A clown posse is ready to scare you out of your (big) shoes

Coulrophobia alert: This story contains a clown car’s worth of clowns.

If you’re seeing clowns everywhere, you’re not hallucinating. To quote Stealers Wheel, there are clowns to the left of us, jokers to right with the recent premieres of box-office smash It and FX’s American

Horror Story: Cult. However, It’s iconic Pennywise and Cult’s multiple clowns, including returning favorite Twisty, are hardly the only jesters on today’s entertainment scene. To quote Insane Clown Posse — Oh, wait, we can’t. Have you heard their lyrics? As Hollywood sends in the clowns, USA TODAY’s Bill Keveney assesses top film and TV jokesters, their pedigrees and whom they scare — if anyone besides those who have coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. (We disqualified

Pagliacci because it’s an opera; Jadeveon Clowney, because he’s an NFL linebacker; and clownfish, because, well, they’re fish.)