Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Incredible, Non-Edible, Plastic Clown Head

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

It's time to talk about the most versatile tool in a baker's cake-decorating arsenal:

The plastic clown head.

Devotees of the Wilton brand know this staple of cakey flotsam has a long and colorful history:

A history made even more colorful when the clown-headed pink dog is pooping a giant pink rose.

(So, in his defense, this clown's poop really does smell like roses.)


Over the years, the plastic clown heads have really gotten around:


And around...


And...around:


After all, they were so darn versatile!

I mean, what better way to perk up your flowers?


Or add a lively accent to that jungle theme?

Think of it as Bozo's version of Easter Island.

In fact, this time honored tradition continues today, only with slightly more modern sensibilities:

Death becomes him.

And the sprinkles aren't bad, either.


Yep, you could say today's Wreckerator knows just how to take these classic tools of the trade and use them to their fullest and most meaningful...uh...

I'm sorry, but do these uteri look funny to you?

Hey! Guys! What are you doing here? Your post was last week!

Ovary funny: don't try cramping my style, funny guys. I know a fellow peon's pro creation when I see one, period.



Many thanks to wreckporters Katie C., C.B., Hannah C., Penny H., Roisin O., Erica H., Meaghan W., & Melissa M., who think you should really read that last line out loud. Just...'cuz.
Unknown said...

We need to find a way to stop the production of plastic clown heads, these are horrifying.

Diamond said...

Has there ever been a good way to use these clown heads? Maybe a Sunday Sweets of clowns is in order.

marikoy said...

They've really been clowning around for so many years, haven't they? That clown pooping a pink rose is funny! At least, for a change, we learn of someone (or something) who 'made' a delicious, nice smelling, beautiful poop. :-)

M. Dale said...

We had a bunch of these in my mom's "cake decorating box" as a kid (full of all the flotsam that had come with our various kiddie birthday cakes over the years). I loved them!
I would bake a cake in a 8.5" x 11" pan (so I only had to ice the top, of course) and cover it in various clown and circus items (we even had a plastic merry-go-round that really moved!). Of course, I was probably 11 years old....and not a professional baker. So, yeah...

Anonymous said...

Ovary funny. HA.

J. said...

Someone should tell those bakers to quit clowning around. (Also, clowns scare me.)

lizzied said...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have nightmares from that last one. Those clown-headed, scorpion-esque, poop-colored, demon spawn.

Amanda Mac said...

Last one - is that uterus poop? Is there such a thing? Ew.

The green cookie cake really reminds me of Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men books.

Gary said...

Why confine plastic clown heads to cake? I'm thinking they'd look great on meat loaf, chicken livers, salads, avocadoes, and borscht.

WV: squid. A squid with a clown head, for the win!

Brooke said...

I'm still trying to figure out what Illinois has to do with clowns and uteri.

TinkDoll said...

Thanks for the nightmares. Clowns are...uhhh...ummm...creepy.

Just sayin'...

;)

Lydia said...

Anyone else have the Psycho theme running through their head while reading this?

Anonymous said...

I don't know if it's just wishful thinking on my part, but the writing on the first cake looks like it says "Sloppy Birthday" on it. Which would be awesome and true.

Unknown said...

Okay, so I saw the first cake WAY different..... The rose was the "dog's", um, upper head. And the clown head his lower one. The balloons were the product of his excitement...

WV: chized - The clown dog got so excited he "chized" a bouquet of balloons!

mimi said...

Poo Scorpion Clowns

It's the next great band.

Trust me.

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or does the clown on cake 1 look like his head has blown off and landed on his 'nether regions'?

Going to have stop reading this in work. Too...much...laughing...

Eyesmile said...

Why don't cannibals like clowns?

Because they taste funny.

Susan said...

my 3 year old told me that last one had clown octopuses on it. They may be short a few legs, but I can see where he got the idea.

Mari said...

I'm troubled. I thought that eyes with an 'X' in the center was kind of like the international symbol for "this is dead."

Anonymous said...

O_o is all I can say.

Alison said...

What the hail IS that last one supposed to be!?? :S

wv: "gessu" better come up with some kind of explanation when the manager comes in

Mrs Marcos said...

I've always thought that Xs or Ts for eyes were the international symbol of DEAD...so are those dead clown heads decorating cakes? Festive!

Wendy said...

What, no Stephen King "It" references? lol!

Love the last paragraph, btw.

Michelle S said...

You are a genius!!! Too funny!

JM Randolph said...

