Ad Rant: Why the Walmart Clown is funny

Of the hundreds of comments on my Ad Rant about the Walmart clown, half thought the TV spot was funny enough to pee their pants, and half thought the people who were lol-ing and rotfl-ing were morons and Neanderthals. You can't make people laugh at something if they don't think it's funny.

But what struck me was the number who seemed to think that the "clown" in the ad really did step on the sharp, pointy toy unicorn, that he was really in pain, and that the children in the commercial were really terrified and would grow up to have coulrophobia, a fear of clowns.

In other words, although they knew it was on television, they thought it was somehow real.

This is more alarming than the melting of the ice caps.

Because of the number of people writing in to ask why this ad was funny, here is the Official Ad Rant Explanation, including why knowing how commercials are made is vitally important to the experience of humor.