The Complete Timeline Of Pennywise The Clown
The fictional town of Derry has endured tragedy after tragedy throughout its history, but this isn't merely bad luck. Since the town is heavily influenced by the murderous, shapeshifting clown Pennywise, things in Derry have gone awry on the regular for quite some time, from familial massacres to good old-fashioned murder.
Being influenced by a supernatural clown to commit atrocities is one thing, but even worse is the fact that every 27 years or so, the killer clown himself comes out of hibernation and chows down on more children than a regular, non-murdering clown could shake a balloon animal at. Pennywise always seems to have an empty stomach if little kids are on the menu.
From long before human civilization to the late ‘80s and beyond, Pennywise has a long and storied history in the town of Derry, all of it filled to the brim with blood, horror, and fear. As one of Stephen King’s primary villains who appears (in some fashion) in several of the horror author's works besides IT, Pennywise has a total chokehold on the small, unfortunate town of Derry, ME.
Pennywise Arrives From The Macroverse Millions Of Years In The Past
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- Hubble & NASA
- Wikimedia Commons
- CC BY 4.0
The creature known as IT (who most often appears as Pennywise the Clown) formed not in our universe, but one still unexplored by humankind, located just outside the realm of human understanding in a place called the Macroverse.
One day millions of years ago, IT came crashing down from outer space onto Earth, landing in the exact spot where the town of Derry, Maine was eventually founded. There, Pennywise slept until his reign of terror over the unsuspecting town would begin.
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1740: Derry's Population Disappears
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- New York Public Library
- NYPL's Public Domain Archive
- Public Domain
In an incident resembling the “lost” colony of Roanoke, all of Derry's 300-plus residents suddenly disappeared in 1740. Only a trail of bloody clothes was left behind as evidence that anyone had ever been there at all.
The disappearances didn't stop until there was no one left, and Pennywise got his first real taste for human blood.
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1851: John Markson Poisons His Family
In 1851, a Derry citizen named John Markson, in a horrific act of familicide, poisoned his entire family before killing himself with a deadly dose of nightshade mushroom - an excruciatingly painful way to die.
In this and other instances, Pennywise began basking in the power his horrific influence had on the people of Derry and the acts of violence it inspired. Bad things happen in the town with the clown.
1904: Lumberjack Claude Heroux Goes Haywire, Murdering 12
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In a crowded bar in 1904, lumberjack Claude Heroux went on a wild rampage and inexplicably murdered 12 men with his axe. Shortly after this incident, an angry mob formed and hung him for his random acts of violence.
Decades later, once the Losers Club returned to Derry as adults and began combing through local history, Mike asked a witness to that night's events if there was anyone in the mob he hadn't recognized. The witness stated there was, indeed, a “comical sorta fella,” whom he saw sporadically ever since.
1906: Pennywise Conducts The Kitchener Ironworks Explosion
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In 1906, during an Easter Egg hunt celebration filled with Derry’s children, tragedy struck when the Kitchener Ironworks facility exploded, killing 102 people, 88 of whom were children.
The disaster took place despite all of the Ironworks machines being shut prior to the crowded event, and the cause of the explosion remained a mystery.
IT returned to its slumber after the atrocity, as that many bodies seemed to satisfy it in preparation for another 27-year slumber.
1929: The Bradley Gang Shooting
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Pennywise awoke from hibernation when an angry mob of Derry's townsfolk took part in a massacre of a known gang of robbers called the Bradley Gang. The gang had been robbing and murdering Derry's store owners, and the townsfolk decided to take justice into their own hands. The mob grabbed their guns and shot up the gang's hideout.
In the 1990 TV miniseries IT, Mike Hanlon speaks with a witness of the shooting, who claims several people saw a clown taking part in the violence that night; however, each eyewitness placed the clown in a different area, despite the incidents occurring simultaneously.
1930: IT Causes An African-American Nightclub To Burn Down
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In 1930, after awaking from his slumber the previous year, Pennywise influenced - and witnessed - another atrocious act of violence when a northern sect of the Ku Klux Klan burned down a nightclub primarily catering to African Americans.
Pennywise appeared at the scene in the form of a giant bird with balloons strapped to its wings, as witnessed by Mike Hanlon’s father, William. IT would return to its typical hibernation period after the bloodshed was through, and the next time he returned to the surface of Derry, he encountered the Losers Club.
One noteworthy victim of the fire at the Black Spot who actually escaped safely was none other than a young Dick Halloran, who went on to be the chef of the Overlook Hotel and play an integral part in another Stephen King story, The Shining.
1957: First Run-in With The Losers Club
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For clarity's sake, here's a breakdown of the major IT adaptations: The 2017 film adaption takes place in 1989 rather than 1957, the setting of the childhood segment of King's novel; the two sections of the TV miniseries takes place a few years later in the ‘60s and ’90s, respectively.