I recently saw a picture of myself with my first birthday cake and was finally able to trace my lifelong fear of clowns to these plastic clown heads.

Wendy Blackheart said...

My grandparents owned a bakery for most of my childhood. They had TONS of these, but never used them, so when they closed up, I got them.

Since I'm a little mean, or was when I was a youngster, I put them all over the cake of a friend who's scared of clowns for her birthday. She was laughing and crying. It was pretty funny, but man, those heads are creepy!

Anonymous said...

I took a Wilton decorating class where we were REQUIRED to purchase the clown heads. I refused to buy them so I ended up with headless clowns on my cake. I think that made the clowns look better. They were definitely better than the ones on those "professional" cakes.

Sharyn in Superior said...

Plastic "King Cake" babies grow up to be clowns. At the right age, they, uh, "harvest" the heads. Hence the X'd-out eyes. In the interest of delicacy, I won't tell you the origin of plastic "King Cake" babies, but if you look at the last cake you can probably figure it out.

TisforTonya said...

you have the most extensive vocabulary of ovarian puns I've ever seen! all women and menstrualy bow before your greatness.

Amy B. said...

Thanks for the tribute to the greatest of the plastic flotsam. My fourth birthday cake had four clown heads that held candles. It was the most awesome birthday cake ever. Of course this was in 1978 when clown heads were still cool (and before we all started saying awesome so I guess it was actually a "hip" birthday cake.)

mel said...

I think I'm gonna get a bag of clown heads and decorate the little doggy gifts that are now appearing in the neighborhood.
And, wow! I think I exceeded my daily recommended allowance of puns with that last cake -- brilliant!

wv - spher: As in, What's all over a dog?

Coulrophobia said...

The only good kind of clown is the dead kind of clown.

~flying gurl~ said...

the clown poo was great...just yesterday I threw out almost 40 of the little buggers (they were in my junk drawer)..yeah my moms (I have two mommies :) :)!) decided to surprise me for my 40th with 40 of them all over my freaking lawn at 6 am in the morning...along with a few *shudder* clown statues...fond memories the clown heads oh no the freaking clown heads...love this site...note to self when to talking to client on phone do not read this post!

Donna said...

Ok, on the pink cake, I honestly thought, upon seeing it, "what on earth is that clown head doing on the headless pink thing's crotch?"

I'm not normally afraid of clowns...but this has me scared!

wv: represse - I'm hoping to represse this post...

potsyinaz said...

I am certain that my fear of clowns stems from those evil, plastic clown decorations!! :(

Ellen said...

"Fellow peon" -- genius!

Thanks for sending in those clowns.

Four Jordans said...

Poopy uteri? Ewww....No, thanks.

Loo-E Loo-I said...

LOL!

I'm never quite sure if those clowns are drunk or dead. I suppose they're dead since they're "severed" and put on a pike, and then served on cake. Yummy.


wv: scrade: afraid & scared in one word. Be very scrade of those clowns...be very scrade....

Laura said...

o.O

Sherron said...

I always thought that clowns poop would smell funny.

eely said...

I'm personally kind of curious about "Happy Birthday Monkeys"

D.B. Echo said...

That third image is terrifying. Like, horde of Daleks backed up by an army of rampaging zombies and an orchard of Triffids terrifying.

The fourth image, featuring an altar festooned with the heads of dead clowns, is somehow soothing.

Anonymous said...

The last one is a never before seen image of the rare Clown-Headed Poo Devil. They are native to Tasmania, but, until now, were thought to be extinct.

Andrea

Anonymous said...

Scary. These cakes look like John Wayne Gacy...frightening!
mocking

eugeneteam said...

I think #6 there is just in mid-transform... he changes into a clown car with sprinkle cannon. You want sprinkles? Oh you'll get sprinkles.

Craig said...

I have somehow avoided getting coulrophobia to this point (using 'getting' in both senses), but *someone* seems determined to add me to the rolls.

#1 I can't get the perspective on this, much less understand why Katie is being wished a slappy birthday. As for the pink dog holding the bunch of brightly-colored raisins on strings...?

#2 Some seriously demented company makes these heads by the metric ton, that much is obvious. Where is the 'Reduced Bake Shop'? For that matter, what is it -- a bakery that was miniaturized?

#3-5 What is the deal on these heads, anyway? The pig-nose profile, the x-eyes... Why x-eyes? Does that somehow cause them to make sense to whomever created these things?

#6 I don't know what to do with this one. Those aren't 'tropical' trees, so the flora and fauna don't go together. My 1960's-sitcom-shaped subconscious keeps insisting it should read, 'Happy Birthday Monkees', which isn't helping at all.

