Diary of a Clown/ The Pink Gorilla gets the Boot
By Susan AKA Polkadots the Clown

I was called early one morning, to do a singing Gorilla-gram in the Nicolodeon building in Manhattan. My contact person was this nervous looking guy with dark rimmed glasses in his thirties. He explained to me that I was to recite a poem he wrote to a woman in his office that he had this huge crush on. I was also instructed that under any circumstance, do not reveal the sender.

While walking over to my recipient (attired as a Pink Gorilla), a crowd of about twenty people started gathering and cheering. I sang the generic silly love song that was written by the owner of the singing telegram company that sent me. As I started reciting the poem, written by the sender, the presence of this tall man with a suit and glasses caused everyone in the room to stand back. I responded with my usual Gorilla sounds and said…”Hey, if I knew you were so cute, I would have shaved!” He then intercepted in an angry tone “Hi, My name is Tom Meyers; I’m Lilly’s (the recipient) boss.” “Who were you sent by?” Adding some more Gorilla sounds and motions, I said…”Sorry, I was sworn by secrecy” He angrily interrupted with…”Do you realize, this is a place of business?, and Lilly here and all of these people around her have an enormous amount of work to do, that they’re obviously not doing with you standing here!” “So, I highly suggest that you reveal the sender of this, unless you want to see Lilly here lose her job!” With that said the sender who was nervously pacing and adjusting his glasses up until this point, boldly approached, saying… “It was me!” “I’m sorry, but I knew no other way to tell you (Lilly) that I’m nuts about you!” Lilly then jolts back with… “How could you?!” She turned to her boss who started reprimanding the sender and said… “You don’t have to fire anyone!”...”I quit!” I tried calming the boss down (in all my pink furriness) and begged him to give them another chance, it was all in fun. Instead of giving in, he ordered me to leave. When I started walking out, Lilly called after me…”Wait!” “Do they have any job openings at your company?!”I started answering her and at the same time, kept walking out. She called out to me again, “Wait! Stop!”Following me as I was walking she yelled…”Have you ever been on T.V.?”This time stopping in my tracks, I turned around to a crowd of people laughing. “Take your head off and smile!” one of them yelled, as they all pointed to the camera. My immediate reaction was…”Oh no...I have no makeup on!” It was so early in the morning, that I barely had enough time to eat and shower, so forget makeup! I didn’t think it would matter since my face would be covered anyway.

This whole stunt, turned out to be for a VH1 show called “Sledge Hammer”. It was a “Candid Camera” knock off. I found out later that there were a bevy of other performers before me, including, a clown, a male stripper, a male “Marilyn Monroe” impersonator, a Barbershop Quartet, and my boss (the one who sent me on this) wearing a top hat and tails. They told me that I took it the best out of everyone. The clown was so pissed that he refused to sign a release and threatened to sue if they aired his sequence.

When I watched it back, a couple of weeks later, I saw the look of terror and guilt in my eyes. My body was covered in pink fur which was wearing a tutu around my waist, and my hands were wearing black Gorilla hands, so you know which part of me got the close up!