The Quest for the Clown

attempting to find THE small but knowing clown.

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

🃏⋆｡‧˚ʚ🎪ɞ˚‧｡⋆🃏

(some dividers from https://www.tumblr.com/sister-lucifer/756500606835982336/hello-i-was-wondering-if-you-could-make-circus)

heya! I'm lilith (she/her), and one of my special interests is clowns, specifically i've been really into the small but knowing clown (aka the tumblr mascot) for a while now.

i'm going to attempt to find the original yellow small but knowing clown!

what you can find in this account:

clown doll listings/research

occasional reposts of cool clown content

fun clown projects of my own

general clowning around!

dni if:

transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic.

racist.

political person.

p-dos, z-os.

here to criticize being "weird"

thanks for stopping by!

if you have any info to help me find the original clown, feel free to message me!

my main blog is @lilithcreature

#THE QUEST = actual research

#lilith's random clown fun = silly clown stuff

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

HAPPY NATIONAL CLOWN WEEK!!! WOOO

sorry i haven't been posting, here's a labelled image of my collection! (inspired by the collector check trend on tiktok)

[vrtualseraph]

clowncore pixels f2u 🎈

[jesstheespeon]

Small But Knowing Clown Research

Fell back into Small But Knowing Clown rabbit hole and was seized by the fatal collector need to catalogue all the random info I came across while trying to find everyone's favorite #yellow clown.

The little guy in question (originally from @lymphonodge):

Important components: Face appears to be made of ceramic / porcelain Body casing is made of some kind of fabric Body stuffing is likely beanbag / sand, based off similar ebay listing descriptions Very tall, conical hat with a little pompom at the end. No ruff around the brim The face itself is a fairly smooth mold - no cheek lines, rounded shape High eyebrows Eyeshadow that goes all the way down into the eyes themselves - very important for identifying this specific line, imo Eyeshadow that does not have ANY outline around it Almond (?) shaped eyes with three long eyelashes at the end, a kind of half-lidded expression Soft, air-brushed-looking pink cheeks Small round red nose Single-line mouth with a softer, rounded heart lip Lace collar that is wider than the neck of the outfit Sack-style clothing (?) where all openings end with what looks like elastic (many online listings are noted as being able to change outfits) Limbs end in little nubs, slight curvature but not enough to delineate a 'foot'

A better look at the limbs, image taken from @smallbutknowingclown (yellow's current caretaker!)

Thanks to @findingthesmallbutknowingclown, I agree that the most likely brand for this guy is Little Circus Sillies!

The clown in the foreground, though kinda hard to make out, appears to have the closest face match. The shape looks correct, the eye shadow appears to go down into the eyes, and the mouth + lips + blush all look very similar! I think this box is likely from a slightly later line, and I'll go into why now.

There's a handful of variations on that second clown that I think differentiate it enough to indicate being from a later (or at least different) generation of small but knowing clowns.

The outfit is an entirely different, more involved style than the sack-suit on yellow. There is added hair / ruff not present, and I'm fairly certain that the fore-clown has distinct circle blushes instead of that faint airbrushing. (Fun aside - I think the two squares underneath with the X indicates that the back-clown is the one that's actually in the box!)

Let's get a better look at what I think is another clown from this line - https://www.ebay.com/itm/800053101736 (hello ebay thank you ebay)

What a festive little guy! A cute set of overalls, a boater hat (?), and a big mop of white hair! Clothes aside, the most interesting thing here is the lack of any blush and the big teardrop under the eye! The face is glaringly white compared to the obvious age on the body, and I wonder if that's just a trick of the lighting or if the face itself was made differently, somehow...

Back on track! If you're looking to get as close to THE small but knowing clown as possible, the most important characteristics / discriminators when looking at the slew of vintage little guys I was able to determine is: The eyes. Just about every other clown has something going on with the eyes that can near-instantly tell you whether you're looking at a Little Circus Sillies family clown or not. The mouth. They seem to have, for lack of a better term, the 'simplest' mouth of almost all of the vintage clown dolls I've seen. Most other ones have the large lip outline going all the way around the mouth, or do something different with the cheeks, or have a different style of heart for the lip bow. The clothes. This one is contentious, as these clowns all appear to have been designed for dress-up, and could have gotten an outfit change over the years. I'm fairly confident that the clowns from yellow's line will all have, at the very least, a sack-suit. I wouldn't be surprised if the collars have fallen off / ripped / loosened over the years, but the sack itself should have remained relatively intact. I'm reasonably confident that the overalls-line is distinct from the sack-suit-line.

