This thread is dedicated to the things we were exposed to as kids that scared us--------with an emphasis on MAINSTREAM things whose potential for horror were not even given a 2nd thought by the adults who exposed us to them...
I give you BOZO.
(http://i.huffpost.com/gen/298625/thumbs/a-BOZO-386x217.jpg)
LOOK at that maniacal face. Are we KIDDING? THIS is wholesome, kiddie fun?
The Hugo doll...
(http://ts4.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1004189522771&id=aefb0047c0b695f4aa0322b71131e78a&url=http%3a%2f%2fny-image3.etsy.com%2fil_570xN.202295607.jpg)
Nah... nothing about a hairless (not BALD------hairless), thin lipped creep that disguises himself says 'stay away, children'. My cousins had one and they never cleaned the adhesive off the damned thing. It always looked like it was covered in dry snot. THAT didn't help.
Wow, Sean...... I love Bozo!
I couldn't find a picture (maybe it's for the best) of what used to scare me when I was a kid, but the main creepo thing that used to make me run screaming was a commercial on tv for Maybelline mascara. They would zoom in on a woman's eye as she applied mascara and it was soooo horrible to me! They zoomed in on her eyeball, and I freaked out every time! Oh, and those flying monkeys in the movie I still haven't been able to watch since I was 4.
As crazy as it sounds, I grew up in NJ and was, for years, afraid a blimp would fly overhead, burst into flame, and land on my house.
Quote from: Sean on June 28, 2011, 06:48:22 PM
The Hugo doll...
(http://ts4.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1004189522771&id=aefb0047c0b695f4aa0322b71131e78a&url=http%3a%2f%2fny-image3.etsy.com%2fil_570xN.202295607.jpg)
Nah... nothing about a hairless (not BALD------hairless), thin lipped creep that disguises himself says 'stay away, children'. My cousins had one and they never cleaned the adhesive off the damned thing. It always looked like it was covered in dry snot. THAT didn't help.
I had a Hugo doll...he came with all these appliances like fake hair and beards, eye patches, fake noses and warts. He was actually pretty cool and only scared me once....the night he came to life and told me to SLAY MY PARENTS!!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
ededed S.P. ededed
Water bugs.
(http://magickcanoe.com/insects/abedus-water-bug-1-small.jpg)
Quote from: Anton Phibes on June 28, 2011, 08:43:46 PM
Water bugs.
(http://magickcanoe.com/insects/abedus-water-bug-1-small.jpg)
GOOD LORD, MAN!!!!
ededed S.P. ededed
I would say the thing that scared me the most when I was a kid was my great-grandfather's old school oxygen tank. At the time, it appeared to be about 8 feet tall, and had two dials that looked like eyes. In the dark, it looked even more like a monster and made a ghastly noise. The thing I'm most scared of as an adult is the water bug in the above post....jeez.
ededed S.P. ededed
I was a weird little kid and some odd things really creeped me out - I mean, things I found very unsettling... little things like:
My two older sister's DOLLS, which were upstairs in our house.
The UPSTAIRS in our house.
Creepy tabloids like MIDNIGHT & magazines like REAL DETECTIVE- I would read the surreal & gruesome stories in these types of magazines whenever I'd stay all night at my cousin's. The stories & photos stayed with me for weeks - till I'd stay all night again and it would start all over!
This is probably the oddest of all, but the WESTMINSTER GRANDFATHER CLOCK CHIME gave me an uneasy feeling. Never failed to give me the willies! Not necessarily any particular clock (except the one at my Grandparent's), but the basic song & tone. I just associated it with some spooky experiences. I love the chime to this day - but late at night ::)... Good thing I like creepy things... and no, I don't own a Grandfather Clock, but would like to!
Quote from: Sean on June 28, 2011, 06:48:22 PM
The Hugo doll...
(http://ts4.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1004189522771&id=aefb0047c0b695f4aa0322b71131e78a&url=http%3a%2f%2fny-image3.etsy.com%2fil_570xN.202295607.jpg)
Nah... nothing about a hairless (not BALD------hairless), thin lipped creep that disguises himself says 'stay away, children'. My cousins had one and they never cleaned the adhesive off the damned thing. It always looked like it was covered in dry snot. THAT didn't help.
