The Peculiar Truth about Shakes the Clown

• Martin Scorcese once called it "the Citizen Kane of alcholic clown movies." Presumably, he meant that in jest. But that was how he described the 1991 movie Shakes the Clown.

• You've probably never heard of it, but several famous comic actors appeared in the little-known cult film.

• Shakes’ cult status never rose to the levels of Fast Times at Ridgemont High or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It fell closer to the extra-cult-ish category of Louis CK’s Pootie Tang. But the movie’s fans, though not legion, are surprisingly loyal.

• Shakes the Clown is set in fictional Palookaville where nearly everyone is a miserable clown. Literally. It tells the tale of Shakes, a drunk who fails to keep kiddies entertained. He curses, threatens children, vomits, and passes out during birthday parties. His girlfriend Judy (Julie Brown) tries to keep him sober. Meanwhile, Shakes’ arch-nemesis, Binky (Tom Kenny), gets the coveted TV cartoon show hosting gig (ironic, given Kenny’s real-life future profession) and eventually tries to pin a murder on Shakes.

• If that plot seems strange… well, it is. Goldthwait’s oeuvre consists of dark comedies. Shakes the Clown was his first.

• Goldthwait collected a troupe of veterans and unknowns, several of whom went on to comic fame.

• Julie Brown was a 1980s phenom. Her trademark Valley Girl character landed her on MTV. She wrote, directed, and starred in the movie Earth Girls Are Easy.

• Tom Kenny, who portrayed the hilariously villainous Binky, is the voice of Spongebob Squarepants. He and Goldthwait grew up in Syracuse, NY, and have been friends since grade school.

• Mime Jerry is a cameo role attributed to an actor named Marty Fromage. He was actually Robin Williams.

• Adam Sandler played Dink, a clown too nervous to score with women. Shakes was his second feature film.

• Kathy Griffin appeared as Judy’s best friend, Lucy. It was her second speaking role in a movie.

• Florence Henderson, immortalized as Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch series, made a cameo role as a mother who sleeps with Shakes.

• Paul Dooley (Mr. Cheese) was a veteran actor who appeared in hundreds of films and television shows.

• LaWanda Page had perhaps the most memorable line in Shakes the Clown, which was NSFW. She played Aunt Esther on the TV series Sanford and Son.

• Most of the remaining cast members made their film debuts. Including me. Yes, I appeared in Shakes the Clown.

• Goldthwait not only wrote, directed, and starred in the picture, he also produced it. IRS Films backed the project. The company is now defunct.

• The movie shot in the San Fernando Valley during the scorching hot summer of 1990.

• The movie landed in theaters with a giant thud.

• The New York Times’ Janet Maslin hated it. Leonard Maltin gave it his lowest rating. As with most of Goldthwait’s dark humor, people either liked the movie or couldn’t stand it. Opinions rarely fell in between. Roger Ebert was an exception. He kindly gave Shakes 2 out of 4 stars. Audience reactions were mixed at best.

• Over the years, though, the movie acquired a peculiar underground following.

• On their 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi, REM released a song called ‘Binky the Doormat.’ The song title directly references dialogue from the movie.

• Tony V, a Boston comic and actor who also appeared in Shakes, told this story. “I got to audition for a role in the Scorcese movie The Departed, and I never got the role, but I talked to Scorcese… I said, ‘You’re on record as saying Shakes the Clown is one of the best movies you’ve ever seen.’ And he said, ‘No, no, no, I said it was the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies.’ And then he defended his thesis for about 45 minutes.”

• In 2010, college students invited Goldthwait to a private screening of Shakes. They were infants when it premiered. “If you’re not familiar with my movies,” he told them, “people tend to either don’t know about them, or really like them a lot, or hate them. And this is the one they hate the most.” The frat boys in the crowd cheered; incurring the hatred of people who ‘just don’t get it’ has always been a rebel’s badge of honor.

• Even Goldthwait is a bit mystified about the movie’s cult following. But nostalgia, even for something bizarre, is a powerful thing.