Krusty the Clown is the most memorable and peculiar of all the hundreds of colourful side characters on The Simpsons. He hosts his own afternoon kids’ TV programme on Springfield’s Channel 5, but he’s much more than just a crazy physical comedian with a red nose. Krusty has been one of The Simpsons’ most well-rounded and nuanced characters from the outset. He’s neither the typical “happy clown” or even the stereotypical “sad clown”; instead, he’s angry, resentful, and uses a variety of mood-stabilizing medicines. But he also has a strong desire to become and maintain his notoriety and wealth. Since TV clowns haven’t actually been a thing for decades, Krusty is both a TV mainstay and an anachronism. To the delight of children like Bart and Lisa, he continues to work at playing Itchy & Scratchy cartoons, running a multinational merchandising business, and living a life of excess. Here, boys and girls, is the life narrative of Krusty the Clown, a complex character with an intricate tale. Hi there!
Krusty has had a couple of TV sidekicks
Krusty the Clown uses a sidekick, much like pretty much any enduring TV personality. However, Krusty has had a lot more than Conan O’Brien with his Andy Richter or Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. It’s difficult to get along with the clown, let alone create a daily TV show with him; he’s moody, egotistical, and vulnerable. Sideshow Bob, a t all man with wild hair who took the brunt of Krusty’s brand of physical humour, including getting struck in the face with pies, shot out of a cannon, and other such slapstick acts, was Krusty’s most well-known sidekick as of the 1990 episode “Krusty Gets Busted.” Sideshow Bob, who was actually incredibly dignified and well-educated, got so sick of his job that he looted the Kwik-E-Mart while dressing as Krusty, accusing his boss and getting him put in jail. Bob took over Krusty’s show and turned it into a dreary educational series dubbed The Sideshow Bob Cavalcade of Whimsy until Bart cleared the clown. After being imprisoned, Bob turns his rage against Bart, making trying to kill him his life’s work for years. By replacing Sideshow Bob with Sideshow Mel, a similarly respectable performer whom Krusty likewise exploits in the interest of comedy, he brings his performance back to its previous glory.
Krusty makes and endorses a lot of shoddy merchandise
Even if Krusty isn’t as well-known as he once was, his brand is still strong enough for him to be able to licence the use of his name and picture on a variety of products. Despite the fact that everything is terrible, some of it is normal tie-in dreck like toys, dolls, talking alarm clocks, candy bars, and cereal (although Krusty-occasionally O’s has a sharp metal piece), and a lot of it is grossly inappropriate or harmful. Fans of Krusty the Clown can buy vodka, radon detectors, imitation gruel, “Chew Goo Gum-Like Substance,” sulfuric acid, and pregnancy tests that have been verified by the Krusty Brand Seal of Approval.
This subsidiary empire’s main attraction is Krusty Burger, whose owner and mascot is Krusty the Clown (enabling the Simpsons writers to poke fun at the fast food sector, like the similarly clown-fronted McDonald’s). With delights like “Bacon Balls,” “Whatchamacarcass Sandwich,” “Gravy Scrapems,” and “Partially Gelatinated Non-Dairy Gum-Based Beverages” (or shakes), it’s a house of horrors unto itself. The 1984 Olympics chose Krusty Burger to serve the “Official Meat-Flavored Sandwich,” and Krusty approved a promotion in which customers received free food anytime Americans won an event. However, everything was set up such that Soviet Union-dominant games were featured. The Americans won numerous medals after the U.S.S.R. boycotted the 1984 Olympics, causing Krusty Burger (and Krusty personally) to incur significant financial losses of $44 million.
Krusty rejected a life as a Jewish scholar
It’s explained in great detail in the 1991 Simpsons episode “Like Father, Like Clown” why Krusty is the way he is. In other words, he has some serious father issues. His biggest supporter, Bart, cleared him of a robbery accusation, so he visits the Simpsons for supper and gives the blessing in Hebrew. Krusty collapses in a weeping fit when Lisa, who is always watchful, inquires about his religious background. The remainder of the programme is a protracted parody of the movies The Jazz Singer (1927 and 1980), which starred Neil Diamond and Al Jolson as young men who aspire to be performers rather than cantors in their prestigious synagogue. But in the Simpsons version, Krusty and his father argue because the young man chooses not to pursue his father’s wish that he study Torah at a yeshiva and instead pursues a career as a comedian and a clown. Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofsky, better known by his stage moniker Krusty the Clown, was born in Springfield’s Lower East Side (the Lower East Side of New York City once had a sizable Jewish community). Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky was Krusty’s father, and Rachel, the future clown’s mother, passed away when Krusty was only 13 years old.
Krusty’s been on TV for generations
Since at least the 1960s, The Krusty the Clown Show has been a television staple. It airs on Channel 6 every day at 4 PM, despite being from Springfield and not a major entertainment hub like New York or Hollywood. Krusty’s show was a throwback to locally produced kid-oriented variety shows of the 1950s and 1960s, where cartoons would be a major draw (such as The Itchy & Scratchy Show), in between corny sketches, a song or two, and, if the host was a clown (and not a cowboy or a sea captain), some clowning. Even in The Simpsons’ early seasons in the 1990s, Krusty’s show was an anachronism But numerous throwbacks to vintage Krusty the Clown segments reveal that, in the 1950s, when Krusty’s act would have been popular, his show was substantially different and regularly changed. The Krusty the Clown Show has had a number of different formats over the years, all hosted by a person in clown makeup, including a dead-serious public affairs talk show, a Tonight Show-style talk show, a Mickey Mouse Club-inspired project (featuring the “Krustkateers”), a variety show a la The Ed Sullivan Show, and finally its current format.
