By Rob Bricken in
Cartoons, Daily Lists
Tuesday, Mar. 25 2008 @ 5:03AM
By Todd Ciolek
The ‘80s were supposed to be a harmless time for toys and the cartoons that sold them. Whether shilling lines of action figures or promoting characters who would eventually be action figures, these shows were designed to eat up kids’ attention in 30-minute blocks while ham-handedly promoting good citizenship and hygiene. In spite of this, cartoons sometimes snuck in certain moments that were clearly designed to break impressionable minds and pervert the youth of America. In the interests of helping a generation get through long-stewing cartoon-related stress disorders, we’re confronting the worst things the ‘80s ever did to us.
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10) Shipwreck’s Family Melts in G.I. Joe
Rule one of traumatizing kids through cartoons: abuse the most beloved character. And G.I. Joe’s most beloved character was Shipwreck, the likable naval wisecracker who was in no way based on Jack Nicholson. So the episode “There’s No Place Like Springfield” took Shipwreck and stuck him in a bizarre simulacrum of the future, in which he was living in a small town with his wife and a daughter he didn’t remember having.
Of course, the whole thing’s a plot by Cobra, and all of Shipwreck’s down-home friends and family are Synthoid androids. This is slowly revealed as people around Shipwreck start melting right before his eyes (see the eight-minute mark above), and his wife and daughter eventually try to shoot him inside a burning home, before Shipwreck’s pet parrot swoops in and melts them with a magic ray. Paranoia? Fake families? Perfect for the Cold War.
9) The Care Bears Raise the Dead in The Care Bears Movie II
The Care Bears were purportedly intended to promote Christian values, but they generally pushed the same lessons as filthy amoral heathen cartoon characters: believe in yourself, eat your vegetables, don’t litter, don’t cut in line, don’t be an asshole, and don’t sell your soul to demons. Yet there’s one moment where the sky-dwelling bears go into full-blown Jesus mode and raise the dead.
The second Care Bears movie pits the legions of bears and other toy-friendly animals against a malevolent shape-shifting creature named Dark Heart, who demands a picked-on girl’s soul in exchange for making her the best athlete in her summer camp. The girl, later realizing she’d been a moron, joins the Care Bears in confronting Dark Heart at the film’s end, and, in a strangely morbid turn for a cartoon inspired by American Greetings, catches a villain-propelled lightning bolt and, at about the two-minute mark in this clip, dies.
As the human-shaped Dark Heart cradles her lifeless form, the Care Bears devise a solution straight out of old Peter Pan plays: yelling that they care and asking all of the movie’s audience to join in. Of course, it works, thus teaching children that one can resurrect the deceased by sheer force of will. One can only imagine all the soon-to-be-disappointed kids left screaming at dead family pets or grandmothers’ caskets.
8) Turtle-Human Lust in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Over the course of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, each of the turtles got his own love interest, and none of them, mercifully, ever included their most prominent human ally, April O’Neil. As we all saw it, they were all just friends. Our perspective didn’t change until later, thanks to the Internet and a lot of things we’d just as soon not discuss.
Yet there’s at least one scene that gives us viewers pause: in the episode “April Fool,” April leaves behind her yellow jumpsuit for once and dons formal wear. For some reason, she treks down into the sewers to show off her gown to Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo. At the 3:27 mark here, all of them are on the verge of howling like Tex Avery wolves, with even Splinter, the turtles’ sanguine rat-man mentor, ogling a woman not of his species. And then the turtles follow April out of the room, clogging the door in one writhing mass of undisguised reptile lust. Horrifying.
7) The Smurfs Sing Someone to Death in The Smurfs
On the list of threatening cartoon characters, the Smurfs land just above the Snorks and just below the Shirt Tales, who could probably still tear a grown man apart if they all attacked at once. But there’s another side to the Smurfs and their seemingly innocuous world of mushroom houses and single-trait characters. And it’s not just the "GNAP" virus.
In their first Christmas special, the Smurfs were called upon to save two lost children and their longtime nemesis Gargamel from a sorcerer who, as the show goes on, is clearly painted as an emissary from Hell. The Smurfs fight back the only way they can: by singing an interminable non-Christmas song with the refrain “Goodness makes the badness go away.” And the Satan-worshipping sorcerer screams and screams and screams until he disappears. Don’t fuck with Smurfs.
