PixlBit

The late summer, early fall time is what I like to call ‘fair and circus season.’  You don’t see them much anymore, but used to around this time of year, I would always see little travelling circuses and carnivals set up in the parking lots and open fields around town.  Plus it’s also the time of year that the Texas State Fair opens.  And what do you usually see at all these fairs, circuses, and carnivals?  Clowns!  So in honor of those silly and sometimes scary merrymakers of mirth, here are my top five favorite clowns in video games!  Plus, with Halloween coming up, I thought this would be a good idea since some do find clowns frightening.

5. Poppy Bros.

Number five on my list is an enemy staple from the Kirby series, appearing in nearly every game since the first.  They come in two types.  The smaller just rolls on top of round objects like apples, while the bigger ones usually act as mini-bosses and throw bombs.  That’s why, even though you usually only see one of them, they are called Poppy Bros.  The little ones are Poppy Bros. Jr. and the big one is Poppy Bros. Sr.  Although in more recent games, they drop the surname and just call them Poppy Bros. or just Poppy.  The reason why I like them is the bomb throwing one has an almost hypnotic dancing animation as he hops from one foot to another, swaying as he hefts up a bomb to throw at you.  Those who’ve played Kirby games know what I’m talking about!  Was Poppy ever in the Kirby cartoon?  I can’t remember.

4. Kid Klown

I don’t really like any of the Kid Klown games or much of the character himself, but I think the history and relations this character has had with other games is sort of interesting.  In the early 90’s, Kemco made a Mickey Mouse platformer on the Japanese Famicom, but when they brought it to the US, they couldn’t use Mickey since Capcom had the rights to Disney titles.  So they changed the character to be a generic clown instead.  Years later on the SNES, Kemco redesigned Kid Klown to be less dumpy and chubby and put him in an isometric obstacle course chase game called Kid Klown in Crazy Chase.  This was about the time that sprite animation got more advanced so many companies were making games with lots of that sort of thing in hopes their game would be called the ‘first interactive cartoon’ or some such nonsense.  I never played Crazy Chase on the SNES, but later they ported it to the GBA so I got to try it there.  It’s an all right game.  Not too bad, but not too good either.  In Japan on the PSOne, Kemco did make a Crazy Chase 2.  I’d kind of like to play it, just to see what it was like.  On YouTube, you can watch animated intros and endings for Crazy Chase 2.  I won’t bombard this blog with YouTube links, but you can go and search for them if you’re interested. 

The last major Kid Klown game was called The Bombing Islands.  It was a puzzle game where you push and detonate bombs without hurting yourself or blowing up a pathway you would need later.  It’s almost exactly like an early SNES Kemco puzzler called Bombuzal/Kablooey.  There was another version of this game on the N64, but they changed it to be called Charlie Blast’s Challenge and it starred a construction worker.  What’s interesting about the PSOne Bombing Islands game is that I think it came out early on the PSOne in Japan (the CGI intro looks hideous), but it came out in the US WAY late in the PSOne lifecycle.  That was one cool thing about the PSOne is that a lot of really obscure games came out the last year or so that it was in stores.  One other funny thing about The Bombing Islands is that on the title screen, they actually have a theme song with vocals!  It’s hilarious.  “Kid Klown!  I loo-oove you!  Something, something, I forget the rest!”  Maybe it’s on YouTube, too.

I read that in Japan, Kemco reworked the SNES Kablooey game but put Kid Klown in it instead for cell phones.  I also read that Kid Klown starred in some of their Crazy Castle series of games.  When the Crazy Castle games were brought to the US, they changed the characters to more familiar ones like Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker.  Sadly, I’m pretty sure Kemco is out of business now.  Or maybe not so sadly, as I don’t remember any particularly good games from them.  But it means that we probably won’t see any more of Kid Klown either.  He’s up at the Video Game Character Retirement Home, crying in his coffee along with Bubsy and the Battletoads.