How to find your own Small But Knowing Clown: First, please set your expectations. Yellow is a very special little clown, and you'll likely be hard-pressed to find any duplicates. I doubt yellow is one-of-a-kind, but these are very old little guys without much saved information, so the odds of a seller AND a buyer knowing the exact right terminology to use are slim. I've had a fair amount of success on ebay with the following searches - Sand body / bean bag clown doll Porcelain / ceramic face clown doll Little Circus Sillies (this one gets very few results, likely for the reason above about lack of surviving info) Clown doll lot (there's usually at least one little circus sillies! don't be afraid to message the seller and ask about breaking up a lot if you only want / can afford some of them) Q Tee Clown (this is a sibling brand, appears to be often confused for LCS, so you may get lucky and find a mislabel!) Thai clown doll (QTC looks to have been a Thai brand, so same as above) Harlequin / Jester / Pierrot doll (clown gets the most traction, but you may luck out and find one here!)

This is getting long so I'm prolly gonna add more in reblogs about the other kinds of vintage clowns I've come across, and how to identify / differentiate them from yellow's kin~

[jesstheespeon]

Wow! That was a lot of unstructured thoughts. Let's see if I can't get a little more... organized? With some of these additions. This time, I'd like to take a look at brands I've come across during my adventures. This will mostly be looking at tags, but if you want to look at the clowns themselves I've linked all the listings I got these images from :)

Starting off with a subspecies I haven't mentioned yet - the pincushions!

I'm of the opinion now that the porcelain faces were likely mass-produced and then dressed up by their respective companies, which is why there's a few pincushion clowns that have the same small-but-knowing-faces. Anyway, the only branding on here seems to be the 'H [tm]' on the lower left corner of this cardboard tag. If any of you know what brand has this logo, I'd love to know!

Up next is a heavy hitter - Artmark!

Artmark seems QUITE prolific in the vintage clown scene. Only downside here is that the tags seem to be attached to the clothes, and not the clowns, so there's a good chance that if a clown ever had an outfit swap, it would be much harder to find out where it came from.

Speaking of, here's one of the other lines Artmark had: Petite Pals! And one of these little buddies looks verrrrrry familiar...

Clown #2, do you perchance remember seeing any yellow-clad, pink-eyed friends during your time on the painting line? This image is a really good look at the facial variety that clowns from the same product line can have - clown 1 has a different style than clown 2, which is different than 3 and 4!

It's really incredible how many people have kept their clowns in such nice condition, that we can even identify all these brands!

Anyway this guy's in jail. Clown Creations! Not very descriptive, but the blush, body, and hat style are all very yellow-clown vibes. The two-tone satin bodies and bows show up on a lot of listings, and this seems like the strongest contender for that style of clown-fit, alongside Artmark.

And for some similarly complete packaging -

AH. HANDS. This little friend has not just a porcelain head, but also fingies and little black boots. A pretty surefire way to tell that we are NOT in small-but-knowing territory - our little friend is decidedly cloth-bodied. Collector Clown is another very generic name, unfortunately, but the face and general shape is similar enough that I think it's worth calling out here.

Now for a little clown booty-butt

Delton Co(mpany?)! You can just make out from this pic (there's better ones on the linked ebay listing) that this is one of the afro-sporting clowns. Again with putting the tags on the clothes instead of the clowns, but really, I can't blame the product designers.

Now for a weirder tag...

I am FASCINATED by the phone number being on the tag... I don't know that I've ever seen contact information like that? Usually it's an address to a corporate office or something? Lillian Vernon I have many questions. Okay maybe just like 2.

This next one is kinda hard to see...

...But these two buddies were made for Best Made Toys! This tag is on the side-seam of the sack suit instead of the leg seam, so certainly more visible! I imagine people who had them on display preferred being able to tuck the tag under their little leggies though...

