Burger King is ramping up its war with McDonald's by treating fans who come in dressed as a scary clown to a free Whopper. McDonald's has had somewhat of an image problem as of late due to the scary clown craze that happened last fall as well as the release of the big screen adaptation of Stephen King's IT throwing gasoline on the fire for poor old Ronald McDonald. McDonald's has recently had to scale back using Ronald in a lot of new promotional material due to the recent fascination with creepy clowns and now Burger King is taking trolling to a whole new level with their latest commercial.

The fast-food chain said on its YouTube page that it will give free Whoppers to the first 500 people dressed as clowns from 7 p.m. until closing time at participating locations, including restaurants in Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Austin, Boston, Salt Lake City, and more. Burger King has dubbed the night their first annual "Scary Clown Night." Burger King's video promoting Scary Clown Night is actually pretty scary, almost as scary as eating the food from Burger King. A child is seen biking through the streets at night, when a clown dressed in yellow and red creeps up on him from behind on a tiny bike. The video's tagline, "Come as a clown, eat like a king," is the best dig on McDonald's that we've seen in quite some time.

The new marketing campaign is not the first time Burger King has trolled McDonald's. Just this month, Burger King took over a screening of the Stephen King horror movie IT, posting the phrase "The moral is: never trust a clown", before the end credits rolled. Though the aforementioned trolling was a subtle jab at McDonald's, the new commercial is waging all-out war, leaving it very obvious that they are attacking Ronald McDonald and company. McDonald's has yet to respond or retaliate at this time.

While the insults to McDonald's are obvious, Burger King claims that it's just a happy coincidence since the scary clown costume is the number 3 most popular Halloween costume this year. That is some good marketing research on Burger King's part, but it's too good of a troll to be purely coincidental. It is important to note that Burger King's King mascot is quite possibly one of the most terrifying things that many have ever seen, so McDonald's has some ammunition should they decide to get up from the sidelines and start fighting back.

This is a lot better than the time that Burger King "dressed up" as the ghost of McDonald's and may be one of the greatest trolls of all time. "We don't usually talk about clowns," Alex Macedo, President, North America, for the Burger King brand, said in a statement, dancing around his company's longtime rivalry. "But for this Halloween, come dressed as a clown to eat like a king." You can check out the "Scary Clown Night" promotional video below, courtesy of Burger King's official YouTube account.