3. Circus Charlie

I never saw this one in arcades, but that may be because it came out during the “arcade crash of ’84.”  It’s really not that great of an arcade game, just a simple platformer obstacle course game with a circus act theme.  But the reason why this clown is on my list is the fun memories I have playing it with my little brother Jeff.  When he was very young, we played a lot of arcade classic collections on the PSOne, like the Namco Museums and Activision Anthology.  Circus Charlie was on the PSOne Konami Arcade Classics, and it was one of Jeff’s favorites.  He played it a lot.  In one of the events, the clown must ride a really badly drawn horse and jump on trampolines without falling off.  Jeff and I always liked to make fun of the horse.  It looked like a cross between a piñata and a My Little Pony toy.  You could press forward to make the horse go faster, but the running animation looked ridiculous.  One time when Jeff did that, I said, “Wow, it’s a turbo horse!”  For some reason, that cracked Jeff up so much that he couldn’t play the stage anymore!  From then on, Circus Charlie’s horse was named Turbo Horse, and any other horse in a video game that we can name, it’s always Turbo Horse.  Even Link’s trusty steeds!

2. Mr. Do!

This clown appeared in several early 80’s arcade classics by the now defunct game maker Universal.  The first one, called simply Mr. Do!, played a lot like Dig Dug.  Did it steal Namco’s idea?  Who knows?  They both came out the same year (although I have a feeling they did take Dig Dug’s ideas).  The next game in the series was more fitting of a setting for a clown.  In Mr. Do!’s Wild Ride, the clown must climb up a roller coaster while avoiding the cars that circled around.  It played quite a bit like Donkey Kong, but I only saw it in an arcade ONCE.  It was at a little arcade in a hotel we stayed at when I was a kid.  Next was Mr. Do!’s Castle.  I actually played this one a lot because the Pizza Inn near my house had it for a while.  Most people would say Mr. Do!’s Castle played more like Donkey Kong, but I actually think it was more similar to Lode Runner.

After that was Do! Run! Run!.  I actually NEVER saw this in arcades, maybe because it came out in the crash of ’84 also.  I did play it on MAME, and it’s really fun and kind of original, too.  It’s a top down game that has elements of Pac-Man and Qix, and the music is cool, too.  I wish they’d bring that one back.  I think in Japan there was even a 16-bit version of this game called Super Piero.  Not only that, but I also read that at one point, Universal planned to make a laserdisc game featuring Mr. Do!, who was kind of their mascot, I guess.

We didn’t hear anything from Mr. Do! for several years, but his original game did show up on the SNES, oddly enough.  I wanted to get that, but I was a poor college student at the time and couldn’t afford every game I wanted.  They also made a version of Mr.Do! for the GBC, but changed all the characters and enemies to be from Quest 64 (why?).  Later, on the SNK Neo Geo, they came out with Neo Mr. Do!.  It played like the original, but with more colorful and quirky graphics.  It was kind of weird, too.  One of the power-ups Mr. Do! could get would let him take an extra hit, but it turned him into a girl clown!  I wish SNK would re-release Mr. Do! like they have been doing with a lot of their other Neo Geo games!  And that’s all the Mr. Do! games I know!

1. Kefka

My number one favorite video game clown is also my favorite Final Fantasy villain, who is also in my favorite FF game, which is one of my top five favorite games of all time!  And Kefka is so much better than dumb ol’ Sephiroth!  When you hear Kefka’s theme song or that familiar 16-bit laugh, you know something bad is gonna happen.  Kind of remind me of the Joker in the Dark Knight movie.  You know when you heard that sound that was like an air conditioner about to go out in the movie; you knew that the Joker was going to do something bad.  That could be one of the criticisms of Kefka is that he was too much like the Joker.  Another thing people say is that Kefka didn’t really have much of an interesting backstory.  He’s just a crazed madman clown who wants to destroy everything.  But at one point in FF6, you can walk around Vector and talk with people and get a glimpse of Kefka’s past.  You find out that he was first to be infused with Esper magic, before Terra and Celes, and that’s what made him crazy.  But best of all, Kefka is one of the few video game villains who actually WINS.  You have to pick up the pieces in the second half of the game and defeat him after his aftermath.  Such a memorable twist.  Kefka was even awesome in the Dissidia fighting games!

Honorable Mentions and Clown-clusions:

And those are my favorite video game clowns! Some others that deserve an honorable mention include Clown Man, because I like Mega Man 8.  Also Joka because I like the Klonoa games (Joka gets pretty dark and evil near the end of the first game, too).  And finally, Snackson Jackson because it’s such a weird and obscure old arcade game.  In the comments section, let me know what YOU think of my picks and tell me YOUR favorite video game clowns!  Later!  --Cary