I was a carnival performer who loved to entertain children with my practical pranks and prat-falls during my stint with Dr. Oddfellow’s Carnival Of Thrills. I had escaped a poor and highly abusive family years earlier to "run away and join the circus", leaving behind my younger brother, Eddie.
But underneath the greasepaint and clown nose, I was a twisted murderer. I was wanted for the abduction and disappearance of several small children throughout the Southern states. Police officials and the F.B.I. soon caught on that the missing children followed a pattern that led them closer and closer to the traveling freak show. On Halloween 1920 the police were closing in on the Clown killer. Fearing capture, I revealed my sinister secret to Dr. Oddfellow in the hopes of possible concealment. The doctor, himself wanted by the police for the accidental death of several patrons in a freak circus accident years earlier under a different name, was not sympathetic to my cause.
He quickly admonished me for potentially bringing the police down upon the entire band of miscreants. He asked me to show him what I had done with the bodies of the children. I revealed the bodies of thirteen children hidden in the confines of three small trunks that were kept in my traveling coach. Fearing the worst, Dr. Oddfellow had me murdered and my body hidden within the traveling carnivals House of Horrors as an exhibit, along with the bodies of the children.
Years later the Carnival was sold by Dr. Oddfellow, and the various dark rides and exhibits were split and sent to various owners around the states, including the House of Horrors and it’s grisly secret. Sixty years later, in the Fall of 1980, a television crew from the BBC was documenting the great Dark Rides of America. They journeyed throughout the eastern seaboard looking for forgotten carnival rides and attractions and stumbled upon the House of Horrors as it sat abandoned in a Louisiana junkyard. The crew asked permission to film the interior, and pried open the doors of the forgotten relic to step inside.
The smell of decay was overpowering as the bright camera light illuminated the darkened corridors. Moving past the faded walls and hanging fabric, the smell began to increase. The cameraman retched as he panned his camera towards a series of trunks. Behind the trunks was a large wooden box stenciled like a children's toy. One letter filled each side of the box, J-A-C-K. The cameraman steadied his camera as the host of the show investigated the box. He found a large crank on the side of the box and turned it. It started to move with some resistance, but after a few twists, it freely moved in a clockwise rotation. A clanky musical melody played out as the host turned it. Suddenly, however, the Music stopped and wouldn't start again with his continued rotations. The camera light suddenly died and then the crank rotated a few spins on its own. The top of the box flew open and a form sprung out.
Affixed to a giant spring was the decomposing body of myself. After a thorough police investigation, the bodies of the thirteen children as well as my own were shipped to the local Louisiana coroner's office for further examination. Around midnight on Halloween the van carrying my body and box disappeared into the Louisiana swamp in a freak accident. Later that week the bodies of the BBC cameraman and host were found as the victims of a grisly and unsolved murder.
Throughout the following years urban legend re-tellings of the tale started, with a corresponding story about my decomposing body killing again. The legend states that I am searching for Dr. Oddfellow, in a thirst for vengeance. The legend also states that I will reward anyone who releases my from his toy tomb by turning the crank with a very special reward.
In 2000, Universal Studios bought the old props from the old House of Horrors, including what was sold as the box that I was trapped in for so many years. Apparently some poor fool tried to test this claim, and I was unleashed on the unsuspecting Halloween Horror Nights guests for the first (but certainly not last) time. My presence lingered in some form throughout the years until I was resurrected along with other Icons for HHN's Sweet Sixteen celebration.
Sadness; I was soon caught by the authorities and committed to the Shady Brook Asylum For The Criminally Insane, an institution that had suffured an inmate escape a few years earlier. Though often isolated in the Maximum Security Ward, my mere presence seemed to have an adverse effect on the ustable population, who started emulating me, much to the staff's dismay. Eventually, the inmates started a mass riot, gruesomely tortured the hospital staff, and put me in charge of the facility! During the chaos, I had found records that my former boss and murderer, Dr Oddfellow, was still alive and running a small traveling carnival.
I then left Shady Brook, traveling to the depravity of Dr. Oddfellow's Dark Carnival and Emporium. In the Dark of night, I stalked into the tents and took my long-overdue vengeance! When I emerged, I had changed. During incarceration, I got a taste of what it was like to run the show, and I desired to be the ringmaster of my own carnival... I dressed myself in the bright red coat and boots of a proper Ringmaster. I also adorned myself with a crude top hat and terrible trinkets of my liking. I completed the transformation with Dr. Oddfellow's prized possession: a silver-headed cane of souls. Putting the Carnival on hiatus, I spent the next months traveling the world to find the right sideshow acts for my deadly Carnival of Carnage. I gathered a plethora of monsters, mutants, madmen and maniacs, many with egos nearly as large as my own, luring them with promises of fame, fortune, show business, and plenty of fresh victims. After nearly a year of preparation, I, the Ringmaster, opened my dark Carnival of Carnage in Orlando, Florida.