This one's fun for me personally ;)

HELLO GANZ. CREATOR OF WEBKINZ. WHICH I MAY OR MAY NOT SPEND TOO MUCH MONEY ON. Anyway Ganz is still alive and well today, which I can't say for a lot of these other brands! I'm considering sending a little feeler email to them about whether or not they have any old product records that could shed some light on our little yellow friend...

And the biggest-ish find! Albert E Price!

This absolute BEAST of a listing has a full look at all sides of the Little Circus Sillies Box, including the very interesting callout that it appeared to be a kind of blind box! I've looked at all six sides, and alas, no small but knowing clown is in this set of 6 assorted friends. Really interestingly, the clown itself doesn't appear to have a paper tag, so without the box, you'd never know it came from here!

The mystery deepens... Much to think about!

OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT Q-TEE CLOWNS LOL

These lil guys have VERY distinctive faces, and were made in Thailand! They're hand-painted like all the other sand-body clowns, but most interestingly (to me anyway) a lot of them aren't porcelain-faced? they've got lil cloth faces like the rest of their bodies!!

I keep finding more stuff...

Hello Classic Treasures! This fancy guy has the small but knowing face with (ooh) yellow eyeshadow! I want to do an eye breakdown for my next reblog (I think) with a special emphasis on all the known small-but-knowing eye colors!

[dramatic sigh] MAS!

Of note, the visible tag is NOT for the small-but-knowing-sibling sitting next to it - Shalom Toy Co!

AAAAAAAA

Porcelain Sandbag Clown. Very descriptive. Definitely a company name and not just a product descriptor. I need this ebay seller to flip the boxes around until we can see a NAME!!!

[jesstheespeon]

Just kidding more brands. I have 8 william ebay tabs open and I would like to close them (so i can open 13 william more).

Found some BOXES so let's get a look at more clown packaging~

Tiny Tickles by, you guessed it, ARTMAAAAARK! Seems like Artmark is one of the only clown brands with a set... face? Like they seem to be the only clown vendor that went the route of the gold triangle / star eye shadow (if the sides of the eyes make up the other limbs of the star). Cute little christmas box!

This one's... uh... not quite a 'branded' box, per se...

Loose!! Again, these look like the artmark style of dolls, but without fancy houses. It would actually be pretty funny if these were knockoff artmarks... I wonder what the clown bootlegging scene looked like.

JAIL FOR BABY!

Two pics for this one because the seller has given us a very interesting sticker close-up in addition to the box itself. Nu&Cute is right, though, these buddies are absolutely adorable~ I think the cursive on the sticker might be "by Giftcraft"? They seem to still be an active brand, at least, and involved in decor and home design!! Might be worth sending an email, similar to Ganz...

These next ones have me pretty excited, honestly...

Classic Collectibles, by EMRAD LTD! Based out in California, where I believe both Gummi and Yellow may be from?? Dare I retract my earlier agreement that they were likely Little Circus Sillies? The back of the boxes say "The enclosed figurine is part of a series of 24 Collectible Clowns. Each one unique, with original faces and outfits." If I wanted to be hopeful, it looks like the purple run may be separate from the blue run? If they ARE part of a single run, we may have successfully IDed 8/24 clowns!

https://www.bizapedia.com/ca/emrad-ltd.html - what do you mean "The entity is set to expire January 27, 2004." I think we are past that. Just a little. The names on there, though... possible leads to hunt down... hrmmmmm.

Here's the full text in case it gets taken down or smth crazy:

"Emrad, Ltd. is a Stock Corporation - CA - General organized under the laws of the State of California. The business was filed on August 11, 1983 and is currently listed as Terminated with the California Secretary of State. The official file number for this entity is 1208288.

The principal office address is located at 9010 Eton Avenue Canoga Park, CA 91304. Mailing correspondence may be sent to 9010 Eton Avenue Canoga Park, CA 91304.

The Registered Agent on file is Herbert Davis, located at 601 W. 5th Los Angeles, CA 90071-2094.

Michael L. Opell is the sole principal on record and serves as Chief Executive Officer and is associated with an address at 9010 Eton Avenue Canoga Park, CA 91304.

The entity is scheduled to expire on January 27, 2004."

Back to buizniss...