Hey! That's Dr Mondo!!!
THe Pee Wee Herman Show (Dr. Mondo) Pt 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcPuKcWU21E#)
Speaking of bugs, these guys always creeped me out...
(http://green-buzz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Potato_bug.jpg)
...and they reminded me of the Xanti Misfits
You know whats funny? I cannot stand the sight of blood(very nearly pass out), I hate bugs, of any kind (cannot stand spiders at all), despise snakes, and I am terrified of anything that is in the water that wants to eat me alive (sharks,alligators, etc.) I also have an extremely weak stomach.
My sons are extremely sensitive to this as well. Once my son was cutting a lemon and nicked his finger. He started bawling and was about to pass out. Seriously. Yet he can sit through Dawn of the Dead. Both of us love horror films~~ violence thats fake on a t.v. or video screen doesnt phase us at all, and we both love Jaws and Spider-man. Weird huh? The only time blood doesnt bother me is if I know I have to intervene to stop the bleeding (I once had to do this to help someone in our family), then I kind of go into Captain America mode and dont think about it.
Bottom line: most of the things that creeped me out as a kid still do so today. Bugs, Blood, Sharks, snakes, alligators....yada yada...
Bugs have never bothered me- in fact, I am fascinated by maggots :) But slugs.......bleh..those slimy abominations! They creep me out. I don't know where or when I drew the line between slugs and maggots, but it's there. Maybe it's because maggots are babies, and everyone LOVES babies.
Quote from: charp13 on June 29, 2011, 08:32:17 AM
Bugs have never bothered me- in fact, I am fascinated by maggots :) But slugs.......bleh..those slimy abominations! They creep me out. I don't know where or when I drew the line between slugs and maggots, but it's there. Maybe it's because maggots are babies, and everyone LOVES babies.
Lol--not me...maggots are gross. Put them on my list of " how vomitous" (to quote Peter Lorre). ;D
Now there is something scary . . .
Sean and charp13 are twins????
Uggg....maggots creep me out. If I see them, I swear I start feeling them crawling on me. The only thing that creeped me out as a kid was the house we lived at in Georgia.
Most of the neighbors .. Oops ... that still applies .. ::)
Ketchup ...
(http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/photofiles/list/1123/2501ketchup.jpg)
this still applies to today.
BUGS!!!!!!!
"E"
Quote from: Fester on June 29, 2011, 12:54:16 PM
Now there is something scary . . .
Sean and charp13 are twins????
Make that triplets!!! :D
BTW, I hate BUGS. And I live in a State where they're year-round and enormous. Which is why you'll NEVER see me eating outside. Jordan either. Especially after he saw Brundlefly barf on his food, and we told him that's what flies really do.
YAY!!!!! Scatter- AWESOME!!!! I love me some Larry! I chose a picture from Jaws 2, to show his beige side! He also showed a lot more emotion in Jaws 2- An example - "wave at my son". Ahhhh, what a wardrobe. BTW- I took this picture off my tv this morning while catching a few minutes of Jaws 2 when I was preparing to leave the house- Jaws calms my nerves :)
Quote from: charp13 on June 29, 2011, 06:09:57 PM
YAY!!!!! Scatter- AWESOME!!!! I love me some Larry! I chose a picture from Jaws 2, to show his beige side! He also showed a lot more emotion in Jaws 2- An example - "wave at my son". Ahhhh, what a wardrobe. BTW- I took this picture off my tv this morning while catching a few minutes of Jaws 2 when I was preparing to leave the house- Jaws calms my nerves :)
Had to get the Juicy Fruit Jacket represented!! Man, Larry is my FASHION IDOL!!
Quote from: Jim Bertges on June 29, 2011, 01:36:13 AM
Speaking of bugs, these guys always creeped me out...
(http://green-buzz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Potato_bug.jpg)
...and they reminded me of the Xanti Misfits
What is this bug called.
I caught one in a jar when we had tons of rain, it was huge and it seemed really aggressive. It at least was really pissed to be in a jar !
It's a Potato Bug. One of it's kin made an appearance in the 1931 Dracula.
I musta been too dumb of a little kid to be scared of things...
