I have three examples that readily come to mind: Little House on the Prairie, Twin Peaks, and E.R.
I think Little House on the Prairie made a name for its deeply disturbing storylines (that never even happened in the books). I was 5 or 6 when I saw the episode with the fire at the blind school. The black maid going in to save the baby and winding up being burned to death is disturbing sure. But what scarred me for life is they had the maid screaming and pounding against the window with flames engulfing her. How was the fire started? Albert sneaking a cigar - I guess lung cancer wasn’t a big danger for prairie smokers because they rarely survived the fires.
The Twin Peaks episode where Leland (possessed by Bob) kills Maddie is ridiculously graphic for an early 90’s show. His sobbing and dancing with her is messed up but the part where he smashes her head into a mirror over and over gave me nightmares.
Remember that Valentine’s Day episode of E.R. with David Krumholtz playing a deranged patient? It was a regular E.R. episode until the end where Carter steps into a room, gets stabbed by said deranged patient and as he blacks out on the floor he sees Lucy on the floor mouthing, “Help me.”
I believe the movie was called ‘Notaro’, or something similar. I was four or five, and it was on television. Schlock horror film about some castaways that eat mushrooms and become hideously mutated mushroom people.
I was convinced that such a story might be true, and thus made certain never to eat mushrooms after that. Psychosomatically, I still loathe them.
When I was in college the gym-mandated jockstrap gave me a fungus infection (As I’ve related elsewhere on this Board). To this day I hate jocks, and won’t wear them. In retaliation, I had the name “Matango” put on the back of my IM sports jersey.
The Fantasy Island episode with a little girl that was possessed by the devil. She was unable to go into the sun adn had this scary nanny that I think turned into a wolf.
The Little House On the Prairie with the vicious pack of dogs, or the woman that kidnaps Laura after her daughter drowns, or when Caroline cuts her leg and it becomes really infected.
There was an episode of CSI or some other show awhile back that had them find two dead teenagers in the desert. Later on, it’s revealed that they had a baby together and couldn’t deal with the responsibilities, so they decided to commit suicide with the help of the girl’s mother. The part that scarred me was that they showed the mother taking them out to the desert and watching them overdose on pills. Then, she starts walking away with the baby and her daughter changes her mind and says she doesn’t want to die. The mother keeps walking, ignoring her daughter’s cries for help, and takes the baby away in the car while her daghter and the boyfriend died in the desert. Horrible.
The two hour Bonanza where Little Joe got married, got his wife pregnant, and then some icky guys broke into the house and did implied unspeakable things to her and set the house on fire.
For all of Michael Landon’s public image, some of his shows have scarred a lot of people.
You should see The Forbidden Zone (1980). Or maybe not. (One of my favourite films, BTW.)
I was thinking that no shows/movies I’ve seen on TV have had any lasting effects on me. But then I remembered Scream And Scream Again (1969). I’ve never looked at a pair of garden pruners the same way since… :eek:
I used to have a copy of Let’s Go: California that (paraphrasing) said this about hitchhiking: ‘Hitchhiking in California is tantamount to suicide.’ (They toned it down in later editions.)
It was a Twin Peaks scene for me as well … the one in which Laura Palmer’s cousin Maddy (who looks just like Laura, amazingly enough) is in the Palmer living room and sees BOB, who starts walking toward her by stepping **over ** the couch and **over ** the coffee table – yeesh!
“Living Doll,” the Twilight Zone episode in which Telly Savalas and his step-daughter’s doll don’t get along, gave me the creeps for quite a while.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark - an early '70’s made for TV movie in which Kim Darby is tormented by these little gremlin creatures that live in the chimney…
and at the end, drag her into the chimney to become one of them.
When I see it as a grown-up, I can see how crappy the special effects are, but I saw it for the first time when I was about 8 years old, and had nightmares about it for years afterwards.
I think I can trace my hatred of Semi-Tractor Trailers (Mac Trucks) to the Spielberg/Weaver movie where Dennis Weaver is chased across country and terrorized by a Mac Truck.
There was some weird live-action show that had an episode set in Mexico or somewhere else in Central/South America. I must have seen it when I was about four or five, so it’s all very fuzzy. There were these two kids who were being chased by a conquistador because they were supposed to know about a bunch of hidden gold. I remember the shape and glow of the golden ornaments very clearly.
Anyway, there’s some suggestion that he is punished for his evil by dying of a horrible illness. I also remember very clearly (and this is the scarring bit) the kids coming upon his body in the middle of lush rainforest, and he’s green, and my memory (22 years ago, remember?) has him partially decayed.
I think this is the root of my fear of dead people, zombies, and mummies.
I couldnt tell you the name of the movie, I just remember watching it at my grandparents house because nothing else was on.
This group of people in a school bus (assuming kids and adults then) run afoul of something or another and end up locked into a cave.
The only way to get out is to swim through a sump in the cave (Basically diving into a flooded passage and swimming out to the other side) with no guide rope or any way to see where they are going.
One of the last women to go takes a wrong term, gets lost, and starts to run out of air. You see her frantically struggling underwater and clawing at the rock ceiling.
She gets rescued but it sure freaked me the hell out.
“Uh, no thanks guys… you go risk drowning in the dark. I’d rather stay here and starve to death. Thanks though…”
Diff’rent Strokes - Arnold and his friend Dudley being lured to watch porn by a pedophiliac. The part where we find out that he actually had some “success” with Dudley.
(One of my favourite films, BTW.)