Calico the Food Circus Clown: Evil, Mischievous or Misunderstood?

Middletown is a municipal name shared by several states, not solely New Jersey. In those other Middletowns there are the standard police stations, schools, medical offices, even Dunkin Donuts … There may also be recognized department stores, diners and gas stations that still dispense air for free. But only the Jersey Middletown has Calico, the Food Circus Clown.

Though, the average person might not know the tall grocery store mascot, that hugs the edge of Route 35 right in the middle of the township, as Calico. The Food Circus store that used to anchor the site is long gone, transformed into the Foodtown chain and transplanted into 10 other area locations bearing a secondary Food Circus corporate subtitle that is also affixed to some company-coined grocery products.

Now the lot that is still home to Calico is and has been for some time home to the Foodtown owners' Spirits Unlimited. The once-obvious correlation of the character to the site no longer applies.

This makes it much easier to study the cartoon design of Calico: the oddly stern look on the face, the finger extended in almost an “oh-no-you-don’t” wag. There’s little surprise that the sign has been redubbed “The evil clown of Middletown” by popular culture.

The Food Circus grocery chain was started by now deceased former Republican Assemblyman Joseph Azzolina in 1955. The sign was installed in ‘56. January marked the 55th anniversary of the installation.

Azzolina's son, Joseph Azzolina Jr., said the sign will undergo renovation soon. “In the spring, the sign will be repainted and repaired,” he said. The once-bold primary colors on the sign have faded considerably, and corrosion due to the elements and bird excrement will be cleaned and repaired. “It’s a cool and unique icon,” Azzolina Jr. added.

The sign has a locally-famous relative as well, in the form of Tillie, the strange smiling face that adorned Asbury Park’s Palace Amusements arcade. The Tillie face has been, over many years, re-appropriated throughout the shore community and shares distinctive creepiness in its designs, affording credence to its lineage with the clown. That's because both icons' designs, said Azzolina Jr., came about their signature evil appeals via the artwork of Leslie W. Thomas of the Road Ad Sign Company.

Doug Kirby, the publisher of Roadside America, has specific memories of Calico. “For 20 years my wife and I lived about a mile from the clown in Middletown (I moved to California in 2008)," he said. "As a kid growing up in Monmouth County, I remember the motor still working to rotate the Food Circus supermarket sign (the clown). In the early 1990s, we started referring to it as (the) Evil Clown. The sly expression, the red index finger — it was a strange character, unique in Roadside America. I made a 3D computer model of it in 1995 to animate and see it spin again!”

Kirby continued, explaining the correlation with clowns in advertising. “Clown imagery has always been popular at shore attractions and boardwalks, whether it was Coney Island, Asbury Park, or Atlantic City (which featured a huge, Tillie-like face on one of the pier amusements)," he said. "The nearest psychotic kin to Middletown's evil clown (Calico) is probably the Circus Drive-In clown sign in Wall, which still exists.”

There has been a love/hate relationship between the township and the Calico sign for many decades, with a number of people disapproving of the clown's slightly unsavory expression. Still, a large portion of Middletown and area residents have found a warm spot in and for the imagery and see it as an unofficial Welcome to Middletown sign.

Kirby recounted a period when it seemed almost a certainty that Calico the evil clown was going down. “When the big town square (town center) project was announced (by the Azzolina family) in 2001, our first neighborly concern wasn't increased traffic or quality-of-life issues — it was the safety and well-being of Middletown's unofficial mascot," he said. "American towns usually proceed down one of two paths with redevelopment — destroying an 'embarrassing' symbol of the old ways, or embracing and celebrating that symbol as part of a new identity. At the time, we didn't know whether the clown would survive  (the town center planned for the site), so on RoadsideAmerica.com we suggested starting a 'Save the Evil Clown' grassroots movement.

"The guys at Weird NJ came down one day and joined us for pictures at the clown, but that was about the extent of us taking it to the streets. When we visited the (town center) scale model and saw the tiny clown sign miniature attached to a building, it seemed to indicate someone wanted to keep him around.”

The question most asked in regard to the clown, aside from whether it is “evil” or not, is whether it is art or not. Without the Food Circus logo being front-and-center in the parking lot, the clown motif seems without a necessary connection.

Yet there is something very pop-art people have seen in the sign, even if it is not exactly in the Andy Warhol/Roy Lichtenstein wheelhouse. The commerciality of the image with the bold colors seems to clash with that snearing facial expression. The school teacher look of disapproval is seemingly at odds with the aim of any piece of advertisement: to make the consumer feel good about buying the product.

Yet, no one really knows what the artist was thinking when he designed it. Leslie Thomas died in 2003 at the age of 90, and so it is too late to ask if he had any such intent of subversion in mind when he painted Calico: but it has, nonetheless, proven fun for many to think he did. “Art” in itself is a notion without strict guidelines, so if a piece is art simply because the viewer deems it to be so, then the “evil clown of Middletown” is, indeed, art.

Kirby is pleased that, in the face of changing public tastes, the rise and fall of economic fortunes, and the harsh reactions of time and nature, “Calico” remains standing tall. “It's nice to see that Middletown's clown has survived," he said. "We have it mapped in our Roadside America iphone app and our GPS software. It is an important piece of 20th century sign art, and Middletown should preserve it for future generations to puzzle over.”