*This “article/essay” is in my folder titled “Creepypasta Stuff”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs <33”. This is literally just me overthinking things about Laughing Jack, but I thought that it would be fun to make this, nonetheless. I hope you enjoy this nonsense and let me know if you’d like to see more works like this!*

Laughing Jack is from the Creepypasta fandom. Creepypasta is internet horror. Laughing Jack is a monochromic evil clown who mainly kills children. He was created by Snuffbomb, real name Steve Akins.

But I made some interesting connections to Laughing Jack.

On December 19th, 2017, Snuffbomb posted a story called “Laughing Jack” on DeviantArt (I think it’s on the Creepypasta website too). The main character is the mother of a little boy named James who starts talking about Laughing Jack. Laughing Jack is the “imaginary” friend of James. There is also a dog named Fido in the story.

Well, I searched up “Clown and little boy” because I thought that I would find cute stuff, but GUESS WHAT I FOUND?!!

No, it wasn’t a Laughing Jack movie directed by Tim Burton. I wish. But it was really close.

It was a movie called “The boy, the dog and the clown”.

I was shocked and appalled that I had no idea of the movie’s existence, but I read the blurb to see more.

It’s about a little boy named Adrien who is mourning his Dad’s death. He gets lost in the woods and meets a sad, magical clown. The clown teaches him magic and Adrien must use it to save the clown. The clown, named Harry, has a dog, named Foxy.

Laughing Jack is a magical clown. There is no father mentioned in the horror story. Laughing Jack goes after children who aren’t living a healthy life, from what I read on his fan page. It’s very possible that something happened to James’ Dad and it could be the reason that James has no friends. He probably shut himself off from the world. And his mother was probably grieving the death (if his Dad died, of course. Nothing about a Dad is mentioned in the story, I’m just making theories) of his father that she forgot about James when it really mattered. In the beginning of the story she leaves James outside to play for himself. What if she only paid attention to him when Laughing Jack was around? I don’t know, because I don’t know what happened before the story.

Well…that’s about all of the similarities I could come up with. Remember when I said that Adrien had to help Harry while being lost in the woods? That’s just what I got from the description. He actually meets Harry at the beach. (He lives in a beach). Also, while it’s never said that Harry is a ghost, it’s implied that he is. (I find it confusing that Harry takes pills at one point if he’s supposed to be dead, but I’m probably reading too much into it). In the story, Laughing Jack is a demonic entity.

Another thing: The magic. Harry does “magician magic”, the kind of magic that a trained magician would do at a child’s birthday, while Laughing Jack does “otherworldly magic”, the kind that only supernatural beings can do. Yet another thing that breaks them from being connected is that Harry is fine with appearing in front of Adrien’s Mom, his Aunt Michelle, and his Uncle Steve. The adults grow to love Harry, too. (Uncle Steve takes some time, but he likes Harry eventually). Meanwhile, Laughing Jack only appears in the Mom’s nightmares to scare her, but appeared fully to James.

Here’s the last nail in the coffin: The message. The movie’s overall message is “to believe in magic and life will be wonderful”, while the story’s message is “you never know what may be out there to snatch your child away”.

Maybe this is all just a crazy coincidence, too. They’re probably not connected. The movie is a family movie. Nobody dies in the movie.

But…the movie is in the child’s perspective. The story is in the Mom’s perspective. Adrien is ten in the movie, James is five in the story.

James is an imaginative child. Adrien is an imaginative child. For a ten year old, Adrien acts pretty young. What if Adrien is the alter ego of James? What if James made up everything that happened in the movie in his head to cope with his death? What if his father took pills in life and that is why Harry took pills? Because he wanted Laughing Jack to be his friend and father? What if he changed names, changed the appearance of Laughing Jack to something more friendly, added in an Aunt and Uncle to feel like he had more than his Mom with him, and lastly, what if he desperately wished that Laughing Jack was friends with his mother and pretended that he was?

Again, I’m REALLLYYYY stretching it and there’s a 100% chance the movie and story have nothing to do with each other, but still….

I just thought, what if there was inspiration for it? What if the people were inspired by the story and changed it to be sweeter?

I just thought that it was too coincidental.

Now, for the second connection.

I search up “Laughing Jack” over and over again, because reading his fanpage inspires me to write fanfics about him. Sometimes there are details that I find about him that I missed before.

This time I clicked on “books” just to see if there was anything interesting.

I had found a story called “Ancell’s quest” written by Tony Main. It mentioned the name “Laughing Jack”. So I searched up the book for further details.

It takes place at sea. The main character is a hedgehog named Ancell who has his own animal pirate crew and a ship called the “Misty Dawn”. The villain is a pirate named Laughing Jack who kidnaps unwanted and orphaned children. Ancell and his crew have to save the children. There’s another book called “Ancell’s final battle”.

Notice anything familiar?

“Ancell’s quest” was published on 2015 and “Ancell’s final battle” was published on 2018, so maybe Snuffbomb read the story and got a little bit inspired. Maybe he never heard of the books. But there’s no denying the similarities between the pirate and the clown.

Laughing Jack the clown mainly murders children who feel alone or have a difficult life. Laughing Jack the pirate kidnaps orphans. In Laughing Jack’s origin story posted on the Creepypasta website, titled “The origin of Laughing Jack”, Laughing Jack the clown plays a game of pirates with a little boy named Isaac before things get out of hand and-NOPE! You have to read the story first!

On YouTube, there are Laughing Jack voice lines done by a Youtuber named David Near, which people have commented that Laughing Jack sounds a lot like a pirate in his voice lines.

Laughing Jack’s origin takes place in London. According to Wikipedia, in the 1650s and the 1730s, there was the “Golden Age of Piracy” which took place in the Indian and North Atlantic oceans. Pirates during that time were English, Welsh, Dutch, Irish, and French.

While Laughing Jack’s story takes place in the 1800s, it is possible that pirates were still talked about, so much so that little boys like Isaac saw it as nothing more than a game.

What does Laughing Jack represent? Well, in the official stories written by Snuffbomb-“Laughing Jack” and “The origin of Laughing Jack”- there are little boys. In Snuffbomb’s animated YouTube show “Creeps”, there is Laughing Jack and an adolescent named Will Grossman. I have not seen little girls in official LJ stories.

I believe that Laughing Jack symbolizes lost boyhood. He started out as a happy, colorful clown, free to play pirates with Isaac and ended up as a heartless, joyless clown.

Now I’m going to stretch it even MORE! What if Laughing Jack the pirate is the same person as Laughing Jack the clown? Maybe the pirate died and got reincarnated as a magic clown? The angels probably tried to give him a second chance, but later on he became murderous anyway, like in his past life? Maybe Snuffbomb read the books and was inspired? It’s unlikely though, because Snuffbomb said that he was going to originally call Laughing Jack “The Rake” before learning that there already was a Creepypasta with that name.

Maybe it’s all just a crazy coincidence.

Either way, it’s fun to think about.

Sources:

Wikipedia, Google, Fandom.com, Creepypasta.com, YouTube, DeviantArt, Tubi, Amino, Amazon books, and IMDb movies.