#7 Ok, add the blue inflatable suit, and the whole thing suddenly snaps into...complete insanity. Bozo the deep-sea diver? Love the algae-green background. Well, maybe 'love' isn't the word.

#8 This takes the concept of 'poo' to a whole new, disgusting level of realism. What else could possibly have been intended? What does the wreckerator have against Illinois? And again with the heads...

Anonymous said...

Ovary funny = awesome.

Shannon said...

Does poop + uteri = pooteri?

VdR said...

Those triple pooping heads are too much! But, that high desert easter island cake, really like it!

Anonymous said...

Those clown heads are appalling,no wonder whatsisname wrote a book about an evil clown, he must have grown up with those hideous monstrous effigies.

Daisies would've helped!

Sandi said...

Most people don't know that there were only 1,000 clown heads ever made. They just keep reusing them, over and over and over . . .

Anonymous said...

Good grief, I think I still have a bagful of those clown heads somewhere in the back of a cabinet... I'd forgotten entirely how -oddly- they can be placed! We were taught to make a sitting-up clown, and mostly to make the clowns appear to be climbing the sides of the cake, where they didn't look too weird. Well, no weirder than any other piece of plastic flotsam, I suppose...

Merry at Annie's Book Stop/Sharon, MA

Anonymous said...

OMG! I have a handful of those things in my kitchen junk drawer from birthday cakes over the years. Maybe I should use them next time I make cupcakes ... or not. lol

Miss Monroe said...

LMAO at the last one!

KatzenMama said...

I think the 6th cake is actually a "literal" cake...it says Happy Birthday Monkeys, meaning: write Happy Birthday on it and then put monkeys on the cake. Funny thing is that they also followed directions by actually putting plastic monkeys on the cake.

Overy funny FTW!

Tara said...

I took a Wilton decorating class one summer in high school...we ran a week too late and had to combine the "clown cake' (which was a HUGE body-shaped pile of frosting topped with the lovely clown head) with a rose Mother's Day cake. I brought it to my youth group...because what else do you do with a clown and roses cake?

Aron said...

That pink cake translated really differently to me. My first thought: why is that pink headless monster birthing a clown and squirting squids out its toes?

RachelD said...

I'm just here for the puns.

Linda in Louisville said...

That last sentence is amongst the most awesome I have ever read. You truly rock. Period.

wv:midentu. A Spanish phrase, literally translated to mean, "I bite you."

LAX Car Service said...

These and fanny packs needed to stay in a prior era. How does anyone still use these clowns with as many people that have phobias?

Unknown said...

About the cake where the "clown-headed pink dog is pooping a giant pink rose," I thought it was a rose-headed pink man holding balloons by his toes while wearing a jockstrap decorated like a clown head. The sad thing is I'm not trying to be funny. When I first saw the clown in the corner of the cake, that's what I thought it was. LOL

Jeannette said...

About the cake where the "clown-headed pink dog is pooping a giant pink rose," I thought it was a rose-headed pink man holding balloons by his toes while wearing a jockstrap decorated like a clown head. The sad thing is I'm not trying to be funny. When I first saw the clown in the corner of the cake, that's what I thought it was. LOL

The Fabulous Ms Amy said...

I was surprised to find out how ridiculously expensive these clown heads were. We did a circus theme for our Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet this year, and I told my husband we should have creepy clown cupcakes! Only they're like 50c a piece for the cheapest ones I could find. Not worth it to pay 50c before the cake to creep small children out. :)

KatzenMama said...

Oops...I spelled ovary wrong.

elecblueis said...

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who saw the first cake and thought there was a rose-headed body with a clown head for it's "special place."

oh, and Firefox wanted to autocorrect my wv: anvize to santa.

Secure Hosting said...

I really want to know what the last cake of creepy clowns was supposed to be? They look like they got ran over or something! Poor, creepy-looking clowns.

Dmarie said...

what the heck do you suppose those brown things with clown heads are supposed to be anyway. I guess you got it pegged...what else could they be but uteruses and fallopian tubes!

Anonymous said...

I bet that uteri cake would taste funny, too.
And I don't know what the heck that first cake is. It looks like a clown octopus is coming after the (clown dog?) and the melted-goo clown. Or maybe it's supposed to be the parachute ride at the "amusement" park. Quien sabe?
--Blondie's Mom

wv: tryclo
Eef somewan geeves ju a clown cake ju chould trycloseeng jur eyes.

tiny purple elephant said...

