Monster Clown: Difference between revisions

Clowns are ''supposed'' to be funny. They're supposed to make everyone laugh, especially children. This is the entire point of their existence. Sometimes they succeed. But for some people, clowns awaken [[wikipedia:Coulrophobia|some primal fear]]. There are children who won't go near a clown without screaming.

 

 

 

Monster Clowns are often [[Affably Evil]] or [[Faux Affably Evil]] - if they work in a circus, it'll be a [[Circus of Fear]]. Likewise, many of these clowns may or may not be [[Ax Crazy|completely insane]] and act [[Psychopathic Manchild|in a very similar manner to an overgrown child]]; they tend to commit their crimes while [[Laughing Mad|laughing crazily]] [[The Hyena|and frequently]], cracking fittingly dark jokes ([[Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor|if you can ''call'' them that]]).

The point is that real-world clowns ''clown'': while clowning is intended to be funny, it can be received as ritualised (self-)humiliation, and may make modern audiences quite sick to the stomach - now imagine what the Monster Clown's [[Nightmare Fuel|sick twists on their gags will do to 'em]]. Somtimes, a Monster Clown won't even do ''that'' much... they just ''look'' like a clown, without any of the jokes or working in a circus or going to kids' parties. On the flipside of it, [[wikipedia:John Wayne Gacy|John Wayne Gacy]], one of the most famous serial killers in the United States, worked part-time as a clown - the AP [[Critical Research Failure|once used a stock photo of Gacy for National Clown day]].

 

 

{{examples}}

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwb9W51j7fo&eurl The original design of Ronald McDonald, as seen in this advertisement.]

** For those of you who don't know, that's Willard Scott under that original Ronald makeup.

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiWNKYNUd2U A Bagel Bites commercial from 2021] features a silly clown and a scary clown disagreeing on everything... but Bagel Bites, of course.

 

* Hisoka from ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]''.

* In ''[[Akira]]'' there are two rival biker gangs. One gang, called the Clowns, dresses in clown-like outfits and acts very much like evil clowns.

* Subverted in ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]''. Suzuki, a contestant in the Dark World Tournament, desperately wants to fit this trope, and it seems like he does after killing some laughing spectators...but then Genkai kicks his ass all over the place. {{spoiler|Afterwards, he ditches the makeup and [[Defeat Means Friendship|becomes an ally]].}}

 

* Subverted by a short-lived superhero called ''Funnyman'' whose schtick was... you guessed it....

* [[The Joker]] from ''[[Batman]]''. '''The''' [[Trope Codifier]].

* Naturally, the Circus of Crime (usually foes of ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'') has lots of them. One particular member is Eliot "Crafty" Franklin, usually just called the Clown, who is [[The Dragon]] to the Ringmaster, and sometimes the leader when his boss is in jail.

 

* ''[[Beetlejuice]]'': The title character from the movie.

** And as noted below, Scuzzo the Clown from [[Beetlejuice (animation)|the animated series]].

* ''Klown Kamp Massacre'' and 100 Tears both feature killers dressed as monster clowns.

* ''[[La Casa 3]]'' has the clown doll that Henriette carries around. On few occasions it turns into sharptoothed version of itself.

 

* Pennywise from ''[[IT]]'' by [[Stephen King]].

** In the TV miniseries based on the same, [[Tim Curry]]'s portrayal of the role was so creepy, the other actors avoided him even off-camera. He is responsible for a hell of a lot of people's coulrophobia.

** [[Irony|Ironically]], while It often used its shape-shifting ability to take the form of nightmarish imagery, one of its primary uses for the Pennywise form was to ''attract'' kids. As such, It gives adults a new reason to fear clowns: [[Adult Fear|they lure children in with balloons and dancing, only to then do unthinkable things to them...]]

* The Ankh-Morpork Fool's Guild in the ''[[Discworld]]'' series realizes that clowns scare and disgust some people. Thus, they prepare their charges through exceedingly harsh conditions to endure a lot of abuse. [[Terry Pratchett]], creator of the series, has described the guild as "the stricter sort of medieval monastery without [the monastery's] non-stop boffo laughs." He also introduces the idea that whiteface clowns are scary even to other clowns because their humor often comes from bullying others. Doctor Whiteface is described as having, under his painted grin, features "cold and proud as a prince of Hell".

{{quote|''They are tragic, and [[Black Comedy|we laugh at their tragedy as we laugh at our own.]] The painted grin leers out at us from the darkness, [[Nietzsche Wannabe|mocking our insane belief in order, logic, status, the reality of reality.]] The mask knows that we are born on [[Banana Peel|the banana skin]] that leads only to [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|the open manhole cover of doom,]] and all we can hope for are the cheers of the crowd.''}}

** In the Fools' Guild edition of the ''[[All There in the Manual|Discworld Diary]]'' series, the Guild's clowns, mimes and jesters are revealed to be agents of a widespread and ruthless spy ring operated purely for its own profit and power.