6) Seaspray Loves a Mermaid, Becomes a Mermaid and Hits on Bumblebee in Transformers
Never mind all of the gruesome mechanical death in the Transformers movie or the episode where Perceptor became a robot geisha on a planet of feudal Japanese aliens; the most screwed-up moment in Transformers cartoon history comes when the burbling-voiced Seaspray commits several crimes against nature.
Dispatched to break up a Decepticon mining operation on a distant civilized planet, Seaspray quickly strikes the fancy of Alana, one of the entirely humanoid natives. In a testament to just how little the writers of Transformers cared at this point in the show, it’s revealed that she and her people use a magic pool to change into mermaids.
Though the pool is shown to destroy robots, Seaspray jumps in and becomes an Aquaman look-a-like. Not only is it weird, it also demonstrates that Transformers have souls…which makes the full-scale robot slaughters in the movie all the more disturbing. Also disturbing: the episode’s opening moments, in which Seaspray has an oddly romantic oceanside conversation with a clearly uneasy Bumblebee.
5) My Little Pony and The Hosts of Hell in My Little Pony
Unlike every other cartoon based on a toy line, My Little Pony had no pre-designated villains, leaving the writers to constantly devise new ones to wreak havoc on the little pastel mini-horses. Some of these antagonists weren’t so threatening; think giant cartoon squids and overweight witches who wanted to flood the Pony Mansion or steal all the Pony Savings Bonds. The first ever Pony villain, however, was a demon overlord.
That’s what we assume, at least. Tirac, the angry horned centaur-thing who debuts at 3:45 in the above clip, certainly looks the part, and sounds it, too, with a raspy voice worthy of Frank Welker’s finest roles. This emissary of Satan sends out dragons and lizard-men to kidnap unsuspecting ponies. Then, in scenes far too creepy for a cartoon ostensibly aimed at 5-year-olds, he chains them up, laughs at their bleats for help, and turns them into monstrous dragons by unleashing the mutating nightmare of his dark magic upon them. Still, his image is shaken later on, when the ponies and their token human ally confront him and the snarling hell-creature is crushed inside…a rainbow. Pansy.
4) Nuclear Zombie Children in Spiral Zone
It’s easy to mistake Spiral Zone for another G.I. Joe retread—because, to some extent, it is. The show’s heroes, a pack of conveniently international super-soldiers in hi-tech armor, would’ve fit right into a battle with Cobra. The show’s villains, however, played a little differently. By the show’s beginning, a crazed scientist had already conquered half the world by dropping an insidious bacteria from space, turning people into yellow-eyed zombies with red fungus sprouting from their faces, as we see right from the opening clip.
Between the burned-out city wastelands of infected “zones” and the hollow-eyed victims shuffling around them, Spiral Zone was the closest thing kids’ TV had to The Day After. Sure, the heroes had names like Dirk Courage and the villains, even with their creepy facial lesions, were stupid-looking, but there’s something bleak and unpleasant about Spiral Zone. Was it an allegory for nuclear war? The AIDS crisis? Probably not, but it’s disturbing that the question should arise around a toy commercial.
3) Jem Makes Love in Jem
Censors in the ‘80s were, we assume, fairly watchful people. They’re the reason every G.I. Joe plane had parachuting pilots, and why the word “die” was avoided like profanity. If we were to pick a cartoon adept at sneaking things past those censors, we wouldn’t have picked Jem, the extended pop-music war where the most objectionable thing was the way the title character’s soulless, computer-aided songs invariably triumphed the slightly less manufactured faux-punk anthems of her rivals, The Danzig-free Misfits.
Yet it’s one of those vapid little songs that slid innuendo past the network watchdogs. In the number “Who is he Kissing,” Jem/Jerrica openly wonders if her Ken-doll boytoy, Rio, is “making love to a fantasy.” Perhaps there were board meetings and studio debates over it, but in a cartoon climate where some stations refused to show interracial dating on Robotech, we find it strange that no PTA group got Jem’s song altered.
