I honestly don't get Krusty the Klown's character. Has a TV clown ever in the history of American TV even been half as popular as Krusty is in The Simpsons. He sells merch, is rich and world famous.
I cannot think of 1 single famous television clown. Why did they even make him? He just makes absolutely no sense.
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Like a lot of the simpsons, Krusty is a riff on something from groening's childhood and thus one of those weird anachronistic things about the show, even in the 90's
He's a parody of Bozo btw
Bozo was running all the way to 2001.
>He's a parody of Bozo btw
he's a parody of Rusty Nails first and foremost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Allen
huh didn't know that
The only thing similar to Rusty is the name; Castellaneta was still thinking of Bozo as an influence on his performance
>That Bozo clip with a young Mike Stoklassa in the audience.
>He has the exact same miserable expression he always has.
Must be a Polak thing
Who, and where?
The main alcoholic from Red Letter Media grew up in the Chicago area and got to go on the Bozo show.
This. We had hosts for kid TV variety shows in the 80's and 90's as well, but the were dying in popularity compared to other show formats at the time. Compared to maybe around the 60's or so when they defined a lot of kids childhoods. My dad still raves about Soupy Sales.
>Has a TV clown ever in the history of American TV even been half as popular as Krusty is in The Simpsons.
Yes actually, he's based of Bozo.
Bozo is one of those weird "of their time" things that used to be massive but at the turn of the decade and without warning fell into a pit of obscurity. That said, even though Bozo's popularity nose dived in the 80's his show was still running. In fact, Bozo didn't get cancled until 2001.
Krusty was meant to be a "former hotshot now D list celebrity" because that is what Bozo was. But as the plots in The Simpson got sillier and they riffed more on celebrity culture they increased Krusty's in-universe relavence over time.
People loved clowns until the 80s with Jhon wayne Gacy and the kidnapping sensationalization, and also the Joker feom Batman 89 and Tim Curry's pennywise from IT.
lois I just figured out how to have sex with
How dare you mention the 80s and clowns and not Killer Klowns from Outer Space?
It was actually not Gracy that did clowning in. It was Tim Curry.
Birthday clowns were HUGE all the way until 1990. Clowns had local TV, Ronald McDonald, Jack in the Box, Bozo, Clarabell, and a bunch of presence via the Shriners and their circus. For a long time there was this 'Clowning for Christ" group. It cannot be understated how huge of an industry clowning was due to auxillary industries. Most clowns were renting balloon houses, and doing carnival food on site via mobile rigs. It was big until IT did their TV airing in 1990.
Horror novels had a boom in the 80s, but more people were watching TV than readings, so most people didn't exactly know what they were getting into. And in the span of two weeks 40 years of industrial capital was shot in the gut.
As of now, most clowns are working two or three jobs outside of clowning. It just doesn't pay bills. The actual comedic art of clowning isn't even the main draw. It's bounce houses and character costumes that are the slim money makers, and even then, breaking even in clowning is not a promised thing.
The only audience that still draws clowns in the US and Canada is spanish speaking (ei. Mexicans), all because IT didn't have a spanish dub until 1995, but mostly for a European audience that had been eased into some awareness that Pennywise was a thing. To this day, if you see a clown on TV with comedic overtones, it's some semi-jacked dude dancing with strippers on a kids gameshow.
I guess birthday clowns were effectively replaced by actors on super hero costumes?
Basically, yes. Most women went into Disney Princesses and fairy face painting, while guys were superheros and magicians. I knew one woman who's husband did clowning. He did the main safety stuff on the bounce house and party set up, while she did most of the fried foods. He had a medical thing and she invested in a Jasmine costume. Frozen came out, and that was a boom at the time.
TV It has been quite popular at Latín América, to the point there is a Mandela effect they believe it was released in theaters.
And even with Mexican clowning, aren't the most prominent ones the clown girls with weird internet followings?
>I cannot think of 1 single famous television clown.
Because you're too young, or possibly not in the US, or one of the countries they had versions of him in. Bozo was literally syndicated and franchised, with multiple versions of his show.
Also, a big chunk is based on Ronald McDonald, as in the Krusty Burger stuff.
Mexico has a similar crude clown on TV which is one of the reasons people there relate so much to The Simpsons.
Odd you say that because....
?feature=shared
Hey! I know that guy! He voices Mr. Incredible and Sullivan from Monster Inc.
