@passeriInformal - I think Marvus is my favourite of the Hiveswap clowns, though it's a close call between him and Karako.

Bit of an Amazing Digital Circus fan, so obviously there's Pomni. Who is a bit of a meme, but I genuinely like her as a character. (And the late lamented Kaufmo, we hardly knew you.)

One of the most memorable Doctor Who storylines I remember from my childhood was "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy," set in a sinister circus on an alien world. Most of the clowns were robots (played by real human clowns, except for the partly disassembled ones. I assume.) The Chief Clown, a human, wore white mime makeup and had superbly sarcastic body language.

@margot_kix - Most of what I know of the Commedia dell'Arte is filtered through my classical music background, and I could really do with learning more! The dashing Harlequin and the melancholy Pierrot turn up in Schumman's music, and he came up with two similar clownsonas, Florestan and Esebius, for the two side of his personality. Later on there's Schoenberg's Expressionist song cycle "Pierrot Lunaire," based on the Verlaine poems. One of my university lectures, Roger Marsh, did his own bilingual setting. And I recently wrote a little song about Pierrot with cameos from Harlequin and Columbine.