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In 1986, Stephen King was over horror. By then, he had given us killer teens, killer cars, killer cats, and killer vamps. No, despite the demand and the stack of receipts to prove it, The Master of Horror was hankering to close the door on the genre he conquered — only he didn’t see it that way. In his eyes, King felt he was “the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and large fries from McDonald’s,” as he told Time Magazine that year in a bout of self-deprecation, insisting that his latest work was “a very badly constructed book.”
What book was that? Oh, a forgettable story about a bunch of pre-teen heroes who fight some equally forgettable clown in a filthy Maine sewer. Ever heard of it? Or, better yet, ever heard of It? Of course you have. Thirty-five years later, that “very badly constructed book” has become one of the most popular novels of all time — even beyond the horror genre. You can ask critics or Constant Listeners, scholars or students, and most would agree (and perhaps even argue) that King’s 1986 horror epic is hardly a disposable fast food item.
The Losers’ Club did exactly that three years ago. In the Fall of 2018, the gang gathered at the proverbial Barrens to honor their namesake with a six-episode dissection that spans hours and speaks volumes about King’s influential prose. Through thick and thin, the Losers cover it all: The history of the novel, the timeless themes, the characters’ arcs, the terrifying scares, the connections to King’s Dominion, everything — and then some. It’s a staggering deep dive that would win the stamp approval from Mike Hanlon himself.
So, celebrate the novel’s 35th anniversary today by streaming all six episodes below. Then you can stick around for further adventures by joining the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).