When I was a kid, I watched “Soap.” I was probably younger than their target demographic, and I’m sure a lot of the jokes went over my head.
There was a story arc where Corrinne’s baby became possessed by the devil. And there was a scene where she put the baby to bed in the crib and left the room, turning out the light. And then the room became bathed in an eerie red light, stuff started flying around the room, and we heard maniacal laughter. And it freaked me out something fierce. This was before I saw The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, etc.
this one is kind of dumb because… well, it just is.
Now I know Monk isn’t all silliness. I mean, duh. There’s going to be murder and showdowns and stuff.
But there was one episode… Mr. Monk and the Leper. Now… I have pretty bad eyesight and so there’s a lot of subtle stuff that I miss on TV.
In this episode. Mr. Monk has an encounter with a leper who says he’s been in hiding and his wife thinks he’s dead. He ends up being reunited with his wife in front of Mr. Monk and Natalie early on and they’re all happy and such.
Well then there’s a scene where we see the “leper” minus leprosy. Which I guess was supposed to tip people off that all was not as it seemed, but I, without my eyeglasses, failed to notice that said “leper” appeared to be all better. I noticed it later when my mom pointed it out. Anyway, he’s playing the piano, smiling, and his smiling wife comes in and they smile at each other.
Now I figured at this point, she’d sit down next to him and they would discuss their nefarious plans. But no. BANG! she pulls out a gun and just shoots him! like, out of nowhere!
In an Simpsons episode Homer becomes Flanders best friend but Ned becomes fed up with Homer hanging around. I found it unsettling how persistent Homer was at wanting to hang out with Flanders and the length he goes to.
Of course I understand it and I think they meant to make Homer unsettling but it still felt a little weird.
Oh my god, yes. I was reading the synopsis for this episode recently, and it came across as creepy.
“Hurricane Neddy” was a good example of Ned falling apart, but it was more funny than creepy. Ned’s tirade against everyone in Springfield was so spot on. But “Homer Loves Flanders”…it came across as stalkerish. Very “What About Bob?”
Yes, the story about the woman at the back of the bus who smothered her chicken/baby, was from the series finally. Hawkeye finally snapped and was suffering from post-traumatic stress. He’d been with a busload of villages, and the North Korean soldiers were closing in. The bus was parked and hidden behind some trees. The “chicken” kept clucking and terrified they’d all be discovered and killed, Hawkeye hissed “Shut that up!”… There was silence, they were safe, and when he looked back at the “chicken” is was a young, weeping mother holding her smothered baby.
There is aother episode of MASH wherein everyone has been dealing with wounded for days. They get no sleep and when they do, it’s horrif nightmares. Hawkeye pulls his own arms off, Hot-Lip’s husband marches off to war and she ends up in a bed full of bleeding dying men etc.
That one freaked me out so bad I had to turn off the TV.
There was an episode of “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” where Will decided to drive after drinking, and ended up in a sort of afterlife with a bunch of people who had been killed by drunk drivers, including a child who ran out in the street. Then Will woke up in a graveyard.
There was a Laverne and Shirley two-parter involving a murderer on a plane. Turned out to be someone called ‘the bald waiter,’ and he turned out to be dressed up as a woman.
I know everyone will laugh at me, but a couple of Flintstones episodes really upset me as a kid. One had Fred and Barney fall into the clutches of a femme fatale. In the episode, they nearly fall into a bottomless pit–a very scary idea for young kids. Another involved Fred dreaming Pebbles and Bam-Bam would get married as older children. He tries to stop the wedding, but he can’t ever catch up with them. For whatever reason that really unsettled me.
I just resaw the Fresh Prince episode (yeah, I’m a dork!), and he was about to drive (he was holding his keys and acting stupid), then he passed out (still at the party, not behind the wheel), whereupon the frat guys took him to the cemetery.