2) The Remorseless Eating Machine from The Inhumanoids
The Inhumanoids is the cartoon every maladjusted eight-year-old boy would’ve made if he’d had his own studio of overworked Japanese and Korean animators in 1987. There are some human scientist heroes in there someplace, but it’s all about the show’s hideous giant creatures who dwell deep inside the earth and do horrible, horrible things. In the show’s opening mini-series, for example, the scientists’ lone female member is turned into a drooling skeletal horror at the touch of the undead D. Compose, possibly because she didn’t have an action figure.
Even more unsettling is the Gagoyle, an armless, one-eyed monstrosity with a transparent stomach. After being hatched by the show’s human villains, the creature gruesomely devours all of its unhatched siblings and then waddles around devouring many more things, including the arm of D. Compose and two underworld guardian statues who, despite being stone, writhe and scream as the Gagoyle rips off their heads
((shown at 4:35 in this clip). Then the show’s primary villain, Metlar, endears himself to children everywhere by killing the creature. He was a bit too late, though; the nightmare fuel had already leaked onto the beach of our happy childhoods.
1) Naked Thundercats
By the time the ‘80s hit, cartoons had gotten away with showing Donald Duck pants-less for decades, but Thundercats pushed the envelope a little more with its first episode, in which all of the title characters arrive on their new homeworld stark naked. Yes, even Cheetara. Granted, there were no nipples showing anywhere, and the show might’ve even passed the lack of clothing off as natural; after all, they’re animals, right?
Not really, no. Later in the episode (around the 5:30 mark in the glorious Spanish episode above), every Thundercat save Snarf puts on clothing, making it quite apparent that all of them were, in fact, completely naked just a few scenes ago. And so a generation lost a little shred of innocence. Some parents doubtless banned their children from watching Thundercats five minutes into the first episode, although, when you think about it, they were doing their kids a favor in the long run.
226 comments
Comments
Sean T. Collins said:
Oh my God, the second I saw the title of this post I thought "I hope they have the meltings from G.I. Joe!" Well done, Todd. Kudos also for the "goodness makes the badness go away" song--god help me, I used to sing that to myself when I got scared. Sad.
Commander Awesome said:
Awesome list! The Seaspray moment is definitely the most screwed up of all animated Transformers lore, though I'd put Powerglide's crush on that human chick (along with his weird beating heart) and Optimus' hollowed-out husk of a corpse (half of his face was gone!) flying into the sun during "The Return of Optimus Prime" as close seconds.
Anonymous said:
I was quite freaked out by one episode of the remake of Johnny Quest. In it a hideous vine monster slowly turned the heroes and innocent bystanders into plant-beasts. The worst part was that it showed the heroes having to flee form the monster while the half-people begged for help. The monster had even mutated its one human servant's hands into vines. It might have turned the Indian kid into a vicious beast, but I'm not sure.
Nick said:
This was amazingly funny
Justin said:
Wow. The only one of these I saw as a kid was the naked Thundercats, which must explain why I'm a well-balanced adult with only a mild cat-person fetish.
Goodness makes the badness go away, indeed!
Jinx said:
Maybe it's just a figment of my imagination, but wasn't there a Super Mario Bros Super Show episode (the one that mixed cartoon and live action, probably a Halloween episode) heavily involving a green goo? I remember that freaking me out like crazy when I was a kid.
Jesse said:
I watched the GI Joe clip, and throughout the clip, I found myself thinking, "What the fuck!???"
I only watched reruns of the show during the early 90's, but I still remember a few things.
that ending was crazy bat-sh*t-f*cking insane!! haha!
Jesse said:
I watched the GI Joe clip, and throughout the clip, I found myself thinking, "What the f*ck!???"
I only watched reruns of the show during the early 90's, but I still remember a few things.
that ending was crazy bat-sh*t-f*cking insane!! haha!
Anonymous said:
There was one episode of Captain Planet where villians did drugs and one of the overdosed, if i remember right. I think i remember a pool of blood too...
Stunnedguy said:
I remember those inhumaniod episodes and remember thinking as a kid WTF!!! Whenever i bring it up to friends none of them remember this cartoon. I was a serious toon fan though as a kid. Never missed He-man or GI Joe.
