As you may have heard, creepy killer clown sightings have gone viral and caused enough hysteria that even Stephen King, (the author of the ultimate killer clown, Pennywise), has been trying to tamp things down. My friend posted about scary clowns of the political kind so I hoped to show you some scary killer clown videos but they were all much too disturbing. Then I remembered before Pennywise in 1990, clowns were not a scary thing. I grew up with Bozo from Bozo’s Circus televised from 1961 to 1980. Watch a few moments of the 1968 episode. He wasn’t scary, was he?
And let’s not forget the most famous international clown, Ronald McDonald and his strange little nemesis the Hamburglar. Here’s a video from the 1980’s:
Ronald never appealed to me probably because I was too old to enjoy the humor by the time he debuted. But then, I wasn’t into Bozo either. Clowns just weren’t that funny to me. I devoured Pennywise, as I did all of King’s books; it never occurred to me that clowns could be scary. Apparently many people think they are.
What do you think?
The hysteria sure is running high. Yesterday our school district sent out a Parent Advisory, advising that “There have been no clown-related incidents at any District school.” This to me is reaching new levels of absurdity, when a school district has to send out advisories to say that something is NOT happening!
Sheesh! They have gotten a lot of inquiries about whether it was happening. Now that they raised the topic, some wiseguy is going to run with the idea.
This whole menacing clown thing is bizarre–timed, as it seems to be, in the run up Halloween. Is this part goofy urban legend and part creepy people phenomena? Perhaps a bit of both. So thanks for your calming essay post that helps toward reminding us of clowns more benign beginnings.
P.S. And I am thankful that a certain person didn’t get cast in another horror genre project as Pennywise for the new “It” film. Horror and violence in theatrical projects are just not appealing to me. The world is too full of real violence and horror.
But about that naked audition …
http://anthemmagazine.com/richard-armitage-blows-his-cover/
OMG, I’m SO glad RA didn’t get the part. Not sure I would have wanted to see that – Pennywise, not the naked part. 😛
I think it’s mostly creepy people who want their 15 minutes of notoriety and enjoy scaring the crap out of other people. Did you hear how some of this stuff has been backfiring with the victims lashing out in fear? Somebody is going to get seriously hurt or killed.