Thank You For The Nightmares, Cadbury
Posted 6 October 2008 in Television by Catriona
I’ve just seen the new advertisement for Cadbury Brunch Bars (fruity muesli bars with a chocolate coating).
In this ad., two cannons face one another.
An angel is shot from the cannon on the left.
A clown is shot from the cannon on the right.
I said to Nick, “Oh, this is going to end badly.”
Sure enough, the two collide in mid-air, explode into a cloud of white dust, and magically transform into a Cadbury Brunch Bar.
Then the tagline flashes up on the screen: “Goodness mixed with happiness.”
And I shouted at the television, “CLOWNS DON’T MEAN HAPPINESS!”
(Oh, yes: I shouted in capitals.)
I know for a fact that I’m not the only person in the world who suffers from fear of clowns, which the Internet tells me is called “coulrophobia” (although my browser dictionary doesn’t recognise that word, and Wikipedia tells me that coulrophobia is an exaggerated or abnormal fear of clowns).
I need to make this point: no fear of clowns is exaggerated or abnormal. Clowns are freaky.
I can trace this in my own experience to three distinct factors.
I watched It at a sleepover, and have never entirely recovered from the experience. I’m not a big fan of Stephen King at the best of times, and not because he’s a bad writer: frankly, he’s too good a horror writer, and scares the pants off me. And Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown scared me even more.
I was in Year 12 when John Wayne Gacy was executed, and what really freaked me out about Gacy was his tendency to dress up as a clown during block parties. Yes, his crimes were what horrified me, but what’s stuck with me, as a disinterested party, was the Pogo the Clown persona.
And, finally, I blame my coulrophobia on Doctor Who‘s “Greatest Show in the Galaxy,” and those psychotic robot clowns. Those were terrifying.
So, thank you, Cadbury, for the nightmares.
Clowns are bad enough.
Clowns combining with angels in mid-air and then becoming edible?
Oh, that’s not right.
Share your thoughts [12]
1
Sam wrote at Oct 6, 10:42 am
Was it a stone angel?
Also I can’t help but think firing two people out of cannons at each other and then having them explode in midair to become a chocolate bar is scary enough, clown or no clown.
2
Catriona wrote at Oct 6, 10:51 am
Nope, the Victoria’s Secret lingerie catalogue-type angel, only in slightly more clothes.
And I’m absolutely with you, hence my “this isn’t going to end well” comment.
What really annoyed me was the “clowns = happiness” assertion.
Clowns are bad, freaky, terrifying, and frequently psychotic. Enough said.
3
Matthew Smith wrote at Oct 6, 11:19 am
Don’t forget the clown scene in James Bond Octopussy. Also clowns = carnival = evil scary psychos
4
Wendy wrote at Oct 6, 12:33 pm
When I was very small I remember being very distressed at a segment on Sesame Street where a clown with a really happy make-up face slowly took off all his make up to reveal a really sad face. I presume it was supposed to illustrate the difference between happy and sad but clearly I didn’t enjoy it and haven’t been a big fan of clowns ever since.
5
Catriona wrote at Oct 6, 01:00 pm
That’s a disturbing one: is it revealing the difference between happy and sad, or telling children that we all wear masks?
(Or maybe it’s saying, “Don’t trust clowns,” in which case good job, Sesame Street.)
I was about to say that no one in the entire world likes clowns, but then I remembered I had a friend who used to collect ceramic clowns.
6
Wendy wrote at Oct 7, 02:50 am
“we all wear masks” – yes now i think about it…i think this may have been what was so disturbing here…because what would be so scary about learning the difference between happy and sad!?
and I think we see the “don’t trust clowns” lesson furthered quite nicely by krusty the clown
7
Catriona wrote at Oct 7, 03:27 am
Ooh, yes. You can’t trust Krusty, and Bart keeps learning that lesson over and over again.
The more I think about that Sesame Street clown skit, the more I think it might have been less disturbing to have a clown remove sad make-up to show a happy face underneath (if such a thing is possible).
But the way you’ve described it sounds more like a public-service announcement telling you to keep an eye out for warning signs that your friends might be potentially suicidal.
8
Wendy wrote at Oct 7, 03:44 am
okay i don’t want to give you any more nightmares…but i have just found it on you tube…still not pleasant viewing for children i don’t believe…i don’t remember the “fun” music from years ago…this seems to make it creepier i think
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs5VYOnpMrw
don’t know if that link will work
(anyway i just searched youtube with sesame street clown and it was the first result!)
9
Lisa wrote at Oct 8, 11:44 pm
Didn’t clowns originate as the ones who came out to distract the crowd when something went horribly wrong?
10
Catriona wrote at Oct 9, 04:05 am
Distracting them by forcing them to scream and beg for their safety? Sounds plausible to me.
I don’t know, actually. I believe that’s roughly the purpose that rodeo clowns serve, as well as distracting the bulls with fluttering clothing etc. should one of the riders fall and be trampled. So it seems as though rodeo clowns might actually be a throwback to the original purpose of clowns, which is interesting.
And some of the archetypal clown figures come out of the Italian Commedia della arte (if I’ve got that right), don’t they? Harlequin and Pierrot, for example.
I shall do some research . . .
11
Wendy wrote at Oct 9, 04:55 am
Bakhtin writes about the culture of carnival clowns and fools in Rabelais and his world – in the topsy-turvy/ inside-out world of grotesque comedy (among other things) – clowns were able to both mock and speak the truth at the same time from an ambivalent speaking position. maybe that’s why we find them slightly disturbing today….
12
Catriona wrote at Oct 9, 05:14 am
That’s interesting. I’m not terribly familiar with Rabelais, but some time later Shakespeare is doing something similar, probably working from the same kind of context as Rabelais, with the Fool and the madman, as in King Lear. Roy Porter suggests in A Social History of Madness that the historical fool may (he’s careful to say that we can’t be sure about historical fools) may have been able to exploit actual insanity to make a living:
But he does point out that we can’t know, now, how many such fools were actually mad and how many were simply consummate professionals. And there’s something terribly sad in the image of a man insane enough not to be able to operate within the conventional employment available to him but sane enough to recognise that he could exploit his insanity for employment.
And this type of clown is continued down to modern drama, as well: Pozzo in Waiting for Godot, for example.
I had a quick look at the Wikipedia page on clowns, and it looks as though I was right about the purpose of rodeo clowns (though now I’m wondering where I gained my knowledge about rodeo clowns). But it also looks as though the “clown” aspect is almost incidental. It gives them a recognisable persona, but its main value is that the loose clothing can be slipped out of easily if they get snagged by a bull.
The article also suggests that coulrophobia is down to the distorting or exaggerating effect of the clown’s makeup. It doesn’t interpret it in these terms, but it seems to be looking at it rather in the same sense as Freud’s notion of the uncanny, which makes sense, especially if you combine the uncanny with the Rabelaisian grotesquery and truth-telling: the idea that the uncanny is also the true form doubles the terror.
A quote that, according to Wikipedia (bastion of truth!) is usually attributed to Lon Chaney Sr sums that up: “There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.”