Magical Clown

"You can't teach clowns to do magic, you have to have a magician and turn him into a clown. And, believe me, it's tough teaching a good magician to put on white face and act like a clown."

—Tico Bonomo, about his TV series The Magic Clown

In works of fiction, clowns and magical powers seem to go hand-in-hand. Whether good or evil, it's not unusual for even otherwise seemingly-normal clowns to have a multitude of magical powers on their side - or even turn out to not be human at all.

This trope probably goes back to The Middle Ages, when Real Life jesters would perform magic tricks for people on the street, or in the houses of those with higher social status. This trope may be effective because a clown calls up the wonder and imagination of childhood or the willing suspension of disbelief of a stage show. For example, the Clown Car act - it seems impossible to fit that many people in such a small car.

The cause of this trope may also be similar to that of Monster Clown or Villainous Harlequin- with their deformed faces and outlandish behavior, clowns seem very Ambiguously Human.

Even if the clown is evil, don't expect his or her magic to be dark and scary. Clown magic is almost always bright and colorful, to reflect their flamboyant costumes and personalities. For this reason, Playing with Fire and Light 'em Up are common Elemental Powers used by clowns.

Compare Magicians Are Wizards, another trope about costumed performers having magical powers, and Circus of Magic, where an entire circus is magical. Not to be confused with Monster Clown, although, due to the prevalence of that trope, there is a pretty large overlap. Also not to be confused with Fighting Clown, which is not always about literal clowns.

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Examples:

Advertising

• McDonald's mascot Ronald McDonald is called "The world famous magical clown". In one commercial, he uses his magic to turn the cloud above a sad girl's head into a ball of sunlight.

Anime & Manga

• In Hunter × Hunter, Hisoka dresses like a clown and uses his Nen ability to create the appearance of magic.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya! gives us the Training Clowns, a bunch of Monster Clowns created by the Dream Weaver Nightmare, who serve to train Nightmare's monsters for battle. The Clowns' leader, Whippy, carries a magical whip that can mind-control others.
• Buggy The Clown in One Piece is a Monster Clown with Detachment Combat ability that he uses for his stunts.
• In Sailor Moon, one Mr. Magic Pierrot was dispatched to eliminate the Amazon Trio. His magic involves ace of spades, transmuting knives into butterflies, fire-eating, and more. Don't let this fool you; he's a Hero Killer extraordinaire.

• In Yandere Kanojo, 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 Reina and Tanaka switching bodies or Reina turning into a child.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: Dennis Mackfield's main archetype is called Entermage/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. As Dennis is an Entertainment Duelist, his Entermages are good at entertaining his audience and they're quite flashy.
• Digimon Adventure has a main villain and leader of the Dark Masters, Piedmon is a Monster Clown who can use his swords at distance with telekinesis as well as use magical tricks and techniques to fight against the chosen children's digimon.

Asian Animation

• The appropriately-named Clown Monster from Happy Heroes Season 7 episode 13 uses a magic orb on his outfit to absorb laugher and fire it against the person who is laughing, turning them into stone.

Comic Books

• Emperor Joker, in which everyone's favorite evil clown gains Reality Warper powers. This also happens in a Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode of the same name.

Fan Works

• In a fanfiction work that has since vanished from the internet, Ponyboy Curtis was transformed into one of these by Magic Genetics 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.

Film - Animated

• The Big Bad of Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return is a Villainous Harlequin who is the brother of the Wicked Witch of the West. In the climax, he summons a tornado!

Film - Live Action

• In Killer Klowns from Outer Space, the titular Klowns are monsters from space that are quite capable of doing things that violate humans' laws of physics such as the Klown car, firing plasma guns that can convert plasma into solid cotton candy and creating shadow puppets that can take the shape of dinosaurs that can devour an entire crowd of people.

Literature

• Horrabin, one of the main antagonists in Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates. However, unlike Pennywise and other examples, he seems to be just an ordinary human being that studied both clownish arts and sorcery.
• Pennywise the Clown is an Eldritch Abomination from Stephen King's It who shape-shifts to feed on people's fear.
• The titular clown of Laughing Jack has magical abilities; he can conjure candy for children, make himself invisible or vanish into smoke, and make one's toys move on their own. The official prequel reveals that he was sent by a guardian angel in a jack-in-the-box to be Isaac's Not-So-Imaginary Friend, but as the child grew to be a Serial Killer, Laughing Jack changed from a Non-Ironic Clown to a Monster Clown after adapting to Isaac's personality.

