Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages! This series offers the Big Top on the small screen, a weekly half hour of circus acts and musical entertainment. A couple of young, scrub-faced professional singers named Cal Dodd and Sherisse Laurence do the singing and crack the ringmaster's whip, but the main drawing-card is the age-old lure of the circus itself... painted clowns, fire-eaters, daring aerialists, trained horses, balancing acts, performing dogs of all sizes, bareback riders, majestic trained elephants, cages roaring with wild animals, a blaring, brassy band and circus queens in dazzling tights. The series was based on a top-rated CTV special.

Circus expanded to an hour and had Billy Van as a regular in the second season. In the fourth season, Circus expanded its "Sideshow" segment. And by the sixth season, the series featured new sets and new host — the versatile Pierre Lalonde, and his co-host Rumpy the Clown, a longtime series favourite.