I was talking with a friend about a short story called “The Monkey”, by Stephen King, and he told me it reminded him of a spooky stuffed monkey he used to have, fortunately without the deadly cymbals. (We also agreed that clown dolls are no good, as exemplified in the movie Poltergeist). I didn’t have anything of that sort, but I do recall that when my brother and I were very small, someone gave us a toy train. Mom switched it on and put it down in the kitchen, where it began to roar and flash its lights and lunge about, as brother and I cried and tried to climb up the cabinets.
Did you ever have a toy you were scared of?
I had a toy robot that had a human face you could see via a window on the head. My sister was terrified of it.
I can’t think of any but you might be interested in the first episode of Henry Winkler’s new TV series. Hazardous toys are discussed.
My baby sister (age 4) wanted a doll for Christmas one year.
It was a boy doll named My Buddy.
She was totally freaked out about it actually being here.
Would not go near it.
We never did figure out why.
My daughter had a large doll that could (sorta) walk if tou held its hand. My sweet innocent sons kept telling her it was Chucky, and it was going to come to life.
OK, she shouldn’t have been aware of Chucky, but my mom watched it a bunch of times when my daughter was at her house. Yeah, didn’t find out about that for a long time.
My daughter made me throw the doll out, and we watched the garbage truck drive away with it. My sons got grounded from video ganes and tv for a couple of weeks. It was really sad 'cause she loved it at first.
In case you’re not aware, a film version of this story was released earlier this year.
" he’s got lifeless eyes, black blue eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t seem to be livin’ until he bites ya."
Not even Bruce The Shark would go near that thing.
I picked up the 18" Alien action figure at a garage sale in the early '80s. The white paint on its head glowed in the dark, and it used to give me the willies looking at that thing at night.
My little brother had a vaguely T-Rex dinosaur toy, stood about 9-10 inches tall, in an attacking pose.
He’d play with it in the garden and leave it out there. My mother would later come along doing some gardening and get a fright when for a moment she would think she was face to face with a very unhappy lizard. This happened several times, and I almost feel bad for how hilarious I thought it was.
We had this talking Scarecrow that my younger brother freaked over. If someone pulled the string he’d cry and yell “No!”. Of course I thought it was fun to torment him with it.
By the time he was 3 he beat the shit out of it so bad the sound device didn’t work right.
I don’t know if this counts, because it was more of a regular startle than genuine fright. I’ll share it anyway.
My parents had this massive stuffed gorilla. They loved to put the gorilla in unexpected places when I would visit: In the bathtub with the shower curtain drawn, sitting at a desk in their home office, lounging on the bed when I entered my room. Once it was in the driver’s seat of my car.
I hated that thing!
Was it this? We had that. Totally cool for the time!
inflatable blimps
My mother gave me a troll doll about twenty years ago, when I was well into adulthood. Not scary, but that hair really creeped me out, so it went in the garbage fairly quickly.
And then once on The Repair Shop, one of the items needing repair was a realistic chimpanzee doll. That creeped me out as well, and that was even though I was just looking at on television.
My Son had a Freddy Kruger figure. He chased his sisters with it, for a couple years.
I still have it somewhere. I saved it specifically to prank him with later in life.
I gotta work on that. 
I had this Yoda puppet, and had a love/hate relationship with it. I liked playing with it, but it usually was kept in my unfinished basement, which was dank and scary to begin with. Seeing him sitting there in the poorly lit basement freaked me right out, so I could only go get him to play with if an adult came with me.
I also had a Charlie McCarthy dummy, which I had no problem with, but my kids were terrified of when they found it at their grandparents house.
When my daughter was a toddler, we had gotten her a Tickle Me Elmo which was extremely popular at the time. For quite awhile, it freaked her out. She would always climb up on the couch and sit very close to me or my husband and just look at it from afar. Eventually, it really grew on her, but, it took quite some time for her to get over that initial fear.
I was given a wind up turtle when I was about three years old. Whenever someone wound it up I’d run and hide from it. I distinctly remember being afraid of it but no idea why I was.
One of my brothers was afraid of a wind up robot that shot sparks from its front. That one makes sense.
My first girlfriend’s sister was scared of Ouija, especially when we got it to say We’re coming for you, R______, it won’t be long, now! She ran from the room, screaming.
If they only did that to you when you were older, that’s hilarious. If they did it to you as a tiny tot, they were sadistic.
My “scary toy” story isn’t about me, it’s about the friend of my son who was invited to my son’s birthday party. The friend was a little odd, but we were happy to tolerate that; my son had his own idiosyncrasies as a youngster, so far be it from me to be critical of someone else’s kid.
So, my son’s 10th birthday party rolls around, and his mom drops him off at the venue where the party was held, which is festively decorated with streamers, banners, etc. And balloons.
Well, turns out that the friend is pathologically terrified of balloons. He began to cry piteously and ran away, hiding in a children’s playhouse (intended for 5 year olds, not 10 year olds) in another section of the playground. It took most of the party for my husband to coax him out, while I fastidiously removed all the balloons.
Yeesh. Don’t get me wrong - I would have gladly accommodated the friend’s fear. But … you’d think his mom might have mentioned it, wouldn’t you?