Photo by Marc Norberg:

This current series of posts to my blog, www.LloydBrant.com, tells the history of our EMERGENCY CLOWN NOSE®, as well as exploring the hopes and dreams for the future of our new venture, EMERGENCY RED NOSE® Productions.

I give my wife, Rosie Cole, full credit for being the one who dreamed up the original idea. Her flash of brilliance occurred around ten years ago after she had just woken up one morning. She was looking in the mirror while getting dressed when she casually suggested, “We should sell emergency clown noses.”   It felt to me like being struck by a bolt of lightening.

When Rosie moved to Minnesota in 1983 to begin performing with me, I quickly became aware of her uncanny ability of thinking up million-dollar ideas.  She grew-up outside New York City, and upon arriving in Minneapolis she took one look around and declaring, “The first person that opens a decent bagel shop in this town will make a million-dollars.” A short time later Bruegger’s Bagels opened their first bakery in the Twin Cities.

Over the years I’ve witnessed Rosie’s genius for coming-up with ideas that other entrepreneurs would later make a million-dollars doing.  When she first suggested selling emergency clown noses, I immediately said to her, “This is another one of your million-dollar ideas.” I had never been interested in baking bagels, but this idea struck a deep cord in my imagination.

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