Clowns – Ihr Lachen bringt den Tod

Shakes the Clown is a 1991 American black comedy film[2] directed and written by Bobcat Goldthwait, who performs the title role. It also features Julie Brown, Blake Clark, Paul Dooley, Kathy Griffin, Florence Henderson, Tom Kenny, Adam Sandler, Scott Herriott, LaWanda Page, Jack Gallagher, and a cameo by Robin Williams as Mime Jerry using the pseudonym "Marty Fromage".

The film is a satire of performance art, and portrays different communities of clowns and other performers as clannish, rivalrous subcultures obsessed with precedence and status. Goldthwait made the film as a satire of the dysfunctional standup comedy circuit at the time he was first starting out as an entertainer.[3] When the film was first released, it was widely panned, but in recent years, reaction has become more favorable, largely due to how the film handled the serious topic of alcoholism. Shakes the Clown has since become a cult classic.[4][5]