Shakes the Clown (Film)

"You're a loser. Your parents had to pay a grown man to come and play with you today, because kids collectively and on the whole think you suck."

—Shakes, demonstrating his excellent people skills and outstanding professionalism.

Shakes The Clown is a movie from 1992 about an alcoholic clown. It features cameos of Robin Williams as a mime and Adam Sandler as a clown.

The movie's titular clown is on the verge of getting fired, as his drunken shenanigans often end up ruining the kids' birthday parties he performs at. On top of that, his alcoholism is messing up his relationship with his girlfriend Judy, a waitress in the clown bar Shakes frequents and aspiring professional bowler. When he passes out at this bar for party clowns him and his two friends frequent, he winds up being framed for the murder of his boss. Said friends and Judy help him evade the law and two witnesses to the actual murder (who chase after him) as Shakes, while posing as a mime, finds out who's really responsible (at first he thinks he actually did it and was just too drunk to remember) and helps bring him to justice. Meanwhile, Shakes' friends realize Shakes has an alcohol problem, and help/force him to quit.

The movie offers a lot of raunchy jokes, many a Cluster F-Bomb, and cynical humor.

Tropes used in Shakes the Clown (Film) include:

• The Aggressive Drug Dealer: Subverted. Although it is an early 90's movie, it's not particularly idealistic or preachy, so the drug dealing rodeo clowns are a more realistic portrayal of drug dealers.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Binky only thinks this is happening to him, which drives him insane, and serves as most of his personal justifications for his actions.
• The Cameo: Florence Henderson is the whore in the opening scene.
• Camp Gay: The male mimes - particularly their leader, played by Robin Williams. (There's a female mime, too, but she comes off as a New Age kook rather than a lesbian.)
• Chekhov's Gun: Judy's bowling skills.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Oh, so many.
• Corrupt Hick: The rodeo clowns.
• Cower Power: Binky isn't above literally hiding behind his Mooks when Shakes actually gets up the nerve to confront him.
• Depraved Kids' Show Host: Both Binky when he becomes the host of a children's clown show and (to a lesser extent, possibly, depending on if what someone said jokingly about his relationship with a performing dog used on the show was accurate) his predecessor.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Binky punches his two Mooks in the stomach just because they laughed at his embarrassing attempt to woo Judy.
  • "I'm fired?! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" (although, thankfully, Shakes doesn't go through with it)
• Drag Queen: One of Shake's best friends wears a pink dress and possibly fake boobs underneath it as part of his clown getup. He's not a very convincing cross-dresser though, with a very deep voice, and does it more for laughs than as a serious performance.
  • Which, come to think of it, makes it pretty hypocritical that he enjoys beating up mimes precisely because they're so "unmanly."
• Drugs Are Bad: Surprisingly for this cynical of a movie, it is true that the people who do drugs are bad people, but the good guys are merely drunks.
• Dumb Blonde: Judy, although she mostly only sounds dumb because of the way she talks.
• Eighties Hair: It's technically the early 90's but Judy and her friend sport it.
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Judy.
• Everyone Hates Mimes: Played for laughs and drama. Shakes and his friends, as party clowns, hate mimes for some unknown reason, and if they see them will assault them. Shakes, at least, gets better.
• Expy:
  • Binky is one of the Joker from Batman.
  • Boots and Ho-Ho (the two henchmen) laugh a lot like Beavis and Butthead.
• Fantastic Racism: The clowns' aforementioned hatred of mimes. May also be fantastic gay-bashing.
  • It was indeed an allegory for gay-bashing. Word of God confirmed it at the time of the movie's release.
• Freudian Excuse: Shakes' for being a drunk is that, when he was a child, he witnessed his father getting killed by an elephant, presumably while working as a circus clown
• Gosh Dang It to Heck: "The poo has hit the fan!"
• Improbable Weapon User: Shakes' boss is bludgeoned to death with a clown's juggling pin.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: seem to be rather fashionable apparel for most of the clowns in the bar where Shakes hangs out, possibly because being a clown sucks and/or when not forced to put on a happy face for kids, all their pent-up frustration can be let loose. Also, Judy's best friend is rather cynical.
• Jerkass: Binky, who kills Shakes' boss and father figure with a bowling pin when caught snorting cocaine. And then tries to frame Shakes. He was not even a nice guy to begin with.
• Lame Comeback: "Yeah? Well....the only TV show you could get on would be the...Not Funny....Diarrhea Club....Fart-Face!"
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Several, if you consider that all the clowns (even the mean ones) make their living by pretending to be lovable, fun-filled child entertainers. Binky is the main example though.
• Nice Hat: One of Palookaville's plainclothes cops wears a porkpie. In 1991.
  • Similarly, Shakes's boss wears a zoot suit, complete with hat.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Subverted: Binky and his "friends" do some playing around with the Boss' corpse and Shakes' passed out body, but they never actually pretend he's alive to anyone who doesn't know otherwise.
• Parental Substitute: Shakes' boss, which makes Shakes all the more upset to wake up from being passed out cold to find him dead and the possibility existing that Shakes did it.
• Punny Name: Shakes the Clown is a pun on the "shakes" that former alcoholics get.
• Those Two Bad Guys: Boots and Ho-Ho (Binky's Mooks).
• Villainous Harlequin: (Duh, this is a show about clowns) Binky.