Send Help: There’s a New Clown Documentary and I Have Unresolved Trauma

I once had a clown named Pickles put the beak of a rubber chicken in my ear. Does anything about that scenario sound appropriate? I didn't think so. That's really all you need to know about my lifetime fear of clowns.

My coulrophobia goes all the way back to childhood. I distinctly remember my parents taking me to my very first circus. It sounded like a good idea on paper. I mean, I was basically born to wear a leotard and be a trapeze artist.  However, as soon as I saw a clown, I lost my ever-loving crap.

That fear only got worse thanks to Stephen King's IT!  Heck, I was a teenager when Pennywise hit my television and I didn't want to shower for weeks after that red nose popped up out of that drain.  What in the actual hell was that?

Now that I think about it, what in the actual hell is THIS? Earlier today, my longtime friend Chris Riley (The Rock, the People's Champ) texted me the trailer for a new Hulu documentary called Clown Panic.

Excuse me, what? Take a look at this two-minute-and-four-second-long nightmare!

Clown Panic, which begins streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on Monday, October 12th, rolls back to 2016. Do you remember this? I do because it's the kind of thing that has traumatized yours truly for decades.

In South Carolina that year, reports - from kids - started surfacing that clowns were popping out of the woods and other random areas. Oh, that sounds like a blast. As you can imagine, the kids and their parents were afraid. VERY afraid. I was afraid and I live in Kentucky.

The panic that ensued launched official police investigations. There were school lockdowns. There were viral videos of clown sightings. People lost their minds. If I had been there, you would have had to change my name from 'Chadwick' to 'Boy, Interrupted.'

I can't type my response, the one I texted back to Chris after watching that horrid preview. However, I can tell you this. He responded, "I thought of you as soon as I saw the trailer." Well, the first thing I thought of after watching it was building a panic room.

There was a YouGov survey back in 2014 that estimated that roughly 13% of Americans have "some fear of clowns." In a 2022 follow-up survey, 7% of Americans listed clowns as "something they fear." So, guess what? I'll tell you where those percentage points will not be October 12th.  We will not be taking a stroll down memory lane into the clown-infested woods of South Carolina. I'm not going to get yanked down a storm drain anytime soon either. And, keep your chicken's beak to yourself, Pickles.