History Main / CircusEpisode

* ''Film/{{Octopussy}}'' has one of its climactic scenes take place at a circus, complete with James Bond disguised as a clown as he tries to locate and shut down a nuclear bomb. The film also opened with a clown-disguised 009 being murdered by the circus’s knife-throwers.

* ''Film/Octopussy'' has one of its climactic scenes take place at a circus, complete with James Bond disguised as a clown as he tries to locate and shut down a nuclear bomb. The film also opened with a clown-disguised 009 being murdered by the circus’s knife-throwers.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld'' episode, "Send in the Clown", King Koopa stages the Koopaling Bros. Circus, and invites the cavepeople to see it for free. Mario, suspecting it may be a trap, travels to Koopa's neon castle to see the circus for himself. After a performance from Koopa's mooks, it is revealed that the circus is indeed a trap, and Koopa captures Mario, his friends, and the cavepeople. With help from Princess Toadstool, Mario escapes and battles Koopa's mooks, leading to a battle with Koopa himself, reminiscent of the final battle from [[VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld the game the show is based on]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': "I'm Mad" combines this with RoadTripPlot. Dr. Scratchensniff takes the Warners on a long car trip, only to struggle greatly because the Warners are fighting and arguing like bratty little kids the whole way. When they reach their destination, which turns out to be a circus, the Warners finally stop fighting and brighten up. We then skip to the end of the day, with the Warners and Dr. Scratchensniff returning to the car, and the Warners talk about how much they enjoyed their time at the circus. But then, the moment they start to drive away, [[HereWeGoAgain the Warners start fighting again]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'':

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': In "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAppasLostDays Appa's Lost Days]]", we follow Appa from his capture by bandits to him being caught by Long Feng. This story include time spent in a ManagerieOfMisery.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BettyBoop'' short "Boop-Oop-a-Doop", Betty and her friends are working at a circus, with Betty as one of the star performers.

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'': The third episode, "Turn About Bigtop", is about a murder at the Berry Big Circus.

* ''WesternAnimation/WesternAnimation'': in "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderAppasLostDays Appa's Lost Days]]", we follow Appa from his capture by bandits to him being caught by Long Feng. This story include time spent in a ManagerieOfMisery.

* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'': The episode "Elastico" has Stitch finding one of his cousins being part of a circus. After chasing after said cousin, the circus notices how indestructible Stitch is and offers Stitch to join them under the name "Indestructirado". For a moment, Stitch agrees to join and signs a contract due to Lilo ignoring him for the majority of the episode. Once he and Lilo make amends though, he has regrets over signing only to be pointed out by the ringleader that because Stitch used the name Lilo gave him instead of the name they gave him that the contract is null and void, allowing Stitch to return to Lilo.

** Other Warner cartoons set in a circus include "I Love a Parade" (1932), "Circus Today" (1940), "Tweety's Circus" (1955) and "Three-Ring Wing Ding" (1968, with Cool Cat and Col. Rimfire).

* Many Franchise/MarvelUniverse comics have featured utility villains the Circus of Crime. The Ringmaster has a hypnotic device in his top hat that knocks audiences out so that they can be robbed, and all the acts are criminals who use their talents to steal and to fight heroes. They are one of Marvel's oldest villain teams, being first introduced in the Golden Age ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' series before a new generation Silver Age version of the team was introduced in the short-lived original ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'' series. Unfortunately, like a number of Silver Age villains with child-friendly gimmicks that look silly today, they're mostly jobbers now.

* Many Franchise/MarvelUniverse comics have featured utility villains the Circus of Crime. The Ringmaster has a hypnotic device in his top hat that knocks audiences out so that they can be robbed, and all the acts are criminals who use their talents to steal and to fight heroes. They are one of Marvel's oldest villain teams, being first introduced in the short-lived original ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'' series. Unfortunately, like a number of Silver Age villains with child-friendly gimmicks that look silly today, they're mostly jobbers now.

* Many ComicBook/MarvelUniverse works have featured utility villains the Circus of Crime. The Ringmaster has a hypnotic device in his top hat that knocks audiences out so that they can be robbed, and all the acts are criminals who use their talents to steal and to fight heroes. They are one of Marvel's oldest villain teams, being first introduced in the short-lived original ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'' series. Unfortunately, like a number of Silver Age villains with child-friendly gimmicks that look silly today, they're mostly jobbers now.

* ''Machinima/Supermarioglitchy4sSuperMario64Bloopers'': In "Mario joins the Circus'', Mario gets kicked out of Peach's castle because everyone is fed up with him, so he joins a circus owned by Waluigi and takes on different, menial jobs, such as cleaning up gorilla poop and taking care of the clowns, who are so hungry for affection that they need to be hugged every two minutes.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleRascals'' episode "Big Top Rascals", the kids are denied entry to a traveling circus because they don't have any money to buy tickets. So they put on their own circus, charging the neighborhood kids 10 cents each, but Butch and Woim take unfair advantage of their free admission.

** Other Warner cartoons set in a circus include "I Love A Parade" (1932), "Circus Today" (1940), "Tweety's Circus" (1955) and "Three-Ring Wing Ding" (1968, with Cool Cat and Col. Rimfire).

* Music/TheRollingStones' 1968 TV special, ''Film/TheRollingStonesRockAndRollCircus'', was a live show set on a circus stage, which featured performances by the likes of Music/JethroTull, Music/TheWho, and Music/JohnLennon, who performed Music/TheBeatles song "Yer Blues" with the "Dirty Mac", a {{Supergroup}} comprised of himself, Music/EricClapton, Music/KeithRichards, and [[Music/JimiHendrix Mitch Mitchell]], with the Stones as the closing act playing songs from their then-latest album ''Music/BeggarsBanquet''. It wasn't publicly released till 1996, with some speculating that it was due to [[OvershadowedByAwesome The Who stealing the show with their performance of "A Quick One While He's Away"]]. It was also their last live performance with Music/BrianJones before his death in 1969.

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'': The origin story of the formation of the team (''Avengers'' #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) features the ComicBook/IncredibleHulk disguised as a clown and juggling animals for a circus audience. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svl_4EsjG8A No, really.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'': [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]], being a former CircusBrat, occasionally comes back to the circus that grew up to occasionally perform and/or help with a problem they have. In fact, Dick becomes co-owner.