Send in the Clownz

A forewarning: if you love clowns, tear your eyes away from this article – and fast.

You see, clowns have figured not just in the lives of the young American everyman (together with circuses, cotton candies and performing bears) but also in ours as well. In this sad republic we call home, we have the Boyoyongs and other clowns who make children’s parties livelier in all their motley-colored glory, dishing out magic, slapstick and entertaining buffoonery. We see clowns as good guys in heavy make-up. We regard them as characters tasked with making us laugh and laugh some more. No way do we see them as dysfunctional adults in ill-fitting clothes and red rubber noses. In short, everybody loves a clown – from wholesome Bozo to Ronald McDonald even to the off-kilter Krusty and those fire-breathing, blood-vomiting dudes in KISS. Yes, everybody loves a clown, except the creators of the anti-clown site, www.clownz.com.

No over-the-top techie features in Clownz.com since it has devoted itself simply to dissing our childhood friends with text and JPEGs. There are plenty of disorienting images courtesy of warped artists such as Todd McFarlane and R.K. Sloane. The archive is a virtual who’s who in the evil clown industry: Sweet Tooth from the Sony PlayStation 2 game, Stephen King’s Pennywise from It, Klottis the psycho circus clown, the serial killer John Wayne Gacy in a clown suit, the creature from Knightmare Chess, plus the angry clowns of rock like Slipknot and Insane Clown Posse.

More disturbing, though, are the stories about scary, psychotic clowns in a section that deserves a PG rating. A popular fastfood clown was seen hanging from a tree in Montana. A convicted sex offender dressed up as a clown toyed with kids in a Christmas parade. Minnow the Clown (a disguised con-artist) collected money for a cancer-stricken kid straight into her oversized pockets. The third dude who played a clown called Weary Willy was convicted of murder. A star clown was caught by a hidden camera doing the funky chicken with a teenage boy.

The weirdest incident of all is what happened in a Kansas City newspaper called (coincidentally) The Star. Pressed for time, an editor used a clown photo to accompany an article about National Clown Week. He didn’t check the name. On the papers the following day was John Wayne Gacy in a clown suit, a serial killer who victimized kids in the Chicago area. It created quite a fracas. No erratum in the world could salvage the situation.

There are other sections that make Clownz.com an interesting site: angry letters from Bozo the Clown’s lawyers; complaints from kids and parents; sick clown jokes (Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says, "Does this taste funny to you?"); equally sick clown comics; MP3s of clown songs (like the disgusting one from the Dr. Demento show), etc.

Probably a favorite among surfers is the "Top 18 Signs You’ve Hired The Wrong Clown For Your Child’s Party." The funny ones include No. 11 ("Didn’t bring any balloons... but manages to twist your dachshund into other animal shapes"); No. 8 ("Wears a T-Shirt that says, ‘Drug-free since March!"); No. 2 ("Price list includes ‘lap dance’ and ‘around the world"); and No. 1 ("All the balloon animals are ribbed and lubricated").

After scouring the site, some would comment that they don’t need Clownz.com to see characters that are scary and laughable at the same time. All they have to do is turn on the TV, tune in to the news and watch politicians make clowns, buffoons and assorted freaks of themselves. To mangle a line from Send in the Clowns, "Everyone just loves a farce." — Igan D’Bayan