Reluctantly, Abby and Alan explore the very long history of clowns. And the very short history of evil clowns.
Lunatics merch, available here!
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Consider helping Black Trans folks by donating to the Marsha P Johnson Institute.
Subscribe to Anti-Racism Daily - a daily email newsletter from Nicole Cardoza.
Also, consider donating to The Loveland Foundation, a fund that provides therapy for Black women.
---
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.
Music by Michaela Papa & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by @pilar.kep
Lunatics Magazine is available here. Subscribe to our newsletter! Follow us on Instagram @thelunaticsproject and on YouTube - Films About Lunatics.
Listen to Technically A Conversation, anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Reluctantly, Abby and Alan explore the very long history of clowns. And the very short history of evil clowns.
Lunatics merch, available here!
---
Consider helping Black Trans folks by donating to the Marsha P Johnson Institute.
Subscribe to Anti-Racism Daily - a daily email newsletter from Nicole Cardoza.
Also, consider donating to The Loveland Foundation, a fund that provides therapy for Black women.
---
Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback.
Music by Michaela Papa & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by @pilar.kep
Lunatics Magazine is available here. Subscribe to our newsletter! Follow us on Instagram @thelunaticsproject and on YouTube - Films About Lunatics.
Listen to Technically A Conversation, anywhere you listen to podcasts.
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Can you have clicked on this episode and you are listening to the history of clowns. First of all, thank you for being here. Second of all, should we be worried about you? I know that clowns are a very controversial topic, so we're really appreciative that you are here sticking with us as we learn about the strange and bizarre roots of this hard trope. I am Abby breaker. I'm here with Alan Dan. Hello. And this is a Olympics radio hour where we talk about the history of our favorite horror.
Speaker 3:What'd you say that clowns are your favorite horror?
Speaker 2:No, I guess, I mean like the history of popular horror tropes, right? Or, or different things that have inspired horror films. Like our last episode was on the Enfield poultry guys, which was a really specific example of a thing that inspired a specific horror movie.
Speaker 3:Also not what I would say by favorite whores.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. But this is about clowns, which is a really broad thing and has a few like really popular horror movies tied to it. Right. Whether or not we liked them personally though. I think you do. They're pretty popular
Speaker 3:Actually, for most of my, most of my childhood actually right up, right up until adult adulthood. My favorite horror film involved a clown. It yet. Yeah. Stephen King. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about it quite a bit today, as you might have guessed.
Speaker 3:I mean, pretty, how can you not
Speaker 2:Pretty pinnacle when we're talking about horror and clowns,
Speaker 3:Only a few pinnacle clown horror movies, and I think it reigns Supreme.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's also, you know, spoiler alert. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about the joker as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, didn't even think about him. What's he doing here?
Speaker 2:Well, he's a pretty big clown villain. Right? And so regardless of whether or not you think some of these films are horror, which I don't think they are really, but no, he is in himself, an evil, scary clown in some iterations and others. He's not, but he's important to sort of, you know what we'll see as we talk through the history is that clowns were not evil or scary until really recently
Speaker 3:You make a good point. I can't imagine making any kind of full episode on clowns without talking about the clown Prince of crime.
Speaker 2:He is sort of like a gateway between normal circus clowns. And it, you know, he's kind of like a gateway drug. Yeah. So Allen, did you know that there are even online forums and Facebook groups dedicated to the hatred of creepy clowns?
Speaker 3:I mean, that makes sense. Isn't it clowns like a number one fear among people.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] some circuses, even hold workshops that teach attendees how to overcome this fear. So it's like, Oh, you're going to the circus. There's going to be clowns like quick, if you're afraid come into this tent and we'll, we'll go through a workshop with you.
Speaker 3:So wait, people go to a circus and before you go, it's like, you have to take a class like as if it's like a safety way to waiver. Right.
Speaker 2:Not everybody. It's kind of like, Oh, if you're scared of clowns, come check out this seminar.
Speaker 3:Okay. I mean, I was, I didn't know when to bring this up. Okay. But I did go to clown school for a very brief point in my life.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. A little water. You say
Speaker 3:I, I went, I mean, it's what it sounds like you learn like the little tricks about
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no. How old were you? What happened? What was the, you think this was,
Speaker 3:Is either late middle school, early high school.
Speaker 2:And you said, Hey mom, I'm dying to go to clown school.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. It was offered to me by the clowns. I don't know who said it is by some teacher.
Speaker 2:They were like, you belong in clown schools. It was a good program. Yeah. Okay. So they teach you,
Speaker 3:You know, the little things like, you know, making balloon animals and makeup and that sort of thing. Um, and I mean, w w we'll we'll circle back to the makeup in a minute, but this program then took you to senior centers. That's cool. It's you know, and old people love clowns. It's children, just especially people with dementia, love, love clowns. Now, one thing that they were very explicit about was you no longer do white face clowns, that's terror inducing. Instead you just drop the white mat and just, you know, you do your eye makeup and your colors, botches and you'll triangles, you know, and people love it. Not scary anymore. You still add the rainbow wig and all little red, red foam nose. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you have photos of this? That's unimportant. I'm going to text your mom the best thing I've ever heard. I don't think she does actually. Okay. How long were you a clown for? I mean,
Speaker 3:It's a pretty brief program. Sure. You know, you only do it a handful of times and you enjoy it. I thought it was a very interesting experience. What was interesting about it? Well, first starters, you learn how to make balloon animals, which is pretty fun. Yeah. What kind of animals did
Speaker 2:You make?
Speaker 3:Uh, I could never get past the dog. Is that the, is that like the basic one? That's the basic one that, and the balloon sword, what's the advanced one. Sometimes I'd make like a Lama or a giraffe, which is different variations of the dog. If you make the neck too big or too short,
Speaker 2:I'd always be afraid that the balloons would pop really.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. So a common misconception that, that the balloons are filled fully before you begin. So if you remember, the dog has a little tail and that's a deflated part of the balloon. So as you keep twisting all the extra pressure just builds into that instead.
Speaker 2:Cool. Yeah. The more, you know, the more you know about your partner just coming out now. Yeah. I mean, that's great. You're going to be a wonderful resource. As we talk through this, there have been, there's also been a lot of surveys and studies done to show that children don't respond well to clowns, which is funny considering, especially in modern times, clowns early associated with entertaining children. It's also funny because you as a child dressed up as a clown, which I really wonder what that all means. Psychological.
Speaker 3:I don't understand what you mean by that. I think it's pretty straightforward,
Speaker 2:But the history of clowns may surprise you. It wasn't all creepy at the beginning. So today sources, we have a documentary called the history of clowns by in praise of shadows on YouTube. We have a Smithsonian article, the history and psychology of clowns being scary. An article called the history of clowns from clown bluey.co.uk clowns are racist, a YouTube video by identity, funk, and Wikipedia though. Modern humans, almost universally agree that clowns are a nerving. This hasn't always been the case. Historically clowns have been entertainers. And in some cases, religious icons and priests, we only start to see some examples of scary clowns and relatively modern history, which we will talk about later on the word, clown can be traced back to the 1560s when it was used in Germany to describe fools and gestures. The word can be transcribed one-to-one as peasant fools and gestures were entertainers, usually from a lower socioeconomic class that performed for the more wealthy or royalty gestures can be traced back to the ancient Greek and Roman theaters. Gestures could be highly skilled, usually taking part in song dance and even acrobatics. In addition to the comedy routines that we identify them with today. So they weren't only in clowns, even like throughout a lot of this history, they, weren't only sort of like silly pie in the face. Sort of guys, a lot of them are really highly trained in gymnastics and a song and dance and other types of entertainment though, the clowns of ancient Greece were also known for wearing fake penises and costumes that exaggerated genitalia, which was just a fun bit I wanted to throw in. But the earliest clowns originated in ancient Egypt in China around 2,500 BC E we have pause here to address that these early clowns in Egypt were often people from Africa who were enslaved and made to entertain the pharaohs and their courts. One famous clown from Chinese history is you say he was a clown to Chinese emperor. Sheesh, Hong T forgive my pronunciation there. He was actually the emperor who had great the, who had built the great wall, put a guy. Yeah. So his clown or jester had special significance because he actually convinced the emperor to not paint the wall, which saved years and years of deadly working conditions in the middle ages, gestures had a complex role. They had great proximity to the throne. And though they represented the poor class. They also represented free speech to a degree and artistry right here was a jester in the core of Henry, the first in the 11 hundreds, while traveling to Rome, he contracted malaria and claimed that he would build a hospital to the poor if he survived. And he actually did survive and kept his word and the hospital still stands and is in use to this day, this was in what year? The 1100,
Speaker 3:Geez, it's an old hospital. It is
Speaker 2:Parts of it were decommissioned. Um, but parts of it are still active.
