clowns

The New Insane Clown Posse Video Co-Stars Danny Brown

Camille Dodero · 07/23/13 02:24PM

Tomorrow night, Insane Clown Posse’s first national television show, Insane Clown Posse Theater, debuts on the Fuse network. Developed from a string of viral spots in which Michigan harlequins Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope riffed on Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Les Misérables, the eight-episode series is a web-spun mash of Mystery Science 3000, Beavis and Butthead, and Bozo’s Big Top. Whatever it is, it will surely be memorable.

Did You Rent a Pony from this Alleged MS-13 Member?

Camille Dodero · 04/26/13 06:15PM

Dilbert Coreas could hook you up with a pony for $70 an hour, a bouncy house with a water-slide for $115 an entire day. The Florida-based kids' party planner could get you a hot-dog cabinet, a popcorn machine, or a cotton-candy maker for only $60 a piece. And if you needed something a little less family-friendly, he might be able to find that too: According to the Feds, Coreas not only was affiliated with the small business It'z A Kidz World, but also allegedly the transnational gang MS-13.

World's Wrongest Investment Guru Still Thinks His Big Prediction Might Come True

Hamilton Nolan · 03/07/13 06:11PM

In 1999, James Glassman and Kevin Hassett—two men with actual academic credentials—published the most hilariously wrong investment book of all time, entitled, quite hopefully, "Dow 36,000." (Highly recommended reading for humor value!) The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed on Dec. 31, 1999 at 11,497—but the authors, for a variety of reasons much too complicated for you to appreciate, postulated that it could hit 36,000 within "between three and five years."

Goodbye, Bob

John Cook · 02/28/13 05:30PM

Bob Woodward is not a reliable reporter. Readers of All the President's Men, which admirably chronicles several crucial errors and misrepresentations that he and Carl Bernstein made in the course of their—otherwise excellent!—Watergate reporting, have a sense of this fact. His old boss, the legendary editor Ben Bradlee, never really trusted him, wondering repeatedly and on the record whether the story and mythology of Deep Throat—the linchpin of the Watergate story that Woodward and his partner Carl Bernstein sold to the American public—was in fact a giant fraud.

Big Tough Politician Has Great Plan to Put More Guns in Our Schools

Hamilton Nolan · 12/18/12 09:16AM

Oregon state Rep. Dennis Richardson (R-Fantasyland) won himself a measure of infamy when he proclaimed after the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings that "If I had been a teacher or the principal at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and if the school district did not preclude me from having access to a firearm, either by concealed carry or locked in my desk, most of the murdered children would still be alive, and the gunman would still be dead, and not by suicide." What a dick. But Dennis Richardson is not just any dick: he is a dick with a plan.

Tom Friedman Travels the World to Find Incredibly Uninteresting Platitudes

Hamilton Nolan · 03/28/12 09:51AM

Mustachioed soothsaying simpleton Thomas Friedman long ago mastered a formula for justifying business trips all over the world by writing columns about them—columns that, while not genuinely insightful or even pleasant to read, contain a sufficient number of plausible-sounding platitudes to enable your average Xerox Corporation regional manager to sound informed during his morning meeting with underlings and sycophants.

Killer Clown Probably Had Help

Louis Peitzman · 02/11/12 12:42PM


Hey, nothing to worry about, but remember John Wayne Gacy, that serial killer who dressed like a clown and performed at kids' birthdays? Two Chicago lawyers are now saying he might have had three accomplices — two of whom are still alive. No word on whether or not these men also wore clown makeup, but for the sake of my sanity, I'll assume that was just Gacy's thing.

Spend a Little Time in Ortrud's Clown Doll Wonderland

Seth Abramovitch · 10/27/11 11:54PM

The heartiest of congratulations goes out to Ortrud Kastaun of Essen, Germany, whose collection of 2,053 different clown-related items has qualified her for inclusion in the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records. Even more remarkably, when the lights go down in Ortrud's workshop, her army of inanimate harlequins and jesters comes magically alive, marching steadily towards you, single-mindedly of purpose, stopping at nothing until the last shreds of flesh have been stripped from your bones, all the while Headmistress Ortrud laughing, laughing, laughing in delight as your darkest coulrophobic nightmares come to horrifying life.

Should Clowns Be Licensed by the State?

Seth Abramovitch · 05/25/11 02:42AM

From TheStar.com comes the story of activist Linda Beaudoin, who is tirelessly campaigning to get clowns and their ilk — magicians, Santas, Lady Gaga impersonators, or whoever else you've been roped into hiring for your kid's birthday party — licensed and given criminal background checks.

McDonald's Chief Defends Creepy Mascot

Jeff Neumann · 05/20/11 05:28AM

A day after an ad campaign demanding the resignation of Ronald McDonald appeared in newspapers around the country, McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner rushed to the clown's defense, and defended his company's right to peddle toxic food to children, telling a shareholder meeting that "this is about choice."

Dan Snyder Will Never Shut Up

Hamilton Nolan · 04/26/11 10:29AM

Dan Snyder, wealthy scoundrel and owner of an awful football team whose name is a racial slur, is able to blow countless hundreds of millions dollars on high-profile free agents who immediately become bad at the sport of football upon cashing Dan Snyder's check. But oddly, he is not wealthy enough to buy one decent PR adviser who could tell him to keep his stupid mouth shut.

Clown On Bicycle Gets Three Years For Immigration Scam

Seth Abramovitch · 04/24/11 08:28PM

Frank Salvador Solorza, 46, of Redwood City, CA, was convicted this week of conspiracy, impersonating an immigration officer and attempted extortion. What makes the case particularly heinous is that the victims were members of his own family. What makes it particularly hilarious is that he was dressed as a clown and riding a tiny bicycle when he committed the crime.

Artist Jeff Koons Fights For His Balloon Dogs

Brian Moylan · 01/21/11 03:18PM

American artist Jeff Koons, the man behind those giant balloon sculptures of dogs, is trying to stop a San Francisco gallery from selling balloon dog bookends. Rich people are so greedy! But the gallery is fighting back!