Clowns who sell shit

It doesn't take too many trips to the YouTube store to make you realize that Milky was far from alone in existing just to sell stuff.

He may have been more dedicated than most, wearing a bedsheet costume (hopefully, not used - whoa there, Mr. Milks) to match his product. But this Kedso creature, covered in mysterious spots and holding a tiny useless umbrella, is willing to take some major leaps for the corporation.

Live-action clowns are, of course, far creepier, like this Fizzies clown with the orgasmic facial expression. One of the worst aspects of clown closeups is the fact that we can see the guy's real eyebrows, lips, teeth, etc. - which was probably never meant to happen while clowns pranced around the circus ring at a merciful distance. This guy has the teeth of a rabid beaver or a most unfriendly hamster about to fasten itself on to the end of your index finger. Fun.

This is Clarabell, perhaps the most famous clown in TV history, and goddamn, is he mud-ugly! The makeup consists of two squares drawn above the eyes, and a gory-looking Satanic mouth ringed in white. The advantage is that he could probably apply his makeup in less than five minutes, but the disadvantage is that, this close, his creepiness is so extreme as to be nearly incomprehensible. Yet clowns are always described as "loveable". Might there be something a little bit wrong with a man who needs to do this every day?

Krinkles the Klown is downright disturbing, so much so that I had to make two gifs of him. Here he hands a bowl of his product to an unwitting victim. If he looks a little more peculiar than usual (for this isn't the first time I've giffed Krinkles), it's because someone, not me, mind you, but SOMEONE has slowed down the YouTube video just a hair, so that he looks glassy-eyed and stoned (I mean, more than usual).

This guy's upper lip freaks me out. Watch it while he talks, and when he chews his cud, it's awful. And the way he blinks his eyes, blink, blink. I want to rip the fake hair out of his fake skull and tear off his nose. Perhaps this is where John Wayne Gacy got his inspiration.

Post eventually replaced the oh-so-stoned Krinkles with something a little more animated. But might the boy have a sugar problem?

But for sheer incomprehensibility, we can't beat the first incarnation of Ronald McDonald, a goof with a crappy cheap clown suit, surgical gloves, and a box on his head. Yes, a box, with burger, fries and drink. At first I thought that was a toilet paper roll strapped to his nose, but now I see it's an empty paper cup. Does he anticipate a nosebleed, or a freshet of snot, or what? I apologize for the quality of this one - it was the best I could do with a badly-edited, flickering video so degenerated that it's nearly green. It's so cheaply made, so jerky, that one wonders how this could have been the genesis for Ronald McDick, a cultural icon second only to Chairman Mouse in universal appeal.