Clownophobia, and the Decline of American Culture

[jsc1953]

Before I go off on my rant--wouldn't it be nice if there was a Pop Culture search engine, that could scan all sitcom scripts, stand-up comic routines, talk show guest utterances and newspaper columns? That'd be cool.

'cuz if there was, and you did a search on the subject of "clowns", you'd find that any reference to clowns is immediately followed by a statement of how much the speaker loathes and/or fears them.

When did this start? Personally, I'm neutral on clowns--I don't think they're particularly funny, but I certainly don't hate them. But to do so has practically become a cliche.

Part one of my theory is that it's disconnected with reality. If a big chunk of people really did hate and fear clowns, Ringling Bros and McDonald's would be in a world of hurt, and their marketing people would be all over this problem. Which I don't think is the case.

Part two: it's another symptom of creeping cynicism. We can't stand to let a simple, innocent childish entertainment go unmocked, so we need to get all ironic and cynical about it.

[elfkin477]

It's not clownophobia, it's coulrophobia. It isn't cliche to be afraid of clowns, people have valid (as far as phobias go) reasons for hating and fearing them. Most of us who have a fear of clowns were scarred as very small children. The most common things that have incited clown fear (that I've heard of) are:
1. the suffer having the crap scared out of him/her by a birthday party clown/circus clown
2. the suffer was subjected to horror movie that featured an evil clown before they were old enough to totally understand the difference between fantasy and reality (Polterguist, in my case)
3. people who developed their fear of clowns after the age of 6 or so usually attribute it to the clown Pennywise in Stephen King's It

Personally, I've been afraid of clowns as long as I can remember. My parents took me to see Polterguist when I was four or so, and I still can't watch the movie. Sadly, I was given a stuffed clown at birth named Jack (re: Jack In The Box hamburgers. Looks exactly like it) whom I stopped being friends with after that movie. I used to tie Jack up and put him in my closet at night when I was small. For a few years during my teens I could stand to look at it and it was freed from prison, but an incident about 5 years ago made me need to banish him to the cellar.

Clowns are scary freaks. The fact that they're always smiling, combined with my inherent distrust of anyone who's too happy, makes me worry that the individual is deeply disturbed if they feel they must always project a joyful image. My kid brother said the one thing that would drive him to suicide would be finding out that there are flying spiders; for me the breaking point would be to find out my (hypothetical) boyfriend/husband was secretly a clown.

Also, what's wrong with cynicism? Oh, and does my poor spelling make my butt look big?

[jsc1953]

Sorry to hear about your disorder, elfkin. (and flying spiders...now that is a disturbing image I'll keep for a while..)

But there are probably many people who are afraid of butterflies. Wouldn't you think it odd if the only time you ever hear butterflies mentioned in the mass culture was in the context "I hate butterflies. They creep me out."?

[RealityChuck]

Because it's fashionable to hate clowns and mimes.

My only objection to clowns is that, with classes in "clownology," there are a lot of mediocre clowns entertaining and birthday parties, etc. Most people have never seen a really talented clown (or mime, for that matter).

[seawitch]

I know where my fear of clowns comes from. One of those stupid Jack-In-The-Box things that jumped out and made me wet my diaper in terror. Did the fact that I cried every time make the grown-up relatives stop turning the handle? Noooooo.

Proof that humans are not rational. I should be just fine with clowns, but be afraid of my aunts and uncles.

[Ludovic]

i've always hated clowns too. I'm not afraid of them, and no traumatic experience made me fearful of them: I just hate them.

When I was 8 I went to a lame circus. I wasnt having any fun, and everyone else seemed to be getting a kick out of the clowns. It was insulting to think that I should be entertained by someone merely by putting on stupid makeup and performing a stupid clown schtick! And to make it doubly worse the audience didnt really care.

Of course I took myself far more seriously at the time. But I still dont like clowns.

[theendisnear]

Have you ever been to a childrens party that had clowns? to a really small child a clown is scary as hell, most sit there and cry through the entire show. Parents dont seem to understand that muffy the clown is as scary as Freddy krueger or jason or the boogie man to a little kid that doesn't understand whats going on, and they force the little ones to stay trough the whole ordeal thinking it will be a pleasant memory in years to come. It happened to me and to alot of other people, and as a result we now hate the evil colorfull devils. When you are a little two year old kid and a huge man with giant shoes and a painted face comes at you with a balloon animal it tends to stay with you for a long time :P

[delphica]

It does seem that many people hate clowns, with greater frequency than people hate other things, perhaps eels, for example. But rather than chalk it up to a trendy, pop culture hatred of clowns, I think it might have a deeper source.

