The Internet is magic.
I’m at my Grandma’s house right now, hanging out with my family and doing Christmas stuff. Despite that, I can still update this thing thanks to the wireless connection. Magic.
The real fun came last night, though. My little sister and I were chatting after everyone else had gone to bed, and an interesting subject came up: Things that scared the bejeezus out of us when we were little kids.
It all started when I saw that they’d just put “The Hitchhiker” up on Hulu. “The Hitchhiker” was this terrible show from the 80′s that appeared to be trying to capitalize on the Twilight Zone and other shows like it. The only reason that I had ever even heard of it was because FOX used to show it at night when I was a teenager, and I would watch it on this crappy black and white television set in my room when I was in high school. I don’t know why I have fond memories of that, but I do.
Anyway, that reminded me of “Tales From The Darkside”, and this episode that I’d seen when I was younger. All that I really remembered about it was that there was this old guy in a neck brace that hated Halloween. He was a dick to some trick or treaters, and eventually a goblin comes to his door and terrorizes him for the rest of the night. I didn’t really remember what happened other than that, or how the episode ended. I just remember that it scared the holy fuck out of me when I saw it for the first time.
Ten years ago, that would have been the end of it. It would probably just be one of those stories I tell when I’m a little drunk where I try to convince everyone how scary the show was and they just roll their eyes and humor me so I’ll shut up.
Thanks to the Internet, that’s not the end of it. After putting a few barely-related search terms into Google, I was able to find the name of the episode (“Halloween Candy”), the original air date (1985), and a copy of it online. I re-watched the episode once I found it on youtube. If you want to too, here it is:
As I watch this again, I notice that there are some pretty big plot holes. They never really explain why the old man hates Halloween so much, or has a neck brace, or can’t just give the kids some fucking candy. I mean, if he’s willing to spend ten or fifteen minutes browbeating everyone that comes to his door, would it really be that much work to just buy a pack of Good’n'Plentys? Then, no one would vandalizes his house, he could save himself a few hours of yelling AND he could really screw the kids over with some shitty licorice candy. He seems fairly mobile, so when he’s on hour seven of being terrorized by a goblin, why not get the fuck out of the house? And what’s the moral of this story? The son is kind of the Bob Cratchet of the story, taking care of his Dad and telling him to quit being such a crotchety old man but despite being the good guy, at the end of the episode he’s looking at going to jail for neglect because his Dad got stuck in a time warp.
None of that is really that surprising, though. Most mediocre (and even some good) scary stories rely on really weird logic gaps and terrible decision making from the main characters, and it’s not as though Tales From The Darkside was some sort of timeless classic. I also didn’t find it especially scary at 30, but I was able to tell that this was the kind of thing that would scare the shit out of me at 13. Once I had found so much information about that episode, I was curious to see what else I could find from my childhood that scared the shit out of me.
The next stop was The Muppet Musicians of Bremen. It was an old VHS movie that my brother and sister used to watch. The animal puppets weren’t especially scary, but the humans scared the crap out of me. They were adults wearing puppet masks, and I remember being terrified of them. Once again, the Internet was more than capable of finding as much information as I needed. Here’s one of the 10 videos, and, I have to say, those adult puppets are still pretty scary to me.
The rest is on you tube if you’re dying to see it, but I think this one video gets the point across. I mean, most of you didn’t even watch it in the first place.
We had a lot of fun going back and watching all of this stuff again. Other than just about anything Jaws related, I had trouble thinking of any other childhood fears, which is funny, because I was afraid of everything as a child, no matter how stupid it was. My little sister was able to come up with the witch scene from A Christmas Story, which I thought was funny because I didn’t even remember there being a witch in the movie. There totally is though, I guess.
So what memories do you have of weird, random things that scared you as a kid? I had a lot more fun looking stuff up last night than I thought I would.
Let me know.
