Nope. I still love clowns and ventriloquist dummies and stuff like that. Horror writers have known for quite a while now that the best way to scare people is to twist something they like, like children or clowns or ventriloquist dummies, into something dangerous. We can see it with the general psyche about clowns, everyone you meet thinks clowns are creepy. But when I was a kid, everyone loved clowns. Then along came Pennywise and Poltergeist and Whamo! everyone's scared of clowns now.

I think the key is keeping scary fantasy separated from reality in your mind.