Worst Use of a Clown Photo

To celebrate National Clown Week, The Kansas City Star printed in its July 30, 1999, issue what may have seemed like a standard clown shot -- a guy in clown makeup wearing a funny outfit and holding balloons. Unfortunately, that clown was actually serial killer John Wayne Gacy, a Chicago contractor who liked to don a clown suit to entertain children and worked with community organizations as a model citizen -- when he wasn't raping, torturing, and murdering young men, that is. What made it even worse was the cutline, which in the context of the Gacy photo, threatened: "It's a rule. You MUST celebrate Clown Week." Next thing you know, they'll use a photo of Theodore Kaczynski to tout National Postal Service Week. --MR