NeoLudd said:
jinx
i remember that mario episode
luigi got that funky green shit on his arm, and hes all like "Wanna arm wrestle?"
Man, the shit i use to wake up at 5:00 am to watch
ack said:
That My Little Pony movie was my FAVORITE as a kid, and it scared the crap out of me!! I was glad to see it make the list.
jbq said:
Almost all the clips are gone now-- Crap! I wanted to catch me some April and Thundercats-action!
Chaos Motor said:
I always found the Ducktales episode where they go to the tanker trapped in ice and everything is made of seaweed to be rather disturbing, but I can't recall now exactly what was wrong with it.
Anonymous said:
What about the episode of Thundercats where Tigra is tricked by Mummra in disguise into eating selki(?) fruit? That was one messed up episode. Also, melting GI Joes should have ranked higher, it was truly a WTF moment that screwed up my developing mind.
Anonymous said:
I loved all the torture and wreckless violence as a child. There was nothing more enjoyable than watching weak, helpless beings of heroism scream for help as their innocence and sanity were broken in a long, gruelling process of morbid psychological breakdowns.
I also liked the carebears. The pink one was hot. It so made me a furry.
Jarabito said:
Awesome list, the clips are still there, or at least the TMNT and the Thundercats ones. By the way, the thundercats episode is in spanish, but is not spanish. It's the series they televised in Mexico and probably in a lot of South America.
Anonymous said:
YOU FORGOT THE TRANSFORMERS EPISODE post-Transformers: the Movie when Optimus Prime is a murderous hermit, who gets Rodimus in a back-lock so violent Rodimus's chest begins ripping open, and then Optimus dies at the end leading a suicide mission of graveyard ships. HOLY SHIT THAT WAS FUCKED UP!!!!
scott said:
Robotech
Roy Fokker is shot to death in his cockpit.
Next episode, Ben is incinerated when his damaged valkyre can't go to afterburner to outrun the forcefield chain reaction that DESTROYS TORONTO.
I walked into my mom's home office and mumbled "They just killed off Ben.. on my cartoon.. and a whole city"
Mike said:
Another was the first episode of Babar. Anyone remember that? Naked elephants, rivers of blood, Babar yelling in agony for his mom amidst a flood of tears. Trauma+.
MacMan said:
Pretty good list but there were some other messed up cartoons out there...
How about G-Force? The effeminate evil leader who actually turned out to be a woman in the end freaked me out.
Also, Thundarr the Barbarian - great stuff but the backdrop of a destroyed wasteland of Earth was darkly disturbing. Plus he was a pig to princess Ariel LOL DEMON DOGS!
colagirl said:
Admittedly fairly mild next to the "melting Joes" (damn, that's creepy), but the traumatic image that always stuck with me is Optimus Prime being disassembled by Megatron in City of Steel. *shiver* That was just about the only scene in the whole series that stayed with me into adulthood.
ron said:
You grew up watching this stuff? How can there be any common ground with those who watched 'Howdy Doody' and Buffalo Bob, or Kukla, Fran and Ollie? Does anyone even know whose these names refer to? Where will it all end?
RandomTanjnt said:
That Thundercats created an entire 80s generation of furries like me. Damn them...
Justy Ueki said:
Roy's death by internal bleeding (caused by the battle with Miriya's Quadrono's) on Claudia's (his fiance) couch in Robotech should have been on the list, but also from Robotech was the scene where post Invid Invasion Idol Singer, Yellow Dancer, took off her clothes revealing herself to be a MALE soldier named Lancer.
doubledumbassonyou said:
Thundercats absolutely deserve the #1 spot, I recently rewatched the first couple of episodes and was absolutely floored when Cheetara walks in totally nekkid. Wow. I'd hit it.
oj said:
fat albert went yo juviw
fucked me up
"i want that big fast one to keep me warm in the winter"
oj said:
fat albert went yo juvie
fucked me up
"i want that big fast one to keep me warm in the winter"
whatchyatalkinaboutwillis said:
First off, @doubledumbassonyou:
"I was absolutely floored when Cheetara walks in totally nekkid. Wow. I'd hit it." LMAO! Nice.