Krusty the Clown has some major heart issues
Krusty the Clown has a variety of health issues, which may be due to his senior age, his destructive behaviours, or a mix of the two. In a flashback to an old episode of The Krusty the Clown Show, Krusty has a severe heart attack while being aired live. He collapses on the ground clutching his chest and gasping for air, to the amusement of the studio audience, which is mostly children and thinks it’s all in good fun. After receiving a pacemaker, he has had a few cardiac arrests. He once displayed a surgical scar to Homer and explained how his severe heart issues had permanently changed the hue of his face, indicating that it “ain’t makeup.” Krusty laments a “major organ failure” issue in the 2007 episode “Little Big Girl,” and he informs Sophie, the daughter he was unaware he had, that diabetes runs in the family.
Krusty the Clown is a man of many vices
Krusty the Clown is wealthy, has a distorted view of life as a result of his celebrity, and suffers from numerous psychological problems. Krusty has established a number of unhealthy outlets, or in other words, the man has a lot of vices, which has greatly harmed his finances and health, as can frequently happen to someone with even one of those characteristics. He has a nearly compulsive drive to accumulate and spend money. He enjoys omelettes prepared with what must be pricey eggs from the threatened condor, and he smokes his cigarettes with hundred-dollar bills or the extremely rare and priceless Action Comics #1, the first Superman comic. Clearly addicted to gambling, Krusty frequently places foolish wagers on events like operas and Harlem Globetrotters games. He once bet his whole, substantial licencing fortune that the exhibition team would lose. His “final ten bucks” were reportedly spent on a racehorse, and the IRS once took Krusty Burger after he declared bankruptcy.
Even the TV clown snorts moon rocks, which he says he does to regulate his mood. Since Krusty is hooked to multiple narcotics, those can’t be inexpensive. He became a chain smoker and drinker who had previously been addicted to the potent painkiller Percodan as a way to cope with the pressures of his high-profile work.
Krusty the Clown prevented a military action, and gained a daughter
In the 2000 episode “Insane Clown Poppy,” Krusty signs books at a book fair. Sophie, a little child of Bart and Lisa Simpson’s age who has vivid green hair and bears a striking resemblance to a specific clown, approaches Krusty and claims to be his daughter. Up until this moment, Sophie had been solely reared by her mother, who had only described her father as “some sad clown.” Krusty appeared after Sophie entered those words into a search engine online.
In flashbacks, Erin, Sophie’s mother, explains how Krusty became a parent and the reasons she excluded him from her daughter’s life. Krusty performed on a USO tour while Erin was a soldier in the early 1990s Gulf War. They became friends. She attempted to flee the morning following their brief but intense physical encounter in order to carry out her military orders to assassinate Saddam Hussein. Krusty tackled her as she fired her rocket launcher, blowing up a military supply load of Duff Beer in the process because most of his jokes about the Iraqi leader in his stand-up routine were clumsy. After making Krusty unconscious by strangling him, Erin hid the fact that she was also carrying his child from Krusty. Fortunately, Krusty and Sophie get along and start dating.
Krusty was estranged from his father for decades
Krusty the Clown did, for a time, attend yeshiva as a child, though only for a short time, before ultimately abandoning a quiet but honourable life as a talmudic scholar. He initially made an effort to please both his father and himself by enrolling in school and surreptitiously securing gigs as a party entertainment. When Krusty agreed to perform before a gathering of rabbis, the parallel but separate lives came together. Young Herschel performed his act to the satisfaction of the rabbis gathered, one of whom happened to be his father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky, whose identity was completely covered by heavy clown face makeup. Everything went smoothly up until another rabbi splashed the young performer with a seltzer bottle, Krusty’s iconic clown prop, washing off his makeup and revealing his true identity to Rabbi Krustofsky. He disowned his kid there and then, embarrassed and enraged that Krusty was acting silly against his desires.
When Krusty was forced to leave his family, he started working as a street mime in Tupelo, Mississippi (a nod to Elvis Presley’s hometown), and eventually rose to the position of TV celebrity. Krusty and his father reunite in an episode of The Krusty the Clown Show after a 25-year silence. Rabbi Krustofsky’s cold heart is warmed by Bart and Lisa after they argue that devout Jews may also be artists; just look at Sammy Davis, Jr.
The reason Homer Simpson and Krusty the Clown look alike
Even though he’s a fictional character, Krusty outlives even Bozo the Clown, the Chicago-based TV icon to whom he’s obviously a loving homage. Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, also borrowed ideas from other people. Groening was raised in Portland, Oregon, the home of a long-running children’s TV programme hosted by clown James Allen, better known by his stage moniker “Rusty Nails.” Although the fictional version of “Rusty” is much more wretched, “Krusty” sounds a lot like him. According to Groening in Planet Simpson, Rusty “was quite polite, a very sweet clown” (via Oregon Public Broadcasting). As a child, I regarded the name Rusty Nails to be extremely distressing because you are meant to avoid people with that last name.
Krusty the Clown’s physical look was modelled from someone who lived considerably closer to Springfield: Homer Simpson. Look closely: Krusty and Homer are virtually identical in terms of appearance and physical characteristics. Groening experimented with the idea of making the clown Homer’s alter ego early on. According to Groening, who spoke to Entertainment Weekly, “The initial idea of Krusty the Clown was that he was Homer in disguise, but Homer still couldn’t garner any respect from his kid, who idolised Krusty.” We abandoned it in the beginning of the series because we were in such a rush and I felt, “Oh, it’s too complicated.”
