We had Pulsar! He dated Barbie sometimes.
I have never really liked puppets; we had a hand puppet of The Count from Sesame Street that scared the crap out of me for some reason. My brother had a skeleton model that glowed in the dark called The Body Human that had to be removed to another room b/c my brother couldn’t sleep knowing it was there.
THIS doll!
http://pages.tias.com/13/PictPage/1920832835.html
But the photo does not do her justice.
You twisted her arm and she made all kinds of terrifying faces. You could put your hand on her skin and feeeeel the mechanical changes as they happened. I was slightly scared of her during the day, but there was no Saucy in MY bedroom after dark!
My mother had a funny story about falling asleep with the doll in her bed and hearing the grinding sound, turning over and being face to face with Saucy in her “surprised” look. My poor mother backed out of the room, down the hall and almost made it out the back door before she realized it was Saucy and NOT part of the Trilogy of Terror!
I’d also like to add my brother’s Operation game. I not only refused to play it, I wouldn’t allow anyone else to either.
I ripped the corded tweezers out and buried them in the backyard.
My brother’s “Bozo the Clown” punching bag thingie. Sand in the bottom, so it bounced right back up when you hit it. He put it near the window, and during the summer, with the window open, the breeze blowing…I’d wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, and see it nodding towards me…that white face…:eek: terrible thing to do to a six year old.
Oh, man. Back in '94 when I was 9 years old, I played this game my dad had bought called Pathways into Darkness. Basically, you’re a guy trapped in a haunted pyramid.
Anyway, other than a dead german dude, the lower level is empty, so all is well. Little did I know the horror that awaited me.
I climbed the ladder to the second floor, to be almost immediately confronted by a hideous creature - it was just a torso on legs, spouting bright green worming/bloody awfulness!
I will admit, I screamed. That thing was SCARY. Killed me pretty quick, too. I only played that game a few more times.
…
sigh I’m in the wrong generation for this thread, aren’t I? 
I never had any really scary toys, per se…
My best friend’s parents bought her a large toy, which was shaped like an egg. It was a mechanical toy which responded to movement and sound, and whenever it detected either it would bounce up and down and sing. My bestie’s parents assumed that she would love it (she was 2 at the time.)
Well, they got it home and my bestie was *terrified * of it. She screamed and cried when it started to dance. Of course, her parents were kind of upset that she didn’t like it, but then came up with a brilliant use for it.
My best friend was a curious and naughty little kid who liked to get into the kitchen and throw utensils and pots and pans everywhere. So, instead of yelling at her for it, they placed the evil egg toy on the kitchen bench and left it on. She never went into the kitchen and made mischief again. Then, her parents started placing this evil toy anywhere she wasn’t allowed to go.
My best friend is 21 now. Her parents still have this toy, and pulled it out on her 21st birthday and told the story. I laughed when I saw that my best friend still shudders when the toy dances and sings! 
Not a toy, but to this day I am still freaked out by the “Magic Cookie” in the grade one reader I had (It was a yellow book, the second in a series, and this was one of the stories in it). The cookie was drawn in black-and-white, but was magic, so she gets up and leaves the bakery and sees a yellow bird, and an orange cat, and purple-spotted green frog…and she STEALS their colours from them!!! Add to that the fact that the images were of a weird play-doh cookie character, and it was downright SCARY!
My mom is a teacher, up until recently she taught grade one where that book was STILL used (she’s now teaching grade 2). I told her about my fear of this crazy cookie, and she laughed at me, because every year she had kids in her class LOVE that story, and none of them were scared. But then, I never told my teacher or my parents that I was scared, so what does she know? I helped her clean out her classroom a while ago, and came across those books, and they STILL scared me!
Chatty Cathy! :eek: Vacuous, bucktoothed and pure evil. I put that horrid thing in the back of my closet behind a wall of stuffed animals.
[shudder]
Marionettes, puppets, ventriloquists’ dummies…
Especially ventriloquists’ dummies. They’re just not RIGHT!!! Spent years of my childhood being terrified of even the sweetest looking puppet, thanks to my brother who made me stay up and watch some Twilight Zone (or similar show) episode with a dummy who killed people. Ohhhh…the face of it…
Fast forward many years. I’m now a sophisticated adult who went to a comedy club with friends. The comedian had a dummy. This was NOT good, but I’m a sophisticated adult, and handled it just fine - until he finished the act and left the dummy onstage in the dark. We’re drinking, we’re talking, we’re cool. Then its freaking eyes glowed and it started TALKING without the damn comedian around!!!
The widely told story is that I levitated from my chair and was out of the building within three seconds, with the screams getting fainter the further I flew. I cannot confirm this story.