Second, You all missed the most "wrong" cartoons. I strongly believe that Zelda, the animated series, really takes first place for the most 'child warping' cartoon EVA! Lets see here, hmmm... a dood running around wearing a girl's outfit that barely covered his balls, not to mention that he totally looked like a fairy-boy. Yeah, I remember feeling 'weird' while watching that cartoon. I felt like I had done something wrong, very wrong.
Scott said:
hahaha thundercats is fucking furry porn
DPG said:
"You grew up watching this stuff? How can there be any common ground with those who watched 'Howdy Doody' and Buffalo Bob, or Kukla, Fran and Ollie? Does anyone even know whose these names refer to? Where will it all end?"
Just remember that it's the generation that was raised on 'Howdy Doody' and Buffalo Bob, or 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' that grew up to make these cartoons that you seem so shocked about.
zo zon said:
dude, when i saw the shipwreck clip it took me right back...... that show gave me nightmares when i was little! it really freaked me out as a kid..... nice list
disney menace said:
this doesn't fall into 80's cartoons but I thought the scene in Disney's Pinnochio where Lampwick mutates into a donkey,to be pretty horrifying
Lisa Marie said:
No way! I remember that My Little Pony episode; it gave me nightmares!
manpantsu said:
hahaha, good post! really funny read.
Anonymous said:
No mention of the episode of Voltron where Lance died. Man, that fscked me up for life.
Joshua Ellis said:
Dude, The Real Ghostbusters. The episode with the Boogeyman was pretty mind-altering, as was -- and if you don't remember this, I swear I'm not making this up -- "The Collect Call Of Cthulhu" episode.
Also, the anti-drug episode of The Littles where the one Little who wore an aviator leather cap ate a random pill and went on a seriously bad trip. That wasn't cool. (Well, actually, it was cool, but not when I was friggin' five.)
Nicholas Morss said:
Anonymous said:
How about an episode of Captain Future where he has to fight monsters which were in fact people of a crashed spaceship?
After they'd run out of food, the survivors of the spaceship had had to eat all kinds of weird stuff from buttons to shoes and eventually stones, and slowly they had become monsters. I had nightmares for years after!
Mouse MacLeod said:
Granted there were no nipples to be seen ab Cheetara, but who wouldn't want to see her naked. Animals, aren't we all?
fire-pixel.com said:
Okay, "G.I. Joe’s most beloved character was Shipwreck". Sailor, rolled up sleeves, gloves... HELLO?! When I saw he is going to be in the new movie... PUKE. Give me Flint, Low Light and Tunnel Rat any day.
Here's another one you might like for top 10 lists - website related though - not GI JOE.
Top 10 Awesome Websites That Sell Cool Products You Probably Have Never Visited But Need To.
http://www.comember.net/blogs/firepixel/
Yo Joe!
Anonymous said:
what about the last episode of The World of David the Gnome?
David and his wife turn into trees (symbolizing death)...
Pretty messed up for Nick Jr.
ill_chemist said:
I believe that the G.I. Joe episode with the fake Shipwreck family should take the top slot. When I saw that as a kid, my skin began to crawl and I still tell my friends about that episode whenever we discuss anything 80's. Definitely a messed up moment, but damn I loved it.
tepa13 said:
I have to agree with Justy. Of the many WTF moments in Robotech, the Yellow Dancer/Lancer reveal was the most mind warping. They even had a the guy, (Link, I think his name was) who had a crush on Yellow be the one to discover it was actually his buddy. A close second would be the scene where the Zentradi freak out and start screaming when they see Lisa and Rick kiss. Excuse me?
simon said:
Thanks Cheetara! The "naked except for a belt" fetish will now replace the "naked except for socks" and "naked except for boots" fetishes.
Are those tanlines on Cheetara?
eighty eight said:
I can't believe you missed Transor Z where the robot had missles for breasts that shot out at enemies.
Marcus said:
Wow, go to 4:50 in the Thundercats one...
DW said:
Chaos Motor, you are not alone! I was always haunted by that episode of Duck Tales, and I didn't think anyone else remembered it! Now at least I know it wasn't something I dreamed up.
