Uh-oh. Freakout coming on

JADED Angelenos may think they’ve seen everything. And maybe they have, if they’ve been to the California Institute of Abnormalarts.

Stumble inside the North Hollywood CIA headquarters (can’t miss it, it’s the only place on the block with an enormous laughing clown painted on the gate), suspend your disbelief and brace yourself for a walk on the freaky side. On the way in, you can take a peek at the glass-encased corpse of a clown, or observe the Dead Fairy of Cornwall (the clown might be real; the fairy, not so much). And then, of course, there’s the mummified arm -- or whatever it is.

Or perhaps you’d like to see the haunted painting, though you’ll have to ask. Since it jumped off the wall and committed other acts the owners don’t care to mention, it’s been hidden.

On the main stage you might be able to catch a puppet minstrel performance, or a burlesque show, or a schlocky horror movie from the ‘60s.

And if you don’t mind eating near the stuffed carcass of a piglet-Chihuahua hybrid, you can grab a cheese pizza ($8) and a beer. Oh, and we hear the former mortician working behind the bar mixes a mean sour apple martini ($8) made with soju, a Korean liquor.

This is so not the Tropicana Bar.

And that’s just fine with co-owners Carl Crew and Robert Ferguson, who say they met 20 years ago in Marin County while working as, yes, morticians. When the avid collectors of circus memorabilia migrated south to Los Angeles, they had a brainstorm to compile their “gaffs” (circus props), sideshow banners and assorted other fun and creepy stuff into a museum-nightspot hybrid.

The CIA was initially used for location filming in the mid-’90s. (Ferguson has worked as a set painter, and Crew is probably best known for writing, producing and starring in the 1993 indie film “Jeffrey Dahmer: The Secret Life.”)

But the pair decided to shut down for several years to ready the place for its public debut. After opening their doors in 2001, not only do they now have a liquor license, they also proudly sport an A restaurant rating. Yeah, even with the apparent dead clown.

“He predates 1922, so he’s considered an antique,” Crew says, adding that the mercury- and arsenic-pickled body said to be that of Achile Chatouilleu shuffled off this mortal coil in 1912. For those interested in seeing the dearly departed, who is adorned in full clown makeup and a Shriners costume, they may want to stop in sooner rather than later. He’s a rental, and the lease is up. “His family has a mausoleum for him on their ranch near Yosemite, but they let him go on tour,” Crew says.

Other exhibits such as the Alligator Boy (which appears to be a mummy with an alligator head) and a leathery item touted as the withered arm of French nobleman Claude de Lorraine aren’t going anywhere, and there’s a steady stream of circus memorabilia being added all the time. Every corner of the building seems to house some bizarro artifact worthy of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” (which has featured the CIA on its show, of course).

In one corner there’s Senorita Pulpo, the Octopus Girl whose circus mythology included being kept alive in a seafood restaurant aquarium for several months before expiring; the severed head of Sasquatch; a tiny skull advertised as the head of the “world’s smallest Freemason”; and a bizarre, palm-sized skeleton of unknown origin that Crew claims a natural history museum offered him “big money” to buy.

Even if the bones are some exotic new find instead of a clever gaff, that’s hardly the point. The CIA’s real contribution is preserving a part of 20th century history -- the circus sideshow -- that’s slipped into obscurity. And that’s to say nothing of the rotating schedule of funhouse entertainment taking the main stage.

THOUGH a steady stream of standard-issue garage rock bands performs at the club, Crew and Ferguson make space for more unusual entertainment as well, such as performance art (Shaye Saint John, who is supposedly a disfigured model but is more likely a puppet), cabaret (Lenora Claire’s “Apocalipstick”) and puppet shows (“Rasputin’s Minstrels Marionette Spectacle”).

Those looking for retro so-bad-it’s-good entertainment can show up for Fright Night on the second Friday of each month. On Nov. 11, a double bill of Roger Corman fare -- “The Wasp Woman” and “Swamp Women” -- will screen. They’re probably best viewed after a couple of those sour apple martinis.

We’re sure even Achile Chatouilleu will be laughing.

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CIA

Where: 11334 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood

When: Doors open at 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Price: $10

Info: (818) 506-6353, www.ciabnormalarts.com