Speaker 3:How big was it? It gives it, I don't think it's that huge third decommissioning wings, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 2:There was like a hospital and a school kind of attached to it. Cool. William Summers was gesture for King Henry the eighth and had a wonderful reputation around the castle. He was dubbed the poor man's friend. John Skowhegan was the gesture in the court of King Edward. The fourth Scoggin was actually an Oxford scholar and became quite close with the Royal family. And so there's a fun story with this one where Scoggin borrowed a lot of money from King Edward. And he was unable to pay him back. So like the day arrived right. Where he had to come clean on his debt and
Speaker 3:He wasn't getting paid wages.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But he, he needed like an advance or what he needed. And this who knows, this is sort of like secondhand information, but this is like one of those folk bore stories.
Speaker 3:Got it. If anyone can link the financial agreement, please do. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So in typical clown fashion, he decided to prank the King. He pretended to be dead. And like literally had his friends like carry him on a stretcher to the King. Um, and the King was like devastated, said all of these really kind words of Skowhegan forgave, the debt, you know, of his family so that his, the survivors in his family didn't need to pay, you know, his Odette. And then of course, Gogan popped up to reveal that it was a prank and the King banished the gesture to France.
Speaker 3:Can you blame them? No.
Speaker 2:The history of gestures and full spans many regions in the world. In addition to the places we've mentioned already, they are prominent in Turkey, France, Italy, India, and Iraq, to name a few in the 17 hundreds, we see the rise of Harlequin aid in Britain. This genre was developed by John Rich, a theater manager who also played Harlequin as part of his,
Speaker 3:What is a Harlequin? I mean, I just looked at what is synonymous with like jester, like
Speaker 2:Quinn. Yeah. I mean, that's essentially what it was. It was a very specialized type of gesture who became like a trope and feeder. So it's a theater term. Yeah. So it's, it's a John rhe of theater, so it's a type of theater and it's usually, there's also a clown as part of it. So it's, there's a Harlequin character and a clown character that play like these roles are Harlequins, always female, no, John Rich was a man and he played the Harlequin, you know, like the gesture, hats that like the Harley Quinn characters where it's like that it's sort of like Victoria, like I don't even know older than Victorian, like Elizabeth and looking outfits like men and tights with pointy shoes with Bel like very, gesturey almost in theatrical. Um, and, but at the time, obviously rebranded a bit in a modern sense. It's a fancy gesture. It's a fancy theater gesture, but it's part of like, the word is a John era of, of show, you know, like a different type of entertainment, like a burlesque, but a Harlequin made the imagery of clowns. As we know it today with the white face, makeup is inspired by Joseph Grimaldi from the late 18th century Grimaldi known as Joey when performing was famous for more than just his costumes. He was forward about his struggles with mental health famously saying, I am grim all day, but I make you laugh at night. And his memoirs were actually edited by Charles Dickens. Wow. Which is what sort of like helped solidify that. Yeah. He's pretty famous. Um, and so this is also kind of like one of the first times we publicly see like a clown or a gesture character. Who's pretty like honest about, and I'm sure, you know, as all humans have mental health struggles, but it's sort of this juxtaposition of my job is to entertain and to be silly and, and whatever, but I'm really struggling or depressed, you know, the clown trope, the clown trope. Exactly. So the circus, right. We have to talk about the circus a little bit here. The circus developed in the 19th century. So actually not that long ago. And clowns became an organic part of that environment. Clowns often gave monologues and offered and offered thoughts to audiences about politics and news. They even were known to quote, famous historical literature like the works of Shakespeare. Okay. So there are several specific types of circus clowns,
Speaker 3:Wait, scroll back. They would do Shakespeare at the circus.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So clowns at the, when they sort of first emerged in the circus and there, there are certainly, I think one of the documentaries like describe them as like the thread of like keeps the circus together. Right. They sort of like pop in and out. They provide like emotion, like comic relief or emotional reprieve, but they say
Speaker 3:Like, Oh, they're like the rodeo clowns. And then I realized, Oh, clowns. Yeah. Yeah. They just come in, in and out between X.
Speaker 2:Right. It also sometimes as part of they have cameos and in this time they were also giving like monologues and they were talking about politics and current events and they were quoting Shakespeare and other, you know, so it wasn't again like what we think of as clowns now and the makeup and some of the things have persisted across centuries, but really like the silliness isn't always been what the history of it is. Okay. Okay. So now we're going to talk about several specific types of clowns. The first is the Whiteface clown known for the white makeup, right? The white face makeup Grimaldi was an example of this. They have the most status of all the types of clowns and is the oldest type of clown in modern times. These clowns usually function as a straight man or leader of the group. Another type of clown is the August or red clown. And I could totally be pronouncing that word wrong. Say it again, August with an E at the end. So I don't know if it's like a Gus day or August stay, but red clown, this clown often accompanies the white face clown. They are usually the ones who are the butter, the joke. Right. So they're the ones who get the pie in the face. Oh geez. And sometimes they're known for like, kind of like what you described when you were clowning the, the same makeup, but lacking the white background on their face. Okay. So then there's also character clowns who take on the role of a comical policemen, a Baker, a housewife, like a specific job. Like for example, Ronald McDonald would be known as a character clown. Charlie Chaplin was a character clown.
Speaker 3:You're equating Charlie Chaplin and Ronald McDonald.
Speaker 2:I'm saying that they fall into the same clown category like Buster. She was a character clown. Um, so character clown's makeup is usually Ronald McDonald is an exception to this, but character clown's makeup is usually comedic is usually a comedic slant of the human face. So think about Charlie Chaplin's makeup, for example, where it's, you don't look at Charlie Chaplin and say, Oh, he's a clown, right? He's not like he doesn't have a red nose, but you also know that there's something like exaggerated about his features. So those are the three main types. There's also another fourth type, which is somewhat recent and not everybody really counts it, which is what they call the hobo clown. So a clown who is specifically mimicking or making fun of, to some degree, homeless people or people experiencing homelessness,
Speaker 3:Right? Cause they have all the patches in the clothes and everything and straw poking out of places.