Back in my days as an art history student, I remember studying surrealism. One common theme in surrealist art, especially photography, is the depiction of dolls or puppets. The images are often uncomfortable and uncanny, particularly when the dolls are shown in very human-like poses. This coincided with the new (at the time) study of psychoanalysis, which was suggesting that there exists for many people a fear or discomfort with dolls -- things that look human, but aren't. Some of the feelings associated with dolls and puppets are a general suspicion of something that pretends to be human but isn't, and something that can be seen doing "living" things -- walking, sitting, sleeping, or however else you position a doll -- but is essentially a dead thing. It is a body without a spirit, yet by manipulating the doll, we can make it mimic human postures and emotions, sometimes with eerie accuracy. Seeing a doll that is mangled or broken evokes a different feeling than a broken tea cup, as it takes the creepy doll thing to a different level. Our first reaction might be to think of it as hurt or injured rather than broken, but how can something that isn't alive be hurt? The photography of Hans Belmer is a great example of this, and there are scans of his photos at this site: http://eagle.dwc.edu/wellman/Bellmer.htm

So bringing this back to the clown thing, I think many people see clowns as an extension of puppets and dolls. With their costumes and masks (or make-up that functions as a mask), a clown is more like a puppet than a person. A doll can be scary because it is a thing that is masquerading as a person, and a clown is a person masquerading as a thing masquerading as a person. Yikes!

So even though it has earned a spot in pop culture, people have been fascinated or repulsed by clowns for a long time. I would put clowns in the same category as puppets, death masks, zombies, idols, and other things that are human-like without being exactly human. Some people are drawn to this quality, and others are freaked out by it. Some people don't have much of a reaction at all. It's not a recent phenomonon, though.

[hazel-rah]

Maybe it's a pop culture thing. But really, I'm drawing a blank. Is it really cool to hate clowns? Shakes the Clown was pro-clown, even if it wasn't all that funny, and everybody likes Krusty.

I always thought clowns were supposed to be scary as well as funny. Don't kids like to be terrified sometimes? Clowns are grotesque distortions of human beings and in addition to that being comical, it also scares the bejeezus out of you sometimes.

I think their traditional setting has been lost and clowns don't work out so well in today's world. The funny side is played up, but clowns are inherently scary. If you were a kid and you saw one at a carnival, you watched, then you could run away, and it was fun. But if they come to your birthday party, you're doomed. You can't run away. Society hasn't figured out how to deal with clowns in suburbia, so everybody loathes them.

-fh

[JonScribe]

Check your newspapers this morning and you should find an AP report about the manager for Insane Clown Posse choking a fan who held up an Eminem T-shirt in front of the Posse and tossed M&Ms at them.

I make no connection here between clowns and the people who fear them.

This is just for everyone's consideration.

[Snooooopy]

To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad.
--Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

[loislane138]

I've often wondered about fad diseases, fears, etc.

Lactose Intolerancy was fad when I was in Jr. High. I can't explain it. It was if overnight all of my classmates (especially the girls) were all alergic to dairy products.

So was the fear of Clowns, actually. One person mentioned a slight distaste for clowns, and suddenly everyone had a clown horror story.

So I sort of agree with the OP. Or maybe its just a jr. high thing.

LP

[Protesilaus]

Marge: Well, everybody's got a fear of something.
Homer: Not everybody.
Marge: Sock puppets!
Homer: Where?! Where?! Aah! Aah!

I think that another factor, at least regarding why the pop culture joke about fear of clowns seems to pop up so often, is precisely that clowns are "simple, innocent childish entertainment." The joke is that the adult (usually a character who's acting superior or macho) fears that which is meant to entertain children. He/she talks big, but can't even deal with something that millions of children not only don't fear, but get joy from.

