This product is horrifically bad, and an example of exactly what they want to do in the future. The game is not just not about combat, it punishes combat. The game is meant to be about player characters going around being dramatic and having whimsical encounters in a cutesy-poo land of wonder. It's marketed as "D&D for theatre kids". DMs are FORCED to have a session zero, and players have veto power over the DM.
And Thaco The Clown is really a dig against all of the regular D&D gamers who object to the SJW agenda of WoTC. It's a sad/angry clown that's a literal gatekeeper (he guards a door), named after a weird mechanic (the choice of which shows how stunningly ignorant the likes of Chris Perkins really are about D&D or the OSR).
But on another level, the pipe is undoubtedly a direct dig at me. Which just shows you how much I worry these guys. How mad they are at me. And how worried they are about the rising level of criticisms as they accelerate the speed of their agenda at turning D&D into an SJW theater game for millennial narcissists.
Thaco the Clown isn't an attack on me. It's an attack on YOU. I'm just in their way.