* One of the secretaries at the Peoria REC in [[The Pale King]] resembles one.

 

* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' had two: Zeebo the Clown, the ghost of a criminal who haunted a haunted house (go figure); and the Crimson Clown, something of a cross between a Monster Clown and a [[Demonic Dummy]].

** Don't forget [https://web.archive.org/web/20120427214906/http://www.desperatethoughts.com/ioffer/areuafraidofthedark.gif The Ghastly Grinner.] He's a jester but he still fits the mark.

* ''[[Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy]]'' features a screeching purple clown named "The Audience" who lives on a cloud and produces mashed potato sculptures from his hollow abdomen. He shows no particular signs of being evil, but he's still terrifying and bizarre in the extreme.

 

* [[Vocaloid]]: Len Kagamine, playing Lemy/Remy Abelard, in the [[Mothy]] song The Fifth: Pierrot/Gobanme no Piero, is a very unique example of this. First, he's just an assassin who has the nickname "Pierrot" and wears a clown outfit. Second, he's not really a monster. He's just {{spoiler|been raised wrong by Santa/Julia Abelard, his adoptive mother and leader of the organization he belongs to, Pere Noel}}.

* The appropriately titled song "Clown" by the band [[Korn]].

** There's also a quick shot of one at :04.

** More Pink: from the same album, the song ''Funhouse'':

** And seriously, what more can you do with evil clowns, except [[Kill It with Fire]]? The video's pretty freaky too.

* While the clowns in the video for the Arctic Monkeys' "Fluorescent Adolescent" aren't demonic monsters, given that the video is centered around a fight between two gangs of those wacky circus comedians, they're not exactly nice, either.

* [[Alice Cooper]]'s ''Can't Sleep, the Clowns Will Eat Me''.

{{quote|''[[Paedo Hunt|But that was in Indianapolis]], and thanks to the liberal reciprocity laws, Kinko can be with you [[Depraved Bisexual|boys and girls]] today or anytime.''}}

* Check out [https://web.archive.org/web/20120217140507/http://www.monsterisland.com/wct/wct.gif Blotto the Clown] from the cover of White Courtesy Telephone's (one and only) CD, "Everything is Fun".

* [[Oingo Boingo]] recorded a song called "Clowns of Death" and performed under that name on a few occasions. Auxiliary band members would sometimes dress in clown costumes, billed as the Sad Klown Orkestra.

* The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLifSFBs_Lk music video] for Sublime's "Wrong Way" depicts Annie's abusive father as a clown.

 

 

* Doink the Clown in the [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWF]], until his [[Heel Face Turn|face turn]]. Then it went downhill fast. Matt Osborne, who portrayed him, claims he took quite a lot of inspiration from [[The Joker]] while doing so. Doink also gets point for the coolest entrance theme ever, which started with the first few bars of "Entrance of the Gladiators" (aka the [[Standard Snippet]] for clowns) before turning into a very bass-heavy, very ''evil'' piece dotted with [[Evil Laugh]]ter. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UDkrGN19ns&feature=related Have a listen].

* Subverted by [[Sting (wrestling)|Sting]] in [[TNA]] during his 2011 war against the Immortal faction. Slathering over his trademark black lipstick with a grotesquely smeared red [[Glasgow Grin]], playing pranks, and [[The Hyena|laughing and carrying on maniacally]], he ''seemed'' to be a Monster Clown but was actually more of a [[Loveable Rogue]] playing mind games with the villains. Definitely a case of [[Love It or Hate It]], especially for longtime Sting fans.

* Used in a third-season episode of ''[[Scare Tactics (TV series)|Scare Tactics]]'' for a teenager set to babysit a little girl, only instead of a clown statue, it's the little girl's [[Not-So-Imaginary Friend]].

 

** And some of them are very weird. Like the eye-chicken-ventriloquist [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/opticaper.htm Opticaper], the straitjacket-snake-clown [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/insanititter.htm Insanititter] and whatever the hell [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/madcap.htm Madcap] is.

* The ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' supplement ''Heroes Of Horror'' is about infusing your games with anything from a touch to an overdose of the macabre, the frightening, and the unnerving. One of the monsters introduced? The "gray jester". One of the scenarios provided? A gray jester and a hag enslaving and eating children.

* In ''[[Cyberpunk 2020]]'', one street gang you can run into on the streets of [[Meaningful Name|Night City]] is the Bozos. They are described as the sort of people who get ''plastic surgery'' to look like clowns permanently, who stay up all night watching horror flicks. And committing gruesome crimes. Advice for dealing with them is "Run!"

