Hello everyone and welcome to the Stephen King cast, one man's musings on the works of Stephen King.

Each week I'll review one entry in the bibliography of Stephen King in the chronological

order of publication.

And as you probably know by now, the last month has been dedicated to the thousand-plus

page sprawling epic of time, magic childhood, friends and monsters, the horror classic

it.

I spent three weeks analyzing the novel itself, provided a bonus episode on its connections

to the Dark Tower, and this week I'll examine the popular 1990 ABC TV movie that popularized

the main character and established its rightful rule as the King of Scary Clowns due to

the magnetic and unforgettable performance by Dr. Frankenfurter

himself, the always incredible Tim Curry. Now just a brief look back at the movie. It came out in the fall

of 1990 on ABC and for me personally, it made me want to read the book. Watching commercials of Tim Curry

as Pennywise stuck with me, that image, him holding the balloons laughing, pointing at the screen, it held me in a vice-like grip and it just wouldn't let me go. The following March, I picked up the book and it changed my life forever. As you'll see in this episode, I'm critical of the movie, but I'll say this, if it wasn't for the movie, you wouldn't be listening to the Stephen King cast right now. The commercials for that movie drove me to find the book, and the book sank its claws in me and kicked off an obsession that lasts until today, though, despite a weekly podcast, I wouldn't call my current status an obsession. If you were to chart my fandom status, my obsession peaked probably around 16 years old when I was rereading a number of his books, trying to connect to the Dark Tower. There was a good chunk of my time in my 20s post Dark Tower

series where I was just simply a casual fan. But anyway, back to the here and now. Today we're

looking at the two-part TV movie, which is very much like your memories of childhood,

some good, some bad, and a lot's probably pretty forgettable.

It currently holds a 6.9 rating on IMDB and 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, so it's considered

below average, but regardless of the average rating, one thing that will withstand the test

of time is Tim Curry. There are iconic

Stephen King character adaptations. Love it or hate it, but Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance is one. Sissy

Spaceic as Carrie is another. Kathy Bates is Annie Wilkes is another. And right at the top is Tim Curry

as Pennywise, the Dancing Clown. If you don't like the ABC TV movie, that's fine.

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