Here's a short industrial film showing a typical one-day performance of the Cole Brothers Circus back in 1949, from the arrival of the circus train in town, to the last big act. There are plenty of elephants, horses, dogs playing basketball, and of course clowns.
Cole Brothers Circus dated from the 1880s and after being renamed the Clyde Beatty Circus in the late 1950s, continued with the traditional patterns of circuses, much like this one, through its demise in the middle of the 2010s.
This movie is apparently intended to whet the appetite of people who saw it for the real thing, with plenty of laughs, jokes, and beautiful women being fired from cannons.