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So, you remember I was telling you about the obscene amount of time I wasted on that TV Tropes wiki?
Turns out that one section - my personal favorite - is devoted entirely to Nightmare Fuel, defined by the Tropers as "elements in a kiddie series or cartoon which were meant to either amuse, entertain, or be only slightly scary to its young audience, but which -- in execution -- are so trauma-inducing that they may cause even adults to void themselves in terror."
I remember quite a few of these moments from my own childhood, so naturally I gave the section a browse. Whereupon I found, to my extreme gratification, that I was far from alone in being horribly traumatized as a child by both Ferngully and The Brave Little Toaster, to the point where I tearfully begged my parents not to send our old minivan to the junkyard because no car deserved to be sent to that hellish hopeless wasteland at the mercy of a sadistic crushing machine.
(And that's not even getting into the giant murderous clown in Toaster's dream. Who though it was a good idea to put a giant murderous clown in a kid's movie? Because they were WRONG.)
Other Nightmare Fuel that rang true for me: While I'm too young to remember it distinctly, my parents informed me that both The Little Mermaid's Giant Ursula and Ratigan's cat enforcer in The Great Mouse Detective were sufficient to send my four-year-old self diving behind the couch. Courage the Cowardly Dog retained its ability to terrify me well into my preteen years, which was not helped by the fact that my stronger-stomached brother inexplicably loved it. We're Back! A Dinosaur Story, which I had successfully purged from my mind until I read that article, had exactly the disturbing and horrible ending the wiki describes, which scared the daylights out of me for a long time. And then, of course, there's Clayface from Batman: The Animated Series; I was twelve or so when that series came along, officially too old to be scared by cartoons, and then they unleashed THAT THING on my impressionable imagination. I'm still sort of scared of him.
How about you all? Anything on the list look familiar? Anybody else traumatized by kids' movies or cartoons in a way their creators most likely did not intend? Discuss!
Turns out that one section - my personal favorite - is devoted entirely to Nightmare Fuel, defined by the Tropers as "elements in a kiddie series or cartoon which were meant to either amuse, entertain, or be only slightly scary to its young audience, but which -- in execution -- are so trauma-inducing that they may cause even adults to void themselves in terror."
I remember quite a few of these moments from my own childhood, so naturally I gave the section a browse. Whereupon I found, to my extreme gratification, that I was far from alone in being horribly traumatized as a child by both Ferngully and The Brave Little Toaster, to the point where I tearfully begged my parents not to send our old minivan to the junkyard because no car deserved to be sent to that hellish hopeless wasteland at the mercy of a sadistic crushing machine.
(And that's not even getting into the giant murderous clown in Toaster's dream. Who though it was a good idea to put a giant murderous clown in a kid's movie? Because they were WRONG.)
Other Nightmare Fuel that rang true for me: While I'm too young to remember it distinctly, my parents informed me that both The Little Mermaid's Giant Ursula and Ratigan's cat enforcer in The Great Mouse Detective were sufficient to send my four-year-old self diving behind the couch. Courage the Cowardly Dog retained its ability to terrify me well into my preteen years, which was not helped by the fact that my stronger-stomached brother inexplicably loved it. We're Back! A Dinosaur Story, which I had successfully purged from my mind until I read that article, had exactly the disturbing and horrible ending the wiki describes, which scared the daylights out of me for a long time. And then, of course, there's Clayface from Batman: The Animated Series; I was twelve or so when that series came along, officially too old to be scared by cartoons, and then they unleashed THAT THING on my impressionable imagination. I'm still sort of scared of him.
How about you all? Anything on the list look familiar? Anybody else traumatized by kids' movies or cartoons in a way their creators most likely did not intend? Discuss!
amused
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