[flodnak]

Although I do agree that hating clowns seems to be "fashinable" at the moment (has it ever not been fashionable to hate mimes?), I think there's more to it. Many kids do have a fear of people in costumes. Since clowns are one of the most common varieties of costumed people, it stands to reason that more people can remember being frightened by a clown than being frightened by a guy in a giant hot dog suit (and therefore fearing coupons for One Free Soda With The Purchase Of Any Sausage Plus Fries).

I took flodjunior to see a children's play once when he was 5. Though he knew the story well, he was terrified when a fox began to chase a mouse. Explaining that they were people in costumes made it worse - in fact, that's what scared him. As he said later, foxes have to eat, and nature made them so that they like to eat mice. But people aren't supposed to eat people. Even if they're dressed up like animals.

[malaka]

...and animations like this don't help their image either...

[C3]

Also, wasn't Gayce (the serial killer) really obsessed with clowns? In fact, I think he was a clown that was hired to do children's birthday parties. Maybe that's all entered into our collective subconsciousness.

I personally find clowns a little creepy, although I'm not scared of them. I don't like magicians, either.

[Superdude]

Originally posted by theendisnear
Parents dont seem to understand that muffy the clown is as scary as Freddy krueger or jason or the boogie man to a little kid that doesn't understand whats going on, and they force the little ones to stay trough the whole ordeal thinking it will be a pleasant memory in years to come.

Sorry to hijack this, but it reminded me of something that Robin Williams once said. "Mickey Mouse, to a four-year old, is a six foot fucking rat."

[We now return you to your regularly scheduled response]

I myself hate clowns. And it's because of Poltergeist, which I saw when I was very young. The movie didn't really scare me. But I had a stuffed clown that was nearly identical to the one in the movie, and I used to sleep with it. The thought that it might try to kill me in my sleep didn't help my mental state any. I currently have a good friend of mine who has taken clown classes, and actually graduated from a clown university. But she can never comprehend why I refuse to see her with her makeup on.

[kaiju]

I've hated clowns since I was three. I went to Circus World and one snuck up behind me on the merry-go-round. Sadistic, painted bastard. My first real job out of college ended up being....a bad choice for a clown hater...

assistant in the McDonaldland costume shop. It was like working for the CIA. We weren't supposed to talk about all those Ronald Wigs because then kids might suspect that there was more than one Ronald.

Clowns, in my experience, are like rabid weasels, mean when they're cornered. I got yelled at a lot by clowns on that job. All those happy faces, but a mean streak underneath. And their feet are sore because of the crappy shoes, so it doesn't improve their dispositions any.

For the record, I never had any problem with Grimace or Birdy. No emotional baggage there.

I think for me it all boils down to the make-up and not knowing what kind of person is underneath. And I do believe it there is a fashionable cynicism in clown-hating. It just doesn't pertain to me. My kids are another matter. I've conditioned them to be clown-haters. Nature vs. nurture and all that.

[moi]

And I thought my friends and I were the only ones to notice this, jsc1953...well, at least the bit about it being a cliche. I don't know if I buy the theory that folx feel the need to tear down childish or innocent things...but I have felt that a certain percentage of folx are actually fearful of clowns (usually as the result of some childhood trauma), but that an equal, if not greater, number of folx do just say things like "clowns creep me out" because it's _{of all things} a hip phobia.

And, loislane138: Lactose intolerance was cool??? I am truly baffled by this.

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by elfkin477
...
2. the suffer was subjected to horror movie that featured an evil clown before they were old enough to totally understand the difference between fantasy and reality (Polterguist, in my case)
3. people who developed their fear of clowns after the age of 6 or so usually attribute it to the clown Pennywise in Stephen King's It.

That's me. I saw Poltergeist when I was 17 or 18 (when it came out) and it absolutely terrified me. I still can't watch it. It was on Cinemax (or Showtime or HBO) last night; I caught a moment as I was surfing through the channels.
When my oldest daughter was about 2, someone gave her a big clown doll, much like the one in that movie. It was about 3 feet tall, with a cloth face.
She loved it, but the damn thing scared me. I can't explain it, but it (and clowns in general) just freak me out.
It got "lost" when we moved.
Good riddance.

[Eve]

Well, I am older than the lot of you put together, it seems . . . I'm not afraid of clowns, but I do hate them almost as much as I hate mimes—a friend of mine from high school went to the Ringling Bros. Clown College, and I felt like a Baptist when her best friend goes Islamic.