Thanks sooooooo much 8-(
I won't be sleeping tonight... Im afraid of them!

Anonymous said...

"Bozo the clowns version of Easter Island"...thanks, I needed that laugh today!

Anonymous said...

I definitely saw the clown-head-in-the-private-bits at the top right of the first cake, too. Though my first reaction was less 'clown head penis' and more 'headless woman giving birth to fully-grown dead clown'. Too many freaky baby cakes.

Vicky said...

OMG Stephen King eat your heart out!

medrecgal said...

Please pardon my pun, but this post was absolutely HYSTERical!! (So yes, those "uteri" did look funny!) I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard. You guys never fail to give me a laugh, even at the end of a rotten day. Thanks again and keep up the good work!

Rebekah said...

With their little x'ed out eyes it's like someone decapitated them and then thought where does a decapitated clown belong? On something frosted, of course!! Creepy... !

Angel said...

Haha we use clown heads at Albertsons. However, at the store I work at, we use them on jumbo cupcakes and make clown bodies so that they actually look cute. I had a lady order 30 regular sized cupcake versions of these.... needless to say it was very creepy to have all of those little clown heads staring back at me.

crowleyancanto said...

LOL...See? Cakes are a sign that civilization is doomed.

April said...

AIEEEEE! ALL THE CLOWNS!!! This is truly my idea of hell. And the cakes are bad, too.

Anonymous said...

the 5th one looks like they're wearing banana collars. clearly, they are Carmen Miranda clowns- does that mean they been mirandized? You have the right to wear fruit, should you choose to wear fruit it cannot be held against you in a court of law...

-Barbara Anne

P.S. @Craig SLACKER!! combining #s 3-5...

Arlene said...

Does that cake say happy birthday monkeys?? Lol really? I have a picture of me blowing out a candle on a birthday cake with one of those clown heads on it. I was one at the time and didn't know that those clown heads and all clowns in general (IT one in particular) are to be feared. Lol.

Adorably Dead said...

I hate clowns. The flower one was kind of cute....but oh so creepy and the jungle didn't help ;_;

Ashlee said...

I don't know what's more horrific: the heads themselves all being near-identical, or the fact that they never even stick it on a simple stick-figure! Why do they have to have these tentacle monsters for bodies?! Why?

~Ashlee
http://theDragonsHoard.bigcartel.com

tarichuck said...

I must share: my 3yo saw the clown flowers, laughed, and said, "Silly cake!"

Agreed. Thanks for the morning laughs.

Unknown said...

Where are the clown heads on carrots?
Tina

Angie said...

O_o

I'm officially sufficiently creeped out.

Anne-with-an-e said...

I should commend you for enabling us to see uteri just as often as we see penises now. Equality in Freudian psychology via frosting FTW? :)

Anonymous said...

Hey a cake is a cake and I'd still eat them all

summerberm said...

Um, did anyone else notice that the clown heads are DEAD? I mean, x'ed out eyes usually (in the olden days, when clown heads were first introduced) denoted death. Or maybe it's foreshadowing (or maybe I'd like it to be) the death of dead clown heads on cakes.
Tha'd be nice.

Craig said...

@Anonymous Barbara Anne -- mea culpa. I was hoping to avoid another citation from the post length police while remaining rigorously thorough. Ahem.

Meanwhile, I suppose #6 could be the high desert (or 'high' dessert, if you prefer, which might explain the circumstances of its creation), but that doesn't explain the monkeys or the green ground. Unless, of course, the landscape is not of Earth.

TexasBlueEyes said...

whoa at the urteo-poo clowns. I can't cook but even I could do better than that.

Anonymous said...

Gary @9:50am yesterday - I LIKE the way you think!

BADKarma! said...

To me that first one looks like a mutant pink triffid wearing a clown-face codpiece. Maybe I should stop reading so much old sci-fi late at night...

Calamity Wren said...

Those clowns have the dead eyes. X X

Anonymous said...

"We all float down here..."

Dog Mom said...

When I took the Wilton's Cake Decorating class a couple years ago, the entire class flat out refused to do the clown lesson. And I'm still proud we took that stand.

Christy said...

I was subjected to those horrid clown heads once. I believe it was on my adoption cake, but I think my brain has partially blocked it out. I should have known when I saw those that I was doomed.

Anonymous said...

I can't help but imagine the first part read with Stephen Colbert's voice and some canned laughter. Hillarious!

shannagan said...

Those effing things haunted my childhood for the longest time. They were on EVERY cake that ANY member of the family had.