At least they didn’t live in a Captial T
We all live in a capital T
In the middle of an island
Somewher in the sea
::shivers:: I opened this thread just to post about Mummenschanz. The commercials seemed to always be on TV when I was about 3 years old (according to Wikipedia, Mummenschanz was on Broadway at the time). I once vaulted over my aunt’s couch to get away from the TV when one of the commercials came on.
I know that Mummenschanz is a mime troupe, but I have a distinct memory of the performers in black body stockings and white masks (one was round, the other was shaped like a multi-pointed star) chanting in an eerie, repetitive monotone. That commercial would have run in New York in the late 1970s. Can anyone confirm that for me? I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about it, and I really don’t want to check for myself (I’d like to sleep sometime this week).
That was one of the acid-trip Sesame Street cartoons they used to run. I remember that one, but it didn’t bother me so much. By the wya, it’s “A loaf o’ bread, a container o’ milk, and a stick o’ buttah.”
:dubious:
If you must know, it was his eerie perma-grin with the teeth. Most Muppets didn’t have teeth, and Dr. Tooth’s choppers made him look maniacal. He looked like he was about to lunge for me and take a chunk out of my neck.
Meh. Not that scary at all. There’s a difference between the ages of eight and twenty-eight.
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Even Johnny Whitaker freaked me out. He looked…odd. But I came back for more every week, squirming in disgust while I watch their adventures.
When I was little and we watched Family Affair, I remember my mother remarking, “You’d think they could do something with his hair.”
A few years later when he was on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, it was even worse. It freaked me out.
Scooby Doo. Yes, Scooby Doo TERRIFIED me!
Didn’t spook me, but I cried when Dave deactivated HAL. “Dave my mind is going, I can feel it… I can feel it… I’m afraid.” 
I hate Dave. :mad:
Well, to be fair to Dave, HAL had tried to maroon him inside his excursion pod, where of course he would have suffocated and died. I don’t know about you, but having to blast myself through the vacuum of space into an airlock, holding my breath while the doors closed with excruciating slowness, would put me in the mind of hitting the big Control-C.
Calling Tech Support is just out of the question by then.
Sesame Street used to show a clip of a song called Wet Paint, which involved paint dripping down everywhere, including the screen itself (if I remember correctly). Now, I was a sensitive child back then, but nothing ever set me off quite like that.
Does anyone remember this clip, and if so, what about it could have been so frightening?
I understand that now.
For the television debut of that show, which I watched on a Heathkit TV, I couldn’t have been more than… well, probably too old to be that upset over a movie, but still pretty young. 7?
<hijack>Anyone know when 2001 was first shown on network TV in the US?</hijack>
HAL was the star of that film!
I’m trying to track down this darn talking victrola- it’s the last memory that I can’t place from childhood!
There was a program that Boris Karloff hosted, kind of like Twilight Zone, and I’ve never met anyone who remembers it, and I don’t recall the name, but one of the episodes was called “The Cheaters.” About special glasses. Very scary. Since I was always incredibly near-sighted and wore glasses, it scared the crap out of me.
I ask this periodically, so if you’ve seen it before, you can skip ahead now:}
About 1964, probably on an episode of That Was the Week That Was, probably Nancy Ames sang a song: three nearly identical verses about a man running from, presumably, soldiers. The only lines I can remember are “They got your wife, [name]. / Run for your life [name].” The name changed on each verse. The third time through, it was “Jack Johnson.” I’m going to guess that the first two were Spanish-, Russian-, or Chinese-sounding names, though at 10, I’d likely not have recognized them that way. At the end, the singer screamed “Hide!”
I’ve made all the obvious Google searches, but nothing turns up. And I’d love to get this song for my collection. Anyone know what I’m talking about?
The title of the series was “Thriller”. Final scene http://youtu.be/aOyZj2VRqdk
“Thriller” is currently on MeTV on Sunday night.
There was a commercial (car commercial, I think) which my family called the “Blue Moon” commercial. It began with a shot of the moon, and someone sang the words “blue moon.” It used to freak me out as a kid, to the point where I’d scream whenever it came on.
I seemed to have missed out on all the scary stuff on Sesame Street as I had already started school when it hit the airways.
The rest of the american aired shows I saw but found nothing scary in them. Can’t think of anything I found scary or creepy as a child…the cemetary at church was a place to run while playing tag. Being down in the woods after dark was a fun place to freak out the cousins on their rare visits. Read The Exorcist at 11 or 12 and didn’t find it that frightening.
But at the age of 26 or so I read Stephen Kings ‘It’. Roughly three months later I’m waiting at the light to make a left-hand turn and realized I was beside a storm drain. Light turned green and before oncoming traffic could move, I had made my left turn. For several years after I would go out of my way to avoid stepping onto the curb at a storm drain.
I still keep an eye out for Pennywise.
My god, Rowrrbazzle, thanks so much, there’s a bunch of them there, so cool, can share with people who think I’m crazy!!!
Timmy in that damned well always got me on edge 
Well, since we’ve reanimated a seven-year old thread, it seems appropriate to mention an animated film I saw about that age, that was about this poor freak of a kid. He lived in a land where everyone had a triangular head, but his head was round. His family loved him, but sent him off to find the country of the other round-headed people, figuring he’d be happy there. They gave him some triangular money and some chocolate bars, also triangular, and sent him off accompanied by his faithful dog.
All that didn’t scare me, but at one point in his wanderings, he comes across a bottomless pit. The animator chose to draw a shot from inside the pit, looking up at the kid and his dog leaning over the edge. Scared the unholy hell out of me. Like the poster upthread who was freaked out by the Flintstones bottomless pit - and I remember that episode - the concept of a endless hole was frankly terrifying.
Sesame Street had a piece of scary music - the “Menommenah” song (you know, the one that goes “menommeah doo-DOO de doo-doo, menommenah doo DOO doo doo”). I don’t remember what went along with that music, but the melody itself scared the bejesus out of me.
Childhood is a place of innocence and joy? Hah! Childhood is when you have to battle monsters.
The creepy disembodied lips freaked me out too.