If you're seriously thinking of getting shot out of a cannon, you really need to go to the Funny Farm.
We're not talking about a mental hospital. We're talking about Bello Nock's school in Sarasota, Fla., for wannabe daredevils, stuntmen, pro wrestlers and acrobats.
"Few people will teach you how to get shot out of a cannon, and even fewer people will design the actual cannon. But I will do both," says the 46-year-old "power clown," as the Wall Street Journal calls him.
Over the past 30 years, Bello has ridden a six-inch bicycle across the tight walk of international stardom. He's the first clown to headline a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey tour. He set a Guinness World Record for walking a tight rope at sea. And he has dangled by one foot from a trapeze, beneath a helicopter, hundreds of feet above the Statue of Liberty, with his 1-foot-high hairdo flapping in the breeze.
He's now starring in "Bello Mania" at New York City's famed New Victory Theater, and his daughter is currently training to perform with him.
"My daughter is carrying on the tradition," Bello says. "She's one of three kids, and she's chosen the spotlight. It is wonderful to carry on a family tradition."
WATCH: BELLO HANGS FROM A HELICOPTER
With the New York show in its final week, Bello is preparing to return to the Funny Farm, now a 16-acre training ground for the circus stars of tomorrow.
"People call me. They say, 'Hey, can you build a human cannon ball? I want to fly 150 feet in the air!' And I say, 'Of course.'"
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