Welcome back to the Monster Fight Club, where our resident alien, the Blob, takes on some of the baddest monsters known to humankind (and not so kind) in our second Fight Club match-up. If you recall the first faceoff, the Blob handily defeated the dreaded Alien in only one round of combat. For the next bout of this monster melee, the champion Blob will take on the latest contender, Pennywise the Dancing Clown, from Stephen King’s It. Can the Dancing Clown’s fancy footwork outsmart…or outrun our beloved Blob?

Let’s find out.

Pennywise’s Stats

Breakout Performance: Pennywise the Dancing Clown first struck fear into the hearts of the child in all of us when he first appeared in Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel It. The novel was soon made into a successful TV miniseries starring The Rocky Horror Show’s Tim Curry as Pennywise. Almost two decades later, It made it onto the big screen twice with two hit films, It in 2017 and its follow-up, It Chapter Two in 2019--both with Bill Skarsgard as the evil shapeshifting monster.

Vehicle: The monster known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown originated in the Macroverse, “a void that contains and surrounds the Universe.” IT landed on earth in prehistoric times during an asteroid storm and settled in underneath the land that would eventually become Derry, Maine. Upon arrival in his new home, the monster immediately went into a state of hibernation.

Description: IT is an alien monster that has the capability of changing shape. As a shapeshifter, IT will take on the appearance of whatever it is that people fear the most. The creature usually takes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, because that is what terrifies the children of Derry, Maine. According to Wikipedia, King said in a 2013 interview that he came up with the idea for Pennywise after asking himself “what scared children more than anything else in the world,” and he believed that the answer was clowns. But IT can take on any shape it desires and has also been spotted as a monstrous giant spider. IT’s actual appearance, however, is described by Bill Denbrough, a member of the Loser’s Club, “as a mass of swirling destructive orange lights known as ‘deadlights,’ which inflict insanity or death on any living being that directly stares into them.”

Aliases: Pennywise, Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Robert Gray, and Bob. Also named IT by the Loser’s Club, a group of seven young outcasts who band together over the course of one terrifying summer to try to defeat the bloodthirsty “clown” known as Pennywise, who has returned to Derry after one of his 27-year-long hibernations, in search of causing terror, creating chaos, and finding some tasty treats in the form of frightened children.

Age: Anywhere between 12,000 years to 2.5 million years old.

First Victims: After landing on earth in prehistoric times, Pennywise went into a long hibernation and first awoke in the 18^th Century. Upon awakening, Pennywise went in search of his prey. In order to sustain himself during his next 27-year hibernation, he had to consume human victims and was responsible for the sudden disappearance of 300 settlers in Derry Township.

Favorite Food: Pennywise feeds on fear in human-form, preferably young children.

Hobbies: Wreaking chaos and creating widespread terror when he’s awake, taking 27-30-year long naps after filling up on the local small fries, and hanging out in the sewer.

Special Powers:

1. Pennywise is a shapeshifter.
2. He can read people’s minds,
3. He can combine these first two superpowers together, thereby enabling him to turn himself into the form his prey fears the most.
4. He can manipulate people’s minds by making them imagine things that lure them towards him.
5. He can create fake smells and sounds to confuse his victims and render them helpless to his attack.
6. He can manipulate the weather and has been known to create thunderstorms when an electrical storm can benefit him.

Weaknesses: Pennywise has two weaknesses that can bring down this terrifying monster. Ironically, the two things he fears the most are courage and heart. They are the two things that, together, have proven to bring this terrifying monster to his knees and threaten his very existence.

Arch Enemy: Maturin or the Space Turtle from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series of books.

Pennywise’s M.O.: In the form of Pennywise, IT awakens approximately every 27 years to feast on the children of Derry. He assumes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, because clowns seem to be what many children fear the most, and Pennywise prefers eating the children when they are scared--flavored in the mouthwatering emotion of fear--because fear is what makes them taste better.

Guest Appearances: While Pennywise was originally conceived in Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel, It, this wily character has reared its ugly head in a total of four other King novels: The Tommyknockers (1987), Insomnia (1994), Dreamcatcher (2001), and 11/22/63 (2011).

