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Clowns are supposed to be happy, always-smiling comedians. Their main goal in life is to make everyone happy through laughter. But some of TV’s most memorable clowns have proven that clowns are not as simple as they initially seem to be. Some can be grouchy, while others can be evil. Some are even murderous, while others just want to educate others.
The best clowns on TV are those who have a full life behind the big, fat red nose, comedic wig and hat, and extra-large bowtie. After all, if a clown can’t make their audience think, then they, by definition, are not a clown, for the purpose of a clown is to mask life’s complexities behind some simple gags and jokes.
Homey D. Clown (In Living Color)
Contrary to popular belief, not all clowns are happy entertainers who love to put a smile on people’s faces. Homey D. Clown is one such clown. A misanthrope with a distaste for “the man,” Homey hates corporate work culture. He has rebelled against it by beating up people who tell him he is too different, and by refusing to bow to “the man.”
Forced to work as a clown as part of his parole, Homey resents children asking him to degrade himself so they can get “a couple of cheap laughs,” so he throws pies in their faces, and knocks the birthday hats off their head. He teaches “the man” and the kids both that “Homey don’t play that.”
Krusty The Clown (The Simpsons)
Krusty the Clown is not only the worst clown ever, but he is also the worst TV entertainer ever. Krusty is a very apathetic and morally corrupt clown, who overspends, treats people badly and refuses to acknowledge the children he has fathered.
He wastes so much money that he once used a set of expensive pearls to light his cigar. Krusty was created to show the problems of the entertainment industry in the 20th-century, where stars were almost always forgiven, no matter how badly they behaved.
Pennywise The Dancing Clown (It – Minseries)
The first adaptation of Stephen King’s highly-acclaimed novel of the same name, It introduced the world to the terror that is Pennywise. Clowns are supposed to be funny, lively and joyful – they represent life. In Stephen King’s It, Pennywise brings out the fear that people often have of clowns and turns it into something completely distorted.
Pennywise is an alien creature whose real form is not known, but it adopted the form of a clown to lull the people of Derry into a false sense of security. Unfortunately for the children, Pennywise is hell-bent on terrorizing them before he finally feeds on them.
Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy)
In a madcap scheme, Lucy pretends to be a clown, “The Professor,” to fill in for Boffo the Clown, who injured himself during rehearsals. Boffo had been rehearsing with Ricky for a television show audition, and without his bit, the live audition is lacking the final comedic aspect. Ricky believes that Boffo is not going to show up, and resigns himself to ending the audition when Lucille arrives as The Professor, to audition as a cello player.
The Professor is not a very good musician, so her cello becomes a prop for Lucille’s slapstick gags, including inflicting pain on Ricky, and using a plunger as a stand for her cello.
Mr. Tumble (Something Special)
Mr. Tumble is a clown from the U.K. TV show Something Special, who helps children with learning disabilities and difficulties learn how to communicate. Mr. Tumble uses Makaton signs and symbols, a special form of sign language, to teach children how to communicate. At the same time, he sounds out words to also teach vocal communication.
Mr. Tumble lives his daily life, doing everyday things like the laundry or baking. This helps preschool children to learn more about their own daily lives, and how to communicate the everyday things around them. Mr. Tumble also has his family of clowns who sometimes visit him on the show.
Benny The Clown (The Benny Hill Show)
A recurring character on The Benny Hill Show, Benny The Clown is known for his white hat and plaid jacket. He is also known for having a distinctive animal sidekick: a turtle. In one particularly surreal moment, Benny The Clown does a striptease which begins with him taking off his clothes, only for Benny to also take off his skin, then his bones, finally ending up with only his spirit.
Benny The Clown gets into a lot of social faux pas because he is free-spirited and does not understand the rules of upper-class society.
Sideshow Bob (The Simpsons)
Sideshow Bob holds the record for the only clown in TV history to ever be imprisoned for framing someone. He is also the only clown to ever attempt to murder children, not once, not twice, but numerous times, making him the only clown to be imprisoned for the attempted murder of minors more than once.
Sideshow Bob is best remembered as an intellectual psychopath who blamed the boy who solved the mystery of his crime, but took no blame for the actual crimes that he committed.
Homer Simpson (The Simpsons)
Homer Simpson decided to enroll in Clown College after seeing a billboard advertisement. Unsurprisingly, he is bad at clown college, almost killing the wealthy dowager with the pie toss, and accidentally flashing everyone when doing the tiny bicycle trick.
Simpsons’ writers had originally intended to reveal Homer to be secretly Krusty The Clown, but later changed this storyline, believing the plot to be too convoluted. Moonlighting as Krusty the Clown, Homer begins to demand free stuff at Springfield’s businesses, until the Italian mafia get a hold of him.
Bobby Hill (King Of The Hill)
Bobby Hill wants to pursue prop comedy as a career. In the meantime, he pursues different avenues of comedy and studies the masters of comedy to hone his craft. Wanting to find him an outlet for his pranks, Hank enrolls his son in clown college. There, Bobby meets self-important Professor Twilley, who teaches Bobby that comedy can be studied quantifiably, like a science. He is almost successful in stripping Bobby of his natural exuberance and comedic charm, but Bobby soon discovers how to be a funny clown on his own merit.
In an earlier season, Bobby also worked as a rodeo clown where, despite being mocked and rejected, he used his comedic skills to save his best friend, Joseph, from an angry bull.
JoJo Tickle (JoJo’s Circus)
Television’s youngest clown, JoJo is a six-year-old clown-in-training. She studies at the Circus School with her pet lion, Goliath. JoJo loves to learn, and she spends the end of each episode teaching her young audiences what she learned that day.
Unlike clowns like Krusty and Homey D. Clown, JoJo has a passion for clownery, and she loves to entertain people with her skills. She is still young at heart, like Bobby Hill, so she is not jaded with the prospect of becoming a clown in adulthood, but instead embraces it whole-heartedly.