This clown trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers and runs from the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt to Pennywise, taking in court jesters, Joseph Grimaldi's whiteface, the Auguste and tramp clown types, the Ringling Clown College, Bozo, Clarabell, Krusty and the strange British tradition of painting clown faces on eggs. There are questions on rodeo bullfighters, sacred clowns of the Plains, Pagliacci, Pierrot and the 2016 creepy-clown scare, so it suits circus buffs and horror fans alike. It is built for anyone who wants more than 'what colour is a clown's nose'. Easy questions cover the famous names; the hard ones ask who was the first living person on a US stamp, which theatre made Deburau's Pierrot famous and where the World Clown Association first met. Every answer was checked against a primary source, such as Wikipedia, official proclamations and organisation records, and each question carries an explanation with one extra fact worth remembering.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Thanks to Joseph Grimaldi, the pantomime Clown role became known by what nickname?
Joey
The nickname stuck: British pantomime clowns are still called Joeys, and Grimaldi's make-up design remains the base of most clown faces.
Q 02Which pantomime catchphrase, still shouted from stages every Christmas, did Joseph Grimaldi originate?
Here we are again!
Grimaldi introduced it in his pantomimes two centuries ago; his best-known song was 'Hot Codlins', about a seller of roasted apples.
Q 03Clowns in full costume attend Joseph Grimaldi's annual memorial at Holy Trinity Church in which London borough?
Hackney
The service falls on the first Sunday of the month, and the park around Grimaldi's grave in Islington was later named after him.
Q 04Which famous novelist did Richard Bentley hire to edit and improve Joseph Grimaldi's memoirs?
Charles Dickens
The original manuscript by Thomas Egerton Wilks was considered so clumsy that Bentley wanted a bigger name to rescue it, and the Memoirs appeared in 1838.
Q 05The earliest known clowns have been traced to the Fifth Dynasty of which civilization, around 2400 BC?
Egypt
Clowning kept its lowly associations for millennia: Greek theatre had its own rustic buffoons, the sklêro-paiktês.
Q 06When the English word 'clown' was first recorded around 1560, what did it mean?
A rustic or peasant
Shakespeare used it in exactly this sense, naming rustic fool characters simply 'Clown' in Othello and The Winter's Tale.
Q 07Philip Astley added a clown to his 1768 London amphitheatre shows to fill time between what kind of acts?
Equestrian displays
Astley's ring is considered the birthplace of the modern circus, and the clown was there from the start as filler between trick riders.
Q 08Tom Belling's clumsy Auguste clown, developed around 1870, was the foil for which stock character?
The whiteface
In the classic double act the elegant one gives the orders and the Auguste botches every task, which is where the laughs come from.
Q 09In Auguste clown makeup, what is the term for the thickly outlined area around the mouth?
The muzzle
The Auguste's base is a pink, red or tan tone rather than white, with exaggerated red-and-black features on top.
Q 10Otto Griebling and Emmett Kelly are classic examples of which circus clown type?
Tramp
It is a branch of the character clown family, which also covers eccentric butchers, bakers, policemen and housewives.
Q 11Emmett Kelly's sad-faced hobo clown, modelled on Depression-era drifters, was named what?
Weary Willie
Kelly's signature bit was trying to sweep up the circus spotlight with a broom, and in 1957 the Brooklyn Dodgers hired him as their official mascot.
Q 12Which Ringling clown became, in 1966, the first living person to have his portrait on a US postage stamp?
Lou Jacobs
He performed with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey for more than 60 years and is often credited with originating the red rubber-ball nose.
Q 13At which circus was the clown car routine first performed in the 1950s?
Cole Bros.
Q 21The World Clown Association held its first convention in 1983 in which US city?
Atlanta
The group's first convention outside the United States came in 1991 in Bognor Regis, England.
Q 22What term is used for an intense fear of clowns?
Coulrophobia
The word is a recent coinage: the Oxford Dictionary of English only adopted it in 2010, tracing it to a Greek word for a stilt.
Q 23A 2022 survey of 987 adults from 64 countries found what share reported some degree of fear of clowns?
54%
A University of Sheffield study of hospital decor had earlier concluded that clowns are universally disliked by children.
The trick is a gutted car: doors, seats, headliner and even the engine come out, and up to about 21 clowns squeeze into the shell.
Q 14In which year did Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College close?
1997
The school was Irvin Feld's brainchild; it began in Venice, Florida and moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin, hometown of the Ringling brothers, in 1993.
Q 15Which magician, later half of a famous Las Vegas duo, turned down Ringling's job offer after Clown College in 1973?
Penn Jillette
Declining the offer prompted Ringling to add a rule that graduates must accept a contract if one was offered.
Q 16Which clown, Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle, was in 1984 the first performance artist awarded a MacArthur Fellowship?
Bill Irwin
He also won a Tony in 2005 for playing George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a long way from his Clown College roots.
Q 17The performer behind Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle helped found which San Francisco troupe in 1975?
Pickle Family Circus
The troupe is credited with helping spark the renaissance of American circus in the 1970s.
Q 18Britain's Clowns International records members' face-paint designs on what unusual object?
Eggs
The register exists so that no two clowns end up wearing the same face, and the originals were real hen's eggs before ceramic ones took over.
Q 19What was Stan Bult, founder of Clowns International's face register, by profession?
Chemist
Bult painted about 450 faces before his death in 1966, though most were broken and only around two dozen survive.
Q 20Which US president proclaimed August 1 to 7, 1971 as National Clown Week?
Richard Nixon
Congress had requested the proclamation in 1970, and clown groups have kept the first week of August as International Clown Week ever since.
Q 24A photo of Conrad Veidt in which 1928 silent film inspired the Joker's grin?
The Man Who Laughs
The Joker debuted in Batman #1 in 1940 and is often credited with popularising the modern evil-clown archetype.
Q 25Joaquin Phoenix's 2019 film Joker won which top prize at the Venice Film Festival?
Golden Lion
It went on to win two Oscars, for Phoenix and for its score, and became the first R-rated film to gross a billion dollars.
Q 26In Stephen King's It, Pennywise the Dancing Clown preys on the children of which fictional Maine town?
Derry
The 1986 novel is set across two timelines because the creature hibernates for roughly 27 years between feeding cycles.
Q 27Who played Pennywise in the 1990 television adaptation of It?
Tim Curry
Bill Skarsgård took over the role for the 2017 film, its 2019 sequel and the HBO prequel series.
Q 28John Wayne Gacy became the 'Killer Clown' after it emerged he performed under what clown name?
Pogo
His 1978 arrest is one of the reasons the friendly party clown curdled into a horror staple in the following decade.
Q 29Which US retailer pulled clown masks from its stores and website during the 2016 creepy-clown scare?
Target
Sightings spread from the US to Canada, Australia, the UK and beyond, and McDonald's decided Ronald McDonald should keep a lower profile.
Q 30Which actor played Twisty the Clown in American Horror Story: Freak Show?
John Carroll Lynch
The season is set in 1952 Jupiter, Florida, and Twisty's casting was announced at San Diego Comic-Con that summer.