Aren’t Our Clowns Just as Goofy as Theirs Are?

Until Thursday, I’d never met an angry puppeteer. Didn’t even know they existed.

Then I talked to Gil Olin, a 44-year-old Mission Viejo man who with his wife, Laurie Branham, operates a marionette theater-on-wheels. They’re used to pulling the strings, but Olin says they’re the ones getting yanked around by the Orange County Fair. Not to mention a bunch of jugglers, clowns and magicians.

Olin’s beef is that the fair hires too many acts from outside Orange County. He’s talking about the nonheadliners, the county fair performers who stroll around or set up small stages to do their thing. They make up to $500 a day, and Olin wonders why that kind of money can’t stay home.

“There are jugglers and clowns who are Orange County residents, who have tried and tried to get in,” says Olin. “It’s a lockout, basically. We know of a clown from Arizona they’re using. We know of a puppet act from Indiana. We know they have acts from Texas.”

Olin-Branham performed at the fair in 1992 and 1993. They’ve worked throughout California. For the last three years, they’ve tried in vain to return to the Orange County Fair.

Sandee Gee of Dana Point knows the feeling.

She and partner Richard Rumble do a fantasy/magic show and some clowning. Veterans of the Las Vegas-Reno convention circuit and other county fairs, they can’t crack the O.C. Fair.

Gee says she’s tried twice for an O.C. Fair booking. Both times, she says, she got a cold shoulder from the agency that books the acts.

She felt even worse after seeing the competition.

“There was this fellow, he was a stilt-walker,” Gee says. “He was from out of state, because I talked to him. His costume was horrible. The pants, the crotch had ripped and he had hand-sewed it. The fabric looked five to 10 years old and was very faded. His makeup was horrible. I knew local clowns who were fantastic and would have done a much better job.”

No grand conspiracy exists against local talent, says Becky Bailey-Findley, the fair’s general manager. Last summer, 26 of the 49 “grounds” acts (53%) were from Orange County, she says. If you include the entire Southern California area, the figure is just under 76%, she says. Another five acts came from other parts of California, and just seven came from out of state.

The fair entrusts bookings to the husband-wife Viking Agency in Clovis, just north of Fresno. “I’d say 53% is a pretty high percentage for local talent,” says Viking co-owner Judie Fatland.

The O.C. Fair gives her a budget--and a theme.

“BJ and His Puppet Truck’ drives around in a truck; that kind of specific thing was found in Indiana,” she says. “ ‘Doggies of the Wild West’--I think he’s from Kansas. There again, it’s something very specific.”

I have no way of knowing whether Olin can compete with BJ and His Puppet Truck. A marionette-on-wheels show sounds like the same thing, but I’m no expert. And frankly, I’m not sure anyone can compete with ‘Doggies of the Wild West.’

But Olin and Gee have a point. All else being equal--such as talent--why can’t the fair support its local clowns?

Are our clowns and jugglers and puppeteers so lame that we must go to Texas to find talent?

Them’s fightin’ words to Olin.

“I know a lot of acts in this area, and the quality is second to none,” he says. “We work in fairs everywhere else on a regular basis. What outrages us is this fair is 15 minutes up the road, and we can’t get a foot in the door.”

If you ask me, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to antagonize these people. Next thing you know you’ll have the Amalgamated Jugglers, Puppeteers and Stiltwalkers Union, and it won’t be a laughing matter.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com