45. Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun

(Various Home, Gray Matter, 1990)
Many things were created to bring joy and laughter, things that bring a smile to your face and a song to your heart. Somewhere along the line, someone thought that the epitome of fun was a fully grown human in terrifying makeup and garish clothing, climbing out a tiny car and attacking his friends. Someone, somewhere, thought Clowns were damn funny.

I don't fear Clowns, but I know people who do and I understand their reasoning. Clowns are scary and sinister, that's why they are a staple of nightmarish horror: The Joker, Clownhouse, Stephen King's IT etc. Fiendish Freddy is the worst type of Clown, he's not an Auguste, or a Pierrot, or even a Hobo clown, he's one of those "wants to kill your employees and run you out of business so they can build an apartment complex in his name" clowns.
Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun consists of a series of circus act mini games, not like a Wii circus game though, as the titular clown has been hired to ruin your acts by bringing slapstick death and destruction to your performers, from throwing explosives at your juggler to obscuring the vision of your knife thrower and, as a comical coup de grace, cutting your tightrope walker in half with a circular saw.

Clowns sure are funny.

The player performs the various acts to the best of their ability, in spite of Freddy's interference and is judged by EVEN MORE CLOWNS after each act. Successful performances will cough up the cash to keep your circus up and running, but a string of failures will bring the final curtain down on the big top o'fun. Up to five players can take it in turns at each act, with the winner being the player who draws the most cash overall.

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun is a novel game featuring large, cartoony sprites, classic circus music and a sick sense of humour. The games are fairly enjoyable but a little trial and error, often requiring several plays before you get the hang of each act. The Spectrum and C64 ports do very well to incorporate all the scenes, sound and music of the Amiga version but the C64 loses graphic quality and the Spectrum loses ALL colours (The entire game is in black and blue)
One massive problem holding the game back is a horrible loading system, on tape it's incredibly hard work and multi-loads everything, you seem to be pressing play every two minutes. The Amiga version still suffers from lengthy load times which break the natural flow of the game.
Fiendish Freddy is still a good concept idea though, with a warped vision of entertainment and a nice visual and aural style which captures the classic "Roll up Roll up" circus feel. It's worth trying out just to experience it. With all the horrible family mini game packs pouring out, maybe someone should give Freddy a call to come along and liven things up.

And, now, from a Sesame Street episode, proof that Clowns are HILARIOUS!

I swear after he said "Me too" I thought he was gonna put a gun to his head.