TV - Movies
The Dark
History Of
Pennywise
By DUSTIN PINNEY
The inspiration for Pennywise came to Stephen King while crossing a covered bridge and his mind went to goat gobbling troll in the "Three Billy-Goats Gruff." He explained how the idea struck him while walking past a sewer after a rainstorm, "As I looked at this one sewer [...] the voice inside speaks up and says, 'The troll lives there too, only when he's in the sewers he has a clown suit."'
troll under the bridge
If you haven't read Stephen King’s books, you may not know that his stories take place in a multiverse. Pennywise, the Eater of Worlds comes from another space outside of that multiverse called the Macroverse which is also home to Maturin the gargantuan cosmic turtle that vomited our universe into existence.
Out of the Macroverse
Like a chef perfectly preparing a steak by tenderizing it and salting it just enough, Pennywise preps its food by scaring it. The flesh of a scared person tastes better than that of someone who doesn't suspect they're about to be eaten.
Salting the meat
Pennywise's natural feeding routine is to wake up every 27 years and eat the residents of Derry before hibernating. In the middle of the 16th century, It ate so many people that Derry was virtually wiped out, like the village of Roanoke in Virginia.
Wake, feed, repeat
One of the most horrific scenes in the book "It: Chapter Two" involves a homophobic hate crime inspired by the actual 1984 murder of Charlie Howard. The choice to include the scene was a controversial one as some saw it as cheap and disrespectful while others viewed it as a metaphor for genuine hate.
A real-life murder