This ebay listing calls these goobers out as belonging to "East West Distributing Inc." - they've got the porcelain hands and boots, plus the artmark faces! I wonder if the back of these boxes would say "by artmark" like the other one, or if I was closer with my small-but-knowing-face-guess were a bunch of faces were bulk painted and then sent to multiple companies to finish as they saw fit...

And this last one isn't a box but it has me deeply floored.

"Porcelain Clown 4 ½” tall made for A Luxury Dept. Store in San Francisco." Now how do YOU know that. Anyway fits in with the EMRAD theory. I wonder if this be-overall-ed buddy was one of the 24...?

OK *next* reblog will be small but knowing face color exploration. Promise. Because I'm gonna start writing it right now. :P

[jesstheespeon]

OK. Time for faces! Small but knowing clowns have (as I hope I got across in the first post) a pretty unique face style! I think the most important distinguishing factor for yellow and Gummi, though, is their pretty pink eyeshadow.

As a reminder for everyone, this is yellow!

"Jess who tf is Gummi" Ah yes. I didn't actually. Talk about that. So @findingthesmallbutknowingclown made a VERY neat iceberg image that I decided I simply wouldn't investigate bc I wanted to do some freeform looking around, and honestly I'm pretty sure I ended up just. Following their footsteps almost exactly XD. SO! Let me be hopefully the SECOND person to tell you...

A SECOND SMALL BUT KNOWING CLOWN HAS BEEN LOCATED.

THIS IS GUMMI!!!!! They belong to @yza, who takes all their clowns on some of the most aesthetic adventures I've ever seen. I've had the vid of Aggie spinning around in that coconut shell on loop for... definitely too long...

Here's what makes Gummi so important to the search overall...

Yellow is confirmed to not be a custom facepaint job. I had a persistent fear in the back of my head the whole time that there was this verrrry small chance that someone had done a restoration / custom on another clown, and that we would never be able to find another because yellow wasn't a 'legitimate product' (for lack of a better term)

The pink face isn't unique to the yellow polka-dot outfit. ANOTHER concern I had was that the only pink-face clowns were the yellow-bodied clowns, making the fastest way to find one to be searching for something like "yellow clown." Now that we know that the outfits can vary, the search gets SO MUCH WIDER!!!

Alright, alright, so the small but knowing clowns come in that pretty pink with the clover / cloud shape.

BUT DID U KNOW uhhh I think they might be the only ones with a unique eyeshadow shape. Everyone else just gets a normal circle / oval. Like this weird lil pink fella I found!

Boom another pincushion :PPPP This one's just to really establish the pink as a common color, the eyes on this clown are slightly too centered to qualify in my humble onion (ignoring the uh. lack of a body. of course).

OTHER COLORS!

Up first we have this trio of blue babes who are DEFINITELY in the same outfit-family as yellow and Gummi

Same lace, same dots, same complete lack of tags, same cone hat, same little pompom! The exact shade of blue eyeshadow seems to vary, but it looks like the attempt is towards pastels.

But actually, I think the minty green is the most common color I've seen for the little guys...

This greenie beanie dreamer with the wistful gaze is a pretty bog-standard example of the most common s-b-k clowns I find on ebay... so many little suspender guys...

This one's a little odd, in that I don't know if it was ever done with a "normal" sbk clown...

Like the eyes are correct, but everything else is wayyyyy too much. I wonder if this was in a later line? Certainly fancier than what we've seen thus far, but nicely completes the red/yellow/green/blue quartet of 'standard' colors.

And, once again from yza / charmyclown, this is Peppa! I think she's the only small but knowing GREY i've seen??? I honestly can't tell if it's the lighting or what but she's got such an interesting eyeshadow color, even if it's green.

I just love the halloween spirit oozing from her... a truly stellar little jester... (sbks are technically pierrots but shhhhh)

And to round it out, here's another weird lil pincushion guy.

ORANGE! It doesn't go into the iris / sclera so I'm still skeptical to include it, but every time I scroll past one I have to pause and make sure so like. Visually similar enough to trip me up at a glance ig.

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

ok, everyone read this NOW. there IS A SECOND ONE, and likely, that means it was mass-produced with the face. all of you should follow this person, cause they've been doing some really good research.