Speaker 2:And we'll, we'll get to that in a minute too. When we talk about some of the issues with these, it wasn't until the mid 1900 set clowns really became entertainment for kids often cited as the first example of this is Claribel the clown from the popular show. Howdy duty. So think about that. It wasn't until the 19 hundreds that clowns became associated with children before that from 2,500 BC until 1900 a D they were meant to, uh, to entertain adults only in the 19 hundreds where they sort of like thought to be invited to kids, parties and stuff like that. So Claribel the clown from howdy duty. Claribel communicated solely through mine, which is a major part of the ancient gesture tradition and honking the horn, like one honk for yes, two honks for now, in fact, clowns meant to entertain children is mostly an American thing. Clowns and other parts of the world are not exclusively meant to keep kids busy before we move on, we should address the racist history of clowny. Obviously not all clowns are inherently racist, but there are major things to call out here. We started the episode, talking about enslaved people in Egypt made to act as gestures, minstrel shows and blackface is another aspect of clown history. That's obviously problematic. So when you talk about that fourth type of clown, right, that hobo clown, there are also some ties to that being connected to, um, to the, the huge increase of like the black homeless population after emancipation, because you know, a lot of people who are enslaved suddenly had no assets and nowhere to go, right? So that's obviously terrible menstrual performances consisted of white people putting on blackface. Frederick Douglas described the black face performers. As in quote, the filthy scum of white society who have stolen from us, a complexion denied them by nature in which to make money and pander to the crept taste of their white fellow citizens. By the late 18th century, white people in black face often appeared in theatrical and other types of performances as the servant character meant to be the butt of the joke in the 1830s, a menstrual performance called jump, Jim Crow brought renewed popularity to this awful and racist show. And if you really look at like the black face tradition in film and, and other places outside of like clown or minstrel shows, you know, a lot of really famous actors at the time, like Judy Garland, for example, and you know, and obviously we still have celebrities today who are dressing up for Halloween and, and doing like that. But it was a really awful period of time where that was seen as an acceptable thing to do. And I know the default response here sometimes is to say, well, minstrel shows black blackface. All of that stuff happened so long ago, but obviously as we can see with what's going on this week, like this country has always had systemic issues with racism. And, and I would just like to take this moment to encourage everyone to do more. One resource I really love to suggest is the work of Nicole Cardoza. She has a platform called anti-racism daily, and you can get a newsletter to your email every day. And there's also an, so that is something that I would recommend as a first step, but there's a lot that we have to be doing because what we're doing right now, isn't working. So anyway, there's a lot of people out there who are doing really expert work in this and we can learn from them, compensate them and then take it upon ourselves to make change in this country. But now shall we talk about what is, what is within our level of expertise, scary clowns?
Speaker 3:How would, well, I'd say I'd love to, but that's, that's not true crown with the, a cleanser creepy,
Speaker 2:Scary, evil, dark. It's we're going to go for a broad definition here.
Speaker 3:I was actually thinking about this earlier, how we've talked about a lot of like movie monsters, right. And clowns are absolutely a type of movie monster or movie villain, whatever. But if like one was standing in your apartment, you would freak the out. Yeah, of course. If there was like a vampire standing in your apartment, would you be freaked out or would you be intrigued? You know,
Speaker 2:I guess it depends how hot they are. I mean,
Speaker 3:Sure. They're not. Um, w what did shimmer shimmering glittering?
Speaker 2:You talking about Edward from Twilight?
Speaker 3:Well, you you're talking about Edward from, okay. Ignore vampires, right? I think movie monsters are cool. I don't think there's anything cool about clouds.
Speaker 2:I was at a race, like, like a 5k or something pre COVID days with my family. And there was a, it was like, uh, just a normal race. It was like in the middle of the winter. And there was a clown there, and there was no reason to, it wasn't like a big, it was like, it was like a street race, you know, there wasn't like a carnival after, like, there was no, you know, zones. It was like, you're literally like running along traffic. Like it was a street race. There was no like festival, but there's just a clown. Like, and he wasn't running. He was just hanging out like in the parking lot. And it's just like the most unnerving thing, because you know that he knows that people are going to be freaked out by him. And that there's no reason for him to be here. It's just a big public gathering where he decided to come dressed as a clown. So I would say, even if they're not in your bedroom, they can be upsetting.
Speaker 3:Clowns are unsettling. Everything about them is unsettling. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So let's talk about one of the very first instances of a non-positive clown.
Speaker 3:So the beginning of time,
Speaker 2:No, I'm saying what I say that is like the section that I'm really focusing on clowns that were portrayed in an evil or scary or negative way in the media. Because up until this point clowns, regardless of how you feel about them on a personal level, we're not like evil killer clowns. Right. So I'm talking about the shift here and to kind of, when media starts to reflect that people are thinking clowns in this darker
Speaker 3:Way, when they switched from being the victim to the antagonist, right? Yes.
Speaker 2:That's very good. Okay. So Edgar Allen Poe's hop frog from 1849 is one of the first examples of a scary clown though. Hop frog is very similar to Kerry in certain ways. Hop frog is the abused really hop frog is the name of the clown. Yeah. Sorry, hop frog is the name of the character was a plan. Got it. Or he's, he's more of like a gesture really.
Speaker 3:And is it this piece self-titled of hot Prague? Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not, self-titled at grill, post his autobiography. So how Prague is an abused, mistreated and bullied gesture to the King, like really, really, really, really abused. He's a Dorf and he is disabled. The King physically abuses him. And at the end of the story, of course, hop frog gets his revenge. So it's not really like a scary clown story. It's more of like a killer clown story. Like, it's actually interesting because this is a little bit of a side tangent, but I got into a discussion, a friendly conversation with my friend Ashley, the other day on Instagram, because I posted on Instagram asking, you know, one of those like questions, things,
Speaker 3:Um, questionnaire. No,
Speaker 2:There's like a feature where you can ask questions. You you'll submit responses.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Almost like a questionnaire.
Speaker 2:Okay. Do you have a phone? Like, okay. Oh phone. Do you, have you ever been on Instagram?
Speaker 3:Okay. So I know the question pops up. People submit responses and it goes back to a central person, you know, and they collect all the responses from all the people. Okay. It's a questionnaire. I don't understand
Speaker 2:Anything like, okay. So anyway, I put out a call for like, describe it then what's everybody's favorite horror villain and my friend Nash. And I said, my I'll start minus Carrie. She said, hop frog. No. Ashley said that she didn't think that, uh, Carrie was a horror villain because you know, like the people deserved it. Right. Cause she was abused and mistreated. And I said, in response, I thought about it for a few minutes. And I said, you're wrong. Well, I said, I disagreed with her because though yes, there, there is like a lot of that pushes Carrie over the edge. Right. She's bullied by people. They dump pig's blood on her. Like she also ends up killing a gymnasium full of people who had nothing to do with it. Right. Yeah. It's pretty bad. So she's, she is murderous. Like, even though there's like people to blame for pushing her over the edge, she did, she, what she did was a lot bigger than revenge. So anyway, just to say, it's an conversation about whether you define someone as a villain or not. I think Carrie is a villain. I don't think Hotfrog is a villain.
Speaker 4:I, I think in a very interesting question for Ashley, then we'd be like, what, how do you feel about jigsaw? Because everybody in one of his traps seemingly deserved it.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll ask Ashlynn wa well, we'll get back to you. So anyway, that's the story of hop frog, the first example of a murderous climb.
