The series is set around young clowns from Happytown, whose goal is to spread happiness and imbue positive mental attitudes to the city next door. The young clowns are Big Top, Badum-Bump, Hiccup, Tickles, Pranky, and Blooper, along with their pet elephant, Rover, and their mentor, Mr. Pickleherring. They also accompanied by the clanimals, clown-like animals the Badum-Bump can only understand. The only thing that stands in their way is Awful Bebad and his minions, Geek and Whiner.
Characters
Big Top- Main Protagonist and leader of the Little Clowns and he loves to tell jokes. He wears a top hat in the style of a Ringmaster. Blooper- He's a clumsy clown that does physical comedy. Involved in many acts by accident. Hiccup- Blooper's younger sister. She loves to sing songs but often hiccups when she talks. Tickles- She loves to giggle and can fix anything. Pranky- He loves to prank by throwing custard pies at people only sometimes he gets them in his face by accident. Badum-Bump- Big Top's younger brother and he only speaks by making sounds. Rover- Badum-Bump's pet elephant and partner. Clanimals- The colorful clown-like animals that accompanies the little clowns. Badum-Bump is the only one who understands them. Theres 9 of them. Lion, Tiger, Bears, Seal, Penguin, Giraffe, Hippo, and a Zebra. Mr. Pickleherring- The kids enthusiastic teacher, he often teaches them how to be funny and helps with the morals. Awful Bebad- The main antagonist. a man who wants the world to be gloomy just like him. Geek- Bebad's redheaded assistant who is the stereotypical geek. Whiner- Bebad's other assistant. A teenager who whines and often informs Bebad on what's going on.
Voice cast
Sue Blu - Hiccup, Tickles' Mom
Charlie Adler - Pranky and Awful Bebad
Danny Cooksey - Big Top
Frank Welker - Badum-Bump, Rover the Elephant
Ron Palillo - Arnie and Ralphie's dad
Pat Fraley - Awful Bebad, Geek, Whiner
Josh Rodine - Blooper
Ellen Gerstell - Tickles
Howard Morris - Mr. Pickleherring
Mona Marshall - Arnie
Russi Taylor - Ralphie
Noelle North - Arnie and Ralphie's mom
Production
and ABC had brought in consulting company Q5 Corporation to help develop the show along with other series for the 1987-1988 season. Q5's consultants consist of psychology PhDs and advertising, marketing and research professionals. Marvel had already used Q5 to develop their Defenders of the Earth series, so ABC brought them in for the 1987-88 season to improve its kid appeal on its Saturday morning offerings to get out of third place in the ratings. A Little Clowns former story editor indicated in September 1987 to the Los Angeles Times regarding Q5 consulting on the series:
They aren't merely researching trends; they're trying to engage in social engineering. There's absolutely no passion with these people. There is no sense of honor, of anger, of deep emotion, of love. They're bland-izers; they try to hammer out all of the high and low points of being a human being. I can see we're not doing Dostoevsky on Saturday morning, but there has to be some leeway to create characters who are free to express themselves.
Fred Wolf and his Murakami Wolf Swenson were also brought in to produce the series. The show was promoted as a part of the third annual ABC Family Fun Fair, which brought the voice talent of the characters to perform highlights of their show. The show stopped in Oklahoma City from Friday August 28 through Sunday August 30, 1987.
Reception
The Los Angeles Times were critical of the show, with writer Charles Solomon saying that younger kids should have skipped it by staying in bed. They also claimed that the show was predictable and copied the Smurfs heavily, including using "clown" as a general word substitute.
Joking Around With the Little Clowns
During the show's run, ABC aired a series of short segments called Joking Around With the Little Clowns, which ran during the commercial breaks of their other Saturday morning programming and featured one of the clowns telling another a joke. Although Little Clowns was cancelled after a single season, the Joking Around segments continued to run on ABC for another two years.
In the United Kingdom, several volumes of Little Clowns were released on VHS by Tempo Video in 1988, each containing three episodes. A compilation video of the Joking Around With the Little Clowns segments was later released in the United States by Strand-VCI Entertainment in 1991. Years later, in 2014, several episodes of the series were released on DVD in Region 1 as part of the Mill Creek Entertainment compilation TV Guide Spotlight: Totally '80s Toons.