Live-Action TV

• Wizzo the Wizard, a clown Ethnic Magician from "Arobia" on Bozos Circus. Most of the time he uses the Stone of Zanzabar to perform his magic.
• The 1949-1954 TV series The Magic Clown was about just that: a clown performing magic tricks for the viewers.
• Supernatural: The episode "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie" (S07, E14) has two magical clowns that attack Sam.

Podcast

• Nightmares the Clown is a Pennywise Expy who is a recurring foe of the Thrilling Adventure Hour's Frank and Sadie Doyle. In his case being a clown works against him because Sadie, who doesn't differentiate between a Monster Clown and a Non-Ironic Clown, finds him hilarious and constantly mocks him.

Tabletop Games

• Shadowrun. The Immortal Elf character Harlequin has lived since the previous age of magic and is thousands of years old. He is one of the most powerful magicians in the Sixth World. He usually wears clown-like face paint and acts in a clownish manner on on-line forums.
• Warhammer 40,000 Cegorach is a very good representation of The Trickster and Physical God. Some of his Harlequin followers also fill the requirements of this trope, but they are also the La Résistance that fights against not just all humans in the galaxy, but also the biggest, most powerful and yet so evil beings in the setting.
• YuGiOh: The Performage archetype revolves around this combining it with Stage Magician. 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.

Toys

• Jestro from Nexo Knights uses the evil Book of Monsters to summon evil lava monsters into the futuristic kingdom of Knighton.

Video Games

• Blanca from Animal Crossing 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.
• Bomberman 64: 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.
• Umlaut from CarnEvil, a magical flying jester head. In a way, he's also the mechanism that summons the haunted carnival.
• Cavern of Dreams: Invoked. The Jester Boots are a pair of sentient, talking jester shoes. When Fynn wears them, they give him the ability to walk on air. They also teleport back to their starting location if Fynn leaves the area.
• Beppi the Clown from Cuphead can transform into and summon amusement park rides and other objects.
• Dark Cloud: A recurring entity in the series is the Happy Clown, a floating clown that pops out of treasure chests and offers the player the choice of two gifts, some of which are some of the best items in the game.
• Deltarune has the superboss from Chapter 1, Jevil. He was apparently the jester to the Spades King, but was driven mad and given incredible power after learning the nature of his world from a mysterious stranger.
• Demon's Crest: One of the enemy types in the final dungeon are Jesters that pop in and out of paintings while throwing fireballs.
• Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening gives us Jester, whose abilities include teleporting and shooting a barrage of magic orbs at the player.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI, who was implanted with special technology that turned him into a magical, maniacal Joker Expy! In the final battle, he goes One-Winged Angel and becomes the God of Magic!
  • Zorn and Thorn from Final Fantasy IX, two jesters who are also wizards and spymasters for Queen Brahne.
• Kirby:
  • Marx from Kirby Super Star, a jester who gains magical powers when he tricks Kirby into activating the wishing star NOVA for him, allowing him to wish for power, turning him into a giant Bat Out of Hell with many Elemental Powers, including An Ice Person and Green Thumb. It gets worse in Kirby Super Star Ultra, in which he becomes Marx Soul, which is similar to his first One-Winged Angel form, but even more powerful and Ax-Crazy!
  • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe 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 Magolor from Kirby's Return to Dream Land gains magical powers, he transforms into a jester-like monster.
• Klonoa:
  • Joka from Klonoa: Door to Phantomile is a clownlike Cartoon Creature who has a wide range of abilities including, but not limited to, shapeshifting, teleporting, and summoning giant monsters at will.
  • One interesting encounter with Joka occurs in Klonoa Heroes. Klonoa and his friends think they're about to fight Joka, but it turns out that it's not really Joka, it's actually a clone named Flower Joka. The heroes do battle with Flower Joka, who attacks them by Playing with Fire.
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil gives us the boss Leptio the Flower Clown, whose abilities include summoning a giant spiked wheel to run over Klonoa, and Me's a Crowd.
• The Legend of Kyrandia: 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.
• Harlequin from Link and the Faces of Evil, a clown Pig Man who can turn people into werewolf-like creatures.
• In the arcade game Mega Twins (Chiki Chiki Boys in Japan), the Big Bad and Final Boss is Riepotmahn. He physically resembles a silly, fat circus clown, but he has the demeanor and powers of an Evil Sorcerer. 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 being turned to stone.
• This trope is strongly prevalent in Ni GHTS Into Dreams, due to most of the characters being dream creatures. For example, we have NiGHTS him/herself, a magical jester who was born from nightmares, but made a Heel–Face Turn and uses his/her powers to fight other nightmares. There's also Reala, NiGHTS' Evil Twin, who stayed on the dark side. Some of the bosses fall into this category as well: for example, Jackle, a clown-like Death Dealer, 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.
• Twisto, the Big Bad of the bizarre arcade beat em' up Ninja Clowns is a Monster Clown who can summon goblin/ogre-like monsters and transforms into a fire-breathing, three-headed clown dragon. He also casts a spell causing all the townspeople to attack the player's character. Strangely, he has Pointed Ears and green skin. While these may just be part of his costume, or to make him look more Obviously Evil, they could also be hints that he isn't entirely human.
• The Mascot with Attitude platformer Mr. Nutz 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.
• From 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.
• Pokémon Sun and Moon:
  • Popplio, the Alola Water starter is based on a clown with its large pink nose and frills around its neck. It creates balloons made of water to attack.
  • Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon 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.
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure: Vex is a jester with a variety of magical abilities. He can fly, summon portals, teleport Sackboy into an Amazing Technicolor Battlefield, and more.
• The clown from The Sims would qualify, with his ability to teleport through a Portable Hole. Also, in the Makin' Magic expansion pack, one of the ingredients needed for a spell is "Clown Confetti", which somehow gained its magical properties because it was carried around by a clown.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Dimentio from Super Paper Mario, 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."
  • Super Mario 3D World gives us Motley Bossblob, a jester-like Koopa who can transform into a giant Blob Monster 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 New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the wizard Kamek uses his own magic on Lemmy's ball, making it bigger and making it harder for Mario to attack Lemmy.
  • Rudy the Clown from Wario Land 3, a Sealed Evil in a Can monster who turned the inhabitants of the world where the game takes place into monsters.
  • Clown-A-Round, a boss in 'Wario World'' is a clown that can create fake heads to hide his real one.
• Touhou Project: 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.

