Tricky the Clown / Tiky

About

Tricky the Clown is an antagonistic character best known from the Newgrounds' Madness Combat game series, often portrayed as a psychotic zombie clown with red curly hair and a blood-stained face. Tricky began in 2003 as a generic clown character in a series of NSFW animations. Tricky has since become a fan-favorite character in the Madness series, resulting in numerous works of fan art depicting him, including animations and memes. In 2021, a Friday Night Funkin' mod featuring Tricky was released, greatly increasing his popularity. In May of that year, people began referring to the character as Tiky in ironic memes parodying the Amogus trend.

Origin

Tricky the Clown began as a popular generic clown character in NSFW Newgrounds^[18][19] animations. The original animation, titled "xkittyfroggymeowmeow," was created by user Dan Paladin and posted to Newgrounds^[21] on January 2nd, 2003. It features Tricky dancing with his penis out. Most subsequentTricky animations revolve around penis humor as the main punchline. Early examples of these can be found on the site throughout 2003. The original Tricky animation is notably referenced at the end of the video game Castle Crashers.^[20]

Tricky is most known as a primary antagonist in the Madness Combat series, consisting of both Flash animations and games. Tricky's first appearance is in the Newgrounds^[1] Flash animation Madness Combat 2: Redeemer, released January 15th, 2003, appearing as a typical henchman with clown makeup, notably not yet a zombie (shown below).

In Madness Combat 3: Avenger,^[2] the protagonist Hank presses a button activating the "Improbability Drive," a device that breaks reality and allows strange, chaotic things to happen, in this case altering gravity and making a giant marshmallow appear out of nowhere among other things. Hank stabs Tricky with a street sign, sticking him to the marshmallow. Tricky then gets zapped by a field of energy and is revived as a zombie with enhanced abilities thanks to the Improbability Drive (shown below).

In Madness Combat 4,^[3] Tricky appears as a club DJ with a hockey-style mask (shown below, left). It's unknown why exactly he began wearing the mask. Tricky ends up escaping death at the end of the animation. In Madness Combat 5, ^[4] Tricky appears to fight Hank, donning a damaged mask (shown below, right). Tricky kills Hank in the end.

Tricky continued to appear in nearly every subsequent Madness animation,^[6] becoming a fan favorite and inspiring a significant amount of fan art and content surrounding him.

Spread

Tricky has been a fan favorite character on Newgrounds^[16][17] since his regular inclusion in the Madness series, resulting in a wide variety of fan content about him on and off the site (popular fan art shown below).

Friday Night Funkin' Tricky Mod & Popularity Boom

On March 16th, 2021, Game Banana^[12] user Banbuds posted a full week mod for the video game Friday Night Funkin' adding Tricky the Clown as an antagonist (shown below). The mod has since become one of the most popular for its high quality, garnering over 1.2 million downloads in two months.

The Tricky Mod, as well as the popularity of Friday Night Funkin', helped boost the popularity of Newgrounds and its properties in general, further spreading Tricky to new fans of the site.

On March 23rd, YouTuber JayLikez2Play posted a compilation of every moment Tricky appears in the Madness series, garnering over 6.8 million views in two months (shown below).

Tricky has appeared in numerous crossover fan content with Friday Night Funkin' since, including animations, art, and memes (popular animations shown below).

Tiky

On April 29th, 2021, Memedroid^[5] user Waltensito posted a drawing parodying the original Amogus image showing a generic Madness Combat character looking down at a small, simplified version of Tricky, saying, "Tiky," a purposeful misspelling of the name. The post gained over 230 ratings in a month.

On April 30th, Redditor u/riccomaxbruh posted a fuller version of the image to /r/GoCommitDie^[9] (shown below) and has since claimed to create the image.^[10] This, however, is unconfirmed, as the earliest post on Memedroid predates u/riccomaxbruh's earliest.

On May 2nd, Redditor u/Romotient_GD posted the image to /r/MadnessCombat,^[7] garnering over 500 upvotes in two weeks. The next day, u/riccomaxbruh posted the image to /r/FridayNightFunkin,^[8] garnering over 1,100 upvotes in a comparable span of time.

On May 6th, Redditor u/Turbine23 posted a voiced over version of the meme to /r/FridayNightFunkin^[11] featuring a low-quality voice saying "Tiky" followed by an equally low-quality version of the song "Madness" from the FNF Tricky Mod, garnering over 1,100 upvotes in two weeks (shown below, reuploaded to YouTube).

People began making new memes and art referencing Tricky as "Tiky" over the course of the month across social media, many both on /r/MadnessCombat^[14] and /r/FridayNightFunkin,^[15] due to the character's crossover popularity (examples shown below, left and right).

On May 18th, Newgrounds^[13] user Doofay posted an original piece of art showing Tricky angry over people calling him Ticky (shown below).

On May 19th, YouTuber LYON S.P.D posted an original Garry's Mod animation featuring Tiky, a Madness character, and Boyfriend from Friday Night Funkin', garnering over 484,000 views in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, YouTuber BYOK posted an animated version of the meme in which Tiky attacks the Madness character, garnering over 400,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References