Exactly as dangerous as it looks. All photos courtesy of “Backflip” Johnny Dudley.
As a professional rodeo clown, Texas-based “Backflip” Johnny Dudley banters with the crowd, does backflips and cracks jokes—all while trying not to get gutted by a 1,000 lb. bull. Dudley (a former marine) is one of around 100 other clowns in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA)—the major leagues of rodeo. We found out why he was drawn to this bizarre occupation.
VICE: What exactly do you do?
“Backflip” Johnny Dudley: I’m just a rodeo clown. Throughout the whole rodeo, I pretty much provide the entertainment. A lot of times we’re dealing with holes in the action because the animals or the people aren’t going to do exactly as you want them to every single time. Maybe there’s a bullrider in the chute getting ready to take on a bull, and he’s taking a little too much time. I wear a microphone and my job is to jump in when there’s downtime and provide a little comic relief. During the bullriding itself, I’m the clown that gets inside of the clown barrel and I’m kind of like an island of safety. So whenever the bullrider gets thrown off the bull, bullfighters are out there saving the cowboy. They can use me inside the clown barrel as a place they can go for safety. Because they can let the bull hit the barrel instead of hitting them.
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Are you fully inside the barrel?
My barrel weighs about 75 lbs. It’s made out of aircraft aluminum. There’s a hole in the bottom and the top, so I can have my feet out the bottom and walk around with it. Whenever a bull comes, I ball up and get inside the barrel so the bull can’t get to me. Inside the barrel I have pads for my protection, and the outside I have about four inches of padding for the bull’s protection. If a bull hits a barrel that’s not padded, it might hurt its head. We don’t want the bull to feel like it hurts to hit the barrel. We want him to hit the barrel. We pad it so it’s fun for him.
Do you have a character?
Kinda. My clown name is “Backflip.” Character-wise, I go out there—I act like I’m dumb. And a lot of people think I’m way older than I am (I’m 38). My voice changes to a dumb, Southern voice.
Does the makeup rile up the bull?
No. The makeup is 100 percent for the crowd. Bulls see in black, white, and greys. They don’t see any colours. A lot of people think they go to red—they don’t. They go to movement more than anything. That’s why you see rodeo clowns wearing big, baggy clothing and bandanas and stuff, because the more movement we show them, the more likely they are to come to us than go to the cowboy.
What was the scariest moment for you?
I was at a Rodeo in Stanley, Wisconsin. This bull is big—about 2,000 lbs, had baseball bats on each side of him for horns, and he came at me full speed about 30 mph and hit my barrel. It knocked me out. When I came to, I remember opening my eyes and looking out the end of the barrel—because I’m down in the barrel and I could only look out one end. When I looked out that one end, the bull was on top of somebody. And the person was face down in the dirt. The bull was on top of him, just pawing him and sticking a horn in him and everything else. I tried to crawl outside of my barrel because I needed to help my friends. When I crawled outside of my barrel, that bull looked at me, and when it came after me I ran to the fence. But when I looked back out there, he really wasn’t on top of anybody. I had a fake dummy out there, that is made out of PVC pipe and I propped it up with a broom—like a scarecrow. The bull wasn’t hooking anybody—he was hooking that dummy. I pretty much crawled out of my barrel to save a piece of PVC pipe.
Was this something you always wanted to do?
Yeah. I remember going to a rodeo when I was a kid and I thought that the clown was cool. Then in about ’98 or ’99, I was in the Marines and I was stationed in South Carolina. And a rodeo came to our base. I was watching this short dumpy rodeo clown. He ran into the crowd—a bull chased him, and he jumped the fence, he ran to the top of the stands and jumped into this, she must have been about 25, this pretty lady’s lap. Her husband started taking pictures and laughing and giving him high fives. I was thinking—it was like one of those aha moments—-I’ll do that! You can jump in a pretty married lady’s lap and her husband will give you high fives for it? I’ll do that.
When I got out of the marines, I went to a practice tent [in Texas], which is where amateur guys can ride bulls to practice. So I started going to a local practice pen and everything started to get a little better, I started to get hired. I pretty much quit my job and I’ve been a rodeo clown for the last 14 years.
Any bulls scare you?
I’m not scared of a bull. I’m smarter than them, and I’m quicker than them. There’s no bulls that scare me. Some you might get worried about because you know he’s going to hit you, but all these bulls that we deal with in the PRCA are bulls that are bred especially for rodeo. They’ve been around the block. They know what they’re doing. We know what we’re doing. They like to play, we like to play. Some are meaner than others, some you can walk up and pet. We pretty much know the bulls. If one’s meaner we know that and are on our toes a little bit more.
Have you ever been injured as a rodeo clown?
One time I got my foot stepped on—it was pretty muddy in the rodeo arena and I wasn’t wearing any shoes. It stepped on my foot and that took about 25 stitches in my foot. He shattered it. I’ve broken my leg. I was jumping over a bull one time and he hit me in the legs and blew out both my knees, so I had to have surgery on both knees. I had a bull throw me up in the air one time and whenever I landed he stepped on my hand and I had to have two plates and ten screws in my left hand. The very next night the same bull got me again—I had a cast on my hand because I had had surgery that night, and I landed on that cast and broke all my ribs on my right side. A bull got me in Salt Lake City, Utah one time and it broke my neck. Other than that really, not too many injuries.
Is the pay good?
It depends. The rodeo clown will typically make quite a bit more than the bullfighters—supply and demand. To be a bullfighter you pretty much need a pair of cleats, maybe a bull-proof vest, and huge sack of balls. To be a rodeo clown, I have to wear a microphone, bring a barrel, have a comedy act, because the halftime show at the rodeo is up to the rodeo clown. I have a bus that I travel in, I pull a trailer, I have well over $150,000 worth of equipment going up and down the road. Whereas a bullfighter has maybe $200 worth of equipment and he can travel in a car. And there’s plenty of them out there. A lot of people don’t know a good bullfighter from a bad one. With a rodeo clown—since I’m wearing a microphone and tell jokes and stuff, you really know the good ones from the bad ones. It’s kind of like going to a comedy show, you can watch some hack off the corner, or you can watch Seinfeld.
What kinds of people are drawn to this line of work?
Most rodeo cowboys grew up in the business—their dad might have been a cowboy or they grew up on a ranch around horses. Most of the people that become bullfighters or rodeo clowns, a lot of times they may have grown up around livestock, but nowadays, there are people coming from all walks of life. You pretty much have to be a good athlete. We have bullfights in the US, not like in Spain where they kill the bull—these are American freestyle bullfights. It’s man against beast; we don’t kill ’em, we don’t hurt ’em. If anybody is getting hurt it’s usually us. It’s a 70 second competition, trying to get as close as you can to a bull. And these bulls are bred for fighting, so they’re trying to kill you, and you’re just trying to, you know, survive. With the athletic ability of kids these days, there’s kids doing backflips and front flips over these bulls—it’s amazing to watch. They’re paid $10,000 to win a bullfight these days. So there are kids from the city, kids that played football, that are starting to fight bulls, just because there’s so much money in it.
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