Webcomics

• In the Felicia, Sorceress of Katara 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).
• In Homestuck, Gamzee has a clown theme, and at one point uses "chucklevoodoos" to create/replicate a Creepy Doll in Dream Dave's bedroom on Derse.

Web Original

• The SCP Foundation has Bobble the Clown (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.

Western Animation

• Alfred J. Kwak: There's a clown named Pierrot who lives on the moon. He apparently doesn't need to breathe or eat, and has a magical violin which can be used to make a deadly pandemic in a poor country go away.
• Ben 10: Zombozo combines this with Monster Clown. Word of God is that he was once a normal man before being bitten by a zombie and given the ability to feed on emotions of happiness and fear. By doing so, he could gain supernatural powers, such as teleportation and illusion creation. He used his circus as a way to feed on the happiness of his audience while having his performers steal money and valuables for him and themselves. Draining people of their happiness leaves them depressed and weakened, which doesn't bother him at all, and he is willing to kidnap children and drain them until they shrivel up.
• Dexter's Laboratory: Dexter got bitten by a clown — which apparently carried clown contagion — and became a were-clown. DeeDee had to turn into a mime to figure out a cure.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Rainbow the Clown only developed powers after being hit with bleach — at which point he became sad and angry, and used his powers to leech color out of the world until the Girls figured out a way to stop him. When he got his own color back, he went back to being an ordinary clown.
• One of the villains of the SWAT Kats is a cursed magical Jester trapped since the Middle Ages in a jack-in-a-box that possesses a modern time comedian giving him magical power.
• The French stopmotion series Touli Le Gardien Des Reves is about a magical clown boy whose job is keeping children's dreams safe inside boxes. In each episode, he'd release a dream, and inside the dream, would meet strange characters with problems and he'd use his magic to summon special items or skills to help them.

Real Life

• Downplayed. Many clowns do magic tricks, especially those hired for birthday parties, but do not actually have magical abilities.
• Many medieval jesters did this as well, as noted in the description.
• Pardoes the mascot of the Dutch theme park Efteling in the Netherlands is a Jester who is not only playful but is also a wizard.

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