TV REVIEWS : PBS’ ‘Clowning’ Displays Serious Flaws

“Clowning Around,” PBS’ newest Wonderworks Family Movie (today at 2:30 p.m., Channel 28), is an Australian film about a boy who dreams of becoming a circus clown. His feel-good odyssey from orphanage to foster home, to rodeo to one-ring circus, and, finally, to a prestigious circus in Paris, unfolds over a leisurely three hours.

Credibility is strained from the outset when 14-year-old Sim (Clayton Williams) runs away to find a circus. A runaway here who’s picked up on the street isn’t likely to be as lucky as Sim. He gets a ride with Jack (Ernie Dingo), who instantly becomes Sim’s patron saint, finds him rodeo and circus jobs and later makes it possible for him to travel to Paris.

Still on the run, Sim also lives with Anatole (Jean-Michel Dagory), an angry ex-clown with a heart of gold, who teaches Sim circus skills. When the child welfare authorities track Sim down, they let him stay as long as he goes to school. Later, however, no one seems to care when he stops going.

The characters are skin-deep, but the actors are likable enough, particularly Williams, a Ricky Schroeder look-alike, and Dingo (“ ‘Crocodile’ Dundee”). Van Johnson, meanwhile, in his guest spot as the surly owner of the run-down one-ring circus, is one of the few alternatives to a mega-dose of sweetness and light.

Sim’s single-minded determination to make people laugh eventually wins over his foster parents, his mother and the head of the Parisian circus. But, although actor Williams obviously prepared for the role, it’s difficult to understand why his modest clown tricks have everyone laughing so hard.