Speaker 4:Uh, also, well, you have to edit this in earlier, but you have to add a spoiler tag because you say the ending of huh,
Speaker 2:Briefly. I'm going to mention an Italian opera from 1892, because it has come up in every single article and video that I watched for this. Pagliacci say, say it again. Pagliacci Pagliacci, I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but it is a fairly famous example of a clown murderer. Oh, it seems actually to be an opera that's still like performed somewhat frequently to this day, even though it's from the late 18 hundreds, but you can look up some cool imagery or isn't even cool, but like costumes are kind of like exaggerated and surrealist and stuff. So it's interesting. Anyway, it's an Italian opera, so I don't know a ton about it beyond that, but, um, I just thought I should mention it for,
Speaker 4:Oh, you pegged. Pagliacci Peggy. ACI. What was it Pagliacci pay for? Yeah. All you Pagliacci fans. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Shout out to you. One of the first films to star a scary clown was the 1924 silent film. He who gets slapped starring none other than Lon Chaney, the Wolf fan.
Speaker 4:Everyone loves a good Lon, Chaney, exactly
Speaker 2:The script he who gets slapped. He who gets slapped from 1924 silent film. The script is based on a Russian play by the same name from 1914, though, looking at the footage. Now it's like, you can find, I think the whole thing on YouTube. Um, I found it somewhere online, really easily. It's it's a bizarre film from 1924. It's weird and very like trippy. And there's lots of weird editing techniques and clowns and mirrors and multiple clowns on carousels. You know, it's a little bit trippy, but at the time it was a huge hit for MGM. Wow.
Speaker 4:Is it like trip to the moon?
Speaker 2:Trippy. Yeah. I mean, I guess it was just the style. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Certainly. Um, and a fun fact actually about this film is that it was the first film produced by MGM though. They held the release until the holiday season when a bigger audience was expected. So they like made the film, held it for a few months. So other films were released before this one, but this was the first film that MGM, when they came together,
Speaker 4:That was the beginning of everyone goes to movies on Christmas morning.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] so this film is also the first film to feature MGMs iconic mascot, Leo, the lion, before MGM came together, it was just Goldwin. Right. And they had, it was like a merger. Right. But before that they did have their own lion, but this is the first time it was part of an MGM.
Speaker 4:They ha wait, wait, there's rival lions.
Speaker 2:Like I think the lion started with Goldwind and it carried into this merger. So there's films that just say like Goldwyn, not MGM. Gotcha. And had the, the lion, but those were like, they predated MGM as a company.
Speaker 4:I see. Well, I mean, th they probably kept the line because he's so cool. And he's a big head. Do you know the fun fact about filming that lion? Yeah, so they w he was just supposed to stay in there. It was just supposed to be like a, a lion's head, you know, like looking at his eyeball or something, whatever lions do. And then, and then all of a sudden, he just roars like crazy, and they had no idea he was going to do it, and they got it on film. And that's why they've used it ever since, because it's so frequent.
Speaker 2:Cool. And another fun fact about he who gets slapped, the film entered the public domain in January, 2020, and now has an 89% rating on rotten tomatoes. And he who gets slapped. Yes. Did you watch it? It's on YouTube. So I watched bits of it. I didn't, I'm not one to like, sit and watch a full length, silent movie as a modern viewer, but you can,
Speaker 4:Despite the fact that we watch, uh, Jeff's all day gifts, just gifts. Yes.
Speaker 2:I remember it cause it's like gifts. So yeah. Check that out. If you're into trippy clown movies, go for it. So, yeah. So the kind of like essential thing is that Lon Chaney's clown character in the movie is part of a thriller plot. So it's not horror, but it is thriller. And he's not really the bad guy, but it's still sort of like clowns getting portrayed in a creepy movie. Yeah. All right, here we go. This is a big section here. And what's the section called the joker, the joker enter the joker, enter the joker, the first fully fledged evil clown that we see in pop culture is the joker who we meet in 1940, despite the Joker's iconic history. It's a bit just
Speaker 4:For some clarity. You're talking about the Batman villain. Oh
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yes. From Batman, despite the jokers, like level of iconic fame at this point in his career, right. It's actually a bit murky. How, and who developed him? Bob cane, there are five men who are credited with the creation of this character and all of them tell different stories about his origin. And of course, like making themselves seem like they had a bigger role in it. And all of these men have since passed away. Who did you just say? Bob Kane? Who's that? Crater. Batman. Yeah. Well, I think he had some friends helping him.
Speaker 4:No, I was, I was just guessing on that one also very interesting that, well, actually, no, what am I saying? This makes perfect. There's a dubious origin on what w w where the character came from, because the characters origin itself is super dubious. There's multiple origin stories of him that are all considered Canon.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And also, if you look at the 1928 film, so there's a, uh, another film for my 28 called the man who laughs not to be confused with he who gets slapped, but the man who laughs and you should Google this on. If you have your phone, Google, the man who laughs famous joker comic. Well, this is the film, the actor Conrad, that his makeup from the film is exactly like the joker that we all picture in our mind right now. So you said, you know, he, who laughs is the name of a comic? No, no, no. The man who laughs. So I wonder, yeah, the man who left. Sorry. So I wonder if the film was actually a joke or film. I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4:No. I mean, I'm trying to think of where, I mean obviously the man who laughs predates the joker by
Speaker 2:Decades, but did they base it on
Speaker 4:That? Think they, well, I don't think he always looked like he does now though.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Google the joker 1940. You'll see him. His first comic book look
Speaker 4:Right now. There's a very famous one-shot comic called the man who laughs. Of the joker, but that's from like 2005. So what was that camp who I'm thinking of?
Speaker 2:Oh, well maybe they just took the namesake and made it into something.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I guess he always looked like this. I pictured him differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So his very early iterations in comic books and the portrayal of this actor in this movie from 1928 are almost identical.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah. Oh, so fun fact, all the creators of the joker you listed for at least, uh, Bob Kane, bill finger and Jerry Robinson. So all three people from the very early days of Batman, the one thing that they all agreed on, despite the differences on who created him was that the joker was based off the character from the man who laughs.
Speaker 2:Oh, well, there you go. I mean, yeah, it's obvious that it is, but it looks the same. It's the same guy, but that's great validation for sure. So regardless of his true origin story as a character, it's not entirely surprising that we see a super violent comic book character in 1940 comic books around this time were actually very dark pages were filled with murder, mystery and sex around 1954, the comic books code authority. And this is a bit of a tangent, but I thought it was interesting. Um, the comic books code authority was developed in order to regulate the contents of comic books. So during this period of time, we see that the joker actually shifts into like a lighter, more kind of like clown character, where he was less murderous. It was more sort of like him being a buffoon, um, with the rise of comic censorship, the joker leaned closer to his own clown roots than his killer tendencies. It wasn't until the eighties, when the joker shifts back towards his darker side with stories like a death in the family and the killing joke where he kind of becomes a serial killer clown again.
Speaker 4:So you were saying how it back in the forties comics were kind of bad,
Speaker 2:Like Dick Tracy, you know? Yeah, it was, huh.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's so interesting. I, so, you know, having, uh, I'm somebody that when I start reading an ongoing story, I love to start at the beginning and it's, you know, a lot of these superheroes cause just cause that's the, the main, um, comic book franchises in America when you go back to their origins. There's so, so lame, you know, cause you're going back to the golden age, which I guess, you know, fifties, but Batman and you know, I guess Superman is even older than that. Okay. I guess now once you get into the forties, you're saying how it just used to be so dark and gritty. That's amazing. I can't wait to go explore that.
Speaker 2:And probably, you know, I don't know the history of comics would probably even sooner it was 1954 that there was like this comic book code authority. And so anything predating that, you know, it was probably a little bit
Speaker 4:Grittier how I think that's so interesting. Cause like you look at movies from then, and I guess they're not Tara Tara. I mean, no, from the forties, there was a good amount of surprisingly dark and gritty movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was sort of like a censorship thing that popped up probably in response to all of that. Right. Yeah. Especially like it's comic books, like kids where we're accessing them and you know,
Speaker 4:I mean, I, I imagine back then comics, the kids were the exclusive audience of comic books. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Except for ones that maybe were a little
Speaker 4:Risque. Well sure. Or, or maybe, maybe, maybe they weren't, maybe it was just supposed to be uh, uh, everyone who can read, enjoys them and then post censorship is when it switched to kids. Yeah. That's an interesting time to explore.
