Huh? I watched “Dark Shadows” religiously when I was a kid, and I don’t recall any evil, laughing clown heads in glass cases! Except the one in my Aunt Ida’s house, of course . . .
Big Bird. I refused to watch Sesame Street because I was convinced he was going to break out my TV and eat me alive. Plus, in the children’s library by my house there’s a huge paper mache statue of him. I can clearly remember going into the library, seeing it, and screaming unitll I had to be carried out. I was a strange kid…
~Kittie
You were afraid of Charles Nelson Reily? Wait, on second thought, maybe you were onto something.
I think I’ve mentioned this before in another thread, but I was absolutely terrified of the Mummenschanz. Once, when I was about 2 or 3 years old, a commercial came on while we were visiting my aunt. I’m told that I started screaming and vaulted over the back of my aunt’s couch to try to get away from them.
E.T. also scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. I remember hiding my face behind my hands for at least half of the movie, and for months after that I would jump at the commercials.
I have to go along with Mr Visible about those flying monkeys. I also was afraid of the whale in Pinocchio. I was three years old when I first saw that at the Drive-in. Didn’t want to go to sleep that night. Also The Thing, the original, not the John Carpenter one.
MilliCal says that nobody on T.V. scares her. I hope that’s true.
I saw some kind of production of “Rapunzel” on video when I was a kid–maybe “Fairy Tale Theater” or something of that genre.
When the witch came to steal the baby away, I ran out of the room screaming.
Wow… we must be around the same age cause the song scared the shit out of me when I was little too.
5-HT
How about the little possessed fetish doll with the mouth full of pointy teeth and wielding a sharp kitchen in the movie “Trilogy of Terror”?
“How about the little possessed fetish doll with the mouth full of pointy teeth and wielding a sharp kitchen in the movie “Trilogy of Terror”?”
—Oh, he was HILARIOUS! The one who chased cross-eyed Karen Black around her apartment going “yanni yanni yanni!” and it never occured to her to drop-kick the little bastard and just OPEN THE DOOR AND LEAVE? Loved that movie . . .
Does anyone remember the Jekyll and Hyde episode of Gilligan’s Island? The one where Gilligan had the weird dream that he was on trial for something (can’t remember specifics now…) and every time Ginger would name a food, he’d transform further into Mr. Hyde, complete with fangs and claws. Scared the crap out of me.
Also I remember a movie called Night of the Scarecrow or something like that…and a scene from this movie involved someone hiding inside the scarecrow. When the camera got really close to the scarecrow, you could see that there were real eyes inside there. shiver
The movie “The Shining” scared the holy living life from me. Still does. Jack Nicholson’s character nearly made me pass out, especially in the final scene where he’s sitting frozen, lost in the maze. The little boy Danny scared me too. The little guy that lived inside his head and talked in the weird voice was creepy “Danny isn’t here anymore Mrs. Torrence.” ACK! And the whole “redrum” scene is to horrible to remember.
Ooooo, I’ll have nightmares tonight!
He also played Mr. Bentley, the next-door neighbor on the Jeffersons. He was a bit creepy then too.
As for me, I was terrified of vampires. Also Boris Karloff as the Mummy. Ick.
Gotta go along with the original “The Thing”. Had nightmares about it.
Wasn’t the doll “Chuckie”?
Thanks Eve-
a little possessed fetish doll with the mouth full of pointy teeth and weilding a sharp kitchen knife in the movie “Trilogy of Terror” and yelling the name of a long-haired, moustached, Greek “New Age” composer is an even MORE frightening character…
Hey, Eve, my mom is also freaked out by ventriloquist’s dummies. I believe there’s an episode of the orignal Twilight Zone in which a dummy takes over his puppeteer-- Mommy Dearest hates it! Tee hee.
When my brother Tom was about three (and wearing his Incredible Hulk jammies, I might add) he caught his first episode of the Incredible Hulk on TV. All was well until the transformation scene, at which point Tom ran screaming into my mother’s lap where he remained, shaking-- but continued to watch the scene until it was over.
As for me, I remember there being a frequent skit on Sesame Street, I think it was Kermit interviewing Humpty Dumpty… Humpty plummets to his untimely death and if I recall correctly, the police come and blame Kermit. I used to hide behind the big chair in our living room for fear of what those scary police guys would do to the frog!
Add me to the scared-of-Dracula list. I used to have recurring nightmares about him when I was little.
My sort of embarrassing character is Gizmo from Gremlins. That movie came out when I was about three years old, and once day while I was shopping with my parents, I saw a stuffed Gizmo toy. Naturally, being three and having seen Gizmo on TV commercials, I wanted it. For some reason (which she claims not to remember), my mom didn’t want to buy it, so she told me that if I got the stuffed Gizmo wet, he’d actually turn into one of the malicious, scary, green Gremlins. I freaked out in the middle of the store and have been frighted of that evil little hairball since. (Of course, knowing that I was traumatized by Gremlins as a child doesn’t stop Simetra from teasing me by talking in a Gizmo-voice. ;))
Besides clowns and hypos, Iron Tail from the Peter Cottontail claymation special in the 70’s.
The thing hade Vincent Price’s voice.
Still sends chills.
Brrr.
I had totally forgotten that guy until I saw this post. Terrified me as a child.
Later, as a teenager, I scared my self silly with Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s IT
"We all float down here!" :eek:
Anyone ever see/read The Witches? As in Roald Dahl? The Grand High Witch. Nothing has scared me more. The book freaked me out, then the movie did. Even now, writing it out, I’m getting a bit chilled. I was about seven or eight when I read it, maybe a year or two older when I saw it. That could be why it scared me so much, because NOTHING has topped this fear for us. Not even watching The Exorcist last year.
Gizmo didn’t scare me, but the idea of him turning into a scary ass gremlin did. Thank god Gizmo remained sweet and cute.
What do you think, ten or twenty years from now, will adults admit to joining support groups for being afraid of pikachu? 
I don’t know if this counts as a specific character, but as a child I was TERRIFIED of the “grey” type alien – you know, big head, no hair, enormous black eyes. My fear of them genuinely kept me awake at night.
My youngest sister was afraid of Oscar the Grouch. She would always check in her drawers to make sure he wasn’t hiding in there with her clothes. Oddly, she never seemed concerned about him being in the garbage can.
My mom told me this one, I have no memory of it: The woman who played the Wicked Witch was once a guest on Seasame Street. She was talking (about acting, I assume) to some of the kids/muppets while she was applying her witch make up. As she got witchier and witchier, i curled up into a smaller and smaller ball, until she was finally done and did her “I’ll get you my little pretties” routine. According to my mom, I shot six feet straight up in the air and landed in the next room.
Another thing that’s always freaked my out: orphans. All these children’s stories are about orphaned kids (Roald Dahl was the worst), and it always scared the hell out of me. I mean, my parents could, like, die? The worst was The Rescuers. My parents could die and I’d be given to evil people? I still get uneasy when I see a scene from that one.
Of course, we all know that the scariest movie ever made was Watership Down, right?