I am, however, terrified to the point of paralysis of ventriloquist dummies. I grew up seeing them turn evil and kill people on endless episodes of Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, et al. Ghastly little things, with their jointed, painted mouths and rolling eyes [shudder] . . .

[CalMeacham]

I am, however, terrified to the point of paralysis of ventriloquist dummies. I grew up seeing them turn evil and kill people on endless episodes of Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, et al. Ghastly little things, with their jointed, painted mouths and rolling eyes [shudder] . . .

Ahh, yes, I saw those too. There were at least two Twilight Zone scripts with Evil Dummies, at least one Alfred Hitchcock script ("The Glass Eye", with a very young William Shatner and Billy Barty), and I know of at least two 1950s shows in which the plot involved a midget who was the real ventriloquist while the "ventriloquist" was the dummy.

And then my parents went and got me the "Danny O'Day" do-it-yourself ventriloquist dummy (along with the instruction record, which also feaures Farfel the Dog. No ads for Nestle's, though.). I still have it in my attic. Plenty of nightmare material there. My daughter asked about it, but she's only 3 1/2, and I'm not bringing it down to torture her yet -- she's got enough nightmare material.


Charlie McCarthy is the AntiChrist!!!

[Johanna]

I was a kid way back in the 1960s, before all this anti-clown mass culture appeared. As early as I can remember, I loathed clowns. I wasn't so much frightened by them as I was repulsed, finding them incredibly ugly. I thought I was the only one who felt that way. I wondered how come everyone else expected clowns to be lovable and I was the only kid who hated them. Some years later when I read an article about Federico Fellini, that he had suffered from a childhood fear of clowns, I finally realized that I was not alone in this. So I am not following any current trend; I've felt this way for at least 37 years.

For me, the most disturbing cinematic clown image was in Born on the Fourth of July. It wasn't frightening; it was a clown at a Memorial Day parade giving the "peace sign" to the injured Vietnam veteran. A closer look discovered that under the clown makeup was a bearded "hippie" (this was a person back in the 60s who had unconventional appearance and lifestyle based on "peace" and "love"0. Tom Cruise as the vet had just gotten back from the war and it was his first discovery that there were such things as hippies and the antiwar movement. It was the first hint that America had changed in his absence and his patriotic military worldview was about to come crashing down, leaving him painfully disoriented about the meaning of his existence. That's why the clown image was so disturbing.

As for fear of eels, Delphica — ever since seeing that German film The Tin Drum, I have not been able to think of eels without feeling nauseated. Warning: if you hate or fear eels, do not, repeat, DO NOT see The Tin Drum.

I have read about that theory you mentioned, Delphica, about why puppets creep people out and it makes sense applied to clowns too. For me, the most extremely awful example of this syndrome was when I was a kid at Cleveland's Euclid Beach Park (which closed down forever in 1969, thank God!). Outside the funhouse they had a lifesize jointed mannequin named Laughing Sal, a fat woman with curly red hair. She was perpetually jiggling and shaking all around, the whole time laughing loudly and maniacally. God, she terrified the living shit out of me. It was a nightmare come to life. I still haven't gotten over the fright. Worse than any damn clown.

[Pyrrho12]

I think that the current wave of cloud-phobia might be caused by the fact that all those kids who were scared by the clowns in Poltergeist (1982) and It (1990) have finally grown up. IMDB lists The Redeemer, Son of Satan (1976) and Tales from the Quadead Zone (1987) as other movies featuring homicidal clowns. Killer Klowns from Outer Space first appeared in 1988, and in the same year the Japanese animated film Akira featured megaviolent street thugs who dressed as clowns.

Even before all of this, there's the Joker from Batman, the Ingmar Bergman film Gycklarnas afton, and probably many other sinister clowns that my quick search didn't turn up. So, while a phobia of clowns might be a fad now, it's one which I think has been in the making for a while.

[HeyHomie]

Originally posted by delphica
<snip>... there exists for many people a fear or discomfort with dolls -- things that look human, but aren't.

Put me in the "Scared of Dolls" column. What do we call that? Pupiphobia?

Mrs. Rastahomie keeps a doll in our bedroom. I swear, I can feel that thing staring at me when I'm in there. Gives me the [Chef]boo-hoo-heebie-jeebies[/Chef]. It's biding its time, plotting its next move.....