Speaker 2:In 1954 West German film, the Phantom of the big tent is one of the earliest, if not the earliest killer clown movies, what, what year are we? 1954 West German filler of the big tent, the West German, the Phantom of the big 10 of the big 10. But sadly the film doesn't seem to be accessible any longer. Some people think it didn't survive the cold war. Oh bummer. So if you can find a copy or you have one, let us know because we would love to watch it because it is usually thought of as the first like slasher clown movie. Oh, that's cool. We start to see evil clowns pop up more and more over the next span of time. So there's like some, uh, things I'm to, I'm going to kind of go through here that I just found interesting. So I wanted to share them the, and I, I think this one is interesting because it's still, it's like, you know, you could find it on Netflix right now. Um, an episode of the Twilight zone, five characters in search of an exit. Um, and this is season three, episode 14, which originally debuted on December 22nd, 1961 and good year. A good year. There's clowns in this. Yes. So there there's five, um, characters and they end up, it's like very like dystopian surrealist. He's essentially like combining two plays, one called no exit and one called five characters in search of an author. And so rod Sterling sort of playing with these like very surrealist play plots, but essentially these five characters, one is like a police officer, a clown, a ballerina. Like I don't remember all of them are wake up in like a room without doors or any way out. And it's just like following them kind of like psychologically through the episode as they just sort of like realize that they're stuck in this place and there's no,
Speaker 3:That's pretty cool. Yeah. I've never seen that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's not really like, I don't know. I haven't seen it or I don't remember. So I'm not sure what happens to the clown. Um, or if he's a killer, but it's kind of cited in some of the research as like a, to watch it immediately after we finish this. Yeah. As a pop culture, clown moment. That's so cool. Okay. Yeah, it is cool. 1966 was a big year for the clown trope because we see Adam West Batman introduce the joker villain to TV though. This version is more comedic than killer. The joker in this instance was played by Caesar Romano and he was also seen in the film version of Adam West Batman,
Speaker 3:Which is one of the greatest pieces of cinema ever made. Are you being sarcastic? No, it's fantastic. Great. It's one of my favorite films.
Speaker 2:Shall we talk one of my favorite examples of a clown? Can you guess what it is from 1969,
Speaker 3:1969? And I know the answer, I mean, no. Okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, you, you would know it right away, but I don't think that you would connect it Scooby doo and counters, a ghost clown, Emmy episode Bedlam at the big top,
Speaker 3:Which we watched, um, on Thanksgiving. Did we didn't we Oh, on Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we watched, we watched your, your special Thanksgiving Scooby doo and then Oh the movie. Yeah. And then we watched. Exactly. And then we watched a couple episodes as well while you were just getting things ready. Cause you were stressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Scooby doo is the original Scooby-Doo series is part of who I am. So anyway, yeah. Really exciting that Scooby Doos name comes up in research here because uh, one of the first evil clowns. Okay. This part's going to be a little rough. Why is that? Because we're talking really briefly about the evilest clown of all clowns.
Speaker 3:Who is it with jaws?
Speaker 2:Like keep talking at the same time. John Wayne Gacy was that if you aren't familiar, Gacy was an American serial killer who was sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 men and boys in the seventies.
Speaker 4:Oh that John Wayne Gracie Casey, that John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 2:To be clear, he was a real person and not a character. I mean, he,
Speaker 4:He was a character. Let me tell you why,
Speaker 2:But I'm talking about him because he does influence what happens next in clown history. Okay. But yes, Gacy was a clown. It wasn't thought that he actually like performed any of the murders while he was dressed up as a clown. But he obviously had access to children through his profession. He performed at children's hospitals and charity events under the name, Pogo the clown or patches. The clown Gacys crimes are truly horrific and very upsetting. If you're interested in learning more about it, I'm not going to like kill the vibe of the episode, talking about one of the worst serial killers of all time. The last podcast on the left covers, um, has like one of their very early episodes talks about this. I think it's like episode one Oh five or one Oh six. And they are truly the, the heavy hitter experts when it comes to serial killer. So I will redirect you all there.
Speaker 4:The one thing that I would like to clarify though, is that there is a difference between Gacys patches, the clown and patch Adams clown that heals all the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's a good point. That was a Robin Williams. Yes. Yeah. Way better. Cause they both had access to kids and one was good and one was evil. So let's just recap. Right, please. We have thousands of years of clown history, really gesture history. We see clowns and circuses. We see clowns start to appear in pop culture and dark ways here. And they're really scattered, right? Like I've just said, I don't know, five or eight examples, but that's over like a hundred years or 50 years or whatever. So, you know, infrequent, then we see John Wayne Gacy and now things start to heat up a little bit. Okay. So let's talk about it. Stephen King's novel. It came out in 1986 and the movie came out in 1990 and of course there's seventies horror films that touch on that touch on clowns and slasher clowns and things. But in 1986 was really the thing that kicked things off here talking about how evil clowns have become a staple in modern horror. We really have to look at both Pennywise and the joker. And again, I said at the beginning, like the joker is sort of a gateway. It sort of connects just like clowns being unnerving, right. To like a clown eventually kind of being murderous. Right. And then we get to Pennywise. So let's talk about the significance of Pennywise and our relationship, shall we? Sure. Okay. So on our third date, first day, third date, do you know what I'm going to say? On our third day we went to see it when that new and the new movie it came out in 2017, I guess the it remake. Yeah. Be it the new version of it. And so in preparation you said, well you have to come over and watch the original because I had never seen it from 1990. Right. So I came over to watch the original, I think on our second date, I did not realize it was a six hour movie.
Speaker 4:Well that's because it wasn't a movie, it was a mini
Speaker 2:Series, but it's all edited together now.
Speaker 4:I mean, yeah, they've stitched it together when you get the home version. But I mean it air as a mini series, it th the, the original book is gargantuan long and they did a pretty, I think they did a pretty good adequate, I mean, the book is very different, but I think that did a very good adaptation or at least made a very, uh, solid VUL mini series out of it. If they cut it down to a film, which they sorta did and with the remake, they still broke it up into part one and two, you know, and there's long movies. It it's still, it just, it feels very compressed where the first one feels so much more fleshed out.
Speaker 2:So I imagine then you prefer the original mini series to the more modern remakes
Speaker 4:I, I do. I'm also very biased just because it was my first horror movie that I saw as a kid. And I saw it in things like third grade. So far, far too young. Yeah. I saw it. I saw it and Halloween on the same night as sleepover. And it was just far, far too much. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So is someone's parents in the group that lets you do whatever you want to do, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. I didn't really dabble in it or encounter it. Like I knew it existed, but I never just wasn't interested in it until we met and I wasn't like terrified of clowns. It just wasn't my thing, but it's good. And I think the remakes are good as well. At least I haven't seen a second one, but the first one, you know, it's funny and snappy and I know I was fine. That sounds good.
