There’s Reason to Fear That Clown

By JUSTIN KENDALL

William R. Watkins reminds me of why clowns freak me the fuck out. In late December, Jackson County prosecutors charged Watkins with possessing child pornography and molesting and sodomizing children. Independence police, who recently released these photos, say the mullet-sporting 53-year-old dressed as The Grinch and Beetlejuice at events throughout Kansas City for the last 18 years. Watkins also did his Michael Keaton imitation at the West Bottoms haunted house, The Beast.

I’m from a small town in central Iowa, and this photo of the Beetlejuice barber reminds me too much of a guy that we called “Uncle Dad.” Uncle Dad earned his moniker for supposedly fathering one his sister’s children.

I’m not sitting on this guy’s lap. Somewhere in that bushy costume is a candy cane that I don’t want poking me. And I don’t want to find out if it’s three sizes too small.