[Atreyu]

I think perhaps the fear of clowns may be a little more ingrained than we suspect.

I'm an audiologist, and one of the ways I test the hearing of a kid in a certain age range (say 9-10 months up to 3 years) is to have them in the soundproof testing suite sitting in their parent's lap. There are two speakers in the corners, and above and below the speakers are tinted boxes that contain little animatronics that are activated by remote switch.

The test procedure is often called visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA). Play the stimulus through one of the speakers, and when the kid looks in the direction for the sound, activate the animatronic toy to reinforce the action. Do this a few times with a loud stimulus level and you'll have the kid trained. Then drop to softer levels and see when he/she stops looking. There's a very brief time window that you can do all of this in, before the kid loses interest.

There is a certain small percentage of kids that will be freaked out by the reinforcer toys. I remember asking my professor in graduate school about what were the best VRA reinforcers to use. His answer basically boiled down to the following:

1) Colorful animals or cartoon figures will do just fine
2) No matter what you use, a few kids will always freak
3) Hi, Opal!
4) Never, ever, ever use clowns. The percentage of freaked-out kids will increase dramatically.

I heard that there was a study that basically confirmed this approach, but I've been too lazy to look for it. In any case, I've never seen clown figures used clinically for VRA reinforcers, and if I ever do, I'm taking an ax to that equipment.

[jsc1953]

Originally posted by moi
[
And, loislane138: Lactose intolerance was cool??? I am truly baffled by this.

[/b]

On the lactose intolerance thing, I can see where Lois is coming from. I think the way these things go is:

Way back, like when I was a kid, there was such a thing as L.I., but it was between you and your doctor; there weren't any ads for L.I. treatments. If there was medication for it, it was buried on your pharmacist's shelves.

Then the creator of Lactaid, or whatever, decides to spend money on advertising--and now it's got a name, and a treatment, and it's in the public consciousness.

And now that it's Out There, anybody who gets gas after downing a milkshake says they're L.I.

[Katisha]

Originally posted by hazel-rah
Shakes the Clown was pro-clown, even if it wasn't all that funny, and everybody likes Krusty.

Except Rod and Todd Flanders.

Originally posted by Jomo Mojo
As for fear of eels, Delphica — ever since seeing that German film The Tin Drum, I have not been able to think of eels without feeling nauseated. Warning: if you hate or fear eels, do not, repeat, DO NOT see The Tin Drum.

Ewww...ewww...Tin Drum...eels...must go puke now...

That is one freaky movie...although the bit that freaked me out the most was the scene where he breaks all the glass jars in the lab...

[Kricket]

I had a friend that used to clown for a resturant. Bingo the clown. When I started working at said resturant I made him promise not to talk to me while in clown. Creepy!
My children make fun of me because I don't like clowns. They are evil.
So when the Power Puff girls came on one day and it was the one where the clown was doing a birthday party and then was spilled on by an overturned bleach truck, I had to laugh. And then I realised that it didn't hurt him it just turned him black and white and mime looking and then he started to do bad stuff. "See!!!!!" I shouted to my kids who laughed hysterically "I told you they were evil!!"
I'm not really afraid of them, they just creep me out.

On another note.........Why is it that most kids don't get over the fear of being terrified by clowns, but they get over the fear of mall Santa Clause or the mall Easter Bunny?
I mean all three give out fun stuff.
Seriously, how many parents here have taken the little ones for that yearly picture on Santas lap only to have the kid get so freaked out you have to leave?

[Tsugumo]

I'm scared of clowns, and dolls (you know those "realistic" ones that old people have that look like little children, and they make dresses and junk for them? Those especially), and ventriloquism dummies (it's the eyes...when they're looking side to side and stuff...it's just so creepy). I don't mind mimes though. And the Joker doesn't scare me...

I don't know WHY I'm scared of them, but I know "It" played a big part of it. I've still never seen the whole movie, just little snippets here and there when I worked up the guts to try to see it, and then ran away a minute or so later. My family was watching it when I was really young and it just scared the crap out of me. I don't think I'll ever watch the whole movie.

That idea about the dolls being non-humans, but resembling them enough to be creepy sounds about on. But then, why wasn't I scared of a GI Joe toy, or a Barbie doll?

