In this study of professional clowns and fools in real life, which also includes an informative survey of the literature, a case history is presented. This man did not want to lose his joking through psychotherapy, as he rightly considered it to be his one successful adaptive defense. The paper, replete with quotations from Shakespeare, is more broadly based than the author's summarizing statement that it is focused upon one aspect of clowning, the identification with a father figure.