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

GUYS I JUST FOUND SOMETHING INSANE AND I NEED YOUR HELP

NO, YOUR EYES ARE NOT DECEIVING YOU, THESE ARE THREE NEARLY IDENTICAL REPLICAS OF THE OG CLOWN, BUT I CANNOT FIND THE ORIGIN OF THIS IMAGE. it looks like a product right? but the images only link to etsy searches for "polka dot clown" or "yellow clown" and not the listing. if this is real this would be insane, please help me find the listing or origin of this image.

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

more images

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

GUYS I JUST FOUND SOMETHING INSANE AND I NEED YOUR HELP

NO, YOUR EYES ARE NOT DECEIVING YOU, THESE ARE THREE NEARLY IDENTICAL REPLICAS OF THE OG CLOWN, BUT I CANNOT FIND THE ORIGIN OF THIS IMAGE. it looks like a product right? but the images only link to etsy searches for "polka dot clown" or "yellow clown" and not the listing. if this is real this would be insane, please help me find the listing or origin of this image.

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

unrelated but happy pride to this legendary diva created by sylghouls (they only have this on their redbubble for some reason??)

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

Update: stuff is going on...

Firstly, sorry for my un-announced break from the clown-searching. I've been making extremely slow progress behind the scenes however. I have a plan in motion and i'm gonna start taking the quest more seriously again (honestly more serious than last time, although... you can only take clown dolls so seriously). I MIGHT even try to interview the current only known owner of the doll themselves (i'm sorry i don't know their pronouns i looked everywhere), @/g00 aka @/smallbutknowingclown over text, but they haven't been too active lately so idk. I have some ideas on trying to date the doll which could lead to finding the brand and therefore the doll. Once i've either failed or succeeded i'll make a video about the whole journey (probably). If anyone has any of their own leads or has done their own research my dms are always open and i'll be opening my asks. Most anything helps.

------- See yall soon (and happy pride!).

- Your very autistic clown enjoyer, Lilith

[packs-pngs]

sorry that there's another trans request- but could you do trans/pride clowns? tysm!!!

[bilbao-song]

Ad for Clown Balloons, 1991.

[mtndewbajablast]

new four temperaments are clown, 80s, cowboy, and goth.

[mtndewbajablast]

[dat-soldier]

[prokopetz]

I appreciate this principally because it acknowledges that there’s a difference between a goth clown and a clown goth.

[jesstheespeon]

Small But Knowing Clown Research

Fell back into Small But Knowing Clown rabbit hole and was seized by the fatal collector need to catalogue all the random info I came across while trying to find everyone's favorite #yellow clown.

The little guy in question (originally from @lymphonodge):

Important components: Face appears to be made of ceramic / porcelain Body casing is made of some kind of fabric Body stuffing is likely beanbag / sand, based off similar ebay listing descriptions Very tall, conical hat with a little pompom at the end. No ruff around the brim The face itself is a fairly smooth mold - no cheek lines, rounded shape High eyebrows Eyeshadow that goes all the way down into the eyes themselves - very important for identifying this specific line, imo Eyeshadow that does not have ANY outline around it Almond (?) shaped eyes with three long eyelashes at the end, a kind of half-lidded expression Soft, air-brushed-looking pink cheeks Small round red nose Single-line mouth with a softer, rounded heart lip Lace collar that is wider than the neck of the outfit Sack-style clothing (?) where all openings end with what looks like elastic (many online listings are noted as being able to change outfits) Limbs end in little nubs, slight curvature but not enough to delineate a 'foot'

A better look at the limbs, image taken from @smallbutknowingclown (yellow's current caretaker!)

Thanks to @findingthesmallbutknowingclown, I agree that the most likely brand for this guy is Little Circus Sillies!

The clown in the foreground, though kinda hard to make out, appears to have the closest face match. The shape looks correct, the eye shadow appears to go down into the eyes, and the mouth + lips + blush all look very similar! I think this box is likely from a slightly later line, and I'll go into why now.

There's a handful of variations on that second clown that I think differentiate it enough to indicate being from a later (or at least different) generation of small but knowing clowns.

The outfit is an entirely different, more involved style than the sack-suit on yellow. There is added hair / ruff not present, and I'm fairly certain that the fore-clown has distinct circle blushes instead of that faint airbrushing. (Fun aside - I think the two squares underneath with the X indicates that the back-clown is the one that's actually in the box!)