A creepy thing about clowns is that they CAN'T be anything but happy. Even if they're sad, angry, what have you, they have that painted on smile...they have no CHOICE but to be "happy". That weirds me out for some reason. They could be planning to eat you, and they'll still be grinning.

I've never met a clown in real life (like for a birthday part or whatever), and I don't recall reading any stories about clowns, so all my clown fears are based off watching TV/movies, I guess. But I don't remember...I just know I've been afraid of them for long since it became a "fad".

Oh, and Ronald McDonald never scared me, except for the relatively newer commercials (like last year), where they have some new guy playing Ronald. I swear, that guy is scary. His eyes are like, evil looking...I've heard other people have found this too, so I can't just be crazy, heh.

- Tsugumo (okay, so I could be crazy...I mean, I'm scared of CLOWNS, for crying out loud)

[Dijon Warlock]

AAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

[Dijon Warlock]

Even worse!!!!

[Annie-Xmas]

Originally posted by C3
Also, wasn't Gayce (the serial killer) really obsessed with clowns? In fact, I think he was a clown that was hired to do children's birthday parties. Maybe that's all entered into our collective subconsciousness.

I personally find clowns a little creepy, although I'm not scared of them. I don't like magicians, either.

That was John Wayne(?) Gacy, who was busy being a clown when he wasn't torturing and killing teenaged boys and hiding the bodies in his crawlspace. The book I read about him had a picture of him in clown make-up, which is enough to make anyone terrified of clowns.

Matt Groening based Krusty on his childhood TV clown called Rusty Nails. He was scared of him cause he had the scariest name ever. As a child, you are taught to "avoid rusty nails."

[mblackwell]

...and animations like this don't help their image either...

What the hell was that? Now I'm scraed of 'em, too. Well, not really.

[masonite]

I think my visceral fear and hatred of clowns comes from those horrible paintings they have in pediatric hospitals and doctors' offices. I had some serious illnesses as a young kid, and I think the images of clowns got imprinted on fear of death (and worse, fear of medical treatment).

To generalize, though, doctors' offices and hospitals are scary places for little kids, and ANY association created is going to be a negative one, I'm afraid. Hang clowns up on the walls in scary places, make kids hate clowns. It's simple.

[elfkin477]

I wonder if Poltergeist is the movie that caused the most trama to people now currently 22-30 or so. It's not just people here, I've read at least 100 posts on one of the anti-clown sites (oh yes, I've visited them well before now) that cite that movie as the cause for the poster's fear. I think there's a logical explaination for why so many very young children saw it though. Normally, you wouldn't expect many people to bring preschoolers to a horror movie, right? I know my parents didn't make a habit of letting me see scary movies when I was small. My folks said it wasn't advertised as a horror movie! If you remember the ads for Arachophobia, you know that many of them seem to make the movie out as a comedy, not a horror film; they advertised Poltergeist the same way. Had the ads made it seem like the horror movie it was, many of us probably wouldn't fear clowns.

As for "Wouldn't you think it odd if the only time you ever hear butterflies mentioned in the mass culture was in the context 'I hate butterflies. They creep me out.'?" I like bats, what sort of reactions do you think I get from others when I talk about them? Not too many positive ones! I try not to talk about how cute I think flying foxes are to people who have told me flat out that they are fearful of bats.

[Sealemon88]

Between Poltergiest, Something Wicked This Way Comes (Not so much evil clowns as evil circuses), Ronald MacDonald, and The Joker, I'm firmly in the Clowns Are Creepy camp.

Adults wearing bright makeup and howling with forced laughter freak kids out. This is probably why so may kids also get scared of their great aunt and Santa Claus in the mall (I'm thinking A Christmas Story here).

[pepperlandgirl]

I know exactly why I have a fear of clowns.
When I was six, I was staying up late waiting for my mother to come home. My little sisters were in bed, and so was my dad. I was watching "A Current Affair", and they had a story about some woman who was murdered. A man dressed up as a clown, rang her doorbell, and when she answered it, he shot her in the face. That's my earliest memory of clowns, but mom tells me that when I was 3, she spent an hour dressing up as a clown for Halloween while I was napping. I apparently woke up and toddled into the bathroom, and when I saw her, I started to scream. I wouldn't stop crying until she washed the make-up off her face.
"A Current Affair" pretty much cemented it for me. IT didn't help the fear, but it didn't cause it.
I remember a few years ago I went to the Circus (I may have been in 9th or 10th grade) and a giant clown on stilts started walking toward me. I couldn't get away cuz there were so many people, and I started shaking real bad, and practically started crying.
To me clowns=death.

