Making up for the last few days worth of silence by making a zillion posts. Actually this is something I've thought of quite a few times but, like all my weird little thoughts, never bothered to commit to paper.
It might just be a cultural bias talking because I've been brought up at a time when these things had very negative connotations, but... I can't really honestly believe that there was EVER a time at ANY point in the past when CLOWNS and MARIONETTES were considered wholesome, enjoyable entertainment for children. My entire life I've never seen a clown or a humanoid marionette (animals are less creepy) that wasn't abjectly horrifying in appearance, even when it wasn't trying to be scary and long before I even knew they were associated with cult classic horror films and shit.
Could just be that I live in a post-'IT' and post-'Chuckie' world so clowns and marionettes seem completely different. But I've seen pictures of both from the days before they were horror staples and they still look pretty spooky to me. (I did a research paper in high school on children's TV shows and looked up a picture of 'Howdy Doody'--that goddamn puppet gave me nightmares for three days.) I don't believe for a SECOND children ever enjoyed either one.
It's probably no coincidence that psychiatric drugs were invented around the time 'Howdy Doody' came on the air. Call it a hunch.
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