When I think about things I did back then that there's no way I'd do now (like)
crawl through the storm drain pipe next to the lake that ran under the road...
even 'play' under the back porch! Trying to catch the bat in the second floor bathroom,
Lower down food to the giant raccoon that (I thought) was
stuck in our chimney... :-[
I do remember two traumatic experiences I had-
first there was a dead bluejay in the back yard.
And you know how you'll touch something with your foot that you wouldn't want to touch with your hand? Well I kinda 'touched' this dead bluejay with my foot & (I guess) there was still air in his lungs that I pushed out 'cause he kinda sat up and made this horrible noise that sent me running up the back stairs, into the house & straight to (the safety of) my room!
the other was the old guy at an old age home who smoked out of a thing in his neck! :o Good God!
Quote from: Fester on June 29, 2011, 12:54:16 PM
Now there is something scary . . .
Sean and charp13 are twins????
If that was true, I would be the one in the basket...
(http://ts4.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1026767527475&id=9960444bd97361829687a2332f8d3b17&url=http%3a%2f%2fi272.photobucket.com%2falbums%2fjj169%2fAgentCooper_337%2fbasketcase1.jpg)
Quote from: Scatter on June 29, 2011, 06:02:28 PM
Make that triplets!!! :D
...and here we were as babies...
(http://ts3.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=971365096606&id=e61c7d1d983106a4a1be928324fa5a74&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.michaelgault.com%2fimages%2fMom-Dad%2ftriplets-birthday.jpg)
Our neighbor had this exact decoartion on their front door when I was a kid. I had a nightmare about it.
(http://ts4.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=1014486475419&id=d6cf70278a5d51f5f9958a16a5f136b3&url=http%3a%2f%2ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2f3066%2f2675400172_7d9451f571_z.jpg)
...and I had an aversion to the title character of the 'Momma' comic strip ever since... maybe their stature is similar--------I dunno. I might need a shrink to figure that one out.
(http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/0024cdd07d06012ee3c400163e41dd5b)
I also acquired a rubbery toy lobster on an elastic loop as a kid. I smelled awful and felt WORSE. It felt oily and was like a dead person's rotten flesh (not that I knew at the time what that felt like). I hated that thing.
Thunderstorms!!! When I was very little thunderstorms scared the crap out of me. My dad always likes to tell the story about how on the morning after a particularly nasty night, he'd find me and my little brother curled up together outside their bedroom door, fast asleep. LOL!!! I guess it didn't bother my older brother. Being raised in Parochial schools, I remember having a small plastic statue of Jesus that i won in 2nd grade. When a nasty thunderstorm would hit and wake me up, I'd get that little plastic statue, put it next to my pillow, and fall right back to sleep!
As I got older I would enjoy sitting on our front screened in porch during thunderstorms. I guess I was slowly overcoming my fear. To this day I like rainy days better than non-rainy ones.
Quote from: Jim Bertges on June 30, 2011, 01:20:47 AM
It's a Potato Bug. One of it's kin made an appearance in the 1931 Dracula.
I think one also made an appearance in Halloween 3 Season of the Witch.
The woman tampering with the button on the mask.
Quote from: Sean on June 30, 2011, 07:21:01 AM
I also acquired a rubbery toy lobster on an elastic loop as a kid. I smelled awful and felt WORSE. It felt oily and was like a dead person's rotten flesh (not that I knew at the time what that felt like). I hated that thing.
You know what that feels like now?
Being in a room which has bare, uncurtained windows--at night--and seeing that pitch black mirrored reflective surface where--SOMEthing or SOMEone may loom close and LOOK IN at any moment. Same sort of effect as the Wm Shatner TWILIGHT ZONE with the gremlin on the wing of the plane! Or the Shatner HUNGRY GLASS episode of THRILLER.
When I was very young my family and I lived in an old terraced house which had a small downstairs bathroom at the back of the property. If I woke in the middle of the night and needed to spend a penny I would have to creep downstairs and pass an old pantry that was now used as a cupboard for coats, shoes and other assorted junk. The cupboard seemed to be literally filled with coats from years ago that were draped on top of each other to the point where the door actually would not shut, and instead permanently hung ajar as creepy closets are want to do. As I ran past the cupboard I would imagine the coats reaching out to grab me and pull me inside where I would be buried amongst the dusty old garments that hung like faceless, shrouded figures in the darkness.
