# When and why did clowns become creepy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 18, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900 "2004-10-18T21:02:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/61 "2004-10-20T14:56:11Z")
Let’s try that again: [Evil clown from the Scooby Doo series.](http://scoobyfiles.toonzone.net/casefiles/seasonone/bitbt.html) ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/62 "2004-10-20T19:21:33Z")
> [@Big Bad Voodoo Lou](#): > > I remember reading something about children in medieval times who were kidnapped, tortured and disfigured by the kidnappers, and then sold to kings to be court jesters. Children’s mouths were often slashed ear to ear into giant, creepy smiles, leading to the image of the modern pale-faced clown with the big red smile-mouth. Can anyone give a cite with more information corroborating this horrible story that has haunted me for years? > > By the way, clowns ARE scary. The term for this practice is Comprachico; men who kidnapped children, and deformed them by stunting growth, deforming them with masks, and with crude surgery. The deformed children were then sold to the courts of kings for their amusement. The practice is named in and is the basis of Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs”, Dumas insparation for “The Man in The Iron Mask” and is somtimes mentioned in context with part of the story of “Pinocchio” (a boy who is taken and turned into a donkey). ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/63 "2004-10-20T20:20:00Z")
Well, I had a doll similar to the one in _Poltergeist_. After seeing the movie, I made my dad burn it in the backyard. When I was a wee child - just a couple of years old - my parents took me to the circus. I believe it was Ringling Bros., but that’s not important. We were sitting towards the very front rows, and the clowns came out in their cars, and wanted to PUT ME IN THE CAR WITH THEM. I screamed bloody murder, and so my parents didn’t let me go. Yay for them. Clowns are just inherently creepy to me. Grown men that enjoy to hang around kids (insert Michael Jackson reference here), wearing paint over their faces, and the mouths are drawn on so that you can’t REALLY tell what kind of expression they have. The mouths always look like someone’s screaming. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/64 "2004-10-20T20:42:29Z")
> [@Middlecase](#): > > What about his range of sometimes lethal merchandise, like the Krusty Brand Home Pregnancy Test Kit {Warning: May Cause Birth Defects}. And he makes his burgers out of zoo animals. That still doesn’t necessarily make him creepy. It just makes him a shameless huckster who’ll do anything for a buck (e.g., drop pants for food). ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/65 "2004-10-20T22:50:52Z")
My youngest brother was always afraid of _BtC_. Out of respect, I dare not speak his name. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/66 "2004-10-21T03:30:22Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > There’s actually Clown Porn. > > And, it’s disturbing… hunt for it on the Web at peril of your ability to sleep at night. Why, oh why, did I google that? ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/67 "2004-10-21T07:28:02Z")
> [@masonite](#): > > I need to brush the dust off my _King Lear_, which I suspect is the most famous example in literature containing a court jester – does anybody remember if Lear’s Fool had an aspect of creepiness about him, or merely tragedy? Well, it depends on the actor’s interp, of course. I think he does, but not in an “Evil Clown” way as much as in an unsettling truth-teller way – Shakespearean fools, after all, are generally the wisest characters in the plays they’re in… ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/68 "2004-10-21T08:07:47Z")
I still think it’s something quite new: [coulrophobia](http://www.macmillandictionary.com/essential/resources/new-030519-coulrophobia.htm) > [@](#): > > [cuolrophobia]is a recent coining in response to a surprisingly large amount of interest in the condition, particularly on the Internet, where websites have been developed which are specifically devoted to the issue. The word has no significant coverage in printed dictionaries. The site claim it to be coined during the 1990’s. ---
**Author:** ![Shingolicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Shingolicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shingolicious)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/69 "2004-10-21T22:00:25Z")
Has anyone heard of Pierrot? As far as I know he is the ur-clown- you know, the Adam or Eve of clowns. He is portrayed almost always with an element of the macabre. Arnold Schönberg’s fantastic piece, Pierrot Lunaire, features the Pierrot figure in a number of blasphemous/murderous/obscene scenarios, including among many other atrocities, Pierrot drills a hole into a man’s head making a pipe of his entire head and smoking from it; another concerns a fantasy of beheading via the moon as a scimitar. et cetera. Though Schönberg’s piece is thoroughly 20th century (and then some!), the Pierrot figure, psychologically speaking, is already buried deep in our consciousness, as part of our rich Western culture. Schönberg knows this and plays off of this brilliantly, btw. My hypothesis- we fear them because it is part of our cultural heritage to fear them, they have always held an element of the macabre/evil, and the very contradiction of happy/evil or sad is fascinating and not at all immaterial to our complicated emotional human existence, keeping the figure alive. Make sense? It would be interesting to see if clown/joker/jester figures are also seen as covertly nefarious in non-western or non-christian based cultures… that child disfigurement thing, if true, is really and truly horrific. my 2¢ -Shingolicious ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/70 "2004-10-26T07:29:38Z")
> [@Shingolicious](#): > > that child disfigurement thing, if true, is really and truly horrific. I wonder about that, though. Was it really necessary to **create** disablilities and disfigurements at a time when so many occurred naturally? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/71 "2004-10-26T16:11:28Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > I wonder about that, though. Was it really necessary to **create** disablilities and disfigurements at a time when so many occurred naturally? Ah, but they weren’t _funny_ disabilities. Pox scars you see all the time, but a good mutilated face is a rarity. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/72 "2004-10-26T17:16:03Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > Ah, but they weren’t _funny_ disabilities. Pox scars you see all the time, but a good mutilated face is a rarity. I think EvilDeath is onto the answer, albeit not a real funny one. Your imagination and sense of human decency may not allow you to think of the extent to which these Comprachico fellows would go. From what I’ve read (taken with the appropriate grains of salt) there was far more to it than carving a rictus smile or stunting a limb or two. There were reported instances of primitive attempts to graft animal skin onto humans, to limit head growth by encasing a small child’s head in a tiny iron mask, to crush and reshape bone into horrific animal shapes. These man made creatures were blithering idiots driven insane from pain and neglect and who’s lives were short if they even survived. Don’t forget how callous our own civilization has been towards life in the not too distant past. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/73 "2004-10-26T17:59:49Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > The practice is named in and is the basis of Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs”, Dumas inspiration for “The Man in The Iron Mask” and is somtimes mentioned in context with part of the story of “Pinocchio” (a boy who is taken and turned into a donkey). Which brings the OP back to my first point. The silent film, “The Man Who Laughs”, (with Conrad Veidt acting) brought this horrific practice back into the public eye. There were several similar films during the silent era which starred Bela Lugosi (and others) to which the public flocked. The original sketches of “The Joker” were almost identical to Veidt’s character. Later the Joker character would include a maniacle laugh and green hair with white face and a bright red laughing smile. He usually wore a zoot suit that was exaggerated and even donned a red nose once in awhile. Remember, the Joker was evil…he was a mass murderer who played the fool but joked his way out of being captured, time and time again. Sure, I understand the Joker wasn’t the originator of the evil jester BUT he damned sure made it common knowledge, especially with the kiddos. Then there’s the psych experiments…an infant with NO “clown experience” will often show fear at their first confrontation with a clown. The concept that clowns are supposed to be funny is what is learned, not the other way around. Maybe y’all remember the AFV video of the little kid that freaked out when he saw the man dressed up as Eeore…sp? ( from Winnie the Pooh). Recall how that child went nuts, he was absolutely terrified. Yet he knew who Eeore was. Clowns do the same thing. I think that instinctual fear is inherent and when confirmed (like the Eeore example) the fear may become phobia. Yet no matter how many times we learn that clowns are supposed to be funny. That innate fear remains. Masks and makeup hide the truth. No matter how many jokes or funny stories or magic tricks they try to win us over with the instinct remains. For most of us, we can’t trust what we can’t see. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/74 "2004-10-26T19:13:38Z")
> [@t-keela](#): > > Which brings the OP back to my first point. > The silent film, “The Man Who Laughs”, (with Conrad Veidt acting) brought this horrific practice back into the public eye. Does anyone have a cite for this practice that is independent of Victor Hugo’s novel? I’ve come across web references that say he invented the term, which leads me to wonder if he didn’t invent the practice also. ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/75 "2004-10-26T19:35:12Z")
I think most agree experts agree the practice existed but that it was Hugo who coined the term. > **[Comprachicos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprachicos)** > > Comprachicos (also Comprapequeños and Cheylas) is a compound Spanish neologism meaning "child-buyers", which was coined by Victor Hugo in his novel The Man Who Laughs. It refers to various groups in folklore who were said to change the physical appearance of human beings by manipulating growing children, in a similar way to the horticultural method of bonsai – that is, deliberate mutilation. The most common methods said to be used in this practice included stunting children's growth by physica Vi... ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/76 "2004-10-26T19:44:37Z")
comprapequeños > **[The Litrix Reading Room - Discover what we think about the latest released...](https://litrix.com)** > > Discover what we think about the latest released ebooks, is it really worthy or yet another scam Sear our database to find your ebook and our review > [@Hugo](#): > > WHO NOW KNOWS the word Comprachicos, and who knows its meaning? The Comprachicos or Comprapequeños were a hideous and nondescript association of wanderers, famous in the 17th century, forgotten in the 18th, unheard of in the 19th. The Comprachicos are like the “succession powder,” an ancient social characteristic detail. They are part of old human ugliness ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/77 "2004-10-26T19:47:55Z")
> [@t-keela](#): > > I think most agree experts agree the practice existed but that it was Hugo who coined the term. > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprachicos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprachicos) Lest I be thought a plagerizer, that Wikipedia article plagerizes the source that I had read years ago in one of those often wrong “2006 Amazing Facts!” books. This is why I prefaced some of my comments with the grain of salt comment. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/78 "2004-10-26T20:06:46Z")
> [@t-keela](#): > > The original sketches of “The Joker” were almost identical to Veidt’s character. I thought the Joker’s original look was nicked from the leering face that loomed above [Steeplechase Park](http://history.amusement-parks.com/steeplechase.htm) on Coney Island? ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900/79 "2004-10-26T20:39:33Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > I thought the Joker’s original look was nicked from the leering face that loomed above [Steeplechase Park](http://history.amusement-parks.com/steeplechase.htm) on Coney Island? I only know the artist who did the drawings of the Joker said that he got the idea from the film. I don’t know how old the face at the park is. One of the links I cited earlier shows the comparison. and BTW **Cluricaun** you may be right about wiki stealing articles from elsewhere I’ve seen that before. BUT I have also read about the mutilations elsewhere so I don’t have any doubts about the historical aspects of this occurrence. Hell, when I was a little kid I remember the old traveling circus would have “freaks”. Dad said when he was a kid in the depression it was “common knowledge” these things happened. That was one of the threats actually :eek: to tell your kid that you’d sell them to a circus. IIRC Hitchcock did a short about this subject and there have been a LOT of movies on it. All of that aside, I know they are well after Hugo’s works. The Chinese document the practice back for centuries. But, I’ll see what I can dig up for you though as far as cites. 😉 Societies around the world have been practicing mutilation for as long as we’ve been here. Still do as a matter of fact. Think about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-and-why-did-clowns-become-creepy/269900.md?page=3)