo. He now lives year round in Warner Robins.

Sam Degristina, who says he works as a shift supervisor at a local Waffle House, began working balloon-pop games at age 14. His mother ran a cotton candy stand.

When Degristina was in his 20s, he was the front man, the money taker, for a dunk-tank clown at a Christmas carnival in Miami. The clown got pneumonia and Degristina, who’d been listening to the clown’s patter for weeks, filled in.

“I was a natural,” Degristina, 52, says.

Now every fall during the Perry fair’s 11-day run, he wipes on face paint and returns to his roots as a midway draw.

“What it does is it scratches that itch,” he says. “Once you’re a carny or a showman, you feel that drive to make that money. ... That clown is inside all year round.”

He has over the years altered his act, softened the jabs.

“Before, you could say certain things. People tend to be a little more sensitive. I use the word butt-sore. They get upset. I’ve noticed the change,” Degristina says.

“Back in the ’80s when my uncle was the Bozo, we used to have to escort him out of the tank. All the ride guys would meet my Uncle Billy out behind the tank to walk him to his house because there was people waiting to beat (him up). We’ve had to change our show. … The world is different today. That’s why there’s a dying breed (of dunking clowns) because some people can’t adapt.”

Degristina figures he can still pretty much say anything. To a point.

“As long as you follow it up with a laugh,” he says.

His laughs are rapid-fire groaners, har-hars that are part cackles, part chuckles from the crypt. They are the sound of a jalopy that won’t quite crank, with a batty clown in the driver’s seat who won’t stop turning the key.

“I teach every clown that’s ever been in the tank that the difference between an insult and a joke is the laugh. You have to laugh,” Degristina says. “A prime example is if I look at somebody and say, ‘Hey, stupid,’ they’re gonna get mad. But if I say, ‘Hey, stupid. Har har har har har,’ it turns it into a joke.”

He adds, “So, I guess, can I offend people? Yes. ... Do I? No.”

Indeed, riling up fairgoers does not appear to be the key to prodding them to dunk him. Some patrons require no nudging. They stride up only to try their hands at pegging the target. For many, it appears a skills challenge.

At one point while Degristina is in the dunk cage, an older woman in an Atlanta Braves shirt strolls up. Playful banter ensues. The woman shakes her finger while she talks.

“You better quit pointing that booger-picker at me,” Degristina says.

As she turns to leave, the woman says, “We know he’s just joking.”

Meanwhile, a kid nearby yells at the clown: “Loser!”

Then off to the side, the kid says, “It’s funny, I like it.”

Another youth, a boy in his middle teens, fails to sink Degristina and endures comments about his weak tosses.

But as he walks off, the kid shouts to the clown, “I love you!”

To which Degristina replies, “I love you guys, too!”

It is an intriguing encounter, one that ends with the verbal combatants shaking metaphoric hands.

Later, Degristina explains how he plays off his audience.

“As a clown, as an entertainer, even a standup comedian has to read their crowd,” he says. “That’s pretty much what I do. I’m a sit-down comedian. I’ve got to put on a six-hour show, entertain these people, make ‘em laugh, make some money.”

When a beefy baseball player from a local high school fires fastballs at the dunk target. The kid is built thick, an athlete. The clanged thuds of his misses echo.

“How fast do you throw?” Degristina asks.

The ballplayer smirks and says, “Fast enough.”

Apparently not, the undunked Degristina shoots back: “Atlanta isn’t calling you!”

From a few hours of watching and listening to Degristina’s act, two things are clear: Not many people can hit the target and not a lot of folks appear to be thin-skinned. They tend not to call the clown on his jeers, however low the blows.

When a boy who is maybe 12 and a little hefty heaves balls that miss the dunk button, Degristina says, “Hey, you’re the guy with a good cook at home. Mommy’s a good cook. No need for Tupperware at your house, honey. No leftovers.”

Then he tempers the taunt with an “it’s OK, buddy. Don’t get mad, get even.”

Degristina’s goading often ends with a gentler touch for children.

A preteen girl accompanied by her mother steps up to throw and Degristina says, “Aww, look at her with her big ears. Out of all them things you could’ve gave her, mommy, you had to give her them big ears of yours, huh?”

When the girl tosses again, Degristina eases into a sing-song voice, saying, “If you’re pretty and you know it throw a ball. There you go.”

Later, he ribs an older teen whose ears seem normal, “This guy’s got ears big enough to hear a flea fart in a hurricane.”

Then Degristina jokes about another guy’s low throws: “Higher, dum-dum. Like your mommy’s expectations.”

A curly-headed teenage girl strolls up and begins lobbing noodle-armed throws.

“Since when did the girls start wearing mullets?” Degristina asks her.

He keeps on.

“Hey, honey, you better stick to doing what you do best ... going shopping, spending daddy’s money.”

“Daddy’s money?” the girl says with a laugh, arms outstretched. “I’m poor.”

“You’re poor?” Degristina says.

“I’m poor,” she says. “That’s, like, all I got.”

“Well, thank you,” he tells her, “for spending your last $5 with the clown.”