Stephen King Uses Pennywise to Make Fun of Coronavirus Hysteria

You can’t open social media without reading about the coronavirus, which is seeing people around the world taking precautions, hoarding toilet paper, canceling events, and more. While the threat of COVID-19 is certainly serious, there’s no escaping jokes about the outbreak online. Even some celebrities have shared memes about the coronavirus, including Stephen King. The horror author took to Twitter yesterday to make fun of the hysteria by using one of his most classic characters: Pennywise the Clown.

You may recall that at the beginning of IT, the devious monster lures Georgie Denbrough into the sewer with the promise of returning the child’s paper boat. In the case of the meme shared by King, Pennywise is now offering up hand sanitizer. “I got hand sanitizer down here,” the meme reads in place of the classic line, “We all float down here.” You can check out King’s post below:

The coronavirus has infected more than 90,000 worldwide and killed more than 3,000 of those infected. The spread of the COVID-19 has caused wide-scale disruption across the entertainment industry. WWE is monitoring the spread of the virus in Tampa Bay, Florida, the site of WrestleMania 36. Warner Bros. canceled the premiere of Superman: Red Son. Netflix is struggling to film Dwayne Johnson’s new movie, Red Notice. Disney delayed the Chinese premiere of its live-action Mulan movie indefinitely. The Game Developers Conference canceled its 2020 event after a series of company pullouts.

As for Pennywise, the clown formally played by Tim Curry (as seen in King’s meme) was recently portrayed by Bill Skarsgård in IT CHAPTER TWO. If you’re a fan of Andy Muschietti’s two-part horror film series, you’re in luck, because the director has teased an upcoming supercut of the two IT movies. He says the project will feature deleted scenes, including a flashback to the 1600s that explores Pennywise the clown’s history. You can read more about the director’s plans here.

When it was released last year, IT CHAPTER TWO was met with mixed reviews and currently standing at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes (although, the audience score is 78%). Comicbook.com’s Brandon Davis sums it up succinctly in his IT CHAPTER TWO review, which you can read here.

IT CHAPTER TWO is now available for home viewing.