History Main / MagicalClown

Compare MagiciansAreWizards, another trope about costumed performers having magical powers, and CircusOfMagic, where an entire circus is magical. For more clowns with extraordinary abilities, see RobotClown. Not to be confused with MonsterClown, although, due to the prevalence of that trope, there is a pretty large overlap. Also not to be confused with FightingClown, which is not always about literal clowns.

* Blanca from ''Videogame/AnimalCrossing'' seems to be one in ''New Leaf''. She wears a colorful acrobat's suit, and uses unknown powers to near-perfectly impersonate your town's villagers on April Fool's Day.

** ''Videogame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' features Blacephalon, an eldritch alien lifeform that vaguely resembles a clown. Its signature attack, Mind Blown, involves throwing its own head as a bomb at the opponent.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': Clownpiece, as her name suggests. Though her having magic powers probably has more to do with her being a fairy (hell fairy, to be specific) than a clown. She's also the most powerful fairy ever seen in ''Touhou'' (yes, way beyond Cirno), although that's probably due to having been "refined" by Junko, not a reflection of her native power.

* In a fanfiction work that has since vanished from the internet, [[Literature/TheOutsiders Ponyboy Curtis]] was [[Clownification transformed]] into one of these by MagicGenetics passed down by his father. While the permanant clown-like features didn't win him over immediately, the genuine magic he became capable of using gradually made him view the situation a lot more favorably.

[[foldier:Fan Works]]
* In a fanfiction work that has since vanished from the internet, [[Literature/TheOutsiders Ponyboy Curtis]] was transformed into one of these by MagicGenetics passed down by his father. While the permanant clown-like features didn't win him over immediately, the genuine magic he became capable of using gradually made him view the situation a lot more favorably.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'': Dennis Mackfield's main archetype is called Entermage/[[DubNameChange Performage]] (one of them being this trope's picture above), which is full of magical clowns. His combos invoke the image of stage magic tricks.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'': Dennis Mackfield's main archetype are the Entermages/[[DubNameChange Performage]] (one of them being this trope's picture above), which is full of magical clowns. His combos invoke the image of stage magic tricks.

* ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' has the BonusBoss from Chapter 1, [[spoiler: Jevil. He was apparently the jester to the Spades King, but was [[PowerBornOfMadness driven mad and given incredible power]] after [[MediumAwareness learning the nature of his world from a mysterious stranger]].]]

: ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'':

* ''[[VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet Sackboy: A Big Adventure]]'': Vex is a jester with a variety of magical abilities. He can fly, summon portals, teleport Sackboy into an AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield, and more.

* Buggy The Clown in ''Franchise/OnePiece'' is a MonsterClown with DetachmentCombat ability that he uses for his stunts.
* In ''Manga/YandereKanojo'', sometimes the main characters will pass by a mysterious clown in the streets. Whenever they do, the rest of that chapter will feature something supernatural happening to them, such as [[FreakyFridayFlip Reina and Tanaka switching bodies]] or [[FountainOfYouth Reina turning into a child]].

* Pennywise the Clown is an EldritchAbomination from Stephen King's ''Literature/{{It}}'' who shape-shifts to feed on people's fear.
* Horrabin, one of the main antagonists in Tim Powers's Literature/TheAnubisGates. However, unlike Pennywise and other examples, he seems to be just an ordinary human being that studied both clownish arts and sorcery.

* Wizzo the Wizard, a clown EthnicMagician from [[{{Qurac}} "Arobia"]] on ''Series/BozosCircus''. Most of the time he uses the [[PowerCrystal Stone of Zanzabar]] to perform his magic.

* ''TabletopGame/{{YuGiOh}}'' The Performage archetype revolves around this combining it with StageMagician. They are all Spellcasters. The page image depicted above is Performage Trick Clown. Earlier examples of this trope are Saggi the Dark Clown and Peten the Dark Clown, both of the Spellcaster archetype.

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** Dimentio from ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', an evil magical jester. As his name implies, he has control over dimensions, and can even create his own. His {{Leitmotif}} is even called "Dimentio, Charming Magician."
** ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'' gives us Motley Bossblob, a jester-like Koopa who can transform into a giant BlobMonster clown.
** Recurring character Lemmy Koopa counts whenever he gets his hands on a magic wand. Unlike most of his siblings, whose wands shoot magical fireballs, his wand shoots bouncy balls identical to the one he is usually seen balancing on top of. In ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'', the wizard Kamek uses his own magic on Lemmy's ball, making it bigger and making it harder for Mario to attack Lemmy.
** [[spoiler:Rudy the Clown]] from ''VideoGame/WarioLand 3'', a SealedEvilInACan monster who turned the inhabitants of the world where the game takes place into monsters.
** Clown-A-Round, a boss in 'VideoGame/WarioWorld'' is a clown that can create fake heads to hide his real one.

* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'':
** Marx from ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar'', a jester who gains magical powers when [[spoiler:he tricks Kirby into activating the wishing star NOVA for him, allowing him to wish for power]], turning him into [[spoiler: a giant BatOutOfHell]] with many ElementalPowers, including AnIcePerson and GreenThumb. It gets worse in ''Kirby Super Star [[VideoGameRemake Ultra]]'', in which he becomes [[spoiler:Marx Soul, which is similar to his first OneWingedAngel form, but ''even more'' powerful and AxCrazy!]]
** In ''VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe'' Kirby himself gains the Circus ability, which allows him to summon burning hoops and juggling pins out of nowhere among other attacks.
** However, whether or not Clown Acrobot - the enemy that gives Kirby this ability - is magical is debatable. Whenever Kirby encounters one, it already has its juggling pins or its hula hoop out, so we don't know whether or not it pulls these items out of nowhere. However, one could argue that Clown Acrobot still counts as one of these simply by virtue of being an inhabitant of Dream Land.
** When [[spoiler:Magolor]] from ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'' gains magical powers, he transforms into a jester-like monster.
* Umlaut from ''VideoGame/CarnEvil'', a magical flying jester head. In a way, he's also the mechanism that summons the haunted carnival.
* Twisto, the BigBad of the bizarre arcade beat em' up ''VideoGame/NinjaClowns'' is a MonsterClown who can summon goblin/ogre-like monsters and [[OneWingedAngel transforms]] into a fire-breathing, three-headed clown [[ScaledUp dragon]]. He also casts a spell causing all the townspeople to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy attack the player's character]]. Strangely, he has PointedEars and [[GreenAndMean green skin]]. While these may just be part of his costume, or to make him look more ObviouslyEvil, they could also be hints that he isn't entirely human.
* This trope is strongly prevalent in ''VideoGame/NiGHTSIntoDreams'', due to most of the characters being dream creatures. For example, we have [=NiGHTS=] [[AmbiguousGender him/herself]], a magical jester who was born from nightmares, but made a HeelFaceTurn and uses his/her powers to fight other nightmares. There's also Reala, [=NiGHTS=]' EvilTwin, who stayed on the dark side. Some of the bosses fall into this category as well: for example, Jackle, a clown-like DeathDealer, and Puffy, an opera singer who resembles a clown due to her big red lips and colorful costume. The sequel gives us Donbalon, a ball-like clown.
* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'' gives us Jester, whose abilities include teleporting and shooting a barrage of magic orbs at the player.
* The MascotWithAttitude platformer ''VideoGame/MrNutz'' featured a boss named Little Clown, who could change his size, and also unscrew his own head, causing a bunch of Little Clown heads to fly at Mr. Nutz.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfKyrandia'': Malcolm, strangely enough, has become such a powerful magic user that the others in the realm can hardly stand up to him. And he is a ''jester''.

* Blanca from Videogame/AnimalCrossing seems to be one in ''New Leaf''. She wears a colorful acrobat's suit, and uses unknown powers to near-perfectly impersonate your town's villagers on April Fool's Day.
* From ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' there is Joker, a mysterious jester that grants the wishes of anyone who summons him. However, should one fail to bring their wishes to bare, then Joker will steal all your dreams and turn the victim into a shadow-man.
* ''VideoGame/Bomberman64'': The penultimate boss of the game, Spellmaster, is a clown with a vast arsenal of magical spells to choose from. Because of this, he's perhaps the most difficult boss in the game due to being so unpredictable.
* Beppi the Clown from ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' can transform into and summon amusement park rides and other objects.
* Popplio, the Alola Water starter in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' is based on a clown with its large pink nose and frills around its neck. It creates balloons made of water to attack.
** ''Videogame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' features Blacephalon, an eldritch alien lifeform that vaguely resembles a clown. Its signature attack, Mind Blown, involves throwing its own head as a bomb at the opponent.

* In the arcade game ''VideoGame/MegaTwins'' (''Chiki Chiki Boys'' in Japan), the BigBad and FinalBoss is Riepotmahn. He physically resembles a silly, fat circus clown, but he has the demeanor and powers of an EvilSorcerer. He can summon monsters, teleport, and shoot projectiles such as energy blasts and fire rings from his finger. He's also apparently immortal, and can only be defeated by [[spoiler:being turned to stone]].

* In the ''Webcomic/FeliciaSorceressOfKatara'' novella "The Cult of the Rubber Nose" the cultists do things like make vicious balloon animals and cram dozens of themselves into a two-person horse costume (cars haven't been invented yet).

* The creepypasta Laughing Jack has the titular Laughing Jack, a clown with supernatural abilities. As the official prequel reveals, he was created by a guardian angel to be the NotSoImaginaryFriend of a child, and was originally a NonIronicClown, but after the child grew up to become a serial killer and Jack adapted to his new personality, he became a MonsterClown.
* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has JustForFun/BobbleTheClown ([[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-993 SCP-993 ("Bobble the Clown")]]) contained. Bobble must have some sort of magical abilities to make teens and adults sleep and to continue broadcasting a show that violates every rule the FCC ever thought of.

* ''Videogame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' features Blacephalon, an eldritch alien lifeform that vaguely resembles a clown. Its signature attack, Mind Blown, involves throwing its own head as a bomb at the opponent.

[[folder: Toys]]
* Jestro from Toys/NexoKnights uses the evil Book Of Monsters to summon evil lava monsters into the futuristic kingdom of Knighton.

** When [[spoiler:Magolor]] from ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamland'' gains magical powers, he transforms into a jester-like monster.