# TV Moments That Scarred You For Life **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 9, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051 "2006-05-09T12:30:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/281 "2016-08-12T01:16:27Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > Ooh! Ooh! Just remembered an Emergency ep that scared the crap outta me. A kid is swimming in a backyard pool and his her(?) arm gets stick in the drain. > > I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate this one . . . anyone else see this one? ER, 1995, ‘Hell or High Water’, a stand alone episode where George Clooney rescued a kid caught in a drain. Forgot how it ended, even if it was George Clooney, there were no guarantees, ER could be brutal. Noah Wiley and Lucy getting stabbed in the hospital. Much later he was held at gunpoint by bandits in a refugee camp in Darfur. ‘Loves Labor Lost’ episode, traumatized me for life. Dr. Mark Green’s cancer and death to the tune of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/282 "2016-08-12T02:17:54Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I realize now I should have asked where you’re writing from. If you’re referring to the first time it was shown in the US (a year after I saw it in Great Britain), it was cut. I remember this well, because I phoned into my local PBS station to complain about the censorship. Both of my viewings were on WTTW in Chicago. Recently they re-aired “The Jewel in the Crown”. In an early episode, Harry Kumar has been stripped naked and is about to be interrogated and caned by Ronald Merrick. His entire body is shown from the back. In the original airing they showed his ass, but in the recent showing it was blurred out. It’s not that I’m that eager to see that part of his anatomy (NTTAWWT 😃 ), but I just thought, “Seriously? What’s the big deal?” ---
**Author:** ![Shockaholics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Shockaholics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shockaholics)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/283 "2016-08-12T03:00:10Z")
> [@jimmmy](#): > > If we can include movies we saw on TV Luke losing his hand freaked me the hell out I always thought his scream was narmy. I haven’t seen ESB since I was 6, but considering Luke is a source for narm I’m making that guess. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/284 "2016-08-12T11:59:35Z")
> [@Shockaholics](#): > > I always thought his scream was narmy. I haven’t seen ESB since I was 6, but considering Luke is a source for narm I’m making that guess. Oh, that reminds me; I was really disturbed when they chopped of Kunta Kinte’s foot. By the time \*Roots \*was aired I had seen all kinds of gruesome things on horror movies and whatnot but this was not some monster, this was a real man and it was so sad. I remember the next day at school wanting to talk to other kids about it but no one else I knew had watched it and I didn’t want to let my mom know it bothered me, lest she not let me watch grown up movies anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Shockaholics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Shockaholics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shockaholics)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/285 "2016-08-14T22:59:14Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#): > > I remember being really freaked out by a TV movie I saw at least 30 years ago. There was a building, a school or library or something, which had been designed to be completely computer operated, lights, lifts etc. A group of students were in there at night and of course, the computer went BAAAD and started operating stuff to kill them. One girl tried to get out, ran down a corridor to the lifts, the lift (operated by the computer) stopped with its floor a couple of feet above the corridor floor level. Girl tries to climb in the lift, gets her body half way in, and the lift doors close trapping her. Then the lift starts to move up … That also reminds me of Swayzak. Goddamn it, now me and my sister’s friend think he’s sexy. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/286 "2016-08-14T23:37:44Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > I remember where they had to get a pretty young woman’s big toe unstuck from a bathtub spout while she was in the bath. That… did not scar me for life. That was Mary Tyler Moore on _The Dick Van Dyke Show_. Season four, episode 27. I was not scarred, but it did have an impact. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/287 "2016-08-15T08:47:13Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > That was Mary Tyler Moore on _The Dick Van Dyke Show_. Season four, episode 27. I was not scarred, but it did have an impact. The lines “I was playing with a drip!” and “Don’t toy with me, you saucy wench!” remain with me to this day! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/288 "2016-08-15T08:54:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Maybe, but only if my memory is screwed up. In my memory, he and a young mother were hiding from some German soldiers. The baby was fussing, and he put his hand over its face so the Germans wouldn’t hear them. > > And the baby suffocated. > > Also, thank you for making me relive that memory! 