The clown that haunts my dreams

In the past I've spilled quite a lot of ink on Milky. Well, not literally, or his suit would be all splotchy. The Milkster was the creature who haunted my childhood from his roost on Detroit TV during the early 1960s. Everyone was supposed to love Milky, and the thing is, we did, no matter how freakish he looked. Clowns weren't viewed as creepy then, nor were dolls or puppets, which explains a lot about children's Christmas programming back then.

I hesitated on doing one of these giffer things about Milky, because all my photos of him were so shitty. Some of them were about the size of a postage stamp, but that's all I had.  A few were gi-normous scans of ads that look like they appeared in newspapers, since they have that yellowed, crumbling look. So I had to try to scale those down to fit.

Everything IN this montage is yellowed, when it isn't red, the waxy red of Twin Pines milk cartons. The stylized cartoon version of Milky is even more nightmarish than the original. Then there is the Milky merchandizing, which makes up most of this tribute because it's all I have. God, but it was awful. Those tshirts look like they're rotten, the wall clock is the color of a bad urine sample, that game is a shitty piece of plastic - but none of them can hold a candle to the ultimate piece of Milky memorabilia:

Yes. It's the Milky the Clown ash tray. 

BONUS FIND!  Who knows how I get into these nightmarish things. I just found an ad for a complete set of brand new, unopened, unused, pristine drinking glasses WITH MILKY ON THEM. You heard me. God knows how much they want for these things, because they are up for auction somewhere in the States. Compared to the plastic tumbler, they're pretty impressive:

One wonders, however, who would buy a set of these and just put them away somewhere. A time traveller, perhaps. Someone from the future who could see how valuable these were going to be. But I have never understood time travel. What if you met yourself? What if you gave yourself all sorts of advice about things NOT to do, so you would end up not having any of the learning experiences of your life and would end up a complete idiot? How could there be two of you at one time? But there would have to be, wouldn't there? Yet, my Einsteinian husband says time travel is theoretically possible. The whole thing makes me want to go to bed and stay there.

Sympathy for the Milkster

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SMACKDOWN: Battle of the Creepy Clowns!

OK, I KNOW I post too many gifs. I'm of an older generation that still thinks they're Magic, and besides, I've learned how to make my own from YouTube snippets. And I'm bored and it's Friday and so what. If you don't like these, and you probably don't, don't look at them. Though my view count is at an all-time low, I am not the kind of social media prostitute that froths up business by wagging her ass. There, I've said. it.

This is Krinkles the Klown shilling for some cereal. Maybe he had aspirations beyond prancing around in a polka-dotted suit and wearing a doghouse on his head. He is plenty creepy and his makeup is classic clown, but the problem is, besides breaking through a big piece of paper, he doesn't DO much.

Milky, now. He was the bane of my childhood and star of his own show, Milky's Party Time. Like Krinkles, he was flogging a corporation, Twin Pines Dairy. Only one rare clip survives, showing him pulling a large object like a tumor out of  Little Nancy's face. Then he seems to shove it back into her face again, which I like. The clip is from some benefit for "crippled children", which is why poor Nancy must stand there on crutches for twenty minutes or so instead of sitting down comfortably. Milky looks like some ghastly vision of Pagliaccio, ready to slay his rival with a butcher knife. His costume has always reminded me, most disturbingly, of the KKK.

Like I said, Krinkles mainly just sits there and talks. He talks about how the cereal makes him "krinkle". I wonder if he is some strange forerunner of Krusty on The Simpsons. And there's that damned ruffle again.

I just noticed this (after 50 years): what's that on his head? A funnel with a sort of handle on it, I guess.

This is where it gets WAY weird, the thing with the sausages. He keeps rummaging around in his pants for some reason. When you look at some of the body language (i. e. his face getting closer and closer to the sausage, which is provocatively curved), you can see this is something that would not be considered appropriate today. And boy, is Nancy getting tired! It must hurt under her arms. And let's hope Milky's breath isn't too bad. Circus performers are notorious for their booze-and-tobacco fumes.

Ah, the taste test! How many takes did it require? He may have chewed his way through a few boxes of that stuff. But wait! Can you really SEE the spoon? Is he (like Milky) a genius at sleight-of-hand and thus able to ram the spoon into his clowny white face with no cereal on it? If so, unlike Milky, he wouldn't have to put anything in his mouth at all.

Would you want this clown pulling sausages out of your child's ear? You can sit down now, Nancy.

POST-POST: In my haste to present these macabre magicians in all their frightening glory, I forgot the most important thing.

WHO WON??

Which clown was the vilest, the scariest, the most sinister? Who pulled the most incomprehensible pranks on poor unsuspecting children?

I didn't even need to count your votes.

I give you. . .  The Victor.

I have put together this merry montage to express my personal feelings about Milky. Now for a few candid shots. . .

Milky enjoys the finer things.

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