Bad clowns—scary or malevolent ones, not incompetent ones—are all around us: on television, in movies, video games, books, and elsewhere. Bad clowns have—much to the irritation of good clowns—over the years become the most recognizable type of clown. Yet there is relatively little (even semi-serious) scholarship about these villainous vagabonds.

This book goes far beyond trotting out the familiar bad clown tropes of John Wayne Gacy and Pennywise. They are included here, of course, but you’ll also find bizarre, lesser-known stories of weird clown antics including S&M clowns; Ronald McDonald protests; Bozo obscenity; clowns in vans abducting children; evil clown scares in England and Staten Island; behind-the-scenes at Marvel Comics with Obnoxio the Clown; sex clowns, dip clowns, troll clowns and much more. Bad Clowns is the first book to examine bad clowns as pop culture (and counterculture) icons. Bad Clowns is the definitive book on bad clowns, drawn from a variety of perspectives including pop culture, folklore, psychology, and sociology. Rooted in historical clowns including court jesters, the Harlequin figure, and Mr. Punch. Bad Clowns describes bad clowns in films, in books, and on television—what makes clowns go bad, the rise of the bad clown, why clowns are scary, and what makes many people afraid of clowns.

The clown has played an important role in all societies and cultures, and the bad clown is an inherent part of that. You can no more separate a clown from a bad clown than a clown from his shadow. Like it or not the bad one is the clown we love to hate. From Foo Foo to Frenchy, Punch to Pennywise, Shakes to Sweet Tooth, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of bad clowns keeps coming, bursting out of a tiny car into the media, each more vile than the last. Bad clowns exist mostly in our imaginations as vigilante anti-heroes of the Id.