SEASIDE HEIGHTS — On a hauntingly quiet weekday morning in Seaside Heights, the whimsy of beach season seems light years away.

The carnivalesque bustle of the boardwalk has given way to sullen determination. Now that the summer vacationers are gone, the serious work of rebuilding the fire and flood-savaged borough has resumed in earnest.

Bulldozers push sand where candy-colored rides once whirled and the only music echoing from street to street is the percussive sound of contractors swinging hammers on the roofs of homes and businesses under construction.

And yet, amid this landscape of heavy equipment and shuttered concessions, there’s a flash of the fantastical. A woman with neon blue hair and a glittering cape pilots a bicycle down Grant Ave., gleefully looping her way towards the Aztec Ocean Resort.

The boardwalk hotel is the main venue for Clownfest, an annual gathering of comic entertainers that's been a beloved Seaside Heights institution for decades. Silly people from all over the country began arriving at the Aztec on Tuesday but they've been hidden away in hotel rooms, banquet halls and community centers, rehearsing

their shtick for a madcap weekend of free performances around town.

It’s a pure coincidence that Clownfest 2014 overlaps with the one-year anniversary of the boardwalk fire. Seaside Heights mayor, Bill Akers said he hopes pratfalls, pie fights and kazoo concerts will lift spirits and boost business during a painful weekend for the borough.

“People can come and sit with a child up on their shoulders and they can be giggling and laughing and thinking of nothing except the funny things that are going on in front of them,” said Akers. “We’ve licked our wounds and we’re moving forward.”

In enduringly kitschy Seaside Heights, phantasmagoric face paint and random acts of slapstick represent a return to normalcy.

The circus fun culminates with a boardwalk parade on Sunday, featuring hundreds of jokesters strutting in oversized shoes for smiles. Crowds typically top 10,000 spectators.

Last year, Clownfest was held in Pennsylvania instead of Seaside Heights, due to concerns about Hurricane Sandy damage. Akers said he was disappointed when he learned that the convention was relocating because it draws hoards of tourists during the off-season.

The mayor eventually made peace with event organizer Vincent Pagliano, who pledged to bring the event back to Seaside in 2014. Pagliano, aka Vappo the Clown, demonstrated his devotion to the borough by wearing a yellow suit and full makeup to meet with Akers and declare the move out of state was temporary.

“I realize Clownfest is important to Seaside,” said Pagliano. “I’m not operating with tunnel vision. I know what’s going on. My wife told me at the beginning of the year that this is going to be the best Clownfest ever. Everybody needs clowns right now.”

Greg Kohr, president of Kohr’s Frozen Custard, said that the spectacle is bound to help people forget the fire and lose themselves in a world of lighthearted entertainment.

The blaze started near one of his stands in Seaside Park, sparked by damaged wiring, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s office. There are three remaining Kohr’s locations in Seaside Heights, including one that’s two blocks from the Aztec.

“I love to have families here and Clownfest is for families,” said Kohr. “If we could just have all families in Seaside, to me that would be great. I like to see the see the kids’ faces light up when they are eating ice cream and the parents are happy and the kids are happy. Having events like this brings people in and lets them know, if they haven’t been here yet, we are definitely open.”

Parade spectators as well as visiting clowns patronize the restaurants and shops, according to Michael Graichen, program coordinator for special events in the borough.

“What’s cute about it is that as soon as they’re here they dress up and you have clowns going into restaurants and you have clowns walking the boardwalk at night,” said Graichen, owner of Lucky’s Arcade & Pizza. “I’d have clowns coming in to play skee-ball at the arcade. They talk to the kids and all of the sudden spontaneously they start juggling.”

Joe Barney, a professional funnyman called Doc Geezer, said he was thrilled to be back in Seaside for the first time after Sandy, although it’s bittersweet seeing so many landmarks missing. He attends other conventions nationwide but the Jersey Shore is his favorite clown stomping ground.

