The admission came after members from a troupe of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s circus clowns told Exploding Cigar Aficionado that the NBC anchor was nowhere near the cannon when other troupe members blasted off and took flight. “He was off doing balloon animals, the squirting flower bit, the handshake buzzer — you name it,” said Herman “Boffo” Chester, “but he never stepped foot in that cannon.” Another member, Marty “Chuckles” O’Hanlan added, “”Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being in my cannon. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we’d landed to ask me what it’s like to fly.”

“I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate the human-cannonball-clown routine with twisting out balloon animals,” said the now-former Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News in the release. “I made a mistake in recalling the events that took place nearly 20 years ago,” Williams explained. “I want to apologize to those heroes who laugh on the outside while they’re crying on the inside, and who put it all on the line, every day, just to make our world a little bit zanier.”

Coming to Williams’ defense, Sarah “Baggy Britches” Maloni, also from the troupe remarked, “The excitement, all that noise and the spotlight, make it very easy to get caught up in the moment, particularly the spectacular ones, where you say to yourself, ‘That was great! I did that.’ She continued, “It’s not uncommon. It happens all the time. We call it the fog of grease paint.”

But Ernie Bankstead, better known to circus goers as Krazy Kozmo, recalls thinking, “Here comes fancy-pants news reporter wanting a spot on the cannon and he can’t even twist out a convincing giraffe, y’know?” “How’s about showing us how you handle an inflatable sledgehammer before you go reachin’ for the top of the big tent,” he said gesturing with his gloved hand held high above his head.

Others referred to an awkward incident that may have resulted in the then-younger reporter wanting to save face. “I think sometimes, it was the shoes,” mused Elmo “Spewy” Rogers, remembering some potential ill will between Williams and the troupe when teased about the fitting of the anchor’s first clown shoes. “They fit perfectly,” he recalled, “and they’re supposed to be way too big — really big — like, double-your shoe-size-too big,” chuckled Rogers.

Williams is thought to have Acromegaly, an over-secretion of growth hormone by the pituitary gland, which likely accounts for his unusually large feet, along with outsized hands, an elongated jaw and extended, heavy brow. But he doesn’t suffer alone and is joined by notable personalities ranging from Ted Cassidy, best known for playing Lurch on The Addams Family TV series, to motivational speaker, Tony Robbins and news-anchor colleague, Brit Hume.

“The ribbing was merciless,” recounted Jackie “Jingles” Wargowski, “and I think he tried to overcompensate for the embarrassment by spinning a web of spectacular feats, (and I don’t mean the ones in the shoes) where he came off a hero.” As he tells it, “The entire group of clowns, even the midgets or small people, I think we’re supposed to say, were busting his chops.”

Many in the press are left to wonder what happens to a fellow reporter, when faced with derision by those whom children fear, and are likewise held in contempt by parents, who pay them near-slave wages, to entertain the very children whose nightmares are formed by their treacherous clown faces.

“This is not a group you want laughing at you,” said Brit Hume when asked for comment. “We make stuff up for other reasons altogether,” he added, “but the unrelenting mockery of clowns can put you in a land of make believe where you don’t even know when you’re lying,” said the former Fox anchor and commentator.

Krazy Kozmo said the incident has bothered him since he and others from the “Greatest Show On Earth” first saw the original report after returning home to the Florida State Fairgrounds.

“He’s got this thing about being heroic while airborne,” he said, “and then to see the Iraq helicopter thing last week it was — I can’t believe he is still telling these false, flying fibs. Someone,” he said, “had to bring him down to earth.”

Jerry Sisti
Jerry Sisti is a frequent contributor to His Own Amusement.

© 2015 Jerry Sisti. All rights reserved.