Julian The Janitor

"If you see a mouse, and you look at it like you wanna hit it with a broom or you’re scared it has diseases, it’ll just run away from you!  But if you love it, and you keep really still, it’ll come right up to you.  How else are you gonna find out if a mouse can tap-dance?"

Julian is a janitor employed at the Eiffel tower. He is responsible for mopping floors and maintaining general order, but instead spends most of his time daydreaming. Despite his lack of work ethic, he is a skilled climber, and needs no equipment to scale the tower. He lives in a Janitor closet with no electricity.

Background
Where he grew up has only been described as a train ride away from Paris. The first ten years of his life were spent with his step father who forced him to work most of the time. One day while cleaning he found tapes of his father performing on the radio, which sparked his dream becoming a radio personality himself. Whenever he was caught pretending to host a show rather than cleaning, his step father would physically abuse him, once hitting Julian's ear so hard that is caused him to bleed. Though he resented most of the abuse, Julian realized that because of the ringing his ear injury caused, he was able to incorporate it into his imaginary radio show: the Floating Bells of Toulouse. This sudden connection allowed Julian to use his "show" as a coping mechanism in the face of abuse. Comforted by the company of his imaginary audience, Julian worked up the courage to finally run away from home.

At ten years old he hopped on a train and woke up in Paris. He decided to seek the care of his great-grandfather, a famed hypnotist. Upon arriving in Paris he found posters for his great-grandfather's act plastered everywhere, and was quickly able to locate him. His great-grandfather took care of him for the rest of his childhood, though he was ill-equipped to raise a child. He did not send Julian to school, used hypnotism to put him to sleep, and occasionally forgot to feed him. Despite his shortcomings as a guardian, he still cared for Julian and would put on shows for him involving shadow manipulation and making shapes out of smoke.

As an adult Julian works as a janitor for the Eiffel tower, living in a closet. He often interrupts the the broad cast of The Orbiting Human Circus (of the air) causing a great deal of strife while simultaneously being responsible for some of their best acts like The Cricket and Singing Saws.

Appearance
He is described as being small in stature, and is the only character besides Coco to have a canonical semi-image. On the cover image for season one he is wearing a pommed slouch hat, and is shown to have dark hair. In the cover image for “Naughty Till New Years” he is shown to have fair skin, and is wearing a royal blue suit and yellow shirt, and his hat is also that similar shade of blue.

Personality
Julian is soft spoken and deeply empathetic. Despite his hesitant speech pattern, Julian seems only to fear upsetting or disappointing other people. Once he gets an idea, (often involving getting on the show), he is determined to carry it out, despite The Narrator's protests. The one thing he can't commit to is leaving the show be and not interfering in someway due to his longing to be on his own show and his admiration of it.

When not watching directly, he scales the tower and listens to broadcasts by pressing his ear against the metal girders. He is a skilled climber, and recalls often climbing to high places as a child to escape his step father. His experiences from childhood have taught him to seek heights to comfort anxiety and fear.

Julian sees the best in everyone. Even when he is mistreated by the cast, he never faults them on it, and continues to respect them unconditionally. He states that the key to finding the acts for the show is to love them with no disgust or scorn, whatever they may be.

Trivia

 * His first crush worked as a polar bear, dressing up to preform with real polar bears.
 * He is not straight.
 * Due to being around his crush’s workplace, Julian has the ability to tame polar bears.
 * The singing saws are from his closet.
 * He has a small aluminum row boat he found. It exists both in his fantasies and in real life.
 * Although he is not employed by the radio station or circus he is either responsible or takes responsibility for cleaning out the animal cages.
 * He has been singing from a young age and sung at some of his great-grandfather's parties.