A Bizarre Pennywise Fan Theory Connects Stephen King's It To A Disney Classic

It's hard not to love a good fan theory, because sometimes they're absolutely bonkers while actually having some pretty salient points. Fan theories have been around since long before the internet, of course, with theories about the potential eighth passenger on The Minnow on "Gilligan's Island" dating back to at least the 1960s, but the world wide web has made it much easier for fans to develop and share their theories. Anyone with a wild take can head to social media and proliferate it, which means we are in an era of some truly fascinating fan theories. One of the most unique connects Stephen King's terrifying monstrous clown Pennywise from "It" to a beloved character from a Disney classic, and while it sounds ludicrous at first, it's really not all that far-fetched. At the very least, it's not any more far-fetched than the idea that Jesus Christ was an Engineer in the "Alien" movies, anyway.

The theory proposes that Pennywise, the tap-dancing murder clown who feasts on fear, is actually the same kind of being as Mary Poppins, the whimsical nanny from the Disney films "Mary Poppins" and "Mary Poppins Returns." The idea is that they're both magical creatures that feed on emotion, though clearly they feed on very different feelings. 

According to a fan theory that made the rounds on Reddit and then expanded elsewhere, Mary Poppins (first played by Julie Andrews in the 1964 Disney classic of the same name and then by Emily Blunt in the 2018 film "Mary Poppins Returns") is an eldritch being similar to Pennywise — but instead of feeding on fear, she instead is nourished by joy. 

Reddit user HumanoidMold5 explained that they made the connection because of "Mary Poppins Returns," which fully illustrates the similarities between Pennywise and Poppins. In the fun (if derivative) "Mary Poppins Returns," the magical woman who travels via flying umbrella returns to the Banks family after 25 years to help the next generation of kids learn important life lessons like tidiness and taking your medicine. In both the novel and the various film adaptations of "It," Pennywise returns to Derry, Maine every 27 years to terrifying a new generation of kids. The user points out that according to the rules in Disney's "Monsters, Inc.," joy is more powerful than fear, so Mary Poppins needs to interact with fewer children than her clown counterpart in a similar period of time. Not only that, but children's emotions are stronger than adults, which is why both Mary and Pennywise generally feed from kids.

Mary Poppins and Pennywise have quite a bit more in common than just their unusual sources of nourishment. They also share powers, a love of song and dance, and have a tendency to return to the children they once influenced.

Both Mary Poppins and Pennywise have magical abilities that involve taking the ideas out of children's heads and making them real. In the colorful, wonderful world of "Mary Poppins" that's things like bringing animated penguins to life, as imagination becomes the stuff of reality, but in "It," Pennywise makes children's worst fears appear to come true. Though there are some adults with wild imaginations, children tend to have much stronger senses of both whimsy and danger, meaning they provide much stronger fodder for Mary and Pennywise's eldritch magic. While Mary brings sidewalk drawings to vibrant life and makes the children laugh and sing, Pennywise shows hypochondriac Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) a drooling leper and tortures Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) with a demonic version of his friend Beverly (Sophia Lillis), who taunts him cruelly before her head bursts into flames. Both Poppins and Pennywise also have mirror images that can act independently, to both comedic and horrific effect. 

They share some other powers as well, including seemingly being ageless, floating or flying, and being able to move objects with their minds (telekinesis). They also both have an association with objects that "help" them float; for Poppins it's her umbrella, and for Pennywise it's his red balloon. (More on this later.) 

Another striking similarity between Pennywise the dancing clown and the perennially posh Miss Poppins is that when they return after their 20 or so years away, they both initially lure a child named Georgie away using paper toys. In "Mary Poppins Returns," Mary returns young Georgie Banks' (Joel Dawson) kite after it gets loose and she catches it in the sky, ingratiating herself to Georgie and then the other Banks children. In the terrifying opening sequence of "It: Chapter One," young Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) chases the paper boat his brother Bill (Jaeden Martell) made him, following it down the rain gutters and then despairing as it falls into the sewer drain. Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) is lurking in the sewer and offers Georgie the boat as a means to grab him and bite his arm off. It's shocking, nasty stuff that seems completely contrary to the kindness of Mary Poppins ... but it's hard to deny that the Georgie connection is a pretty weird coincidence. 

The two Georgies meet very different fates. Georgie Banks ends up having a magical time with his new nanny, singing songs and spending time with his siblings. Georgie Denbrough is violently killed and becomes a part of Pennywise's nightmarish world, trapped with the other children he's abducted. While Mary Poppins is clearly the preferable emotion-eating entity, they both seem bound to their specific locations, so the kids of Derry and London can't exactly swap monsters. 

It's noteworthy that Mary Poppins and Pennywise both appreciate song and dance — they don't call Pennywise the dancing clown for nothing! In both the original 1964 film and the sequel, Mary Poppins uses the magic of song and dance to delight and educate the Banks children. From the singing sweetness of "A Spoonful of Sugar" to the crackerjack rhyming Cockney slang of "Trip A Little Light Fantastic," Mary Poppins and the people around her break into all kinds of amazing songs. They're full of whimsy and wonder, with plenty of dancing. Pennywise isn't really dropping any great new musical numbers, but he does enjoy dancing around by hopping from one foot to the other set to terrifying carnival music, so he has his own, er, peculiar musical tastes. 

Pennywise also has a power referred to as Deadlights, which may be his true alien form, and it is a bright light that's incomprehensible to the human mind, causing anyone who looks into it to go mad. In the "Mary Poppins Returns" scene for "Trip A Little Light Fantastic," Mary creates a team of imaginary lamplighters to sing and dance with her, perhaps using them as her way of showing the children her own true form without blowing their tiny minds. Mr. Banks can't see the lamplighters, much like the adults of Derry have a hard time seeing Pennywise unless they previously saw him as children, so it's all well within the realm of possibility. 

At the very end of "Mary Poppins Returns," Mary, Jack, and the children all grab onto balloons and fly away into the sky. Pennywise is heavily associated with balloons, particularly red balloons, which represent a "harmless" item that he uses to lure his child victims. Mary's balloons seem much less insidious, but are similarly magical creations that help her toward her greater end (making the children laugh so she can feed on their laughter). 

There are other creatures like Pennywise in Stephen King's created worlds, like Dandelo in King's "The Dark Tower" novels, who feeds off laughter in a much more menacing way than Mary Poppins. This is Stephen King we're talking about, so Dandelo nearly kills his victims instead of just having whimsical adventures with them, but it's proof that there are other creatures like Pennywise who feed on other emotions. We'll probably never know for sure if this fan theory really floats or not, but either way, it sure is a lot of fun to think about.