On this season, we'll be exploring the moral panics, urban legends, and conspiracy theories that shape our psychology and culture, and why we end up believing them.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Sm Smith, and this is American Hysteria.

That man had a clown mask on, had a red nose that matched his hair.

Reports of an actual clown attack in Ohio shutting down several schools.

Once Karen actually grabbed a gun while looking for the clowns, the police were called, but they

could not find the clowns when they got there.

The clowns have tried to lure children.

They're running around the property, creating fear in these children's eyes.

Entering the McDonald's playplace as a kid in the mid-90s, greasy fingers smudging the clean metal of a new Hot Wheels Happy Meal toy, my breath would catch when I saw him. The life-size, full-color Ronald's statue with his striped arm stretched

across the top of the bench, one large red shoe resting on the bend of his knee. Waste deep in the

ball pit, I could see him through the limp, dirty netting, and then, after running into the open mouth of a plastic tunnel

and into the primary maze, I could still feel him there, still feel the cold, weird burn of his

existence. A horror fan since the beginning, I would always break away from my family a blockbuster

and run to my favorite aisle.

Always I would find the same VHS, Tim Curry's oblong head painted white,

eyebrows sharp and sinister as fish hooks, thin red lips, those hypnotic yellow eyes.

The image terrified me, but also stirred up a kind of obsession. With my obligatory

dive into true crime in middle school, I learned all about John Wayne Gacy Jr. and his

clown alter ego about a real clown, a killer clown, that came after children. Fast forward

to 2018, where a fear of clowns is not only

more widespread, but an implication now contained in the clown itself. The remake of It

has smashed previous box office records, becoming the highest grossing horror movie of all time.

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