With the popularity of Stranger Things, which came out only a year prior to IT (2017), the ‘80s seemed a more nostalgic - and profitable - era for Warner Bros.’s feature-film adaptions. Although the basis of the story stays the same, a few differences between the adaptations were necessary; for example, in the feature film, the Black Spot burned down in the 1960s instead of the 1930s.
Right on cue, 27 years after the fire at the Black Spot, Pennywise began showing his face around the sewers and tunnels of Derry once more. Initially rising from his slumber after a man fatally beat his own son, the demented clown began seeking out and stalking his prey, using their greatest fears to frighten them to their core.
Pennywise prefers to eat children because they're easier to scare, and according to IT lore, fear in the human body is like seasoning to the ancient, demented clown.
The Losers Club first acknowledges IT’s presence after Bill Denbrough's little brother, Georgie, goes missing. In actuality, Pennywise lured him into a storm drain, ripped off his arm, and presumably ate him. This sends Bill and his friends down a rabbit hole of adolescent homicides and missing people in the town of Derry.
They soon discover Derry's massive number of unsolved missing person cases, as well as the town's history of carnage and violence. Pennywise begins targeting each of the Losers one by one in his latest campaign of fear, but the Losers manage to band together and take down the clown in his sewer lair, forcing him into early hibernation.
1958: In '11/22/63,' Jake Epping Hears Pennywise In His Head
In King’s story 11/22/63, which focuses on a teacher, Jake Epping, traveling back in time in order to prevent JFK’s assassination, the author makes a brief visit to the town of Derry. Here he runs into Losers Club members Beverly and Richie, but a more frightening connection to IT is also established.
When Epping visits the Kitchener Ironworks (the site of IT's deadly Easter explosion), he has a strange compulsion to venture inside a large pipe littered with chewed-up bones.
Fortunately, when he hears a voice inside his head trying to lure him in, he thinks better of his risky excursion and leaves. If only he knew just how close he was to falling victim to Derry's number-one clown.
1985: A Hate Crime Awakens IT
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- IT Chapter Two
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Just about 27 years after his first run-in with the Losers Club, Pennywise resurfaces when a group of bullies harass and attack a gay couple and throw one of them, Adrian, off a bridge.
After Adrian falls into the river below and tries to collect himself, he sees - and, soon enough, dies - at the hands of something arguably a lot scarier than homophobic teens: a starving killer clown. This attack reawakens Pennywise for his latest reign of terror on the town of Derry, ME, and all its young inhabitants.
In It: Chapter 2, Pennywise leaves a message written in blood at the crime scene for the Losers Club. Three times in a row, Pennywise simply wrote, “Come Home.”
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Summer Of 1985: The Losers Club Returns To Derry
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- IT Chapter Two
- Warner Bros. Pictures
Once children are back on the menu and Derry's missing-person caseload increases, Mike Hanlon - the only one of the Losers to stay in their hometown - alerts the rest of the gang that they need to come finish what they started.
Once reunited amidst a truly bloody exhibition of the town's youth, the gang discovers that in order to take down Pennywise once and for all, they must complete the Ritual of Chüd. The ritual involves using items from their past, so they all have to go down memory lane and revisit some of their former nightmares in order to retrieve their items.
All of this takes place while Pennywise is helping himself to a feast of the town’s children and threatening both the Losers Club and their loved ones.
Finally, the group gathers deep inside Pennywise’s sewer once more and performs the ritual, which leads to a massive fight between the clown and the grown-up club members, who are determined to save their town and its future generations the pain they suffered. They ritual works - until it doesn’t.
Instead of defeating Pennywise and going home, the Losers are attacked by a gigantic Pennywise-shaped spider. Clearly, the tribespeople who originally formulated this ritual hundreds of years in the past hadn’t gotten too far past this point, but fortunately, the Losers Club has heart, and it shows.
Banding together once more, they concentrate their efforts and take down Pennywise once and for all by showing him no fear and turning the tables by attacking him instead. Unfortunately, Eddie is killed in the d, and once the remaining Losers escape the sewer, they must come to terms with losing their friend.
Having defeated the foreign being once and for all, the Losers are free to finally let go of their pasts and truly move on - the only remaining question is, how can they be sure Pennywise is gone forever?
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- IT
- ABC
In King’s 1987 book The Tommyknockers, the protagonist, Tommy, has to make a supply stop in Derry, ME, where he witnesses an interesting site. He describes seeing a “clown with shiny silver dollars for eyes” sitting on the inside of a storm drain as he drives past.
This is the only canonical instance of Pennywise physically appearing outside of IT.
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In another one of King’s works, 2001's Dreamcatcher, a character named Mr. Gray visits Derry and happens upon a plaque made in honor of all the lives Pennywise has taken from them over the years. But Mr. Gray discovers the plaque has been spray-painted to say “Pennywise Lives.”
This is certainly a scary sentiment, but who knows - could this be King’s way of saying there's more to come for the scariest clown in town?