#1 by Steph on December 23, 2009 - 6:10 pm
I was terrified of Yoda as a child. Those evil wrinkles, the twitching ears. And when Luke said “I’m not afraid.” I didn’t hear Yoda say “You will be.” No, I heard “Bitch! Fear me!” No wonder I only collected Darth Vader action figures. Tall dude in a black cape had nothing on old, hairy ears.
#2 by myogdb on December 25, 2009 - 12:37 am
I never thought of it, but you’re absolutely right – Yoda would scare the shit out of me if I’d seen him as a child. Vader wasn’t especially creepy, just cool looking. Huh.
#3 by youknowdamnwellwhothisis on December 24, 2009 - 11:51 am
The first nightmare I ever remember having was when I was maybe 4 years old – I was stuck inside a Pac-Man game. Actually scared the shit out of me, because inside the game, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT’S AROUND THE NEXT CORNER.
I remember watching all three original Star Wars movies when Return of the Jedi came out on the big screen. My sister made it through A New Hope just fine, but totally lost her shit during Empire because of Yoda. I also remember her freaking out at a Showtime Pizza when the giant Rat tried to sing her happy birthday. She was spitting on him and trying to kick him, it was awesome.
My most terrifying childhood memory was watching the Exorcist, when my parents left me home alone, in a thunder storm, when I was ten. But I stand by that one, scarred the shit out of me. Poltergeist scarred me, too. But I don’t remember why.
#4 by myogdb on December 25, 2009 - 12:36 am
I agree about the Exorcist – it doesn’t count, exactly, because that movie was scary and even more so as a 10 year old. I feel the same way about seeing Jaws 2 in second grade. I forgot about animatronic animals, though. That’s completely awesome that your sister flipped shit was when that rat came near her. I’m a huge pussy, so I can really respect someone who is afraid of a giant rat so she starts spitting and kicking at it.
The Pac Man sounded silly at first, until I thought about it, and you’re kind of right – you can’t see what’s coming, and the ghosts try to surround you – it has all the makings of a survival-horror setting.
Also, second person to mention Yoda. Maybe it’s a really good thing that I didn’t see any of the Star Wars movies until I was 15.
#5 by Kelsi on December 25, 2009 - 11:32 pm
Robert Stack. Not Unsolved Mysteries itself, just Robert Stack.
See, somehow, when I was five or so, my brother was really into Unsolved Mysteries. He loved it. I was never allowed to watch it. But he’d tell me about it. And once he told me about a man on the show that would walk around with a gun in his briefcase. I somehow took this to mean that the man was Robert Stack. And he killed people with his briefcase gun.
No joke, it took me two years to fully understand that Robert Stack wasn’t a loon out to kill everyone.
Also, the wolf in the Never Ending Story, I used to hide under my blanket whenever he was on.
#6 by myogdb on December 28, 2009 - 12:35 am
Robert Stack running around murdering people? That’s compelling television.
#7 by Ashley on December 26, 2009 - 1:08 pm
Sometimes, Unsolved Mysteries scared the crap out of me when I was really young. I was deathly afraid of ghosts and when they had one of those episodes I would stay awake all night with the covers pulled over my head waiting to be killed by a vengeful ghost (this happened many, many nights). That’s the only show that I can specifically remember scaring the crap out of me.
I was terrified of Doberman Pinchers. In fact, in my head I imagined the Boogie Man to be a giant Doberman Pincher wearing a superman inspired outfit. Not really sure how I got that image in my head, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
And lastly, I was scared of skunks. Mainly because on of my friends when I was about 4 years old told me if I got sprayed by a skunk, I would have to take a bath in tomato juice for 24 hours. Well, I thought that would kill me because I couldn’t stay awake for 24 hours, so I would meet my end by drowning in a tub of tomato juice, which I found terrifying. I was also scared they would try to climb in my room and spray me, so between ghosts and skunks, it’s amazing I got any sleep as a child.
#8 by myogdb on December 28, 2009 - 12:34 am
This is the second time in a row that before approving comments, two people mentioned the same childhood fears. I actually found unsolved mysteries pretty scary too. Skunks less so, although I see where you’re coming from.