Friday, January 26, 2018

When did clowns get creepy?




When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a creepy clown. ALL clowns were good, ALL clowns were funny, and they provided unquestioningly wholesome entertainment, not to mention big bucks for advertisers. When we look back at them now, we're incredulous. Just seeing Ronald McDonald in his first incarnation with the cardboard box on his head to demonstrate the Happy Meal is pretty macabre. Clarabell, the beloved clown of Howdy Doody (in itself pretty macabre), now looks like something you wouldn't want to face in your darkest nightmares. Milky I've dealt with, or at least I think so, until he comes seeping back into my post-traumatic consciousness like some eerie Renaissance shade. 

The whole concept of a creepy clown is relatively  recent, but now that we've put on those glasses of perception, suddenly they ALL look creepy. John Wayne Gacy has nothing on these guys. Stephen King has been blamed for it, but the awareness started a long time before that. You don't need to creep them up or make them look evil. They're ALL evil, as far as I am concerned, and the farther back you go, the more horrendously creepy they are.

So I just had to make a gif compilation from my vast file. When something is this bad, it somehow morphs into its opposite and becomes sublime.


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