Evil clown

The image of the evil clown is a development in American popular culture, in which the playful trope of the clown is rendered as disturbing through the use of horror elements and dark humor.

Background

Some people find clowns disturbing rather than amusing. It is not uncommon for children to be afraid of disguised, exaggerated, or costumed figures — even Santa Claus. Ute myths feature a cannibalistic clown monster called the Siats. A design study carried out by the University of Sheffield found that children are frightened by clown-themed decor in hospitals.

Clown costumes tend to exaggerate the facial features and some body parts, such as hands and feet. This can be read as monstrous or deformed as easily as it can be read as comical.

The irrational fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia. Some have suggested that a fear of clowns may stem from early childhood experience, when infants begin to process and make sense of facial features. The significant aberrations in a clown's face may frighten a child so much that they carry this phobia throughout their adult life.

It can also be said one's response to a clown might depend on where it's seen. At a circus or a party, a clown is normal and may easily be funny. The same clown knocking on one's front door at sunset is more likely to generate fear or distress than laughter or amusement. This effect is summed up in a quote often attributed to actor Lon Chaney, Sr.: "There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight."

Evil clown in popular culture

The image of the evil clown appears to have gained notoriety to the extent of becoming a cliché.

Major examples of "evil clown" imagery are:

• The Stephen King novel It, as well as the homonymous movie featuring Tim Curry, revolves around seven children who are haunted by an evil shape-shifting creature that often takes the form of an evil clown named Pennywise.
• The Joker, who is the archenemy of Batman, is a murderously insane super villain with a disturbing clown-like appearance. The character first appeared in Batman #1 (1940). Whenever called a clown, he will say "Not clown. Joker.".
• The Clown, the archenemy of the golden age heroes Magno and Davy.
• In the film Poltergeist, the young son Robbie has a toy clown, which comes to life and attacks him when it is possessed by the poltergeist.
• Konrad Beezo and his son Punchinello are the antagonists in the novel Life Expectancy, by Dean Koontz. Also, there are two minor villains, Honker and Crinkles, who are arguably also "evil" clowns.
• In the Tim Burton film The Nightmare Before Christmas, one of the residents of Halloweentown is the clown with the "tear away face", a hideous, overweight and seemingly undead clown who rides about on a unicycle and is able to launch his hands to grab things.
• In the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine, large clowns serve as artillery for the Blue Meanies.
• Musical groups such as the Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid, Blaze Ya Dead Homie, Boondox, Anybody Killa Dangerous Toys, Mr. Bungle, Shawn "Clown" Crahan of Slipknot, and Tech N9ne aka "killa klown", impersonate clowns in a "creepy" manner.
• The Evil Clown of Middletown, a New Jersey roadside advertisement, appears in the first few minutes of Kevin Smith's film Clerks II (2006).
• In the early 1990s an evil clown character was featured in the WWE, then known as the WWF. Doink the Clown was portrayed as a villain early on in his career. He would do things such as pop children's balloons with a cigar, splash water on the audience, and use a fake prosthetic arm to attack opponents. Once he even attacked an opponent with a car battery. His entrance theme music was a typical happy circus tune ("Entrance of the Gladiators") which would quickly segue into dark and menacing music, complete with evil cackling sound effects.
• An evil clown named Buggy the Clown is a villain in the anime series One Piece.
• The sci fi movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) features human-eating aliens who resemble evil clowns.
• In an episode of Seinfeld, the psychopath "Crazy" Joe Davola stalks Elaine (to the opera Pagliacci) dressed as a clown.
• Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights has used a sadistic character named Jack the Clown as an event icon for several years.
• A Dark Place by Steven Shiverdecker is a book published by Infinity Publishing about a grotesque, murderous clown.
• Sweet Tooth, a character from the Twisted Metal video game series, is an evil clown.
• In the series Digimon, the most powerful and evil Dark Master, Piedmon, is said to be a shape-shifter that usually takes the shape of a dark and murderous clown.
• Kefka Palazzo, the main villain of Final Fantasy VI, is an evil clown.
• On the Nickelodeon cartoon Danny Phantom, Danny has sometimes fought an evil clown-like human villain named Freakshow.
• Frenchy the Clown is the eponymous character in National Lampoon's Evil Clown Comics.
• The Clown, a manifestation of the fears of several aliens in stasis for 19 years, as seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Thaw".
• In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will, Carlton, and Uncle Phil are held up in a gas station by a clown named Juggles, who threatens them with explosives.
• There is a psychopath in the Xbox 360 video game Dead Rising known as Adam the Clown, who goes insane after seeing his audience eaten when the zombies attack. He wields dual chainsaws which presumably were used in a juggling act.
• The adventure game Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars begins when a Paris cafe is bombed by a man dressed as a clown, who flees into the nearby sewers, setting in motion the events of the game.
• Masters of Horror episode "We All Scream for Ice Cream" had an ice cream man named Buster who dressed like a clown and came back from the dead to exact revenge.
• In The Brave Little Toaster, Toaster, the main protagonist, has a nightmare where a demonic clown (dressed as a firefighter) emerges from a cloud of smoke, whispers "RUN!" and attacks Toaster by spraying forks at him from his hose.
• Captain Spaulding, from Rob Zombie's horror film(s), House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, is an evil clown.
• In the anime film Akira, there are two rival biker gangs. One gang, called the Clowns, dresses in clown-like outfits and acts much like evil clowns.
• Horrabin the clown from Tim Power's The Anubis Gates is an evil clown-sorcerer and beggar king who turns his subjects into deformed freaks so they could become more efficient beggars.
• The 2007 horror film 100 Tears centers around a serial killer clown named Gurdy the Clown, who was falsely accused of crime years prior and brutally murders innocent victims for what they did to him.
• The Clown is arguably the archenemy of the comic book anti-hero Spawn.
• In the anime and manga series D.Gray-man, the main antagonist, The Earl of Millennium is portrayed as a short, obese jester, and is constantly shown with a large, toothy grin on his face. He also follows many of his sentences with laughter, and moves in the way one might expect to see a clown move when performing.
• Clopin Trouillefou, a character from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is a menacing jester.
• in the two music videos for "Doin' Time" and "wrong way" by sublime an evil clown is featured as a balding middle aged man.
• Dr. Rockzo from Metalocalypse is a narcotics-obsessed, obnoxious and almost-evil clown. His catchphrase is "I DO COCAINE!"
• Horny the Clown is an antagonist from the 2007 horror film Drive Thru.
• Obnoxio the Clown was a cigar smoking, vulgar clown that appeared in Crazy Magazine (a Marvel Comics publication) as a recurring character in the 1980s, and in 1983 Marvel Comics also published a short-lived comic book based on this character.
• DI Alex Drake from Ashes to Ashes is stalked by a hallucinatory version of the Pierrot clown from David Bowie's original video for the eponymous song.
• Sam and Dean face an evil clown in one episode of the T.V. show "Supernatural".
• The 1996 graphic adventure Toonstruck features an insane, sadistic clown called Spike (shown on the game's box), who has a penchant for torturing balloon animals with a long pin.
• In a Halloween episode of iCarly, a so-called 'severed head' of an evil clown is found. It is later on revealed to be just a hideous phone, hidden in a cupboard because 'no-one ever called'.

See also

• Trickster
• Bouffon
• Ubu Roi
• Pueblo Clowns
• "Can't sleep, clown will eat me"
• John Wayne Gacy

External links

• Collection of Evil Clown Pictures at Scaryforkids

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