# What fictional things scared you as a child? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 29, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480 "2010-07-29T17:27:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/1 "2010-07-29T17:27:21Z")
Movies, books, pictures, even songs. I know a lot of you hated Large Marge from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. For me, I didn’t have a lot that freaked me out. The one thing that did still scares me to this day. Though not as much as when I was eight. It was the Roald Dahl book and movie based on the book, The Witches. It wasn’t till after I graduated college that I could watch _that_ scene without flipping channels or hiding under the bed or both. And I still give ladies wearing gloves the stinkeye. (You never know.) Apologies in advance if this thread has been done before. ---
**Author:** ![In\_Winnipeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a8b319/32.png) [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/2 "2010-07-29T17:49:14Z")
I wouldn’t necessarily say it “scared” me, but I remember finding the gothic soap opera _Strange Paradise_ extremely unsettling. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/3 "2010-07-29T17:53:15Z")
I was 1 when the first Ninja Turtles animated series came out. I pretty much obsessed about them until the point when I was 7 or 8 or so. And yet for most of that period, I was intensely afraid of the mousers. If I had nickel for every nightmare induced by those robotic little monsters…then there was metalhead, the one and off villain who was an evil robotic turtle. Basically, robots scare me. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/4 "2010-07-29T18:21:23Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > I was 1 when the first Ninja Turtles animated series came out. I pretty much obsessed about them until the point when I was 7 or 8 or so. And yet for most of that period, I was intensely afraid of the mousers. If I had nickel for every nightmare induced by those robotic little monsters…then there was metalhead, the one and off villain who was an evil robotic turtle. > > Basically, robots scare me. ☹ That’s because robots are everywhere, and they eat old people’s medicine for fuel. Sounds like you need to purchase some _Old Glory Insurance_: > [@](#): > > **Sam Waterson** : And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can’t break free…because they’re made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of grime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don’t cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice. ["WARNING: Persons denying the existence of Robots may be Robots themselves.] Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/5 "2010-07-29T18:27:32Z")
I actually googled mousers and they look pretty cute! Er, but I’m sure to a small, impressionable child, they are in fact horrifying. My brother loves the Ninja Turtles. I’ll have to ask if he remembers them and what he thought of them. Did you think Wheelers were scary, too? From Return to Oz. I saw it as an adult so I don’t but I’ve heard those were really creepy to kids. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/6 "2010-07-29T18:30:08Z")
The devil. ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/7 "2010-07-29T18:33:37Z")
_ **Ahem.** _ When I was a kid, I used to hide behind the couch whenever The Bumble showed up on _Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer._ It feels so liberating to admit that. ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/8 "2010-07-29T18:39:24Z")
I read _Treasure Island_ when I was 6 years old (part of my dad’s Summer Reading Program for Keeping Little BobbyArrgh’s Mind Occupied). The name “Billy Bones” was not one I liked to hear. Especially when my brothers used to go through my bedroom telling all the ghosts, goblins, witches, and pirates what time I went to bed. All the while, they would shouting in a creepy voice, “Billy Bones … Billy Bones … he goes to bed at 8 o’clock!” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/9 "2010-07-29T18:40:47Z")
The only thing I can remember really scaring me as a kid was the tyrannosaurus in **[Dinosaurus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurus!)** ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/10 "2010-07-29T18:45:19Z")
Snuffleupagus scared the shit out of me. ---
**Author:** ![BeeDubU2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BeeDubU2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeDubU2)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/11 "2010-07-29T18:45:50Z")
Remember in The Wiz, when they’re going down into the subway? And the columns start chasing them with that creepy music? I’ve given every column and support beam the stink eye since I saw that… ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/12 "2010-07-29T18:46:35Z")
I remember watching an old movie where there is a tribe that buries their dead in trees and lets the trees grow around them. One night the trees start walking and attacking people. That night I had a nightmare about a tree breaking through my window and taking me back to the river bluff and throwing me off. I was leery of trees for years after that, especially in the winter when they don’t have any leaves. I’m over it, but I noticed I didn’t like the Ents in the Lord of the Rings. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/13 "2010-07-29T18:50:07Z")
