SEND DOWN THE CLOWNS

Coulrophobia is in the house.

Yes, fear of clowns seems to have guided this season’s Amazing Pool pool-selection process.

Dave and Cherie

Cherie and Dave Gregg, the self-styled “ambassadors of laughter”for Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, were the last team picked in the Season20 pool. Actually, they weren’t even picked. Rather they were the only teamleft when Dennis, the last to choose, got his chance to select.

Right before him, Drew and Emily went for Art and J.J.,friends and Border Patrol agents.

The general shunning of Cherie and Dave could just be a factor of their performance in the opening episode, a lame effort that even reduced Cherie to tears. But the rejection could be more primal.

An about.comweb posting on phobias asks why there is a widespread fear of clowns(“widespread” is the site’s term) and suggests that it could have something todo with a “negative personal experience with a clown at a young age.”

There’s probably something to do with that. My memory is that clowns generally won prizes in the Little Valley, N.Y., Halloween parade when I was a youngster dressed as a baseball player. I may be bitter about that, though cowboys also got ribbons and I have no adult fear of them.

About.com also suggests that clowns may get a bad rep because of the mass media creating a “hype surrounding even clowns.” However, that kind of Gingrichian blaming of the press doesn’t even wash with the authors of the post.

Finally, they speculate that some real life killers who were also clowns may have given all clowns a bad rep. Most prominent of these spoilers is John Wayne Gacy, the ghoul who was born in Michelle Bachmann’s hometown.

Lucille Ball

All that aside, it could be karma that matched up Dennis with Cherie and Dave.

He is, as we all know, a fan of Lucille Ball, and both Cherie and Dave believe that Cherie is a lot like Lucy. (And wouldn't Lucy and Ethel have made one great Amazing Race team?)

And Dennis could take some hope from a past pair of racing clowns. Al and Jon from Amazing Race Season 4 (2003) also performed under the big top. They were, I quote from RealityNews Online, “viewer favorites.” And, this is important, they finished fourth on the season.