🙂 I think you’re confusing \*\*\*Combat! \*\*\*with the motion picture _ **The Secret Invasion** _, which came out in 1964: > **[The Secret Invasion (1964) ⭐ 5.9 | Action, Drama, History](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058561/)** > > 1h 35m | Approved Henry Silva was the guy who suffocated the baby. They were hiding from the Germans in a graveyard. I saw the movie when I was nine years old, and that scene really upset me too! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/289 "2016-08-15T08:58:35Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I was really disturbed when they chopped of Kunta Kinte’s foot. By the time \*Roots \*was aired I had seen all kinds of gruesome things on horror movies and whatnot but this was not some monster, this was a real man and it was so sad. If you read the book, you know they offered him a choice: His foot or his genitals. I saw the series when it was first aired in 1977, and so far as I remember this wasn’t mentioned at all. (Or if it was, it was greatly underplayed.) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/290 "2016-08-15T09:00:27Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Recently they re-aired “The Jewel in the Crown”. In an early episode, Harry Kumar has been stripped naked and is about to be interrogated and caned by Ronald Merrick. His entire body is shown from the back. In the original airing they showed his ass, but in the recent showing it was blurred out. It’s not that I’m that eager to see that part of his anatomy (NTTAWWT 😃 ), but I just thought, “Seriously? What’s the big deal?” Welcome to the Nanny State! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/291 "2016-08-15T09:03:20Z")
Ignorance fought! Thanks. 😃 ETA in re: post 288 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/292 "2016-08-15T09:08:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > What was your objection to this? For your edification and enlightenment: > **['INCREDIBLY POOR TASTE' : SUGGESTION TO EMBRACE PUTS GEORGE ON HOT SEAT](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-05-16-ca-17653-story.html)** > > Collectors of idiotic remarks made by Phyllis George on "The CBS Morning News" hit a bonanza Wednesday morning when George asked Gary Dotson, freed after six years on a rape charge, and Cathleen Webb, the victim who now says the rape never occurred,... I remember squirming in disbelief as I watched this. One of TV’s great moments! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/293 "2016-08-15T09:16:23Z")
> [@Shockaholics](#): > > And you had no reaction to the creepy alien in the credits? He was seven-year-old Clint Howard’s alter ego! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/294 "2016-08-15T23:04:33Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > It really shocked me that elected Republican politicians were pointing at Jack Bauer of _24_ was some kind of role model for CIA agents and operations. … And now he’s President of the United States!\* **Yaaaaaaay!!!** 🆒 _“I need a hacksaw!”_ \*Well, the actor, anyway. :o ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/295 "2016-08-16T02:29:24Z")
Does the Jack Sack have the nuclear football? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/296 "2016-08-16T11:16:55Z")
The Gilligans Island episode with the ghost. I remember as a kid I got so scared to look out a window because I knew I would see a ghost. The sound still scares me. But then it also had some funny scenes in that episode. I know, weird. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/297 "2016-08-16T12:31:42Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > I remember where they had to get a pretty young woman’s big toe unstuck from a bathtub spout while she was in the bath. That… did not scar me for life. We watched _Emergency_ regularly when I was a young kid and that episode is the first (and only) one that comes to mind when I hear mention of the show. The only other thing I can recall is when they would use the defibrillators on people. “Two thousand volts. . . .COUNTER SHOCK!”, and, of course the siren. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/298 "2016-08-16T17:50:30Z")
When I was a little kid, there was a TV film about a horde of tarantulas arriving on a ship or plane and terrorizing a town. The part that stuck with me was an airplane maintenance guy opening the hatch on the underside of the plane and a hundred tarantulas landing on his face like eight-legged tribbles. Scared the shit out of me. I’m another kid who was disturbed by the Space:1999 monster that dragged you in and then spit your burned/melted corpse back out. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/299 "2016-08-16T19:56:45Z")
For me, it was the _Twilight Zone_ [episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_His_Image) in which a character discovers that he’s a robot when he tears open his wrist and finds wires and machinery. I wouldn’t say that it “scarred” me, but it gave me a permanent sense that reality is very tenuous. _The Wizard of Oz_ was broadcast regularly on network television when I was a kid, and that movie scarred me in dozens of ways. I still think it’s a very disturbing movie. Hell, it starts with Dorothy’s aunt and uncle meekly surrendering her beloved dog, and then _locking her out of the fucking tornado shelter_. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051/300 "2016-08-17T01:51:54Z")
[This was literally the scariest thing I have ever seen on television](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXUjpHHfTLY). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-moments-that-scarred-you-for-life/356051.md?page=16)