ABSTRACT
Clowns require no announcement or introduction. When they appear they are immediately recognizable by everyone, regardless of their location, costuming, or behavior. Clowns refuse to be missed or ignored. The clown suddenly materializes within the workaday world or the sacred arena like some imagined visitor from outer space, a roaring monster from a funhouse grotto come to life in grace ful, jerky motion, a brightly colored child's toy wound up for a noisy moment. Clowns are so childlike, yet so adult; so human, yet so nonhuman; so vivid, yet so unreal; so oversexed, yet so asexual; so bold, yet so easily scared away. The clown is laughter incarnate. Chaplin was the most successful in this role of any of the early film clowns, and perhaps in the whole history of clowning. In Charlie the clown, Chaplin was putting the Humpty-Dumpty of him self and his world together again.
