Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte told reporters he plans to tickle the professional astronauts while they’re sleeping, and he’s also bringing red clown noses to try to lighten things up on the orbiting station.

“I’m a person with a pretty high spirit, who’s there to crack jokes and make jokes to those guys, and while they’re sleeping, you know, I’ll be tickling them,” Laliberte said.

Laliberte will also use his trip to raise awareness of world drinking water issues. Link -via Dave Barry’s Blog

A clown has been told he cannot wear his giant comedy shoes during his act because they breach health and safety rules.

Valerik Kashkin broke a toe after falling from a high-wire and has been told his size 18s were to blame.

His bosses have now banned the clown – whose routine also includes playing a drum kit, trumpet and double bass at the same time – from using the outsize footwear and ordered him to perform barefoot, instead.

Link

"My season started in February," says Martin Lacey, owner of the Great British Circus, "and I’ve got comedy acrobats stranded in the Ukraine, and Mongolian horse riders who were refused their visas in Ulan Batur." The holes in his lineup have forced Lacey to draft last-minute substitutes. "Our Mexican clown is stuck in Mexico, so we’ve got a trapeze artist pretending to be a stooge just to get everybody out of trouble," he says. "It’s a mess."

And it’s totally incompatible with the needs of Britain’s circus sector. According to Malcolm Clay, secretary of the Association of Circus Proprietors of Great Britain, British circus schools don’t produce artists at an acceptable standard, largely because their students refine skills like tightrope walking or fire-breathing as a hobby, not as part of a life-long career. As a result, British circuses rely on artists from countries with long-established histories of state-sponsored circus schools: they call on Argentina and Colombia for their renowned high wire acts, China and North Korea for acrobats, and Mongolia and Russia for horse riders. (Interestingly, they don’t need to import bearded ladies.)

Link

It’s easy to make a clown horrifying, but Angus MacLane managed to make a clown adorable. Click here for a gallery of images of his Lego Clown Tank.

Previously on Neatorama: Kung Fu Clowns.