Speaker 4:So Pennywise gave me years of nightmares as a kid. One of the main, I had this recurring nightmare, um, that, well, it's more of when I was just like laying in bed at night, I would get so, so freaked out. And it was it's I'd always think about there's one scene where the bully is now in the institution and Pennywise slides out from under his bed and starts talking to him. And what freaked me out so much about that scene is it's a pretty like he's, it's nighttime, it's dark in his room. Yeah. When Pennywise slides out Pennywise perfectly lit. Even, even by shrouding in darkness, you couldn't escape him. Yeah. And being a kid laying in bed, thinking about this fact laying in bed, just like the character did, I would freak myself out. So often I bet many then obviously yeah, many, many years
Speaker 2:Fire parents didn't want us to watch it. They're trying to protect us. What really? Yeah. Do you know what claustrophobia is? Fear
Speaker 4:Of plants.
Speaker 2:Clowns. Oh, there's actually chlorophyll. Yeah. I know. There's actually quite a bit of psychological research around the fear of clowns, which Shirley developed before it and the joker came into the world. So, so some psychologists say that the mystery of clowns, right. That especially clowns who are mimes and who they don't really speak in, they're just sort of, you know, you don't, you can't make like a connection with them because of the makeup and the layers and the performance. Right. And so that's one thing that psychologist point to this duality of like this childish exterior, but this unknown interior,
Speaker 4:My knee jerk reaction is, well, of course they're just so creepy, but I guess it's like, well, why are they crazy?
Speaker 2:Well, so there's some interesting reasons why another thing is the makeup. So especially when you described at the beginning of the white makeup, that they, they had you in clown school, not put on the white makeup because it makes you too creepy. Um, that's like a real thing because when you wearing the white makeup and the exaggerated features, you almost like almost mimics his demonic facial recognition type of thing. And it can freak people out because your eyes are like a little bit different than they should be in your mouth is a little bit different than it should be.
Speaker 4:Well, in one point that I would like to eliminate for you. If, if I may, um, I ignored that rule and went with white face regardless. I also kind of made it look a bit more bad-ass I look more and know, like I was in a metal band, like just doing the death metal makeup. Um, I still had positive reactions from the seniors. Did you look like kiss, uh, closer than to kiss then? Yeah. So tell me where clowns and, and kiss begins.
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I always say
Speaker 4:They sing, they dance a little, they wiggle their interpreter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think that's a great point. They're probably funny. Yeah. Their songs are playful. Right? According to Joseph Derwin, a psychology professor at California state university in Northridge kids are very reactive to a familiar body type with an unfamiliar face. Wait, wait, say it again. So a familiar body type with an unfamiliar face. So this is called the uncanny Valley effect.
Speaker 4:Sorry. I was just thinking of a new bus. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 2:Not that wouldn't be a familiar body. Y Y humanoid shape perfectly normal human body. No, not like body and head. I'm counting. I'm counting the head as part of the body. I don't know. I hear it not, but you got a Horace. Okay. So this is called the uncanny Valley effect, meaning humanoid objects, which do not appear as human. So a clown, right? There's like a known psychological trigger here that it, that it freaks people out. Why is it called uncanny Valley? It has to do with like when you click on the Wikipedia, there's like a big chart with a big Valley in the middle. Oh yes. Okay. Does that clarify things for you?
Speaker 4:Yes. So it's actually very interesting because this, um, is a very relevant effect when speaking about, um, animatronics and robotics and that sort of thing, or, uh, CGI as well. One reason why a lot of animatronics are creepy is because they look too close to humans. You know, when they start moving and sounding like humans, it gets creepy. That's why a lot of prosthetics are painted a different color, you know, to look, uh, you know, silver or something, just so it doesn't look very close, but not quite human, you know? Cause there's always gonna be some discrepancy until technology is like, perfect until we just have straight up Androids, you know, it'd be, cause it's, it's unsettling. So yeah, just picture, you know, like, um, a hand, right. And if it's, you know, just like straight up Terminator hand where it's just like the wiggly robot fingers, like bad-ass when it is animatronic, which is like the, the, the Silicon flesh stretched over, like that's all creepy uncanny Valley.
Speaker 2:Um, Kenny Valley. Yeah. I'm not as, I'm not freaked out by prosthetics as I am by clowns though. Right?
Speaker 4:Well, I mean that absolutely. Th this is I'm, I'm mostly quoting, I did a film shoot years ago about robotics and animatronics and everything for DARPA. And this was a main talking point.
Speaker 2:Interesting. That's cool. All right. One final reason why clowns are freaky clown behavior though. It's meant to be comedic is often damaging, right? Like it involves clowns hurting or being hurt. Just ask the red clown. There's also like subconscious reasons. So I watching people get hurt or hurting, even if it's in a joking way, inspires fear. And it's kind of confusing. You're like neurological system looking at a club and you're like, I get it. It's a performance. It's somebody dressed up. It's a comedic thing. Or they're being stupid, but psychologically and subconsciously, it's also like your brain saying what this thing, it's not human. It looks human, but it's not human. Why is this thing hurting other things? And so it kind of like, is this weird fuzziness of logically, you can say like, yeah, I get what clowns are. I understand I comprehend, but subconsciously your body could still be reacting and triggered by some of these actions that they're taking.
Speaker 4:I mean, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's interesting. Really quick, final thing here. Final thoughts with Abby Phantom clowns. So in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1981, children reported men dressed up as clowns that had tried to lure them into a van, but soon panic spread across the entire country and sightings of men attempt or clowns attempting to lure children away has become almost an urban legend, not to discount like the creepy people out there who are doing this, but, um, it's called Phantom clowns. And you can look it up on the internet if you're interested, but it's, it's kind of like this phenomena almost, even though it's not really the right word, but like this panic, like a satanic panic almost for a while in the eighties that swept the country of, um, men or again of clowns trying to abduct kids or, or kind of like appearing in weird places.
Speaker 4:Um, I'm actually very familiar with this and because there's been a resurgence of it's actually not just men now it's men and women are being reported. It's like this known area where the sighting happens almost daily, where they just keep seeing these clowns, Hey, is this supposed to be a punchline? What? No. Oh, where Congress,
Speaker 2:Like, I feel like this isn't real horror movies with clowns,
Speaker 4:More horror movies of clowns.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to list off some so people can have a little bit of a movie watch list if they're interested.
Speaker 4:Cause everyone is just chomping at the bit to watch more clown movies.
Speaker 2:I should say. Not all of these are horror, but movies with clowns. Okay. Okay. So not on this list, but we just watched killer clowns from outer space.
Speaker 4:I wish we had it.
Speaker 2:It was really bad.
Speaker 4:See, I love bad movies. I especially love silly campy horror. Movies. Love them. This movie I could barely get through this movie a bit. The big one, it did it in it.
Speaker 2:And I only watched the last 30 minutes to be honest. It's just so bad.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I have no qualms with low budget cinema. None whatsoever. They had a budget. They had, yeah, they had some budget, but you know, amusement park the FA I mean sure. But the fact that the clowns could only move their mouths when they were shooting in closeup, you know, cause obviously they have like an animatronic head or a puppet head or something, but it couldn't be part of the costume. It was one of the worst, some of the worst costumes I've ever seen in horror movies, which is saying
Speaker 2:They were like half clown, half like melting space blob.
Speaker 4:Yeah. But not even in like a cool way. No,
Speaker 2:Not a cool way. I know it's making it sound cool. It's not a very, it's a stupid movie and it's uncomfortable. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And everyone acts the only, the only good character in the entire movie is the sheriff.
Speaker 2:And at one point they PI, they, they throw so many pies at a security guard. He is totally incapacitated. No, he, he melted. It's silly. Like it's ridiculous. So yeah. And then they put the chair. Yeah,
Speaker 4:No, no, no. The, the pies were like acid pies and he melted inside because he there's one, there's one cutaway where like you see his like liquified skeleton inside.
