Juggling in Movies

Shakes the Clown (1991)

[Bob Goldthwait, Julie Brown, Bruce Baum, Robin Williams, Florence Henderson]

Shakes plods about his duties as party clown, and uses all of his free time getting seriously drunk. Binky, another clown, wins the spot on a local kiddie show, which depresses Shakes even more, and his boss threatens him with unemployment if he can't get his act under control. When someone murders Shakes' boss and makes it look like Shakes did it, he goes undercover, posing as a hated mime, and tries to find information that will clear his name.

Bob Mendelsohn does chops with clubs as the juggling stand-in for Bobcat Goldthwait. He also did the club on club balance, which showed the name "shakes" spelled out on the clubs with macaroni letters. This was an important part of the murder plot, as macaroni dents were left on the dead victim's head spelling "shakes" backwards and causing "shakes" to be spelled out in blood on the sheet covering the stiff. Bryan Sapphire did unicycling. Photo shows Bob Mendelsohn (left) with Bob Goldthwait.


Shakes the Clown / Juggling in Movies / movies@juggling.org
© 2023 Juggling Information Service. All Rights Reserved.