When I was 5 I saw a horror movie called [_The Lost Continent_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063240/) – really dumb movie, really crappy FX, but when you’re 5 everything seems equally real, you know? It featured a kind of mobile seaweed that eats people. For a long time after, I was terrified to go in the water. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/14 "2010-07-29T19:00:20Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I actually googled mousers and they look pretty cute! Er, but I’m sure to a small, impressionable child, they are in fact horrifying. > **[Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | Fan Favorites](https://www.nick.com/fan-hub/tmnt?xrs=PPM-18-10caf1g)** > > Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mikey are four ninja turtle brothers who fight New York City's villain underworld with their martial artist father Splinter and human friend April O'Neil. They’re horrifying, especially given the context. The turtles and master Splinter would be quietly sitting around, minding their own business, and then the walls would start to crack all around you as a hoard of mousers eat their way through your walls, presumably with the intent of ripping your flesh with their metal teeth. It’s not just the individual ones that are scary, but the fact that they came at you in swarms, like bees on McCauly Culkin. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/15 "2010-07-29T19:06:21Z")
Bloody Mary. You know. You go into a bathroom at night with the lights off at midnight, and all your friends chant “BLOODY MARY BLOODY MARY” and you look in the mirror and YOU SEE HER FACE INSTEAD OF YOURS!!! I still don’t like going past a mirror in a darkened room. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/16 "2010-07-29T19:07:45Z")
Those damn flying monkies in the original Wizard of Oz. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/17 "2010-07-29T19:11:11Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > They’re horrifying, especially given the context. The turtles and master Splinter would be quietly sitting around, minding their own business, and then the walls would start to crack all around you as a hoard of mousers eat their way through your walls, presumably with the intent of ripping your flesh with their metal teeth. It’s not just the individual ones that are scary, but the fact that they came at you in swarms, like bees on McCauly Culkin. 😃 Link’s not working for me, but is this another pic of them? [![](https://bogleech.com/tmnt/tmnt-baxter2.jpg) ](https://bogleech.com/tmnt/tmnt-baxter2.jpg) I still say cute..but I think I remember what you’re talking about, how they’d randomly burst in. I think this is a case of how many would be scary–like, a huge crowd? Yeah. One? I could train him to do tricks and make him my best friend! ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/18 "2010-07-29T19:12:48Z")
I’m sure this is laughable to anyone who wasn’t traumatized by it as a kid, but [the space ants that killed Bruce Dern](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX2jT3-e3P4) still freak me out. **Darby O’Gill and the Little People** is a delightful Walt Disney movie about a lovable old man’s adventure among charming leprechauns. Oh, yeah, it also has a freakin’ [banshee](http://the-haunted-closet.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-st-patricks-day.html). ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/19 "2010-07-29T19:15:35Z")
When I was really little, Sam the Eagle from the Muppets really scared me. He looked so mean. When I was a little older, the move _Children of the Corn_ scared the crap out of me. Now that I am old enough to really understand religious zealousness and seeing so much of it where I live, it scares me even more. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480/20 "2010-07-29T19:16:30Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > > [@antonio107](#): > > > > They’re horrifying, especially given the context. The turtles and master Splinter would be quietly sitting around, minding their own business, and then the walls would start to crack all around you as a hoard of mousers eat their way through your walls, presumably with the intent of ripping your flesh with their metal teeth. It’s not just the individual ones that are scary, but the fact that they came at you in swarms, like bees on McCauly Culkin. 😃 > > Link’s not working for me, but is this another pic of them? > > [http://www.bogleech.com/tmnt/tmnt-baxter2.jpg](http://www.bogleech.com/tmnt/tmnt-baxter2.jpg) > > I still say cute..but I think I remember what you’re talking about, how they’d randomly burst in. I think this is a case of how many would be scary–like, a huge crowd? Yeah. One? I could train him to do tricks and make him my best friend! Yes, I suppose the context of “I ran out of the room everytime they were on TV for a quarter of life to date” probably has me biased towards them. There were a lot of electronic such things that I didn’t like - the lady who “yelled” at me when I dialed a number not in service, and those dancing 7Up cans that move when you clap your hands…:rolleyes: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-fictional-things-scared-you-as-a-child/548480.md?page=2)