It is worrying for the legitimate clowning industry as they could all lose their jobs and that would leave some pretty big shoes to fill.
Stephen King's scary movie reboot provokes tears from 'legit clowns'
The imminent release of a new film adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel It has caused upset in the world of professional clowning. The clowns' concerns – doubtless accompanied by mimed theatrical sobbing, oversized hankies and streams of water from fake flowers – have been publicised by their professional body, the World …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 31st August 2017 16:17 GMT John Smith 19
" the Tim Curry miniseries in 1990. "
Ah the delightful Mr Curry, the go-to guy for louche (and a bit sinister) characters.
I've often pictured a group of grumpy clowns sitting around their clubhouse (The WCA offices I suppose) throwing darts at a dart board with Stephen Kings face on it, grumbling "It's all his fault."
Best clown story so far. From the film "Spy."*
Rayna: There was a woman in my home village in Bulgaria. Should couldn't even sell her body. She just stood in the street dressed as a clown, doing magic tricks and crying constantly. You remind me of her.
*It's not a good advertisement for Bulgaria either.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 09:16 GMT Teiwaz
Re: It wasn't It.
1988 was a good year for terrifying children with things they might see each day. "The Happiness Patrol" in Doctor Who that year also had that killer Bertie Bassett as well.
The sour faced ladies of the patrol were scary enough.
With May still as P.M. - I'd not bet against Britain looking a little familiar to that episode once Brexit kicks in.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 15:12 GMT Mark York 3
Re: It wasn't It.
As well as the cannibal grannies in Paradise Towers.
Going further back Terror of The Autons (With some of the outside action taking place around a circus, keeping with the clown theme) by Robert Holmes - I'll let the man himself explain:
""He started telling me about the guidelines he felt the programme should follow. ‘Two or three seasons ago,’ he said, ‘we had some clot who wrote the most dreadful script.
It had faceless policemen in it and plastic armchairs that went about swallowing people. I might tell you, there were questions in the House.
Mrs. Whitehouse said we were turning the nation’s children into bed-wetters’. Could it be that he was referring to my ‘Terror of the Autons’? ‘Tut, tut’, I muttered, feeling the job slipping away. ‘how awfully irresponsible’.
The elements in the story all came from plastic again. At the time there was a soap powder distributing plastic daffodils outside supermarkets, and I remembered all the warnings about children not being allowed near plastic bags. Then it all came together – I suddenly realised that all you need is a four-inch square of clingfilm to suffocate someone, and the spitting daffodils followed on.
As for the doll and the armchair, well, there were some Danish troll dolls on the gimmick market at the time and I thought they were horrible, so I used that idea. Also, those plastic inflatable armchairs were all the rage, which is why I wrote in McDermott – specifically to kill him off in that chair!"
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Thursday 31st August 2017 09:02 GMT Kane
@ Prst. V.Jeltz
Obligatory:
“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
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Where's the damned Pterry icon, El Reg?
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Thursday 31st August 2017 11:27 GMT EddieD
Re: Spawn Spawnned An Evil Clown
Nah, Frasier Crane even before Sideshow Bob...
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Thursday 31st August 2017 18:29 GMT h4rm0ny
Re: Spawn Spawnned An Evil Clown
In my tinier years, I recall watching a TV series set in a lighthouse. One episode had ghost clowns and a scarecrow that came to life and crashed through the window. Probably my first ever exposure to something scary. Well, it's scary when you're six years old. So scary clowns go a long way back.
And if you want really old examples, there was The Man Who Laughs, an old film from 1928 about a disfigured man in a circus.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 21:11 GMT h4rm0ny
Re: Spawn Spawnned An Evil Clown
Ha! Yes, that was the one. Round the Twist. I think I was too young to really understand it but I remember the scarecrow coming to life and crashing through a window to grab the girl. And she was the character I identified with so it was extra scary to me.
Loved it, though.
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Thursday 7th September 2017 11:10 GMT magickmark
The Man Who Laughs
An excellent film and many think was the inspiration for the 'Joker' from Batman
See here
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=The+Man+Who+Laughs&newwindow=1&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjspufw95LWAhUHPFAKHUXYDz8QiR4ImgE&biw=1200&bih=816
and here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Laughs_(1928_film)
Have fun kiddies
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Thursday 31st August 2017 12:59 GMT TRT
Re: The WCA?
If all the clowns go out of business, will we be treading on eggshells?
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Thursday 31st August 2017 15:28 GMT Geoffrey W
Re: The WCA?
I remember an episode of The Avengers (Steed, not Marvel) where there were killer clowns running round. In it there was this guy who had all the clowns faces painted on eggs and I thought that's just too silly. Now I find it was true. Gosh!
Tomorrow I'll discover there really are man eaters from Surrey Green, and Cybernauts. Eeek!
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Thursday 31st August 2017 12:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Why do Clowns think they are funny or entertaining?
Slapstick and prat falls and mishaps are funny - they make us laugh at bad things happening to other people (schadenfreude). I get it. But why do they think adding a clown face and dress make this funnier?
Or maybe their creative art of ballon making - again, a skill and entertaining, but not more so because of big shoes and a red nose.
They are pointless distractions to what are already funny and entertaining activities for kids.
Is adding a 'scary as fuck' persona part of their perverse joy derived from being scary?
