Beloved Clown Exonerated After Children’s Menu Extortion Plot

Disclaimer: This children’s menu extortion report is satire. The events, quotations, officials, organizations, and allegations described below were invented for comedic purposes and should not be (mis)interpreted as factual statements about this or any other novelty performer.

In a case that investigators described as “unusual but billable,” Nevada officials spent several days reviewing hundreds of children’s restaurant menus belonging to Bingo “Big Top” Frawley, 58.

Bingo, whose once orange hair has now gone gray, stars with the Ruggles & Sons Overland Circus. He is reportedly being extorted by a group calling itself the National Restaurant Ephemera Council, which claims to possess photographs of Bingo’s extensive collection of children’s restaurant menus and is threatening to release the photographs with Bingo in them, unless its ransom demands of $500,000 are met.

Bingo’s collection allegedly includes menus from scores of restaurants, among them Friendly’s, IHOP, Chick-fil-A, Mr. Steak, and several other places that no longer exist. Also included are crayons, connect-the-dots puzzles, and at least one completed maze found stashed at the bottom of an oversized prop trunk.

Bingo’s long-time personal assistant, Wesley Pritchard, 48, a theatrical property manager who always carries three kinds of tape, said there was an innocent explanation.

“Bingo actually collects children’s toys,” Pritchard said. “Plastic dinosaurs, windup robots, little cars. The menus probably got mixed in with the toys.”

According to Pritchard, negotiations with the National Restaurant Ephemera Council collapsed when it claimed that Bingo had circled the chicken fingers on several menus, using a fiery red-orange Crayola, and that he had completed an entire labyrinth without lifting his wax point off the page.

Nevada officials promptly closed the inquiry yesterday after determining that circling chicken fingers constitutes neither criminal activity nor intent.

In addition, Darlene Voss, 53, deputy director of the Nevada Office of Recreational Paper Products, pointed out that possessing children’s menus is not illegal.

“Adults are permitted to have them,” Voss said. “Even several. Even clowns who play pyramid-shaped venues. Besides, the chicken fingers were reasonably priced. Under the circumstances, most people would have circled them.”

Bingo was cleared of any menu-related wrongdoing, and he was allowed to keep the crayons.

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