I didn’t own a Pulsar, but I had a frightening run-in with him while at my first late-night babysitting job. I was picking up some of the boys’ toys after they went to bed, and before their parents came home. The Twilight Zone theme music was playing on the TV as I worked. I lost my grip on some of the toys, and dropped Pulsar onto the hardwood floor. Part of his hinged head broke off and went skittering away under the sofa. I had trouble finding his missing cranium, and had to pull the sofa out to retrieve it. I remember it as being kind of “glisten-y” among the dust bunnies that were back there. :eek: I tried my best to re-attach it myself, but failed miserably as a teenaged plastic brain surgeon.
When the parents came home, I explained that I’d accidentally caused Pulsar to become mentally unhinged, in not so many words. The dad said, “Oh, that’s okay… his head falls apart all the time.”:eek: Then he deftly replaced the offending noggin.
A few years earlier, when I was still into Barbies, my friends and liked to play “Barbie Nudist Colony”. Pulsar would not have been welcome at the colony; he was alltogether too revealing!
Sir Dirx and insomnia4AM,
My Buddy has NOTHING on Corky as far as Chucky-terror goes:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2927000313&category=2399
::Shudder:: This thing talked! and sang really annoying songs! My sister would cover his face at night so it wouldn’t stare at her, and though she’s 15 now, she still hides it in the closet.
My cousin’s Mrs. Beasley doll:
She was a doll, yet she looked like a grown woman, complete with glasses. And she had the most sinister look on her face… BRRRR!
No one ever knew what became of Mr. Beasley, but I have my suspicions.
Gawd, 30 years later and she STILL creeps me out. Thanks for the nightmares, Eve!
I have to add my vote to the “Poltergeist Clown Doll” camp. My neighbor had one exactly like it, and my brothers would chase me around the field where we played with it. Jerks.
Good Lord McFeatherHLF! Corky would have suffered the same fate My Buddy did with the clothes line! All of his limbs would have come off! I forgot to say that My Buddy did lose his head after we let him hang on the line. My father actually cut it off after seeing what we did to My Buddy’s limbs. He figured that our nightmares were bad enough, and he wanted to end them!
There is a Victorian soft-bodied, china-headed doll, dressed as a Franciscan nun, that has been in our family for at least four generations. My great-grandmother gave it to her eldest daughter (who coincidentally became a nun), and my great-aunt passed it on to my mother when I was a small child. This thing scared the hell out of my sister and me. By the time we saw it, the china head was covered with a fine web of cracks, and it had one of those creepy Victorian-doll faces in any case. Mom had it set up on top of the dresser in her bedroom, and we were afraid to go in there, especially at night.
When my parents retired a few years ago, Mom gave the doll to me along with some other family heirlooms. I tried putting the doll on my bedroom dresser, but still found it creepy to have in the room. Plus, it was gathering dust and the ancient clothes were too fragile to keep clean without risking damage. So now it’s in a box in the attic.
I told my sister that I was going to pass it on to her daughter someday, and she shuddered and answered, “Not until she’s old enough to stand looking at it!”
Oh, dear GOD! She’s baaaaaack!
Mrs. Beasley reproduction
:eek:
I was given two Mrs. Beasleys for Christmas one year; one from my grandma, and one from an aunt. I kept them in a box in the basement after my mom remarried and we had moved into my new dad’s house. The following spring, there was record flooding, and part of the foundation of our house was washed out. Everything in the basement was a total loss. One of the unexpected fringe benefits of a natural disaster is finally being able to throw out terrifying old gifts without a shred of guilt. Mrs. Beasley #1 and #2 were drenched in mud and smelled vaguely fishy. They went right into the dumpster. Such a pity.
Wouldn’t that make a good sig line!
Goodness, even the Mrs. Beasley phrases are scary.
Now that we’re all reduced to our 6-year-old terrified selves, everybody should go find a copy of The haunted dolls, a collection of Victorian scary-doll stories edited by Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis. eek.
My own scary doll is an old bed doll that once belonged to my grandmother as a girl. My mom gave her a new dress and new hair, and she lived in my room for years. I loved her and named her Isabella, but it turns out my younger brother thought she was the creepiest thing ever. A few months ago he was telling me about it (much to my surprise) and showing his wife how creepy the doll is–I still have her and she lives in the extra bedroom/sewing room.
I had a “zippy” the monkey, except his name was Toto.
He caused severe childhood anguish because I lost him one day.
My mom finally found another and gave hime to me when I was 16.
I also have one of those dolls that has the changing faces via her arm.
I also had a Mrs. Beasley.
I even had those Russ trolls when they weren’t so popular.
I guess I always liked wierd toys.
The one that kind of noided me out, but no one ever seems to recall but me is a cow made by Kenner (I think). You could actually “milk” it. :eek:
This one’s more recent, but…
Stretch Armstrong.
The only reason he freaked me out so thoroughly is because I had a recurring dream throughout my childhood where I was standing in the middle of a big empty cement basement-type room, and my arms were stretching. Just stretching and stretching and stretching until they were in loopy piles on the floor and filling the room. I would wake up crying and run into my parents’ room with my arms crossed over my chest and holding onto myself to keep them from stretching.
So you can guess that our litle friend Stretch Armstong scared the living shit out of me.
