pcincotta

This is John Smales. He would carry a guitar and play it and sing songs and make up songs as a clown. He doesn't have his guitar in this picture.

The clowns weren't allowed to ride the rides, but we got away with a lot on the last day of the season. It was usually a bit cold and almost always a very low number of guests. The last day of the season was always a fun day. I enjoyed five seasons as Juggles the Clown at Great Adventure (from 1981 to 1985) and I loved every day performing at the park.

This guest was born the same year I began working as a clown (1981) at Great Adventure. He lived very close to the park and his parents brought him to the park often. After a while we got to know him very well. He was a hyperactive kid and he would play with the clown and run around with us a lot. It was funny to see full-size adult clowns playing with this very little kid. We were always glad to see Michael at the park.

Cool shot of the four of us each juggling four clubs. A funny story about Lucky the clown was that he seemed to be very accident-prone. One time he was riding a 6-foot unicycle and he backed into a 5-foot tall iron gate. He fell over the gate onto grass and wasn't injured. He was willing to try anything.

Sparky was the best juggler at the time. I (Juggles) and Greg (Fritz) are juggled clubs. We practiced many different patterns and tricks; and we got better as time went on. Fun, fun, fun. We were all in our early 20's and this was a very fun job.

Slow days at the park meant few guests and bored workers who were more than glad to talk with the clowns and (in this case) to take a few funny pictures.

I agree with the estimated date of perhaps 1983 or 1984. Sara Moore was a clown at the same time that I was a clown--which was 1981 to 1985.

Juggles the Clown (Peter Cincotta) in 1985, playing the juggling club with the band. Fun, fun, fun.

This is Fritz the Clown (Greg Gillette) on the far left, Steve Athern is in the blue wig, and Juggles the Clown (Peter Cincotta) in the orange wig on the far right. We got very good at passing clubs while working as clowns at Great Adventure. We used to joke that we would never practice "on the street" (which means, in front of guests). But we broke that rule often. In this particular picture, it doesn't look like there were too many guests around.

This is Greg Gillette and Marc Sheris from (I think) 1983.

This is Juggles the Clown (Peter Cincotta) in 1984. Juggles performed at Great Adventure from 1981 to 1985. He is wearing a name tag pin with a caricature of Juggles the Clown!

This is Bubbles the Clown (Karen Cascarino).

This is Juggles the Clown (Peter Cincotta) in his fifth and last season at Six Flags Great Adventure in 1985. A great job and a lot of fun!

This is Juggles the Clown (Peter Cincotta) in his fifth season as a clown at Six Flags Great Adventure. A great job and a lot of fun!

This is Juggles the Clown (Peter Cincotta) from the 1985 season. This is Juggles' fifth season as a clown at Great Adventure.