Clown Cannon

Clown Cannon (, Clown Cannon) is Bowser Jr.'s neutral special.

Overview
When using the Clown Cannon, the Junior Clown Car shoots a cannonball out of its mouth. The cannonball knocks back and damages the first enemy it hits.

Upon activating the move, the Cannon will charge; the distance and damage is influenced by the time the move is charged. At close range, it inflicts 8.5% uncharged and 20% fully charged. Over a distance, the damage weakens to 5.9% uncharged and 14% fully charged. Uncharged, the cannonball goes about half the distance of Final Destination, and fully charged reaches just short of the entirety of Final Destination.

In Ultimate, after traveling straight, the cannonball will begin to fall. The cannonball retains its hitbox, allowing a falling cannonball to assist in edgeguarding. In addition, a falling cannonball has a hitbox that deals significant shield damage; a cannonball that hits both while falling and with its grounded hitbox can nearly break a full shield.

The endlag of firing a cannonball can be canceled by grabbing the ledge (facing either towards or away).

Customization
Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:


 * 1) Clown Cannon: Default.
 * 2) Piercing Cannon: The cannonball, as the name suggests, can go through multiple targets at the cost of damage and kill power. Additionally, the cannonball is smaller. Uncharged, damage peaks at 4% and falls to 2%, while fully charged damage starts at 10% and lowers to 5%. The move also has slightly less startup lag and charge time, but significantly more ending lag, to the effect of making the total duration longer overall, which - when combined with the reduced damage - makes the move completely unsafe on shield unless the opponent is far away.
 * 3) Air Cannon: This variation makes the cannon shoot out air, generating a push effect, and subsequently has less range than the standard and piercing shot, due to the wind not reaching as far as the cannonball. However, the push effect can be very useful for edgeguarding, and still has long reach. In addition, the move has significantly less startup lag, albeit with marginally increased ending lag. Finally, when used in the air, Bowser Jr. is stalled slightly upon firing the cannon, as well as being pushed back, with the distance being determined by charge.

Origin
Cannonballs have been very often launched from cannons on Bowser's airships, tanks, and boats in '; very large ones, known as, were dropped from Bowser's Koopa Clown Car in the final battle in '. In , during the third boss battle against Bowser Jr., he uses Bowser's Koopa Clown Car and fires spiked, explosive cannonballs from its cannon.

In usual Super Mario games, the cannonball itself flies through the air in an uninterrupted, straight line. In Super Smash Bros., however, the cannonball visibly spins around while moving through the air, a behavior instead exhibited by cannonballs fired by Shotzos from the universe.