Beep beep, Richie!

Whether you love the 1990 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s IT or you agree with our own Jonathan Barkan, as I personally do, that it doesn’t hold up so well, one thing nobody can deny is that evil clown Pennywise (played by Tim Curry) is the standout highlight of the whole thing. There’s a reason Curry’s performance is what most people remember, that’s for sure.

Artist Bart J. Mixon is the man who designed the iconic Pennywise makeup seen in the mini-series, and over the years he’s shown off some pretty awesome behind the scenes photos over on his Facebook page – including previously unseen makeup tests on both dummy heads and Tim Curry himself. Since the various home video releases have never provided behind the scenes photos or videos of any kind, Mixon’s uploads are really the only way we can travel to the set, so god bless him for preserving and sharing his experiences.

Earlier this week, Mixon showed off a quartet of never-before-seen photos of a Pennywise stop-motion puppet that was used for a handful of sequences in the original mini-series, including the goofy and highly dated scene at the end of Part 1 where Pennywise jumps down a drain after being attacked by the brave kids, and we wanted to share them with you today.

Mixon explains:

A stop motion version of Pennywise was needed for a hand full of effects shots created by Gene Warren at Fantasy II.

The puppet was sculpted by Dan Platt with a regular face, but the day I was molding it the production decided to use the acid burn make-up, so I had to create a mini-facial prosthetic for the puppet to change it’s features. I painted the puppet and Jack Bricker did his hair.

Gotta love old-school movie magic!