Theft of Props Leaves Clown in a Big Frown : Crime: Robert Zraick of the L.A. Circus thinks someone took his satchel with the tools--and tricks--of his trade after a show.

By HENRY CHU

June 14, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It may have been a case of thieves making a goof, but it’s keeping Robert Zraick from being one.

Zraick, a professional clown for the L.A. Circus who lives in North Hollywood, thinks his big black satchel containing nine noses, some wigs, a few horns, custom-made shoes and an exploding violin was stolen Saturday after a show sponsored by the city in a downtown park.

“Whoever’s got it, it can be of no use to them. It really doesn’t have any value to anyone but me,” Zraick, 46, said Sunday after filing a police report.

He appealed to the thieves to turn in the props, so that the circus can continue to send in the clowns.

Zraick, who has dressed for excess in a red nose and wig for three decades, discovered the loss Sunday morning as he was about to get ready for a gig at a beer-brewing company’s corporate picnic.

“I was like a maniac. I was running around pulling my hair out--for real,” said Zraick, known as Barnaby in his clown attire.

Although Zraick acknowledges the possibility that he misplaced the bag Saturday afternoon, he said he is usually meticulous about keeping tabs on the tools--and tricks--of his trade.

Take the “exploding violin,” which Zraick outfitted with a little device to emit puffs of smoke on cue. The explosion caps the final musical number he and his two colleagues perform with the L.A. Circus.

“I just called up the boss clown and told him of the loss, and he said, ‘Well, we’ll have to figure something out,’ ” Zraick sighed.

Then there’s the horn that hits just the right note for laughs, the derbys that have just the right “weight and feel” for Zraick to wear and toss around, and especially the shoes, custom-made in Florida and stuffed with horse hair, as classic clown shoes are supposed to be. “I come from the old school,” he said. “I don’t use anything that’s not custom-made.”

The right shoe has two rubber toes sticking out of it, which enables Zraick to pull a balloon from between the fake toes in a routine that always earns a chuckle. The shoes even spawned a laugh in absentia Sunday as a harried Zraick tried to describe his loss to a sympathetic policewoman.

“She was trying to be very serious. But she was laughing so hard by the end of it,” said Zraick.

Until the stuff is recovered, he said, he’s at a loss. Without his props, which Zraick valued at between $800 and $1,000, he will have to come up with new routines or try hard to find replacements.

In “a bad mood,” he was barely able to perform for Sunday’s company picnic in a spare wig, a borrowed hat and the last of his self-made noses.

“I just kinda squeaked by,” he said.