Speaker 2:I was probably on Instagram at that. Yeah. This is a movie to go on your phone during. Yeah. So
Speaker 4:Don't watch it actually. No, you should watch it because maybe we're wrong. Maybe we're just straight and you're, this is your favorite film and I'm really sorry. Um, and in fact, I'm very open to persuasion. Tell me what I mean
Speaker 2:It's on Netflix, right? Yep. Okay. Now let's move into the official list. Of course it, the original and the remakes joker from, Oh yeah. What last year? Two years ago.
Speaker 4:Last year, last year it was 20, 20. Yeah.
Speaker 2:2019. The dark night, which isn't a horror movie, but it's a dark movie. So I'm putting it on here. It's a thriller. Okay. Here's a film. I really hate terrified. Do you remember watching that? You hated it. Are you kidding? He, he cuts a woman in half it's unsettling. I wouldn't say I hate the torture porn. I hate torture porn.
Speaker 4:I also dislike torture porn. That was a very memorable movie for me. Why? I mean, I remember it it's stuck with me, but not in like a wow. That was gross kind of way.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's how I remember it. I remember like the Gore.
Speaker 4:I remember it being a very unsettling movie, a very unfulfilling movie, but I didn't hate it.
Speaker 2:There was nothing inspiring about the plot. It, you know, you knew what was gonna happen the whole time. It was a very traditional slasher movie. The only thing that was like a selling point for people was how disturbing it was in my opinion. Like there was nothing else about it. Right. He's he's up. He's creepy. He's cutting up people in his warehouse or whatever. Like, you know, I dunno. Alright. Next place. We'll move on. Carnival souls from 1998.
Speaker 4:Hell yeah. I, that movie I've only caught in snippets. I've wanted to watch that it's been on my to watch list. Absolutely forever.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. Cause I watched the original, there's like a really, really old original that I watched with my mom, like a black and white movie, but I didn't even know that there was a movie from the nineties. I put this list together. There you go. So we'll definitely have to watch that. I think it's just, I just love the name. Yeah. It's a good name. Also reminds me of tornado of souls. Um, I get a freak show, fear of clowns, camp blood, which I believe is a whole series. The clown at midnight. Not ringing a bell. Kill joy. Nope. Stitches, stitches. Why does that sound familiar? Cause I don't know. I think it's the name of the clown in the thing.
Speaker 4:Oh, did you want to watch that the other night? No, no. That was fingers.
Speaker 2:Fingers. Yeah. I want to watch fingers from shutter different than stitches and finally the house on sorority row. And so those are like some probably like seventies, eighties, nineties, slasher, clown movies, probably super bad production value or whatever. But I mean it's a cheap trick. Yeah. You're a horror movie monster
Speaker 4:You can achieve with Halloween makeup.
Speaker 2:Right? You don't need the budget for jobs.
Speaker 4:In fact, there's a reason why so many Halloween costume and masks and everything are cloud-based because it's so, it's so easy to put it
Speaker 2:Together. I mean also like if you look at some of the most iconic horror villains, especially from low budget series, um, or low budget, first films anyway, like you have Halloween, you have Jason, you have clowns. Like, you know, they're just,
Speaker 4:What's his name? Pet Slappy. No
Speaker 2:Happy how you take them. Thank you.
Speaker 4:It's the fricking first hanging around pole guy hop, hop, frog.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying like, I think, I think, um, you know, there's a reason why some of these iconic horror villains are simplistic and humanoid and it is because of budget. Yeah. You know, that's all I have to say. You're not you're you're not wrong. You know, like putting a mask on someone makes it almost like different, but it makes the difference between like a thriller and a horror in some cases, not in all cases, but in some cases, right. They didn't respect me until I put on the mask. Yeah. So now we have a real treat to around out this episode, a real big pie to be thrown in your face. I don't know. Try to make it connected.
Speaker 4:I see what you're doing. Yep. Yep. That's good. Give me, give me a second.
Speaker 2:Okay. And it's special because neither of us are reading it. Oh, very special. We have a professional voice actor reading it. Oh this is the one with John. Yes. Your friend John.
Speaker 4:Wow. John Backstrom a Jack of all trades. Really? I've worked with John, uh, on a number of film shoots and he's done a whole bunch of different roles and worn a bunch of different hats. And on the last shoot that we were on together, he just started telling me how he's been doing all this, uh, voice acting work recently. And of course I start telling him about the podcast immediately. We were like,
Speaker 2:Well, we have to do something together. So I'm just so thrilled that he's able to do something for us. Yeah. I'm so excited. I am super thrilled. And I think, you know, I always say this, but having really great actors read things, it makes such a difference, you know? And I think it will really be the cherry on top of this episode. Yeah. Yup. Well, John, I'm sorry that you have to deal with clowns, but here we go. Here we go.
Speaker 5:[inaudible] she watched and discussed as the sweat from his brow melted his white face paint. His mouth was smeared with red. What used to be his exaggerated lip lines now looked like he had feasted on something bloody and raw, a lit cigarette clung to his open mouth, stuck to the makeup. He snapped his suspenders. As he took in the scene, inhaling the smoke, waiting for her to show herself a few feet away. She held her breath. She tried to steal her mind. Don't panic. She kept repeating to herself.[inaudible] how did you go? The little guy? Why do you hide? So he couldn't wait anymore. He took a step squeak. His costume shoes were loud. As he tread on the concrete floor of the warehouse, squeak his eyes, scanned a left and right, taking in the stacks of cardboard boxes, the sleeping forklift, the rows and rows of metal shelving the smoke drifted in and out of his sight line. As he breathed in and out in and out, they were both waiting for the others. Next move. Don't make me wait. I don't like to wait. A soft flutter of papers pulled his attention to the left. Bingo. He saw her pink skirt just in time. And she disappeared behind one of the shelving units, squeak, squeak, squeak his footsteps echoed throughout the space. If he hadn't been on the hunt, it would have been comical. Instead. It was terrifying, especially to the small child, but sprinted away from him. The sound sent shivers up Cora's spine. The screw louder. He was gaining on her. She frantically looked around to the left, was an endless sea of crates and packages to the right more shelves. Good enough. She thought she could use her small frame to her advantage. She ducked to the left and as quietly as she could started to climb up the side of a metal unit, Cora had to stretch her arms and legs as far as they could go in order to reach the next shelf she strained. But she did it. the clown's voice deepened with anger. I'm not
Speaker 6:around anymore. Princess.
