Keep it Clean from Nurse Lulu's Clowning on a Budget

In previous posts I have presented some gags that can be done during slow days at hospitals.  I have also brought up some fun things that can be done for employees when they are not too busy and are open to a little entertainment.  Among the things you can do for employees are jokes or riddles.  This sounds a bit old-fashioned and corny, but it still works!

Our goal as hospital clowns is to make someone’s day.  This always includes hospital employees if they have time. Sometimes it comes in the form of laughter, a smile, impressing them with a skill, or just helping them get through their shift.  Riddles or guessing games that stump them are great for the more cerebral workers because they like to use them on their friends:

Three friends where walking through a beautiful field in the springtime and found a puddle of water, two buttons, a hat and a carrot.  They couldn’t figure out what happened.

Jokes can be visual puns like the ones I mentioned in Pun-gus Among Us or they can be traditional jokes.  My juggling mentor is also a magician who had a lot of crazy little gags in his act.  He loved to go to any willing hospital employee who was strapped to a desk and do one where he would use two nesting fake capsules:

“Did you hear?  The hospital now has a pill that fixes EVERYTHING!  Seriously.  We have a prototype here.”  He shows them the smaller of the two capsules; it’s larger than a regular pill.

“Oh don’t worry, you can take it one of two ways...well, we won’t talk about that now.  But here’s the other prototype.”  It’s about twice the size of the first one.

“Yeah, I know.  The other one is starting to look better, isn’t it?”

This gag dances on the line of appropriateness, but it’s still relatively clean.  Hospital gags and jokes shouldn’t go any further even if we are just talking to employees.  It should remain a family-friendly show anywhere in the hospital.

P.S.:  Do you know the answer to the riddle?

Lucy E. Nunez has been a theatrical performer since 2002 and an improv performer since 2003. She created Nurse Lulu for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit in 2014. She is now Baptist Children's Hospital first-ever resident clown! For more information please visit: www.sunnybearbuds.wix.com/buds