Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus: Be a Clown

May 5, 1987

1h 20m

★ 8.0

Life of a clown

Overview

Instructors from the Ringling Bros. Circus Clown College demonstrate juggling instruction, clown acts, special make-up techniques, costume design, and more tips used by some of the world's most famous clowns.

Genres

Documentary

Family

TV Movie

Production Companies

Family Home Entertainment (FHE)

Just Clownin' Around Productions

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus: Be a Clown Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Ruth Chaddock

Richard Fick

Lou Jacobs

Scott linker

Glen Frosty Little

Tammy Parish

Steve Russell

Joey Severini

Ron Severini

Steve Smith

Jeffrey Steele

Charles Strachan

Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

2.7

Carnival Magic

Mar 4, 1983

A magician in a carnival--who actually can read minds and levitate people and objects--works with a superintelligent chimp named Alex, who can also talk. The magician and the chimp soon become the stars of the carnival, drawing in big crowds. However, the wild-animal trainer, who has been displaced by the team as the carnival's top act, decides to kidnap Alex and sell him to a medical laboratory for experimentation, thereby getting rid of his competition.

7.1

Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man

May 5, 2000

A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.

6.8

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical

Nov 25, 2022

An extraordinary young girl discovers her superpower and summons the remarkable courage, against all odds, to help others change their stories, whilst also taking charge of her own destiny. Standing up for what's right, she's met with miraculous results.

5.4

The Circus: Premiere

Jan 13, 1928

Footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film 'The Circus'.

7.6

Cirque du Soleil: Quidam

Dec 26, 1999

A young girl has already seen everything there is to see and her world has lost all meaning. Her anger shatters her world and she finds herself in the universe of QUIDAM, where she is joined by a playful companion, as well as another mysterious character who attempts to seduce her with the marvelous, the unsettling and the terrifying.

7.4

Cirque du Soleil: Dralion

Aug 4, 2001

The Chinese consider the lion a symbol of good luck, so it's a half-dragon, half-lion – a dralion – that is the symbol of the East-meets-West fusion of this performance in which 36 Chinese acrobats join the renowned Canadian troupe. Celebrating the four elements as represented in four colours – blue (air), green (water), red (fire) and ochre (earth) – Dralion combines ancient Chinese circus traditions with Cirque du Soleil's usual stunning elements: the techno-oriented single ring; the multicoloured lights and costumes; the music that mixes rock, New Age and various world influences (though not Chinese); and the madcap clowns that pull a victim out of the audience.

7.7

Cirque du Soleil: Alegria

Nov 19, 2001

Alegría is a mood, a state of mind. The themes of the show, whose name means "jubilation" in Spanish, are many. Power and the handing down of power over time, the evolution from ancient monarchies to modern democracies, old age, youth - it is against this backdrop that the characters of Alegría play out their lives. Kings' fools, minstrels, beggars, old aristocrats and children make up its universe, along with the clowns, who alone are able to resist the passing of time and the social transformations that accompany it.

0.0

Mister Biscuit

Jan 1, 1999

Noel Mason's vaudevillian skills are appreciated by his younger audience, but he is not making enough money at the children's shows to pay his costs, his old car does not go very well, and he is dyslexic and unable to understand the contracts employers give him. The situation starts to look more hopeful when Noel answers a newspaper advertisement to join an entertainment agency.

5.8

Bogus

Sep 6, 1996

Recently orphaned, a young boy is taken in by his godmother who is shocked to realize that she can see the boy's imaginary friend: a flamboyant, French magician named Bogus.

2.1

Stargames

Jun 3, 1998

A young space prince on the run from an evil space villain, stranded on Earth and waiting for his grandfather the king to rescue him, befriends an Earth child named Brian and together they evade robots, bears, and triangles.

6.2

Red's Dream

Jul 10, 1987

Life as the sole sale item in the clearance corner of Eben's Bikes can get lonely. So Red, a unicycle, dreams up a clown owner and his own juggling act that steals the show. But all too soon, the applause turns into the sound of rainfall, as reality rushes back. Red must resign himself to sitting in the corner and await his fate.

7.0

Dumbo

Oct 31, 1941

Dumbo is a baby elephant born with over-sized ears and a supreme lack of confidence. But thanks to his even more diminutive buddy Timothy the Mouse, the pint-sized pachyderm learns to surmount all obstacles.

6.9

7 Faces of Dr. Lao

Mar 18, 1964

An old Chinese man rides into the town of Abalone, Arizona and changes it forever, as the citizens see themselves reflected in the mirror of Lao's mysterious circus of mythical beasts.

5.6

Air Bud

Aug 1, 1997

A lonely boy befriends a stray dog who has a natural talent for basketball and together they experience the highs and lows of life as their friendship remains solid through a series of escapades.

4.0

Whiteface

May 4, 2002

After a long time, a circus is back in the area of Tidal Basin and already the strange phantom has reappeared: the white clown! He robbed banks and stores without a system and disappeared without a trace. Lane and Higgins, together with the worn-out journalist Shapiro, hunt for the mysterious culprit in the dense London fog.

0.0

Mabel, Mabel Tiger Trainer

Apr 10, 2018

A story of the world's first female tiger trainer who claimed her love for her tigers was so great she wanted to die in the ring. Raised in poverty in Kentucky, Mabel Stark joined the circus in 1911 and became the first woman to train tigers, earning the center ring despite being told that women couldn't work the big cats. In a 57-year career, she headlined shows with Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey, survived multiple maulings and marriages, starred in Hollywood movies, and managed up to 20 cats by forming intimate relationships with each, rather than using the whip. Her life ended tragically just outside of Jungleland in Thousand Oaks, CA, and her legacy and the golden era of the American circus is recounted by former animal trailers, performers and historian Janet Davis, with Mabel's voice, from her memoir "Hold That Tiger", provided by Oscar ®-winner Melissa Leo.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus: Be a Clown

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus: Be a Clown Trailers