Speaker 5:Yes. Where are you? She reached her left arm up as high as she could and pulled herself to another level. It was dark in her head was pounding. She tucked herself behind a box. She strained to remember what happened. It had been her birthday. It was a party. She had been so excited to wear the pink dress. Her mother had found it for her at the mall. She looked down now it was torn and muddied. There had been screaming. But before that cake, her sister had brought out the Carvel box. She remembered that she remembered the sugar Ray excitement in the air. As they lit the candles, the other kids had been huddled around her like a tiny mob, all pushing closer and closer to the front. They sang. They blew out the candles. It took her three tries, everyone cheered. It was later after the cake, they were all running around round in the small fenced in yard. The shoes she remembered seeing clown shoes first. She wasn't sure what's this he's here. Her mom had said was he, she had thought he saw her talking to her mother over there. Her mom had pointed to Cora. The clown had come over, squirted her face with a flower shaped water gun. Everyone laughed. She didn't. She heard the other moms talking a clown. How weird I hate clowns. She remembered feeling embarrassed for her mom. She knew they didn't have a lot of money for a party. She decided to pretend to be really happy. The clown was there. What had happened next? She remembered the squeaking of balloons. As he made her a latex replica of her dog, Pete, she hated the noise. It was like nails on a chalkboard, but she liked the animals. He made her a hat too. She clapped and smiled. Then what she had woken up. As the rain hit her face, she felt the hard bumpy asphalt below her. She had pushed herself up too quickly and felt dizzy. She had seen him watching her crouched next to her smoking looking laughing. How had she gotten here? There was no time to figure it out. She had sprinted up and ran into an open rustic door into this warehouse. He had an expected that he was slow. You had lost her. Now. She pulled her knees and closer as she hid behind the box on the shelf, she could still hear him say squeak, squeak. Being around the warehouse, his breath was labored. She remembered what her mother had told her about smoking, how it killed your lungs. She thought he was a pretty stupid clown for smoking don't panic. She thought again, he was coming closer. He was in her row of shelves. She could smell the burning tobacco and body odor. She slowed her breath. He screamed shockingly loud. She jumped. She gasped ever so slightly. She clasped her hand to her mouth squeak, squeak. He was walking again. He hadn't heard her. She moved her head to slight inches to the right, just enough to peek around the edge of the box. Something was glinting picking up the red neon, exit, sign something in his hand, a knife. She classed her hand harder against her mouth. He can't see you. She reminded herself. She was above his eyeline, looking down at his balding head. The white makeup stopped halfway leaving the back of his head and neck bare. It looked red and irritated. She thought he must not know about her. Mom's face swash. He didn't look like he washed himself much. I'm not leaving here until I find you. He snarled into the room. I will wait here for forever. I don't give a. You aren't leaving here.
Speaker 1:Don't
Speaker 5:Suddenly the squeaking stopped. She rotated her head to the right. He was staring right at her slow grin spread across his grotesque mouth. He flipped the knife in his hand until the blade was pointed toward her. And he started to sprint. She scrambled knocking boxes around as she moved through the massive industrial shelf, trying to get away from him, trying to keep calm, trying to survive. He was at the base of the shelf. Climbing would be much easier for him. He was three times taller than she was. He took his first step up, putting the knife in his teeth to free up both hands. He spit the smoldering cigarette onto the floor. She could see his dirty fingernails. As he gripped the shelf. She was on his hand, a mere foot from her leg. She tried to keep moving, but she was out of room. All she could do was crawl back and forth on the shelf. Trying to move up or down would expose her too much. She started to kick it. His hand
Speaker 1:He yelled.
Speaker 5:His pinky finger was pointed in the wrong direction. Now She kept kicking and hitting him away, but it was no use. He was much stronger. She struggled as he grabbed her arm and started to pull her out just then allowed slow Creek filled the warehouse, a crack of light and it grew wider and wider. Spilling muted color over the room. They both froze a huge garage door was lifting. She could see at least three pairs of feet on the other side. Now knees legs torsos. The door was wide open. Now revealing three full bodied people. She screamed as loud as she could. Her little voice broke with fear and relief and thirsty.
Speaker 1:Please help me. He's trying to kill me. God.
Speaker 5:Jeremiah. The clown said the people ran forward. They were dressed in workers, clothes, jumpsuits, and gloves and heavy boots. They saw the clown with the knife in its mouth. The little girl in the ripped pink party dress the back alley door, still ajar. They lunged forward knocking the clown off of the metal shelf. Quick, throw me some rope. One yelled the other pole, duct tape from a box. They use that to bind the clown's hands behind his back. As he lay on the ground, he kept staring at the little girl looking right at Cora, as they lifted her off of the shelf and gently brought her over to the office. The clown could hear as they called the police and Cora's mom. He heard them reassure her that she would be okay that he was going to go away forever, that he wouldn't be able to hurt her. He listened as the sirens approached and thought that she would be the last little girl whose birthday he got to ruin. The police took the clown shoes off of him may walked him barefoot to the back of the car. The incident would haunt Cora for the rest of her life. But the image that stood out the most in her adult brain would be the abandoned clown shoes sitting on the ground in the warehouse as if part of him still remained free.
Speaker 2:Well, I think John has a lucrative career as a voice actor ahead of him. Now I think that's putting it mildly. Yeah, that was awesome. I mean, I know that he's done. He's been well because I was working with him before he started acting. And so once I found out that he was acting there's of course it's a very exciting horizontal expansion. I had no idea. He was such an awesome voice actor. Yeah. It's so cool. Isn't it? So I'm always so impressed by people who, who have talents like this because it's, I don't know. It's so outside of what I feel comfortable with and he did such a great job. I just love when, like we get to hear your work read by someone who ha you know, completely going in blind. I know I'm like, sorry. Uh, he has no idea what they're, what they're, you know, gonna be handed. And then they just absolutely kill it. Add their own voices to, you know what I mean? I was going to say like, you know, add their own voice to the piece. He literally added his own voice voices to the piece with all of the characters. That was so awesome. Uh it's it's just, it just makes it so much more fun and he was so great to work with. And it's, I dunno, it's always the fun part of this project is collaborating and it's cool to be able to do that via zoom nowadays, because it makes it easy, makes it easy. And also it makes it doable and also like opens up doors, right? Like, you know, we work with people this last year that we never met in real life because of zoom. And we wouldn't have thought to do that before. COVID I don't think they say that keys open doors. What? In truth, zoom, zoom, open doors, zoom, open the doors. Yeah. That's a good, that's a good old saying, but yeah, crocheted
Speaker 4:Over my mother's doorways zoom open stores. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, well I guess that's it. That's all I have to say about clowns. I thank you all I know. I thank you guys for her, for joining. I know it's not the most comfortable of subject matter, but I was just sort of like thinking about, okay, what is it we're really doing on the podcast, right. Wow.
Speaker 4:Couldn't we just do a more comfortable topic, like, uh, a very in detailed play-by-play of John Gacy,
Speaker 2:John Wayne Gacy. Yeah. Um, because that's a true crime podcast and you think true crime is for hipsters. Yep. So I don't know what to say about that. Um, but
Speaker 4:Healthy disagreement. Yes.
Speaker 2:The spice of life. Yeah, sure. Right. Is spice of life. Right? Alrighty. Have opinions
Speaker 4:Kind of keep it interesting.
Speaker 2:It's better to be fighting than to be boring. Yes. I heard that on a sex podcast the other day. Yeah. So we all take it. Yeah. Life is short. Make it not boring. Right. Call your partner and. See what happens.
Speaker 4:So the there's the other saying that says boring is good. It's really, I think the context, right?
Speaker 2:Which one is over? Is that one over your mom's store too?
Speaker 4:No, no, no.
Speaker 2:If you want to help support the podcast, something you can do is to rate and review where you listen to, especially on Apple podcasts or iTunes. I know every podcast in the history of time ends this way. Um, but it really is the, the only way for new and emerging podcasts to grow. So thank you guys so much for everyone who has reviewed us and we would really be grateful to anybody else who would as well. Also, if you would like bonus episodes from us, you can be part of our Patrion where we offer you all kinds of amazing perks, including access to lunatics magazine, which is a bi-annual art and a short story, poetry comic, all kinds of things. Creepy horror magazine that we put out, spooky photography too. Yeah. All kinds of anything that can be printed access to our bonus content newsletters, all kinds of other perks. So check that out. If you're interested again, I know a lot of podcasters out there have Patriots and we really appreciate everybody who is there helping to build a community and helping to support us. I hope everyone stays safe. I know this week was another difficult, difficult week, especially for the U S and we are thinking of you all we're here. If you need anything, we love you all so much.
Speaker 4:Well, this has been another episode of the lunatics radio hour. This is Alan and Slappy signing off.