• About Child Life
• Specialists
• Fellowship
• Internships
• Practicum
• Music Therapy
• Funnyatrics

Funnyatrics

Funnyatrics part of weekly play for Children's patients

A little boy cries loudly as he walks down the hallway toward the Hematology-Oncology outpatient area. As he looks down, he sees giant shoes on the floor. As he looks up, he sees funny-looking men and women with red noses.

The crying stops and he says, "Hello."

Earlier in the morning, the same clowns piled into the Rocket elevator. A Children's employee looks over at her five fellow passengers.

"Hello clowns," she says, matter-of-factly.

The fact that clowns are wandering down the halls of Children's and gaining acceptance, and laughs, means success for Funnyatrics, a group of trained clowns who come to Children's twice a week to entertain patients.

The program began at Children's in October and is modeled after successful programs throughout the northeast. Tifanny Riley and Dick Monday, two of the clowns at Children's, are veterans of the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit in New York City and are mentored by Michael Christenson, who created the program and has been a mentor of the program at Children's.

Riley, whose clown name is "Dr. Slappy," worked in the Big Apple Circus program for six years. She said the people in New York were accustomed to seeing clowns in the hospital.

A great response

"You get a great response from the patients," Riley said. "A lot of times you get a great response in the room and the kids laugh. But when it really affects you is when you hear a week later that this kid has not been the same since you saw him. He's been talking. He's been laughing. He's told everybody about your visit."

Dick Monday, AKA "Dr. Monday," brings a wealth of experience to the clown program at Children's. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in Radio, Television and Film, Monday decided to follow his dream of becoming a clown.

He graduated from Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1974 and was director of the College from 1994 until it closed in 1998. He has performed for circuses in Tokyo and Las Vegas, and was the artistic director of the L.A. Circus and director of clowning for Circus of the Stars on CBS.

Monday's experience as helped the clown group refine its skills. A key to being a good clown, he said, is to listen. That means listening to your clown and to the patient. He said the clowns give patients something they have very little of during their stay in the hospital - a sense of empowerment.

"For that moment that we're in the room, the patients can forget their worries and they gain control of their life," Monday said.

Shawn Patrello, who uses the name "Dr. Scribbles," has experience as a performer for children, working in an improvisational group for 16 years called Kidprov. Patrello uses his improv skills while clowning, but said he also uses different skills as an entertainer.

"In some respects I use the same skills because I've been entertaining children for a long, long time," Patrello said. "But it requires a different mindset and different skills. But it caught my interest. It has been inspirational. Sometimes people think that clowns are those people who blow balloons at birthday parties, but there is so much to it."

Perhaps no one is happier about the clown program at Children's than Brenda Marshall, who has been volunteering at Children's for more than 10 years and is familiar to many as "Dr. Abby Normal."

Marshall has given Children's a clown presence with playroom visits, special events and as the clown make-up coordinator for Neiman-Marcus Adolphus Children's Parade for the past nine years.

"This is something we have been working toward for a long time," Marshall said. "But I didn't think it was ever going to happen. On the first day we were all together, I cried."

The best medicine

Marcie Myers, also known as "Dr. Dayzee," is an actress in Dallas and while she shares improv skills with Patrello, she had never performed as a clown. Still, she said that she had a key attribute that she thought would make her a successful clown.

"I'm an absolute goofball," she said.

After making the little boy stop crying and entertaining the nurse in the elevator, Myers and her fellow goofballs gathered in the hall outside of the Hematology-Oncology waiting room deciding what song to play.

"I was thinking we could play the Jack-in-the-box theme," Dr. Monday said.

"Do you play that?" Dr. Slappy asks.

"No, but I was thinking it," Dr. Monday replies.

And with imaginary rimshots ringing throughout the hospital, the clowns walk into the waiting room. Suddenly, a room that had been quiet and still is filled with what some say is best medicine - Laughter.

For more information on the Child Life department at Children's, click here.

View a video about the Funnyatrics program:  Funnyatrics.wmv

Back to top