A little bit about us!

        What started out in 1980 with plain old Ed as Checkers the Clown became SOME THINGS FUNNY sm around 1985. We officially became a business around 1989. Checkers was a parade clown with the local Jaycee Chapter for the first 4 or 5 years and decided that throwing candy at kids (you could still do that in parades then) wasn't really funny, so he decided to do something about it.

        A balloon book and a bag of balloons was his starting point. When he learned you could blow them up without passing out it was time to learn the twisting part. Balloons were followed by a beginners magic class. The real turning point was joining some Clown Alleys and working and learning from others. This turned out to be a lot of fun. Some fine tuning at some clown conventions and at a Clown Camp on the Road® did a lot for building the skills needed to entertain the kid in all of us. In addition, Ed has served as Vice-President and Treasurer of Calumet Clowns, and Secretary, Vice-President, and President of Magic Masters of Chicago. During the early part of 2004 he also assisted in teaching the art of clowning with the Calumet Clowns. He currently (2005) serves as President of Calumet Clowns.

        This is our first revision of our website since it was started about 3 years ago. Amazing how time flies. Checkers is still active and his cousin, The Amusing CHECKOFF is performing as well. Ed still does promotional material for other entertainers and you can find a few samples of his work on the SOMEFUNCARDS™ pages. What we are really happy about is the new section, promised 3 years ago.

        checker's clubhouse debuts on this new version of our site. For starters there are desktop Clown Wallpapers in both 800X600 and 1024X768 resolutions available for kids (or the kid in you) to download. They are a series of pictures with several mistakes in each for you to find. In addition, there are coloring pictures of Checkers and some of his clown friends for you to download and color. You can also look forward to some word games and maybe even some simple magic tricks you can perform for your friends.

        It is our goal to keep things new on this site by changing the checker's clubhouse pages as often as we are able to develop new pictures, games, coloring pages, etc. Keep coming back. If you like what you see, tell someone else. If you don't like what you see, TELL US!

Keep on Smiling,

Click on the signatures below to email us.

Ed Cook, Checkers the Clown, & The Amusing Checkoff