I remember one night having a dream in which I woke up from a nightmare and ran to the safety of my parents bed, only to be suddenly confronted by a particularly large and manacing looking coat which floated towards me with it's arms outstretched as if worn by an invisible man. As it grabbed me and rose up with me in it's arms I looked down at my parents who were sleeping soundly. I then woke up and ran to me parents room for real!
For me, it is STILL bugs! Probably 95% of critters won't bother you, if you don't invade invade their space, but spiders and ants? Here in SOCAL, they seem to have an FKU sort of mentality. I have a spider bite that STILL acts up after 15 years. I didn't invade the spider's space...IT INVADED MINE. Yes, it was defending itself...but if it didn't want to be squashed, it shouldn't have camped out on my pillow in the middle of the night!
PS. We got quarterly TERMINIX the very next day!
"E" >:(
As well as dusty old coat cupboards these two used to scare the crap out of me, and oddly enough they or both named Zelda. I was and remain terrified of crazy old ladies....
(http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad81/benfifield/index-8.jpg) (http://i924.photobucket.com/albums/ad81/benfifield/images-25.jpg)
Spiders (thanks, Dad) and 19th C. porcelain dolls. Their big eyes, wild eyebrows and their little mouths that are ever so slightly open to reveal those little, bitty white teeth that just want to chew on you.
Hay! I seen something suspicous about this post. Is there a secret club going on? :laugh: Charp, Scatter and Sean are all sporting the mayor of Amity as their avatars. Cool. Me ponders as to what is up? Besides it being a perfect time to watch the movie Jaws . Just in time for the 4th of July. :)
Quote from: Most Horrible on June 30, 2011, 04:18:06 PM
Hay! I seen something suspicous about this post. Is there a secret club going on? :laugh: Charp, Scatter and Sean are all sporting the mayor of Amity as their avatars. Cool. Me ponders as to what is up? Besides it being a perfect time to watch the movie Jaws . Just in time for the 4th of July. :)
There is no such thing as too much Larry Vaughn. ;)
Skulls scared me and there was a tile design in our bathroom that to me looked like a scary face. It always got to me when I had to go.
Vampires! I would lie in my bed at night with the covers pulled over my head clutching my glow in the dark crucifix. I thought they were just outside of my window like Danny Glick from 'Salem's Lot.
Great White Shark (Jaws Music) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb8t3Lt8iJw#)
JAWS SCARED ME TO DEATH! I couldnt even swim in an interstate lake for years without thinking he was below me waiting to bite me in half and create a manbouy out of me! still to this day it crosses my mind while in the water. and it is by far the scariest movie score ever made! Oh yea and F***ing CLOWNS!
(http://www.kindofcreepy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/1135.jpg)
John Wayne Gacy.
Just thought I'd post a couple pics for those of you that get creeped out by clowns and dolls. >:D
(http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp47/WickedLester666/MS22-1.jpg)
(http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp47/WickedLester666/midnite3.jpg)
Notice something about the eyes? They follow you around the room. He watches everything you do.
(http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp47/WickedLester666/clown2.jpg)
(http://i396.photobucket.com/albums/pp47/WickedLester666/MS23.jpg)
You lie in bed, you shake with fear.
You see it's eyes ,it's coming near.
You scream in terror , you dread for your life.
Because of the doll ,with the butcher knife. HAHAHAHAHAHHHA-AAAAAAH!
Your one evil sick puppy W. L., good one. That's why we like you so much. Well, maybe not Sean since he hates clowns. >:D
Quote from: CreepysFan on July 01, 2011, 03:23:09 AM
Your one evil sick puppy W. L., good one. That's why we like you so much. Well, maybe not Sean since he hates clowns. >:D
I don't LIKE Wicked L., I
LOVE Wicked L.-----------the clowns that TRY to look scary AREN'T the scary ones. :o
Quote from: Sean on July 01, 2011, 08:32:09 AM
I don't LIKE Wicked L., I LOVE Wicked L.-----------the clowns that TRY to look scary AREN'T the scary ones. :o
EXACTLY! Its the ones trying to look happy and innocent that fool the adults into letting them get near their children so they can swallow their souls!