History Main / CircusBrat

* Goh from ''{{Yellow}}''.

* In ''RurouniKenshin'', Yahiko befriends a girl named Marimo who lives and works in a circus as their HumanCannonball. Then the circus is threatened by some thugs, and the Kenshin-gumi helps Marimo and the crew against them.

* [[{{Nightwing}} Richard "Dick" Grayson]], the original Comicbook/{{Robin}} from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}''. He still returns to the circus whenever they pass by Gotham and Bludhaven. He even ended up using his sizable trust fund to buy them out to save them from financial ruin. He's generally regarded as the best acrobat in the world.

* {{Hawkeye}} and his brother Barney both grew up in the circus, and this is where Clint learned his sharpshooting skills to begin with.

** Originally Jason Todd, as Dick's SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute, was also this. He was given a completely different backstory after the [[CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]] reboot.

* Nadia from ''NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater''.

* {{Cher}}''''s "''Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves''", the source for this trope's quote.
* BruceSpringsteen's "''Wild Billy's Circus Story''".

* Jetta Maxx from ''EternalChampions''.

* Princess Tenko of ''TenkoAndTheGuardiansOfTheMagic'' grew up in a magic show.

[[/folder]]

* Fear's BackStory as written in the ''MetalGearSolid3'' fanfic ''FanFic/TheJoyOfBattle'' was the son of two circus performers. It seems that he got his [[OverlyLongTongue tongue]] from his mother and his ability to dislocate joints from his father. His story may or may not be based on [[Franchise/{{X-Men}} Nightcrawler]].

* Marion Begnini from ''KaleidoStar'', as well as Pamela's twin girls. [[spoiler: Yuri and the Oswald siblings are more tragic examples: Yuri's dad died on-stage, and the Oswalds joined a circus after leaving their abusive step-parents... and Sophie later died.]]

* Mai from ''MagicalStarMagicalEmi'' grew up in the Magic Carat Magic Show.

* Sophia, a girl from an itinerant circus that a MagicalGirl named [[HananoKoLunlun Lunlun]] meets in her travels through Europe. More exactly, in Norway. In a subversion this ''does'' have repercusions in Sophia's emotional state, as she's stated to have few to no friends and [[spoiler: refuses to work onstage as a clown, despite having inherited her DisappearedDad's talent for acting and making people laugh. Sophia's mother, who works as the circus's fortune teller, tries to rope Lunlun to try dealing with her...]]

* Another Rita: Rita Rossi from ''AshitaNoNadja''. [[spoiler: Twice, actually: the circus owned by her parents got burned down, and since they died in that same fire she was taken in by the Dandelion Troupe, the people that the Rossis entrusted her to before perishing.]]

* Eddie, the protagonist of ''TheFivePeopleYouMeetInHeaven'' grew up (and spent the rest of his life) at a seaside amusement park. It was where he met his wife and eventually died; one of the eponymous people is the Blue Man from the freak show; a flashback shows Eddie using his ability to juggle to fight off his captors during the war in the Philippines, etc.

* From ''{{Berserk}}'' Judeau spent his childhood with a traveling performance group and that may have been were his knife throwing skill was picked up. Puck also lived with the same group.

* In RurouniKenshin, Yahiko befriends a girl named Marimo who lives and works in a circus as their HumanCannonball. Then the circus is threatened by some thugs, and the Kenshin-gumi helps Marimo and the crew against them.

* The title character of ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' grew up in a circus (as a freak) and learned a real skill with magic and choreography there. In the book, his first job after leaving the circus is as an entertainer/TortureTechnician for an Ottoman ruler.

* The Great Merlini, who appeared in four golden-age mystery novels by Clayton Rawson, was born to a family of circus acrobats and got his initial training in stage magic from the sideshow magician.

* ''School's Out: The Musical'', a movie spawned from ''The FairlyOddParents''. Flappy Bob's childhood life as a clown and his secret love for it, despite his boring Pixie-life, is a vital part of the plot.

* Kvothe of ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicles'' was the 'traveling entertainment troupe' variety.

* Kvothe from ''TheNameOfTheWind''.

* In '''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Varrick claims to have been taken away by the circus as a child.

* {{Cher}}''''s "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves", the source for this trope's quote.

%%[[folder:Webcomics]]
%%[[/folder]]

* Sir JohnMajor, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990-1997, was the son of a retired circus performer. This gave rise to the joke that he ran away from the circus to become an accountant.

* Regina Berry in ''[[VisualNovel/AceAttorney Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All]]''. She's very sheltered in many respects, such as having no concept of death and finding nothing strange about [[spoiler: a marriage proposal from a ventriloquist's dummy. Not the performer, his dummy.]]

* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'', Colette explains to Linguini the backstories of the other cooks. One was a circus acrobat who was fired for messing around with the ringmaster's daughter.

* Eddie, the protagonist of ''TheFivePeopleYouMeetInHeaven'' grew up (and spent the rest of his life) at a seaside amusement park. It was where he met his wife and eventually died; one of the eponymous people is the Blue Man from the freak show; a flashback shows Eddie using his ability to juggle to fight off his captors during the war in the Phillippines, etc.

* [[{{Nightwing}} Richard "Dick" Grayson]], the original Comicbook/{{Robin}} from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}''. He still returns to the circus whenever they pass by Gotham and Bludhaven. He even ended up using his sizable trust fund to buy them out to save them from financial ruin.