Written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait (yep, Zed from the Police Academy movies!) who has since gone onto to write and direct low budget, witty, Sundance-friendly, beautifully made movies such as Sleeping Dogs and World's Greatest Dad, and also become a very successful TV director (Jimmy Kimmel, Important Things with Demetri Martin, The Man Show) I thought it would be interesting to go back and see his first attempt at movie making.
The film shows all clowns, who never take off their makeup ever, to be socially maladjusted miserable alcoholics or cocaine addled morons, who are also quite clannish and hateful to each other which might be a metaphor for what stand up comedians or any type of entertainers actually are like. The plot deals with Shakes (played by Bobcat himself) a clown who hates children and loves drinking and who thinks he's next in line to present the big kids TV show but who is overlooked for Binky (Incidentally, this is the film where R.E.M. get the title Binky The Doormat.) who is played by none other than SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS himself, Tom Kenny, and the film then deals with the bitter rivalry that develops between the two, which even escalates to Shakes being framed for murder.
This film also stars a lot of famous people, Adam Sandler, extremely early on his career, is actually quite good as a shy clown with no self confidence. Florence Henderson, the mother from the Brady Bunch, is in it early on as one of Shake's conquests. Kathy Griffin plays Shakes girlfriend's best friend. Paul Dooley, Larry David's father in-law in Curb, plays his agent and Robin Williams cameos as the ridiculously loud and talkative mime instructor.
The film is not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, a lot of scenes are set up and go absolutely nowhere, but I can honestly say you will see nothing like this ever in your life, the again maybe the trailer, below, might be enough for you....
(Skip the first 40 secs by the way)