[Atreyu]

Originally posted by elfkin477
I wonder if Poltergeist is the movie that caused the most trama to people now currently 22-30 or so. It's not just people here, I've read at least 100 posts on one of the anti-clown sites (oh yes, I've visited them well before now) that cite that movie as the cause for the poster's fear.

I didn't mention it in my previous post, but yeah, add me to the list of persons in that age range (I'm 27) who was scarred by the infamous clown scene in Poltergeist. It doesn't help that I was about that kid's age when I saw it for the first time. Every friend that I've talked to about Poltergeist all agree that this is the scariest scene in the movie.

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by Atreyu

I didn't mention it in my previous post, but yeah, add me to the list of persons in that age range (I'm 27) who was scarred by the infamous clown scene in Poltergeist. It doesn't help that I was about that kid's age when I saw it for the first time. Every friend that I've talked to about Poltergeist all agree that this is the scariest scene in the movie.

FWIW, I'm 37. I was 18 the year it came out (1982), and that clown scene scared the bejeebers out of me. I've never liked clowns, even as a little kid. Never liked the circus, either. Damn clowns ruin it for me.
IMO, that scene is the scariest scene from ANY movie.

[AwSnappity]

Once, at a friend's birthday party (I was about 7), there was a clown doing nothing except balloon animals, the entire time. He came up to me and said, "I know your father!" I went through a list of all of my dad's friends, and none even closely resembled this clown. How the hell did this guy know my dad? I went home and asked my dad and he said none of his friends dressed up as clowns. I wonder what the hell that clown was thinking when he told me that.

[Katisha]

Originally posted by Tsugumo
Oh, and Ronald McDonald never scared me, except for the relatively newer commercials (like last year), where they have some new guy playing Ronald. I swear, that guy is scary. His eyes are like, evil looking...I've heard other people have found this too, so I can't just be crazy, heh.

Speaking of Ronald McDonald, I think there's something unduly creepy about this incarnation of him, too...

[oldscratch]

This Ronald McDonald is the scariest.

and here for those who can't view pdfs. Scroll down about half way.

[evilbeth]

Well, I am terrified of clowns. I have been my whole life. I do not understand people who say they are not scared of clowns or at least a little disturbed. Was it Steven King who said something like, "Imagine opening your door at midnight and finding a clown standing there. That's the scariest thing possible. Because, why would there be a clown on your doorstep at midnight? It's just evil!" As a matter of fact, I even have an e-mail address: evilbeth@ihateclowns.com.

[woodstockbirdybird]

Nothing to add, except this link to another freaky doll. Enjoy!

[Rilchiam]

I am of the generation that has no soft spot for clowns, due to Poltergeist, It, and John Wayne Gacy. But my disillusionment goes further back than that.

When I was attending nursery school, in 1974-75, we had two birthday parties a year: one for the people who had birthdays in the summer or the first semester, and one for the second semester. Well, we had a clown at the first one, and we thought he was fantastic. At the second one, he showed up again, but he was late. When we asked why, he didn't make anything up, but instead made the mistake of telling us that he'd had a breakdown on the road. "You have a car?!" "The highway patrol stopped for you?!" we all asked, incredulous.

Well, his story was probably good for most kids, because he explained that breakdowns are nothing to get upset about, and that cops are there to help you. But I had enough adults in my life who had shown that they weren't what they pretended to be, so that was the last straw for me. I didn't develop a fear of clowns, but I never again thought they were funny, or even entertaining. They were just pretenders, like all the other adults I knew.

[hijack]Does anyone remember that episode during Bush Senior's one and only term, when he visited a grade school, and a little boy said, "How do I know you're really the President? Maybe you're some joker guy!" Ol' George took it in stride, and showed the kid his driver's license, his library card, and so forth, until the boy was mollified. It didn't win the next election for him, as I'd thought it would, but I thought that kid was terrific. He'd learned, at approximately the same age I had, that you can't trust anyone, not just with your life, but not on any terms.[/hijack]