Friendly Entertainment & Promotion Company had its beginning in 1979, when engineer John Quarterly first arrived in Canada and started doing volunteer work for the Canadian Opera Company, as a clown at Toronto's Harbourfront, while adding magic and juggling to routines that developed into The Amazing Dickens, an original and successful magic, mindreading, and clown act, later followed by Friendly the Clown, who specializes in performing for children's parties, parties for grownups, and walkabouts for corporate and retail events.