We had Los Payasos de la Tele over here, who famously refused to wear clown white while performing and when one of them passed away (there were originally four of them), they did a special talking about how God and Jesus needed him to entertain children in heaven
>¿COMO ESTAN USTEDES?
In addition to what everyone here has already pointed out about TV clowns: Krusty is not world famous.
He films a local kids variety show, which Bart happens to be obsessed with. One that is frequently on the verge of being cancelled or pushing him out of the lead role for literally any other entertainer that comes by.
He licenses his name out to everything but he's clearly in debt to the local crime family that are squeezing him. Even so he doesn't appear to be as well off as Troy McClure who had his film career nosedive into doing educational videos.
His biggest "franchise" was licensing his name out to a franchise of 7 restaurants. 1 of which is on oil derrick in the north Atlantic.
He's been in the business for decades and has friends around the industry. But just because he appeared alongside B and A listers doesn't make him world-renowned.
It occurred to me recently that kids born after a certain date may not understand the association between a Clown and a Burger chain.
Yeah, I forget when McDonald's started to de-emphasize Ronald
It was when people wearing clown masks in the woods was a meme.
After the 90s really. Pretty much when all the fast food mascots kind of faded away.
More like the late 90s, when the gubment complained about advertising fast food to kids.
Shut the frick up Boco! It was like 2004-ish. But yeah you guys are pretty much right.
The king really blew up in the 2000s tho
Yeah I was born just in time to see the last bit of ronald and his (much smaller I later learned) cast of friends before they were excised and later him
I remember a long while where they would only barely have him show up not even showing his face and shit.
I remember it was a big enough deal to make the news when they had the guy dressed up as the hamburglar do a few commercials, the grimace shake and nugget buddies are a huge recent development.
It wasn't until I randomly emulated ronald in treasureland a few years ago I learned he once had a much larger cast, and even that was a reduced one. And I'll be honest I thought for the longest time that Mayor McCheese was a Family Guy original
>I thought for the longest time that Mayor McCheese was a Family Guy original
That's fine. You're young.
A friend of mine had no idea that Chief Justice Burger from Undergrads was named after the actual Chief Justice, Warren Burger until one of our teachers, Garrett Burger mentioned that Warren was an uncle of his.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_E._Burger
I don't believe you
Mcdonalds remodeling and removing Ronald is a thing. My neices have no idea what 'rewind' means.
Oddly, they're currently using the Hamburglar again.
And they brought back Grimace for his birthday milkshake, and the McNugget Buddies during that weird Kerwin Frost promotion. Seems like McDonald's is slowly reintroducing the old cast one promotional event at a time.
I like the theory it was just a cancelled Gay Pride shake after the Bud Light backlash. Probably bullshit but hilarious
>And they brought back Grimace for his birthday milkshake, and the McNugget Buddies during that weird Kerwin Frost promotion. Seems like McDonald's is slowly reintroducing the old cast one promotional event at a time.
I guess they have a bunch of nostalgic Millenials working there who would like to see the characters come back.
There was an attempt to revive the Hamburglar with a new design in 2015.
This was back when somethingawful was still funny, and they went to town on it.
>My neices have no idea what 'rewind' means.
Goodness, how do they refer to going back in a video or show?
Do they just not do that?
99’ here and I never ever connected Krusty with Ronald. They just looks too different designs. Plus krustyburger gave off more burgerking vibes to me.
Oh my god, I never thought of the Krusty/Ronald connection until fricking now.
That makes so much sense, I always thought it was weird as shit that he ran the McDonalds parody. Now I get it.
Granted, I was born in 2002, so McDonalds never pushed Ronald while I was alive, he was easy for me not to associate with the restaurant
This is true and a good post and all but when the story calls for it, his fame can be much higher profile like the Midler episode and others.
Right but I covered that at the end. Krusty does occasionally show he has connections, but at least earlier and in this example he's still tightrope walked to being an entertainer of small account instead of a powerplayer. Bette Midler is the perfect example. He doesn't know her because he was a darling of the film or music industry in the 70s and he gave her a legup on his way down. It's because they went half-in on a race horse together.
I must have missed that part of history where the US annexed New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Odd on Krusty, he is meant to be a local celebrity, at times a U.S. National celebrity. And at times even a C or D World wide celebrity. Remember he was trailed at La Haye.
Here in México we also had Chabelo...
>1 of which is on oil derrick in the north Atlantic.
Hey man, that restaurant sold over 700 burgers in one day.
>But just because he appeared alongside B and A listers doesn't make him world-renowned.
