In the Secretes of NIMH, the scene with the Owl or whenever the rats with glowing eyes appeared I would freak out.
HR Puff’n’stuff (or whatever the hell that paranoia-inducing permanent bad trip was called) ruined my childhood.
I didn’t know that they gave ET a PG rating. Pathetic considering what I read about their digitally editing out weapons in certain scenes of the movie.
I’ll second Littlefoot’s mother dying.
Though it’s not a movie, the cartoon show Animaniacs had a girl who loved animals (forgot her name). Well she finds a cat and says “Oh I just love little pussies.” I swear the people that write these kiddy shows are on crack. And what’s the deal with the baby-faced sun on Telletubbies? That thing scares the shit out of me every time I think about it.
Oh, there’s so many-
but for disturbing on a different level, [b[Indian in the Cupboard** had some really weird uncomfortable moments. Like when the kid was rooting around in the other kid’s fanny pack , grappling around for the little indian and cowboy-that kid was creepy. Anybody else get that vibe?
Rip the piss = take the piss = extract the urine = take the mickey = generally amuse oneself at another’s expense.
pan
David Bowie’s horrible goblin song in Labyrnth shook my very value system at how someone who’s music I love could ever do something like that…
Perhaps because I read Watership Down years ago, I never regarded it as a “kids movie” - I find it interesting that so many people did.
Hey, I like the song too. We´re talking about the one from the original version right and not the horrible cheesy song they put at the end of the special edition.
I dislike Ewoks in general though.
Let’s everyone join in a round of the “Yub-nub Song” AKA “The Ewok Song of Triumph” from the end of Jedi.
YUB-NUB!
<waves little Ewok spear threateningly at the bonfire>
In Disney’s “The Black Hole”, one of the characters gets impaled by a giant drill-totin’ robot.
Also, the chicken scene in Wonka was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. Still, it doesn’t keep the movie from being one of my favs!
“What Was I Scared Of?”, the last story in Dr. Seuss’s THE SNEETCHES.
"Well, I was deep inside the woods
When suddenly I spied them:
I saw a pair of pale green pants,
With nobody inside 'em!
“I wasn’t scared, but yet I stopped.
What could those pants be there for?
What could a pair of pale green pants
Be standing in the air for?”
Got that bastard memorized, both from my own childhood nightmares and from making sure to inflict the same on MY two kids.
I didn’t know it had been made into a movie, though.
That was Elmyra who literally loved animals to death. Ever notice her hairbow? The knot is covered with a small animal’s skull.
Wasn’t that Jennifer Connelly? The most terrifying thing about Labryinth was her “acting.” 
What really used to freak me out, according to my parents, was an animated bit I barely remember on The Electric Company. It involved some large white tower or column (I think) breaking through the ground and rising up to the sky to Strauss’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” When it came on–and I suppose, when the music was played again in our house–I hid under the kitchen table.
Oh, and when Nicodemus dies in The Secret of NIMH? I still cry a little.
Puff the Magic Dragon left me sad for days when i was little!
Geez, don’t look at me! I was scared by Jackie Gleason’s face on the moon on the opening credits of “The Honeymooners.” For years I would pruposely not look out my bedroom window at night, just case that’s what I saw…
And who wants to be mooned my Jackie Gleason!
Little Bird, it’s a Dr. Seuss story. I shook with fright every time my mother pulled that book off the shelf for bedtime reading. My siblings never seemed to notice the unmitigated horror that was The Pants With No One In Them.
[tangent]Has anyone else noticed how little parents know about childhood fears? Children are not so easily frightened by the things adults believe should be frightening but are reduced to nervous twitching over seemingly trivial occurences. [/tangent]
“Nestor, the Long-Eared Donkey.” I watched that this year for the first time in many years. Being pregnant didn’t help but man, I bawled like a baby…AGAIN!
mmm…
I wouldn’t consider it so either, and I wouldn’t let my child watch it at his age, but to a lot of people animation = cartoon = kids. Blockbuster had it in the Family section last time I rented it (several years ago, have my own copy now) so it’s easy to see where kids would be exposed to it.
I’m not sure if The Wiz was a kids movie, per se, but there’s a part in that movie that I found quite disturbing. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details but I think they’re (the good guys) running from some evil person and wind up in a subway. Somehow the evil person inflates these scary orange (or were they red) giant ‘people’ and they seem to take on a life of their own and start chasing the scarecrow, lion, etc.
It creeps me out just thinking about it now!
Not only do too many people assume that all cartoons are suitable for kids, but too many movie makers assume that animation is not appropriate for adult stories. There are a lot of stories not suitable for kids that never get filmed because it would be too expensive to do them any way other than animation. (CGI is changing that, slowly.)
And too many people also assume that if there is a kid in the movie or if the movie is based on a comic book, it must be suitable for kids. Hey, folks! Spider-Man is rated PG-13. It really isn’t the ideal movie for five-year-olds!