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Thursday 31st August 2017 13:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why do Clowns think they are funny or entertaining?
Woke up sober, read this, then showed up to work hammered. Such is the life in IT.... I hope the El Reg Censors pass this through. It's funny to me, at least.
Fsck clowns. Fsck 'em with a donkey dsck. For every child (future Gacy) you make laugh, you make a dozen other recoil in horror and laugh just because they hope it won't get them killed (and eaten).
Balloon animals? The reason you forge balloons instead of steel is because you're less likely to get stabbed to death from the forged balloons vs forged blades after distributing them to the minors...
I'm sorry you (clowns) decided it was more 'profitable' and 'satisfying' to choose a job that makes you paint your face in white and whore yourself out (world's creepiest geisha?) to the amusement of others, and now you're pissed that someone pissed on your moneymaker.
Oh, boo-hoo. Paint on a sad face and show it to the lady at the unemployment office. Just like you do every week. "I can't find a real job, because my calling in life is to be a clown!'
The only things you and the social worker will agree on are:
You can't find a real job.
You're creepy.
You should *NOT* be allowed to be around children.
You chose your career path poorly.
Makeup is essential to your job.
Things you and the social worker will disagree on:
While makeup is essential to your (geisha) jobs, you can't expect the state to pay for your personal usage of makeup to dance in front of the mirror to 'wild horses' while tucking your dong.
Cold calling people to ask them if they want a clown to show up at their residence or job isn't considered an interview.
Getting punched in the face repeatedly with a brick after showing up anyway isn't a job interview.
When children scream and run from you, you should realize that you aren't welcome wherever you are. (circus, fair, party, public, your own home, etc)
In short.... the WCA (world clown association? Whiney C**nts Association? I dunno) needs to realize that clowns, much like the passenger pigeon, the dodo, Netscape Navigator, and Internet Neutrality have all become endangered or extinct. Use the fact that you live in your parent's basement and don't have many bills to treat yourself to a trade school, and learn a practical skill. Like undertaking or pet autopsy, or prize bull semen collection or something similarly creepy.
I won't care if you show up to un-knacker my toilet on a holiday weekend, so long as you don't do it in clown makeup. If you do, I'm gonna remove that makeup with repeated rounds of buckshot.
Fsck clowns.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 18:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why do Clowns think they are funny or entertaining?
Obviously, you haven't eaten at the same fast-food places as I have. Especially after a hard night on the spirits.
As for decaff... I fail to see how that helps. I don't like clowns whether I'm sober, tipsy, goobered, drunk, or flat-out 'hang on to the lawn so I don't fall of the earth' fscked up.
Oh, you meant to put whiskey in the decaff, correct? That I can do!
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Thursday 31st August 2017 14:20 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
Re: Why do Clowns think they are funny or entertaining?
" I hope the El Reg Censors pass this through. It's funny to me, at least."
It's funny to us as well, just perhaps not for the same reasons :)
El Reg will always let this stuff through, because it would be criminal to remove such a farcical rant.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 23:31 GMT Captain DaFt
Re: Why do Clowns think they are funny or entertaining?
What about ventriloquist's dummies?
I have a friend that, as an adult, will still not go into an attic alone because of one.
When he was a wee lad, he was at his grandmother's house, and roaming around, he went to the attic.
Propped by the attic window was a ventriloquist's dummy.
When he walked toward it, its eyes popped open.
Probably jarred open by the vibrations from his footsteps in a creaky attic, but much panic and screaming ensued, I was told.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 13:16 GMT Tikimon
TIME TO RETRAIN
Professional clowns losing business due to clown fears? EXCELLENT! Nobody really likes them! The only reason everyone hires clowns is because... well, you're supposed to right? Clowns for kids? Even if they terrify the kids?
Momentum has carried clown parties far enough. Let 'em fade away already. Find a NEW CAREER!
Hey, the tech industry is perfect, hit 'em up.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 18:15 GMT Mark 85
I'll take an opposing view... clowns teach children something valuable. That people are not always what they appear, be they the nice next door neighbor who shares cookies, PHB's, assholes in general, or politicians. I find those people scarier than clowns but then I was raised on Emmett Kelly... What's next? Should we get rid of anything scary in the world? Life is a bitch and some things (clowns included) are good for us to learn.
Suck it up snowflakes, it's a very scary world out there and there's worse things than a clown running around.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 18:15 GMT Chris G
Remember the TV show 'Bones'?
The lead guy Booth hated clowns and shot a plastic one on top of an ice cream van, I could sympathise with that.
A few years ago my step daughter had an Italian boyfriend Alessio, who worked as a clown entertainer, the funniest thing I ever saw him do was drive his van over an unmarked drop at the edge of a carpark.
He was jumping up and down, screaming and allsorts, all he was missing was his trousers falling down and being smacked around the head with a plank,
I was tempted though ( the plank, not the trousers).
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Thursday 31st August 2017 19:59 GMT disgruntled yank
clown alerts
Many, many Halloweens ago, I was working with an editor whose side job was at Town Clowns. She made me up in clown face late in the afternoon. I was a bit nervous when I went to the bank to cash a check, but the staff didn't call the police, though I think the teller might have smiled. I went on to my favorite bar, where nobody appeared to care.
I never had the urge to do up in clown face again, but it seems a shame that one can't do so without alarming the neighborhood.