Clowns were for most of their history somebody who cheered you up, someone to help you fight melancholy not bring it on. Shakespeare may have had Jaques saying some witty melancholy things, in As You Like It, but he wasn't the clown or jester- that was Touchstone, who was always fun. Will Kemp, who played Touchstone, was always ready to work hard for a laugh- like Morris Dance from London to Norwich. Joseph Grimaldi, who was immensely popular to London audiences during the Regency , threw himself around so much that he was pretty much a cripple at 45, when he retired. Clowns of the later 19th c. also tried to be funny, but a duet became more popular: one clown would be grumpy, imperious, stupidly bossing around another, the auguste, who was more child-like; good-natured , not too bright, and chaos would result. There were many versions of this; the French clowns Footit and Chocolat, the Swiss clowns Antoinette and Grock, the Fratellini Brothers...and of course Laurel and Hardy.

After Oliver Hardy, the most famous grumpy, bossy clown in the US was Otto Griebling ( 1896-1972) , who emigrated from Germany and worked in the US from about 1930-1970. He created a tramp clown- no doubt with a bit of influence of Charlie Chaplin's character The Little Tramp. Griebling did not grin or laugh- one of his classic routines was a harassed ice-deliveryman, looking for someone in the audience to take an enormous block off his hands. Unhappily scanning the crowd, he would reappear over the course of the circus performance with a smaller and smaller piece of ice, until at last he would deliver a tiny shard into the hands of a randomly-chosen woman...and it would melt. Griebling's tramp clown was given a kinder, gentler spin by Emmet Kelly ( 1898-1979), who created the character Weary Willie. Kelly mostly used Griebling's ragged clothes and tramp makeup , but drew a much broader, downward curved mouth, and this face is usually what people think of, when they think of a sad clown.. Weary Willie would take on impossible tasks, like trying to sweep up the spotlight at the end of the show. He became quite popular, and Kelly himself would capitalize on the image, painting many images of Weary Willie for sale. And there seem to be no end of people still painting him.

John H. Towsen: Clowns