This topic has probably been covered a dozen times before but I’m curious.
When I was a small child, I was terrified of Beaker on the Muppet Show. So completely frightened by him that I would run from the room crying whenever he was on.
I have no idea why.
The scientest muppet that Beaker was always with was no better. He had glasses on but NO EYES. That’s just not right–what were they thinking?
Is it just me or was anyone else freaked out by this? Or something equally bizarre?
(Of course, I was also equally terrified of Leonard Nimoy’s voice on “In Search Of” too, so maybe I was just a weird kid.)
ahahahahahahaha wow. thank you so much for posting this thread. it just made me remind of a thought that had been stored away in the back of my mind for like 10 years.
when i was about 3, my sister was given a NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) called ‘Enterprise’ or something like that in the states. anyway the games that came free with it were duck hunt and super mario bros!!
each world in super mario bros was split up into four levels. the fouth level of each world was a ‘BOWSER’ level. he was the scarey dinosaur bloke!!
please bare in mind that i was about 3 at the time before you laugh at me!!
the music on the bowser levels was so terrifying to my pure, innocent little mind that not only did it make me cry, but also i would out of the room in pure terror!!
That Atari game King of the Mountain had the most god-awful terrifying spider run across the screen at the bottom of the mountain, it was the most horrible looking thing ever. I used to watch my brother play (I was 5/6ish) and when he got to that part, I would run out of the room and hide with my face down until he’d come get me when it was gone.
Also, the car wash, the part with the worms! When they cover your car and you drive right through them, that was torture! Yeeck.
I never could leave my closet door open at night when I was little. I always had some weird fear that workmen (with yellow hard hats, even) would come and attack me in the middle of the night.
The monsters, you understand, preferred the shadows behind my bedroom door. The workmen stayed behind the closet doors.
I might seem a bit dated (after reading the above replies) but the theme song from “Perry Mason” used to absolutely terrify me. At that time, it came on at night, and I was very small, probably three or four, and I would lie awake at night and hear that dreadfully ominous music in my ears for hours.
My parents loved that show, so I was spared little mercy. I grew up to love the re-runs!
Sad part is, I had a friend that, up until he died at age 30-something, would turn the channel until the theme song was over. It scared the crap out of him even then.
I also hated closets that didn’t have lights in them. But I still hate those.
I’m a big tough guy who’s afraid of nothing . . . except maybe female tears.
But when I was a kid I was afraid of my heartbeat! Not monsters under the bed – but the pulsing sound of the Bogey Man that would occur when I put my head on the pillow. Why couldn’t I figure out early that it was only my pulse reflecting through the ear canal??
I was four or five, we were living overseas (in exotic England), it was the early sixties and the height of the Cold War. Even though my Dad was an aircraft mecanic in the Air Force, he had a gas mask.
He used to bring it out of the closet, put it on, and scare me sh*tless.
When I was little, I was scared of the “yep-yeps” from Sesame Street. I had a dream that they came out of the toilet and tried to take me away from my daddy. They still tease me about that…
I was scared to death of it. I wouldn’t go into the living room alone for anything.
I would also freak out when the TV would play the screechy signal for the Emergency Broadcast System.
My mom’s boyfriend, when he was little, was afraid of “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” His mom would put it on for him to entertain him and he’d run screaming from the room. Even now if you say “oompa” to him he gets the creeps.
I was such a neurotic tyke I had a full blown ulcer when I was four. Among the things that terrified me were fear of an involuntary impulse to hurl myself off a cliff. Matt Groening even had a cartoon about it in Life In Hell so I know I’m not unique. I actually remember lying awake at night pondering death. Man I was a messed up little kid.
I was afraid to sleep with the covers down…I had to pull them alll the way up over my neck to protect it from the long, murderous nails of the China Doll.
I also could not lay down with my arms extended because of a fear that someone would inject my veins with a drug to kill me.
OK, is it just me, or is the theme song to Unsolved Mysteries THE SCARIEST SONG EVER?!?!?! When I was a kid, just the song was enough to almost give me nightmares, I’m 18, and it still freaks me out.
And also, my mom used to watch Cheers a lot when I was little. If I couldn’t sleep, I’d go out to the living room to talk to her. Something about those creepy pictures during the theme song scared me. I was about 3.
Geez, I was such a sensitive little kid that the list is endless, but here are some highlights:
You remember those 70’s era paper halloween scarecrows and witches? The ones with swivel joints, so you could pose them in different positions on your door? Well my mom hung one of the witches on the front door of our house and I absolutly refused to use that door. I would kick and scream and cry until my poor folks brought me in via the back door or the garage – this lasted well into January. I was perhaps four or five.
The stop-motion animated Rouldolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special had this abominable snowman-type character, The Bumble. For some reason I had this terrifying vision of him peeling the skin off Rudolph’s girlfriend like a banana, and hid behind a chair whenever he was on-screen.
IIRC, the very last song in Fantasia (the Disney thing, the first one). The one with the huge scary demon, and all the little scarier demons.
I was also terrified of car washes. All… that… water… and… those… huge… furry… spinning… things… whimper
[hijack]Also, when I was little, I made up all these conspiracy theories (that I now find are mirrored in the Truman Show - which I’ve never seen in my life - and the Matrix) The odd thing is, part of the theory was a toddler version of Schrodinger’s cat - although I didn’t think of it as waveforms and such. [/hijack]
I had this wallpaper in my bedroom 'til the age of about 10. Pity me! All I could see were these big demon faces glaring down.
However, if you pull the duvet down around all sides 'til no air’s getting through and you’re dripping sweat and possibly risking suffocation, then it becomes a all-protective barrier against demons/axe murders/full-out nuclear strike… Tanks? Pft. Armies need duvets.
I was scared of skunks. We lived out in the country, and even though I never once saw a skunk running around, I was terrified of them. I wouldn’t sleep with my windows open, because I was scared they’d jump on the screen and tear it open and get me.
I had a dream once that Sprout (You know, the Jolly Green Giant’s little buddy) ran out of the closet in my room and set my house on fire, killing my family. I was TERRIFIED of that thing after that, and slept with the light on for a long time. I made someone come in and close the closet for even longer.
I was also afraid of my house burning down. Fire Safety Week at school really messed me up.
And, last but not least, my aunt gave me a book of bible stories. It was written for chldren, but the crucifixion story was illustrated, and Jesus looked so gaunt and scary and he looked like he was in a ton of pain, and there was blood dripping from his hands and head - ugh. I would open the book to the picture and then slam it shut, just to scare myself.
Later, I also got a book called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. They weren’t necessarily that scary, but once again, it had this illustration of a bony dead girl with missing eyes (IIRC), stringy hair and decaying flesh. I’d do the opening and shutting thing with that picture as well.
[/hijack]