“When Sandy hit, it felt like a part of our family was lost but it’s amazing the way they’ve picked themselves up and dusted themselves off after the storm and after the fire,” said Barney, 55, of Bridgeport, Conn. “The spirit of this community, it’s like the clown spirit. ‘The show must go on.’ We were here for Clownfest on Sept. 11 and there was a discussion of not having the parade but we did it because the show must go on. I’ll never forget marching down the boardwalk and the tears pouring down the clowns’ faces. We did it because we’re here to make people feel better and forget about the real world.”

Barney works as a team with Leo Desilets, aka, Dapper. They started out as the Bo Zo brothers. Barney was Bo and Desilets was Zo. Barney plays the straight man and Desilets is his hapless foil.

“There’s a joke, what do you call a clown with half a brain? Gifted. And I’m not gifted,” Desilets quipped.

Desilets, a purist, remains in character as long as he is in costume. When he stops at gas stations between gigs, he amuses the attendants by pretending to start the car from the back seat. He’ll even get out and open the trunk in search of his lost steering wheel. Desilets attended Clownfest last year, when it was held at a convention hotel in Lancaster.

“It was a pretty stale environment,” said Desilets, 63, of Shelton, Connecticut. “It didn’t have the flavor of Seaside but we had to keep Clownfest going. If we didn’t hold it last year, it would have put doubts in people’s minds about the future of the event.”

Barney's daughter, Aileen is one of the up and coming teen clowns who take classes at the convention to hone their comic chops and evolve as humorists. She calls herself Beanz, a tribute to Mr. Bean, a wordless, accident-prone character created by British performer Rowan Atkinson.

"When you make other people happy, you get it back and you're happy too," said Barney, 15. "A lot of kids think clowns are scary but that's just because of the book, 'It' and all the horror movies about clowns. Clowns aren't out to get you. We're here to be funny and crazy and make people laugh."

Although most of the clowns around town on Thursday weren’t in costume, there were signs of the silliness on tap for the weekend. Parked outside the Aztec was a yellow polka dot golf cart adorned with a sticker, “Smile, God loves you.” Cars from different states were corralled around the motel, including a comically small vehicle that had West Virginia vanity plates, “Gabby Gal.”

In one of the vendor rooms, a retired Ringling Bros. clown, Leon “Buttons” McBryde stood behind a table lined with red noses and containers of kaleidoscope face paint.

“A lot of people are back to support Seaside Heights and there’s a certain tugging of the heartstrings,” said McBryde. “This town is going through a healing process and I think when people see the clowns back here, they’re going to remember the good times. Clowns serve two purposes: to bring back good memories and to get people excited for the future.”

Akers said he hopes Clownfest will remain a Seaside staple for years to come. While redevelopment of the fire zone may bring high-end retail and sleek new restaurants to the boardwalk, Akers said he wants to preserve the character of the borough and keep the clowns coming back.

“I would hope that as long as there’s clowns and as long as they want to do the event, Seaside Heights is the home of the Clownfest,” said Akers.

On Thursday morning, a new generation of clowns attended a class in how to amuse youngsters without overwhelming them on parade day. The instructor, Trish Manuel, aka Pricilla Mooseburger, explained that props are a must and puppets are great icebreakers. Manuel said she has a rubber chicken named Gladys that is glammed up with lipstick, a doll skirt and pink toenails.

“I tell people that I took Gladys to the salon,” Manuel told the class. “I’ll bring Gladys to Red Rooster Days, a barbecue event where they serve lots of chicken. It’s all about how ridiculous can it be.”

Manuel asked the members of the class what they use as props. One student said she has a stroller with a baby clown doll inside while another said she carries a male puppet named French Fry that she describes as her boyfriend. Another clown said she gives out stickers. In a clever twist, she offers kids a choice of the actual sticker or the white paper it’s glued to.

“I say the paper has an invisible sticker and most of the kids want the invisible sticker,” the student said with a smile. “They want the white paper.”

One clown said his prop is a water bottle.

“I go, ‘Knock knock,’” the clown explained. “They say, ‘Who’s there?’ I say, “John.’ They say, ‘John who?’ And then I throw water at them.”

Manuel cautioned him to be careful.

FOLLOW THE STAR-LEDGER: TWITTER • FACEBOOK • GOOGLE+