The Blob’s Stats

The Blob has been laying low, quietly building up quite an appetite under the icy sheet that has temporarily stunted its growth. But now that the Arctic is melting…

Breakout Performance: To the delight of audience’s everywhere, The Blob first arrived in theaters on September 10, 1958.

Vehicle: Hitching a ride in a small meteorite that streaks across the sky, a tiny red blob crash-lands in the outskirts of a small town in Pennsylvania.

First Victim: A curious old hermit who prods open the meteorite with a stick and becomes an unwilling host to the small gelatinous globule inside that immediately attaches itself to his hand, causing him to writhe in pain. Unable to scrape off or shake the substance from his hand, the old man runs into the road where local teen Steve (McQueen) and his girlfriend, Jane, come to his rescue. By the time they arrive for help at the country doctor’s home, the jelly-like substance has enveloped the old man’s entire lower arm. Before the doctor can amputate the afflicted limb, the old man is gone–entirely consumed and now a part of the ever-growing gelatinous mass that is aptly called the Blob.

Height and Weight: No one dares get close enough to measure, for fear of adding to the enormous mass measurement that is the Blob. But it’s big enough that it required a helicopter to airlift it to the Arctic.

Appearance: A transparent gelatinous blob; hence, it’s moniker. It grows larger, redder, and more aggressive as it consumes more and more prey. But it has no mouth, no eyes, no stomach, yet it has an internal radar for detecting food. It moves silently, without legs or wings.

The Blob’s M.O.:  Food, glorious food. It appears to be an insatiable carnivore. It devours and dissolves people individually or by the hundreds–growing bigger with each tasty morsel.

Special Powers:

(1) It’s devious. It sneaks up on its victims without making a sound and devours them without remorse.

(2) To touch the Blob is to be eaten by the Blob. Once any being comes into contact with any part of the Blob, it’s a goner. The moment it attaches itself to its victim, it immediately feasts upon them, giving no hope of being able to run away.

(3) It’s indestructible. Nothing can stop it. Not guns. Not fire. Not acid. Not even electrocution.

(4) The Blob can heal itself within minutes.

(5) It has no brain, yet it can learn…quickly.

Weaknesses: Cold temperatures, including CO2 from a fire extinguisher, but that only immobilizes it.

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Round 1

Despite their difference in size and shape, Pennywise the Dancing Clown seems to measure up to be quite a worthy opponent to The Blob in what could be called the universe’s nastiest food fight. Unfortunately, there’s only room on this earth for one insatiable human predator and The Blob doesn’t know the meaning of the expression, “Let’s Share! There’s plenty here for both of us!” And, for that matter, neither does Pennywise.

With an evident air of superiority, Pennywise looks down at this red mound of goo before him and arrogantly thinks this so-called fight club champion will be putty in his hands. “He doesn’t have a brain in that entire mass of mush.”  Pennywise strategizes. “This fight for the flesh won’t even go one round. I wasn’t born yesterday, after all. I’m a survivor! I’m not about to give up my yummy, bite-sized human morsels to this oversized mass of red hair gel…”

Careful not to get in The Blob’s zone of awareness, Pennywise’s smug mug is showing signs of concern—the gruesome grin that’s painted on his conceited face is turning down at the corners. “I can’t read his mind—he doesn’t have a brain. I can’t see fear in his eyes. He doesn’t have any eyes. I can’t lure him with the smells or sounds I create—no nose to smell with, no ears to hear with…”

Sweat begins to form on Pennywise’s penciled red brows as they begin to smudge and drip down his face. Suddenly his expression brightens briefly as he quickly decides to create a thunderstorm and electrocute his foe, making sure to have the lightning strike the big red menace right where his heart should be. Still, The Blob shows no sign of fear. After the lightning strikes the crimson mass, he makes one swift rollover—right on top of the perplexed Pennywise—and it’s over. Pennywise is now just another body in that big red mound we love to call The Blob.

Pennywise never saw it coming. He was right—it didn’t even go one full round. In the end, Pennywise was just plain Pound-foolish!

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