Probably S.E.Hinton’s “The Outsiders”, which I first read in 5th grade. I don’t remember the ending specifically, but the story overall was pretty much a downer.
Ah, psychological scars. I remember that we had to act it out!
Casey at the Bat poem.
Read to us in third grade.
I doubt it wins the title of “earliest memory”, but the one that really stands out for me is going to see My Girl in theatres when I was 12 yrs old. I bawled through the ending because it just wasn’t right or proper for Macaulay Culkin’s character to die when he was the lead, dammit.
I’m pretty sure that a Disney movie wins the title for earliest (most likely Bambi or Dumbo)… they all have happy endings, but still some major downers along the way. Unca Walt sure loved his orphaned and/or abandoned kids, huh?
The All in the Family episode where a Jewish Defense League activist got killed by a car bomb in the final scene. It kinda defined “heavy handed” for me.
Also, the deceptively-titled A Day No Pigs Would Die.
Has anyone here read Wild Animals I Have Known by Earnest Thompson Seaton?
My dad read them to me when I was a kid, and each one seemed sadder than the last. Which was part of Seaton’s purpose:
Very good stories I might add. “Lobo, the King of Currumpaw” is perhaps the saddest animal story I have ever read. Available on Gutenburg:
[spoiler]A lion shorn of his strength, an eagle robbed of his freedom, or a
dove bereft of his mate, all die, it is said, of a broken heart; and
who will aver that this grim bandit could bear the three-fold brunt,
heart-whole? This only I know, that when the morning dawned, he
was lying there still in his position of calm repose, his body
unwounded, but his spirit was gone–the old kingwolf was dead.
I took the chain from his neck, a cowboy helped me to carry him to
the shed where lay the remains of Blanca, and as we laid him
beside her, the cattle-man exclaimed: “There, you would come to
her, now you are together again.”[/spoiler]
I looked it up and found out this was two years before Henry Blake was killed so this one might be it. Damn I was young, what were my parents thinking when they let we watch it? It is possible that I saw it in reruns after the MASH thing. I know I was watching MASH as it aired.
I remember that one. I remember being very surprised at the time I read it that it was sold as a book for children. Deeply disturbing.
His imaginings were drug and brainwashing induced, for the purpose of extracting any information he may have. When his interrogators determine he knows nothing of importance, they order him killed. The “package” he was deparate to deliver to his dad (and thought would save him) contained his teddy bear …
My elementary school liked to show us Where the Red Fern Grows as a special “treat” around Christmas or at the end of the school year. Have a fun vacation kids, don’t let your dogs die!
I’ll second Time Bandits as well. I watched that movie by myself on cable around age 9 or so while my parents were either out for the evening and left me without a babysitter or they were having a “please don’t bother us upon pain of death” night. The movie was visually scary enough…but the end where the poor boy is left alone and no adults seem to care was pretty disturbing.
The Valse Triste segment in Allegro non Troppo.
Grab a kleanex and watch for yourself.
As sad as the Old Yeller movie is I always thought the book was probably sadder (and actually probably much more realistic to the place and time the story takes place):
In the book like the movie Old Yeller gets in the fight with the rabid wolf and wins, saving his family. However in the process Old Yeller gets somewhat chewed up by the wolf. The boy’s mother reminds him that even though O.Y.'s injuries aren’t so serious that he won’t recover, since the wolf was rabid O.Y. will almost certainly get rabies himself and put the whole family in danger. The boy realizes his mother is right and executes O.Y. on the spot.
Basically the boy is no longer a child at that point.
When, as a child, I read the Classics Illustrated FRANKENSTEIN while also struggling through the book, and realized the Creature wasn’t a monster or even misunderstood savage but a thinking feeling soulful eloquent being who still chose a campaign of murderous revenge and finally, instead of dying (to be revived in numerous sequels) in a flaming windmill or an exploding castle, floated away on an Artic iceflow to disappear in the darkness and distance.
Yes! My brother and I watched those specials with devotion (after all, in the days before VCRs, a kid’s TV special was an Event of some Magnitude), and as it came on, we would assume the position…lying on our stomachs in front of the TV, with our hands simultaneously supporting our chins and blocking the side view of our faces, so we could cry with some privacy.
One of my earliest downer endings was parts of the Narnia series, specifically the beginning of the second book, when the Pevensies realize they’re sitting in the ruins of Cair Paravel. Also, the end of The Last Battle, when Narnia is systematically dismantled. I don’t care if they went to Heaven!
I always thought the ending of The Last Unicorn, while not necessarily tragic, was certainly melancholy enough to leave a lasting impression on my 2nd grade psyche.
I remember thinking, “How sad to learn the meaning of ‘regret’ on the same day you realize you’ll live with it for the rest of your life.” And that that life is neverending.
Seen on TV in early 70s when I was in early elementary school:
John Wayne’s THE ALAMO. I was a little boy with a coonskin cap and toy musket and loved Davy Crockett- I thought for sure he’d come out okay.
or
LITTLE BIG MAN- I was also a General Custer fan due to the action figure. This one also upset me (I couldn’t believe that action figure killed women and children). I reckon that moment was as close I ever come to turnin’ full revisionist.
Holy cow, I had that book when I was a kid and haven’t thought of it in years–now that you mention it, it was rather a downer to give to kids, wasn’t it?
Off topic (slightly) - this discussion reminds me of sitting in a 5th grade classroom watching when Kennedy was shot. Many of us (including me) thought, “well he’s hurt but he won’t die”. I guess I hadn’t been exposed to enough of those downer endings.
That it was. 
‘Here, kiddies, is a book full of stories about animals. Each is wonderfully told, certain to engage your sympathies … and then, each in turn dies a horrible, heart-wrenching death.’ 
Most of mine have already been named, but I have one that sticks out in my memory.
My parents were just getting into the whole video rental thing and brought me home full-length cartoon movies a lot. One time, they brought The Plague Dogs. I think I was 8 years old.
Speaking of I am the Cheese, our class was puzzled by the significance of what it meant until, sometime later, we sang the song where the lyrics comes from: The Farmer Had a Wife (or something like that), where it goes from the Farmer, his Wife, the Dog, the Cat, the Rat, and then down to the Cheese:
A collective :smack: moment ensued.