page_title: It (miniseries)
section_title: Pennywise
hierarchical_section_title: It (miniseries) / Production / Special effects / Pennywise
caption_attribution_description: English: Scan of still of Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
context_page_description: It is a 1990 American ABC two-part psychological horror drama miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen from Stephen King's 1986 novel of the same name. The story revolves around a predatory monster which has the ability to transform itself into its prey's worst fears, allowing it to exploit the phobias of its victims. It mostly takes the humanoid form of a darkly comedic clown called Pennywise. The protagonists are The Lucky Seven, or The Losers Club, a group of outcast kids who discover Pennywise and vow to kill him by any means necessary. The series takes place over two different time periods, the first when the Losers first confront Pennywise as children in 1960, and the second when they return as adults in 1990 to defeat him a second time after he resurfaces.
  A special of the November sweeps month of 1990, It was still a big risk for ABC due to horror's lack of popularity in television, declining network viewership decreasing the impact of big events like miniseries, while theatrical versions of King's work being box office bombs.
context_section_description: When designing Pennywise, Mixon focused on making him look as "friendly" as possible: "This creature is trying to lure children in, so he's not going to be a monster at first." He began drawing concepts for how Pennywise would look before Curry was cast, researching the looks of most other clowns in the process. Original storyboards for Pennywise featured exaggerated cheekbones, a sharp chin, and bulbous forehead.
  Mixon began working on a head cast for the Pennywise character after Curry was cast in the role; he also designed three clay molds for testing. According to Mixon, he based the shape of Pennywise's head on Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), "stylized into a clown." Three different versions of the clown's face were created, one of which resembled a hobo clown, another that was "a little meaner," and the final one seen in the series. Mixon then worked with Curry on the makeup and tested two concepts: one with just a nose, headpiece, and a make-up pattern Curry suggested; and another one that was closer to the original designs. The former was chosen, although the other make-up choice is featured in the final cut when Pennywise is sprayed with battery acid. Instead of traditional clown make-up, PAX paint was used for makeup that made Pennywise look "almost like a living cartoon."
  According to director Wallace, "Tim [Curry] objected strongly to all the rubber. He had recently been in several movies which covered him in prosthetics and I'm sure he felt all the glue and latex would just get in his way. He was right, of course. With those eyes, and that mouth, and his crazy, sardonic sense of humor, less turned out to be more in the makeup department." However, the bulbous forehead was kept to give the character "a supernatural aspect without getting in the way." Getting the clown faces rights also depended on some of the actor's own efforts, to the point where he had to do a day of training of not only getting into the character but also practicing the faces. Small adjustments to Pennywise's face, such as on his mouth and the eyebrows ("the hardest thing to get right" according to Curry), were still being made in the first five days of shooting.
  In the scenes when the clown became vicious, Curry wore yellow lenses and two sets of sharp teeth throughout shooting: a smaller set he could talk while wearing, and a less flexible but far bigger set for more horrifying shots. The teeth was designed by Jim McLoughlin. Wallace originally didn't want Pennywise to switch into a "horror" look but rather maintain the "nice" clown look throughout the miniseries, but this idea was dropped.
  Dan Platt sculpted a puppet replication of Pennywise specifically for the stop motion scenes, with painting done by Mixon and the hair by Jack Bricker. Rotoscoping was used for Pennywise's "dead light" effects in the first part of the miniseries.
caption: The appearance of Pennywise was based on Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925).[6]
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