When I was a kid I feared clowns of all types, even the ones that silently made bal­loon ani­mals and hats and swords. You couldn’t really see their true faces, they acted strangely and wore bizarre oth­er­worldly cloth­ing. That weird white makeup they wore…yeesh. But they didn’t come from their clown planet to hurt us mere Earth­lings — they came to enter­tain us and make us “laugh”! Squirt­ing flow­ers, pet mon­keys, tiny cars, big shoes, all trade­marks of the clown.

So who is this guy? Where is his white makeup? Does he have a pet? What make and model is his tiny car? Why is he try­ing to be non-frightening and gener­i­cally non-threatening?

This clown is known as Bello. He works for Rin­gling Bros. and Bar­num & Bai­ley Cir­cus. Time mag­a­zine called him “America’s Best Clown.”

Oh really? Is this what fear­some and hor­ri­fy­ing clowns have come to in the 21st cen­tury? Wimpi­fied lame-o’s who’s gim­mick is that he has tall hair and gets into all sorts of wacky mis­chief? Take away the hair and turn him into a mon­key and he’s Curi­ous George. George even goes to the cir­cus too.

Over the past years Rin­gling Bros. and Bar­num & Bai­ley has been on the ropes a lit­tle bit as peo­ple start lov­ing more and more the weird antics of Cirque du Soleil. Is Bello the answer to their prob­lems? Are peo­ple going to start com­ing to the cir­cus to see this guy? Is he that big of a draw? Why do I feel that the answer is “no”?

I’m a dad, so I have to go. Would I go just to see this guy? Well.…