I'm aware its for the gag, but realistically what would Krusty have had to do to be knighted?
Making the royalty laugh hysterically would've sufficed. Arthur Conan Doyle was knighted for writing a book on the war at the time.
Neat, I guess that says more about the Queen's sense of humor rather than Krusty's internacional fame, but if nothing else, it also proves that he has at least one HIGH profile fan overseas
There's multiple orders of knights for artists/entertainers/authors/actors and the criteria isn't any higher than "do something the queen liked". It was a running joke for a while every directory of the BBC for like 60 years got knighted... except the one that cancelled Dr Who. Though Krusty would need to be from Great Britain or one of her daughter countries that was late to abolish recognition of British nobility, like Australia, to !!actually!! be knighted. He could quite easily get the nod if he were to write a book the Queen liked, perform in a play the Queen liked, sing a song the Queen liked... and conceivably in Krusty's case probably do a joke or gag routine the Queen really liked.
Though it's true honorary awards did tend towards higher profile foreigners... if the Queen found a way to twist anything Krusty did as a service to the British Empire, like if his USO performance was performed for any British soldiers, she'd be quick to give the title out. She answers to no when when handing out honors.
Krusty is just a representative of the popular children's programming star that's loveable and goofy on camera, but an alcoholic, gambling butthole in real life. You can find this star, if not several, in every decade of American television.
It's more relatable now than ever, except rather than clowns, it's influences and lets players.
That just makes me think
is on to something
I remember Bozo. It was actually pretty fun, as I recall. Ya know, for a clown.
So we can all agree this shit was rigged, right?
Oh god yes.
I remember kids losing all the time. But there were other times Bozo was trying to give his money away. A 3 year old girl did the challenge once, and just walked up to the 6th bucket and dropped it in, and he still gave it to her.
It's not an authentic carnival game if it's not rigged.
I don't even know what that is
>memories of Chuck E Cheese come flooding back
Take me back
Wasn't there a bozo cartoon? Also there is also a bozo series that shows Eastern European cartoons from the 50s/60s?
>Wasn't there a bozo cartoon?
There was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo:_The_World%27s_Most_Famous_Clown
Also, Larry Harmon, the second guy to play Bozo, also actually had an animation studio that also produced 18 Popeye cartoons during the 60s.
Have they done an episode yet about Krusty vs kids with tech? Because I'm pretty sure it's something they could do since I'm fairly positive clowns aren't popular among today's audiences when everyone could just vegetate in front of a smart phone or tablet instead.
Wow, that does sound like something the writers would do, just terrible.
But there's an image going around of Bart watching Krusty on his iPad since his new episodes are pandering to old ladies or something.
Completely unironically, I would watch this show. A genuine clown having political/societal/economic interviews with important people to make the topics more approachable. After all, its actually what the daily show and other such shows are, just without the make up.
If you know spanish or care about mexican politics you should check
since he has a show where he does exactly what you're describing
A lot of concepts and characters on The Simpsons were spoofs of existing films/celebrities from the '70s and '80s. When a show like this runs for 30+ years, some are bound to either feel outdated or become so closely associated with The Simpsons by younger audiences unfamiliar with the thing they're parodying.
People forget the Simpsons was written by men who grew up in the 50s
>People forget the Simpsons was written by men who grew up in the 50s
Many of the writers were Gen Xers like Al Jean, Bill Oakley, George Meyer etc. John Swartzwelder was born in 1949, he was older than most of them.
Don't forget one of the early plot points was that Homer was going to actually be Krusty.
wait, fr?
You can see them sort of implement the idea here during the Tracy Ulmann era:
even if it does cut to Homer and Marge watching the TV, it could've been that it really was an impostor and Homer regretted staying home for the day when he saw his substitute flip out.
Obviously by the time the Simpsons got their own show, they dropped it.
Krusty kreampies his own butthole
>plot point
No, it was an idea that was abandoned before they started the show. Just like Marge having rabbit ears under her hair. Krusty and Homer appear together in court in S1.
Factually true, but there's still something like 3 years of production with the shorts before S1 aired.
Canon to the Tracy Ulmann timeline, but not in the main continuity.
