MICHAEL & SACHA COCO: Billy Smart's Circus Hospital Show (1955)

HOSPITAL CIRCUS

Many thanks to Hazel and Michelle Polakovs for confirmation!

KARANDASH: Idols (2011)

CESLEE CONKLING (December 6, 1965 - January 13, 1994)

Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others? That’s who we are! We’re not who we say we are, we’re not who we want to be — we are the sum of the influence and impact that we have, in our lives, on others.

 - Neil deGrasse Tyson on Carl Sagan

KARANDASH: Statue Entree

YURI NIKULIN: Idols (2005)

ARIANE MNOUCHKINE: "Clowns" (1970)

Courtesy of John Towsen and Drew Richardson

ACHILLE ZAVATTA: Christmas Eve (November 12, 1966)

JAMES THIEREE: Television News (May 26, 2005)

THE BARIOS: Car Entree (January 2, 1966)

FOOTIT & CHOCOLAT: Il Etait Une Fois Le Cirque (1983)

GROCK: Il Etait Une Fois Le Cirque (1983)

A SIMPLE TRUISM

Hearing "I hate clowns" invariably tells me more about the speaker than it says about the art form being denigrated.

THE FRATELLINIS: Il Etait Une Fois Le Cirque (1983)

THE SALVADORIS: Hollywood Palace (January 4, 1964)

Courtesy of Raffaele de Ritis

First aired fifty years ago today on the very first episode of Hollywood Palace...

JERRY LEWIS: The Day the Clown Cried (Behind the Scenes Footage & Interviews)

IT'S HARD WORK TO MAKE YOU LAUGH: By Cy La Tour (The Rotarian Magazine, August 1949)

DEL IVAN JANIK: The American Circus Clown 1785-Present

EARL SHIPLEY: Sees Decline of Clowning Art; Few Newcomers Fill Ranks (Billboard November 29, 1952)

CONCERNING CLOWNS: By Wyndham Martyn, Pearson's Magazine (July 1916)

AL MIACO: "The Greatest Living Clown (1880s)

Al Miaco on Ringling in 1915

Al Miaco billed as "The Greatest Living Clown" by Tony Denier in his production "Humpty Dumpty". Miaco followed Denier and George H. Adams in the title role as clown in one of the most popular, successful and critically acclaimed touring productions of "Humpty Dumpty" of the time.