Doo Doo hopes to keep clowning forever
Decades in, veteran entertainer has become a midway fixture — and a hero
It was 35 years ago when the laughter began.
A young Doo Doo the Clown — known then as Shane Farberman — was a high-school student working part-time at a restaurant, earning $2.30 an hour.
His friend was doing some entertainment work at a Toronto hospital and enlisted Farberman to come with him and dress up in a costume.
“I thought, ‘you’re crazy,’ but I did it and I had so much fun,” he recalled. “He offered me $25 an hour. I thought, ‘this is so cool.’ He did it just to pay his university, I turned it into a life of entertainment. I stuck with it and there isn’t a day I have regretted it, ever.”
And so, Doodles the Clown was born, a moniker he went by until a misspelling in an ad — Doo Doo — was mocked on air by TV host Jay Leno and stuck with him ever since. Appearing in the 1995 Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison, Doo Doo’s international reputation has only continued to grow.
He’s back at the Calgary Stampede for the 20th year in a row, an event he simply can’t give up no matter how busy his schedule gets.
“Everything about me is Calgary Stampede. I love what I do,” Doo Doo says. “I just feel so loved out here. People from all over the world come and they ’re so excited to be at the Calgary Stampede.”
The husband and father of three — a native of Thornhill, Ont., a suburb just north of Toronto — is spending 180 days on the road this year.
But he loves it. He can’t get enough of it.
“I love it more and more every year,” Doo Doo says. “Our job is just to make people happy. We’re out to have fun, we’re out to just make people have a better day. I love to do shows and I love to make people laugh.”
The clown is proud of his work. Few clowns across the continent are better known, but his fame reached a whole new level nearly three years ago when he rescued two women being attacked by a man on the streets of Toronto.
“I drive a clown Hummer and I’m driving through the city full of clowns,” Doo Doo recalls. “This car was full of clowns and all of a sudden I see this guy jumping on cars, punching people. So I call 911 and all of a sudden I see him chasing and punching these ladies.”
He said what happened next was a moment that changed his life.
“I’m not a tough guy. You know, what am I going to do, hit somebody with a balloon? So I zoom up and I’m screaming (to the women) ‘Get in! Get in!’ ” he says. “They jump in my car and when they jumped in my car, we locked it, the guy ripped my car apart, ripped my mirrors off and we’re screaming. Police come and they zap the guy. My dash cam caught the whole thing.”
Doo Doo was hailed as a hero clown in media across the world. Then-prime minister Stephen Harper phoned to thank him and former U.S. president Barack Obama also sent a letter.
“It was so nice to be appreciated after all these years,” he says. “People forget that I walk the pavement all day long and I’m always happy. At the end of the day when my nose comes off, I’m back to myself and my family and my kids.”
As Doo Doo greets children and hands out balloon hats, there’s nobody happier on the midway. “Unbelievable,” he exclaims, his signature catchphrase.
But is there anything that makes Doo Doo a sad clown?
“When you hear sad things, you know, you’re down, but the second I put my nose on, I’m a different person,” he says. “I’ll never forget the time I got the call, I was on a break, that my aunt passed away. We were so close and I spoke to her every day. I knew she was ill but I put the nose on, went outside and had a great time with the kids.”
Doo Doo hopes to keep that nose on for the rest of his life. And he hopes to keep doing it at Stampede.
“Parents are just like, ‘I remember you when I came here 20 years ago,” the clown says. “’You were the clown that I came and saw a show.’ So it’s nice. It’s just a beautiful feeling. You know there’s nothing better than to come out to the Stampede and it’s a family celebration.
“I’m grateful for every minute.”