Let's get a better look at what I think is another clown from this line - https://www.ebay.com/itm/800053101736 (hello ebay thank you ebay)

What a festive little guy! A cute set of overalls, a boater hat (?), and a big mop of white hair! Clothes aside, the most interesting thing here is the lack of any blush and the big teardrop under the eye! The face is glaringly white compared to the obvious age on the body, and I wonder if that's just a trick of the lighting or if the face itself was made differently, somehow...

Back on track! If you're looking to get as close to THE small but knowing clown as possible, the most important characteristics / discriminators when looking at the slew of vintage little guys I was able to determine is: The eyes. Just about every other clown has something going on with the eyes that can near-instantly tell you whether you're looking at a Little Circus Sillies family clown or not. The mouth. They seem to have, for lack of a better term, the 'simplest' mouth of almost all of the vintage clown dolls I've seen. Most other ones have the large lip outline going all the way around the mouth, or do something different with the cheeks, or have a different style of heart for the lip bow. The clothes. This one is contentious, as these clowns all appear to have been designed for dress-up, and could have gotten an outfit change over the years. I'm fairly confident that the clowns from yellow's line will all have, at the very least, a sack-suit. I wouldn't be surprised if the collars have fallen off / ripped / loosened over the years, but the sack itself should have remained relatively intact. I'm reasonably confident that the overalls-line is distinct from the sack-suit-line.

How to find your own Small But Knowing Clown: First, please set your expectations. Yellow is a very special little clown, and you'll likely be hard-pressed to find any duplicates. I doubt yellow is one-of-a-kind, but these are very old little guys without much saved information, so the odds of a seller AND a buyer knowing the exact right terminology to use are slim. I've had a fair amount of success on ebay with the following searches - Sand body / bean bag clown doll Porcelain / ceramic face clown doll Little Circus Sillies (this one gets very few results, likely for the reason above about lack of surviving info) Clown doll lot (there's usually at least one little circus sillies! don't be afraid to message the seller and ask about breaking up a lot if you only want / can afford some of them) Q Tee Clown (this is a sibling brand, appears to be often confused for LCS, so you may get lucky and find a mislabel!) Thai clown doll (QTC looks to have been a Thai brand, so same as above) Harlequin / Jester / Pierrot doll (clown gets the most traction, but you may luck out and find one here!)

This is getting long so I'm prolly gonna add more in reblogs about the other kinds of vintage clowns I've come across, and how to identify / differentiate them from yellow's kin~

[findingthesmallbutknowingclown]

they know

[g00]

[yuukaragdoll]

some new clowns added to my collection !!

I've been seeking out pink clowns recently and I absolutely adore the new pink jester I have with real bells at the end of her hat.

[miloeatstoothpaste2]

clown resources pt 2 o<[]:o)

Pt 1 here <3

COMPLETED!! finally hit the image limit for this one chat!!

creds ------>

this clown evades taxes blinkie by neoratz on DeviantArt

clown blinkie by uhhfuckthis on DeviantArt

bozo the clown blinkie (f2u) by DuskHorseGhost on DeviantArt

CLOWNGENDER blinkie // F2U by radiotrophic on DeviantArt

Ugly Clown Stamp by TrippFoxx on DeviantArt

Clown at computer Stamp by TheTiniestDemigod on DeviantArt

Clowncoric by SamCrystalHeart1300 on DeviantArt

Horror | 000 by CommonEvils on DeviantArt

Clown Stamp 1 by Virus-Xenon on DeviantArt

Clown Stamp 2 by Virus-Xenon on DeviantArt

Clown Stamp 3 by Virus-Xenon on DeviantArt

There are a LOT of other creators that i simply cannot find, so if you find the creator of any of these and they are not listed please msg me or comment and i will fix that as soon as possible :)

[miloeatstoothpaste2]

Clown themed resources! ദ്ദിʚ(๑•́⍜•̀๑)ɞ

part 2 posted <3

creds ------>

https://blog.spacehey.com/entry?id=576782

https://blinkie-net.neocities.org/blinkies

https://junabuggy.tumblr.com/post/772888545164689408

https://animatedglittergraphics-n-more.tumblr.com/post/711272070639697920/clown-primary-color-dividers-content-source