 

* Essentially averted by [[Cirque Du Soleil]] in their specific clown acts. Traditional whitefaces and augustes are less intimidating than the popular conception, and some character-based clown acts largely eschew garish makeup and costuming. Indeed some clowns are downright ordinary-looking compared to the other characters. But there are villainous/mysterious characters who, intentionally or not, have appearances akin to this trope: Boum-Boum in ''Quidam'', Le Titan in ''La Nouba'', etc. Closest to the trope is the bizarre emcee Fleur in ''Alegria'': According to the [[All There in the Manual]] material, he was the court jester to the now-gone ruler of the kingdom, and now he wants to be king.

 

* Joker-sama in ''[[Persona 2]]''. Unusual if only for his distinctive elegance... {{spoiler|and the fact he's the plaything of [[Eldritch Abomination|Nyarlathotep]] }}.

* In ''[[League of Legends]]'', there is a ''playable'' monster clown named Shaco. He can set invisible jack in the boxes that cause terror and fire [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser beams]], poof into invisibility with an evil laugh, backstab people with venomed knives, and make duplicates of himself.

* The GAC clowns in ''[[Dead to Rights]]''.

* ''[[Splatterhouse]] 2010'' has a level set at a theme park which is, of course, populated by demonic clowns and spin their heads, split fire, twirl upside-down on their hands kicking you with their legs and crawl along backwards on the floor if you knock them down.

* ''[[Serious Sam]]'' II has weird looking, unicycling, manically laughing, suicide bombing clowns that attack in groups. Yeah...

* Cicero in ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' is an insane assassin who maintains a persona of a jester when out in public. You can also get in on the fun if you decide to wear his outfit.

{{quote|"Even undead, clowns are annoying."}}

* Strong Man, the Old-Timey version of Strong Mad from ''[[Homestar Runner]]''. As his name suggests, he is actually an unintelligent circus strongman who for some reason ''is always facing the camera'' and is working for [[Dastardly Whiplash|Sir Strong Bad]], The Homestar Runner's archnemesis.

 

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' does a bit of [[Lampshade Hanging]]:

{{quote|'''Mort:''' And how did you know that girl didn't like [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID{{=}}66 clowns]?

'''Martian 2''': Or Pagliaccio! }}

 

* "Clowns: Satan's idea of what's funny" [https://web.archive.org/web/20101014022438/http://verydemotivational.com/2008/06/05/funny-demotivational-posters-clowns/ poster]

* Here's a particularly scary example of a monster clown jack-in-the-box, just scroll a bit down to see it (but be warned, it is ''very'' unnerving). Click if you dare: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170719140413/http://www.bogleech.com/halloween-2009sept.html]

** [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5962 SCP-5962]; this creature is technically a cow, having been born from one at a Midwest American farm, but it resembles a large (4 meters tall) obese ( over 5 tons) monstrous version of Ronald McDonald, and it continually spits out fully-packaged McDonalds products. The owners of the farm sold it to a Chinese McDonalds franchise, where they enjoyed an incredible boost in profits for a while until the Foundation found out about it. They also found out that [[Human Resources|the food was made from human flesh]] - all of it. The bacon and fries are human cartilage and ligaments, chicken nuggets were made from, er, reproductive organs, the bread is made of hair, nails, and skin, and the coffee and ice cream, well… were made from various human waste products. [[Squick|(Yeah, a lot of folks in-story were grossed out too.)]] The weird part is, nobody knows who the victims are or [[The Unsolved Mystery|where the stuff comes from, as SCP-5962]] has never been known to attack anyone (except one time when it spewed hot coffee on a visiting [[The Rival|Burger King]] manager, [[Fridge Logic|possibly the guy who tipped off the Foundation]]), and never really does anything except produce the food - it seems relatively mindless. In fact, when analyzed, the genetic material matches that of still-living humans, who seem unharmed by this process. Worst of all, SCP-5962 is not the only SCP that came from that farm; [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1458 SCP-4158] is another mutated cow who came from there, and possibly more that have yet to be documented.

** [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1799 SCP-1799] ("Mr. Laugh") subverts this. While he is a clown, he is not dangerous, and is, in fact, a [[Tragic Monster]] and [[Sad Clown]].

* [[That Guy With The Glasses]] featured a video with [[Doug Walker]] doing a pretty damn good impression of [[Heath Ledger]][[The Dark Knight Saga|'s Joker]] practicing his origin story. An attempt to spin this off into a series called "Melvin, Brother of the Joker" was not nearly as well received, and the character became [[The Scrappy]] among fans. Walker has engaged in a fair amount of [[Self-Deprecation]] about this, and Melvin was killed by other TGWTG contributors during one of the donation drives.

