Clowns have existed in various forms for thousands of years. From the big top to Bozo’s TV show, they used to be beloved figures of amusement and delight. What changed and made so many people suspect and fear them? In this episode, originally aired in 2018, Decoder Ring traces the history of clowns and clowning and finds that both the scary clown and the happy clown are over-simplifications that have more in common than it might first appear.
This episode was produced and edited by Benjamin Frisch. Decoder Ring is produced by Max Freedman, Alesandra Tejeda, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Thank you to Benjamin Radford, Isaac Butler, Jim Bredesen, Andrew Kahn, Aisha Harris, and June Thomas. And special thanks to Daniel Royer for recommending this subject.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.
Sources for This Episode
Coleman, Loren. Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures, Simon & Schuster, 2007.
“His job is to scare the crap out of people. Sometimes they fight back,” Miami Herald, Oct. 12, 2017.
Roman, James. “One Of The Scary Clowns Caught Hiding In The Woods Finally Arrested,” COED, Sep. 26, 2016.
Simon, Linda. The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus, Reaktion Books, 2014.