Marge has the ears in the Konami beat'em up
Yes! TV clowns were EXTREMELY popular during the 60s and 70s, which makes perfect sense why Groening would make the character, having grown up at this time
they lasted into the 90s
it used to be super common for a local tv station to have a local clown host a daily after school cartoon block. most of the time just reruns of toons the station either outright owned the rights to, or reruns of things from saturday mornings past. theyd fill in the runtime with songs and games with the kid audience
but by the mid 90s cartoon blocks mostly became standardized packages made by the national station that local affiliates could subscribe to. and that was way easier than wrangling local performers and kids
>it used to be super common for a local tv station to have a local clown host a daily after school cartoon block. most of the time just reruns of toons the station either outright owned the rights to, or reruns of things from saturday mornings past. theyd fill in the runtime with songs and games with the kid audience
we had one in Phoenix that ran for 34 years, had comedy sketches, gave away little prize bags.
For some reason the two main hosts had vaudevillian costumes since about 1970. There was a clown character that appears occasionally (4:30 in this one)
The same actor played all the side characters, a favorite being Gerald who played the station owner's spoiled kid.
>but by the mid 90s cartoon blocks mostly became standardized packages made by the national station that local affiliates could subscribe to. and that was way easier than wrangling local performers and kids
this was back when cities were allowed to have local culture instead of having it dropshipped to us by some multinational studio
Why is he so proud of being an underachiever
because being an achiever is for lame nerds
>Homer gets to eat this ass every night
Lucky bastard.
Marge is way too demure to ever ask for that.
There were a lot of weird children show's hosts back in the day. Xuxa and the one with the creepy lemur come to mind but I feel there were a lot more that blur together. Like Mr Roger's clones but cheaper and dumber.
Didnt Xuxa molested a young boy?
that boy was in a porn movie and he brags about it now
>creepy lemur
You will not speak ill of Zabumafoo
I do love when someone makes an assumption and Cinemaphile shuts them down. Well done!
Ronald McDonald?
Celebrity idol culture is back in full force thanks to streaming and social media. They can modernize him by making him a Kontent Kreator Klown.
I haw-haw'd
I never liked clowns but I feel for the clowns who love their job and are seeing the world turning it's back on them.
Are Sideshow Bob, Sideshow Mel and Mr. Teeny also supposed to be a parody of something? I only know Bumblebee Man is a spoof of Chapulin Colorado.
The Sideshows don't seem to be, but chimps smoking cigars and/or wearing rollerskates has been a thing for years.
For some reason I always assumed Mr Teeny was a reference to Michael Jackson's chimp.
>Has a TV clown ever in the history of American TV even been half as popular as Krusty is in The Simpsons.
Trump
He's a general parody of American TV. It's not that difficult to gasp. He's an amalgamation of every TV host and entertainer with a cynical edge.
knowing he's the son of a rabbi, and does the Vaudville schtick, I wouldn't be suprised if part of him was based around Soupy Sales, and the notoriously vain butthole of Milton Burle.
>Actually tries to get kids to steal money from their parents and send it to him
>The kids mostly send him Monopoly bills
Apparently, his target audience wasn't completely witless.
He did a "tell me the numbers in your parents plastic card" thing for real?
For real.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greenmail/
in the midwest tv clowns are a thing.
Of course you fricking autists have a problem the surreal elements of this show that don't line up perfectly with real life
Next you're going to start asking why they have four fingers. Idiots
Here in Mexicali we had Rorrito, and he was a beloved local TV icon even during the 90s, then in the 2000s he faded out and passed away in 2016.
There's also Lalo y Lagrimita and Cepillin, but the proto Sjw cancelled him ovet allegations of sexual harrasment that went nowhere with no police investigation at all, but of course leftie libtard celebs like Horacio Villalobo piled on him.
I'm surprised so many had not made the connection to Ronald McDonald when Krusty has been the mascot of a burger place for a long time in the show, but I guess it's because they still promoted Ronald for longer in my country.
One of my favorite Krusty moments.
I kneel…
>putting Reddits Burgers on the same level as Simpsons / Family guy / Mike Judge
Eat shit. Bob’s still has some merit, even if it lacks the universal appeal the other long-running FOX cartoons excelled at. Bouchard’s earned his spot there.
It can go beyond just being a clown, it also broadly applies to the amusing idea of any children's entertainment creator having the potential to be just as disillusioned and sick of his job as any cubicle worker could be. Children's show host, clown, amusement park character, children's book writer, whatever, a clown just makes a good visual representation (plus the whole sad clown thing). Even if you didn't grow up with clowns or ever see a clown TV show, the general concept still reads.
How good of a parent is Marge supposed to be? Because she still ended up with Bart and it seems like she had little influence on Lisa
Fake
It's almost like he's a stand-in for a lot of things, but also a local TV station clown.