** [[The Spoony Experiment]] featured [[Noah Antwiler]] playing "Chuckles the Fucking Jester", a character from the ''[[Ultima]]'' series. Spoony finds him creepy, screaming when he enters the room. He is also relentlessly obnoxious, making bad jokes and beating Noah with a rubber chicken for not playing "The Game" correctly. After [[It Makes Sense in Context|Spoony's robot blasts him with a laser beam]], Chuckles flees, and a mysterious figure points out his ability to cause great fear, giving him [[Blackest Night|a Yellow Lantern ring]].

== Western Animation ==

* Can't forget Joker from ''[[The Batman]]''. Especially "Vampire Joker" in ''[[The Batman vs. Dracula]]''.

*** Arguably the goofy, baggy clown-outfit made him look even creepier than his normal purple tux, since it twisted his reasonably normal human proportions into the depths of [[Uncanny Valley]].

* Frankly, there are countless times ('''not''' including that stint in ''Treehouse of Horrors'') that Krusty the Klown of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' fits neatly into the oversized shoes of this trope. Point in fact he is scary enough to provoke heart-attacks in patients with heart conditions (namely Homer).

** "What's wrong? Oh right... My ''grotesque appearance!"''

{{quote|"Hi, I'm Krusty the Clown and I don't like you." "Hi, I'm Krusty the Clown and I'm going to kill you."}}

:* Bart's clown bed in "Lisa's First Word". Say it with me now. "'''''[[Sickbed Slaying|If You Should Die Before You Wake!]]'''''"

:* [[Madness Mantra|'''Can't sleep, clown will eat me''']]

:* In the supplement book ''Flanders Book of Faith'', one of Ned's Humble figurines has a little girl being frightened by a clown. The title: ''First visit to the Circus''.

* Dr. Rockzo, the rock n' roll clown (he does cocaine!) {{spoiler|seriously, dude; ''a lot'' of cocaine}} from ''[[Metalocalypse]]''. He's a clown that's designed to be scary (in more ways than one). Ironically, Toki loves him despite being the most childlike of Dethklok's members.

** Toki was shown to have a long-time love of clowns - there was a shot of him as a child sitting on [[Serial Killer|Gacy the Clown's]] lap (shudder). Besides, it's metal to like clowns!

** Also partially subverted in this episode, in that Deedee stops Dexter by learning the ways of an order of benign mimes. Not to be confused with a [[Heroic Mime]].

* Binky The Clown from ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' isn't really evil, but he is incredibly obnoxious and somewhat creepy, and provides a recurring source of irritation for Garfield.

** ''[http://youtu.be/-LjwCjaqSO4?t=1m52s I wish that scary looking clown at the end of my bed would go away!]

* The short-lived American adaptation of Australia's teacher sitcom ''[[Sit Down, Shut Up]]'' has a Monster Clown in the form of the overly cheerful (and mentally unstable) vice principal Stuart Proszakian (voiced by Will Forte from ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''). Before he was vice principal, Stuart was a clown entertaining at a Florida prison. The second episode (where the teachers run a schoolwide fair) even had Stuart dressed in prison stripes and clown make-up (making him look more like [[Beetlejuice]]) and singing this song (set to folksy banjo music) with the following lyrics:

:* If anyone buys you or barters you a prison clown, scream as loud as you can and call the proper authorities. For me...

:** It should also be of note that Will Forte also plays mentally unstable characters—including those who have been convicted of sexual offenses—on ''SNL'' so his role on ''[[Sit Down, Shut Up]]'' isn't much of a stretch.

* The Clown Demons who run the carnival in ''[[The Owl House]]'' episode "Really Small Problems". While this is truly a nightmarish concept, they are the [[Affably Evil]] type who do not tolerate anyone scamming customers - [[Hypocrite|''unless'' the scammers are working for ''them''.]]

* In ''[[American Dad]]'', Roger overlaps this with [[Evil Teacher]] in his H.J. Rimmens personality, being a teacher at a clown school. Right off the bat, he admits to using mind games and emotionally abuse his students into becoming clowns, adding that 60% of them will be [[Driven to Suicide]] by the end of the semester. Of course, [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|seeing as this is Roger we're talking about]], he’s not very good at being either type of villain, and eventually loses his permit to teach clowns. A [[Flash Forward]] scene shows him as a [[IT| Pennywise]] [[Expy]] gunning for revenge against Steve, only to [[Epic Fail|get stuck in a storm drain while doing so]].

 

* Urban legend: A teenage girl (of course) is babysitting, and the parents call home to check in. "Everything's fine," she says, "oh, but I covered up that clown statue in the back hall with my jacket, it was creeping me out." "Clown statue? [[Oh Crap|We don't own a clown statue]]..."

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120512084943/http://citynoise.org/upload/32898.jpg Abandoned clown train remembers you!]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Subverted Innocence Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Villains]]