Lou Jacobs

Lou Jacobs (1903-1992) was a circus clown whose career with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus spanned more than fifty years. He was interviewed, along with other clowns, by Fozzie Bear in the Fall 1983 issue of Muppet Magazine, as part of a feature piece on Ringling performers. Jacobs' daughter, aerialist Dolly Jacobs, was interviewed elsewhere in the article.
Born in Germany, Jacobs emigrated to the United States of America in the 1920s, at first working with comedy acrobatic and contortion acts. While he joined Ringling in 1925, he made his debut as a clown in 1926 and would eventually become one of the faces most closely associated with the circus, appearing in full clown make-up in posters, programs, and later adorning postage stamps and boxes of Kellogg's Sugar Smacks. Jacobs' act often incorporated mechanical devices, including a miniature clown car, as well as routines with his trained chihuahua Knucklehead (wearing various costumes, such as a rabbit in a hunting sketch) and later Knucklehead's pup PeeWee.
Parts of Jacobs' act were filmed for the 1952 movie The Greatest Show on Earth (with Charlton Heston and James Stewart) and taught at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College from 1969 to 1991. 
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