Jake W said:
"with even Splinter, the turtles’ sanguine rat-man mentor, ogling a woman not of his species."
He was a human who turned into a rat in this one, though, so it'd make sense that he would.
Sweet pickles said:
I was really affected by the Pac-man Christmas special where the ghosts bite Pac-man almost to death.
Teto said:
"By the way, the thundercats episode is in spanish, but is not spanish. It's the series they televised in Mexico and probably in a lot of South America."
Just as a note, it still is called Spanish. It doesn't matter if it comes from Mexico or South America (except for Brazil, they speak Portuguese). If you are referring to the Spanish spoken particularly in most of Spain, that is knows as Castillian (in some parts they spean Catalan and Euzkaro).
Remi said:
Nothing about the kid who ODs and dies in Bravestarr? That episode has haunted me to this day. A bit more here:
http://www.tv.com/bravestarr/the-price/episode/140961/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;25
errato said:
_amphibian_ lust.
Terry said:
You're that GENERATION that got "scared *s'"" because "toilet seats have teeth". Proof that a younge mind does not comprehend the difference between the physical and the visual.
Earlier GENERATIONS of "TELEVISION" Watchers never had anything other than "normal" things SHOWN prior the 1980's CORPORATE GOVERNMENT PIRACY of the AIRWAYS and THEY thought "COUNTRY", when all PROGRAMING went in to PROGRAMING the AUDIENCE to CORPORATE SUBJUGATION of the MASSES.
Talk to You Parents about what is really going on. They are on your side in this. Seriously, everyone was laughing at the low quality You were all freaking out on. Your Parents grew up fighting POLITICIANS, they expect You to tell them about it.
Why not. They did.
Freedom first PEACE All Way's
heather said:
It was the Gnap Gnap Smurfs that did me in. Dear God, that was horrifying. I am 36 now, and I still have Gnap Gnap nightmares
TheNag said:
I'm too old to have been warped by these. I watched them with my kids and they were warped.
Jim said:
Hmmm... I watched all these as a child. Never bothered me. Then again, I had to learn how to express emotions by watching how others did it.
ERIC HANSON said:
Something else from way back-- just look at some of the Looney Toons episodes when Daffy puts a gun to his head and shoots-- later on, they'd black it out. Also notice no smoking in those episodes later on- not to mention the "blackface" episodes at that time. Racial, radical, and downright wrong! Creepy, no, just wrong.
Bo said:
I'm always reminded of the GI Joe episode where they went to the alternate future where Cobra won and a couple of the good guys saw their skeletons and in the end one (maybe 2) of the guys stayed behind.
That always bothered me.
asdlfa said:
yea it was good until you bashed thundercats
yea they were naked that part was funny
but a favor in the long run? Probably the best cartoon on your list
hans said:
which episode for inhumanoids... do the baby gagoyles hatch and eat each other?
3skulls said:
Thank You!~ now I know that "Spiral Zone" the cartoon along with it's awesome butt-metal theme song wasn't a figment of my childhood imagination.
Does anyone remember the cartoon where the teenager would morph into a sports car and have adventures?
I remember his transformation from teen to car was pretty creepy as his cheezy teenage grin would stretch to form the grille of the car.
Shaggibuster said:
The Ghostbuster boogieman episode gave me vivid nightmares for years. I wish I had never seen it...
C.J. said:
I had totally forgotten about the freaky Carebear and My Little Pony episodes, even though I watched both of those VHS tapes until they wore out. I may need therapy now...
Thanks for posting these great clips!
ees said:
i think that "the Last unicorn" should be in there somewhere. there is NO WAY parents would let their kids watch that now.
Stevicus said:
G.I.Joe:The original mini-series had the giant tube worms that always freaked me out. Steeler stayed behind when he found his skeleton in the alternate dimension which I always thought was cool.
Robotech:The Force of Arms episode where they destroy most of the Earth has a crazy scene where a child hands a flower to a soldier and then they just evaporate in the explosion. Stuck with me more than Fokker or Ben Dixon dying.
Smurfs: Purple plague smurfs are still scary.
Voltron:Lance being left to die in a cell was majorly traumatic. You notice it is the Japanese cartoons that were very realistic. Speaking of....
Star Blazers: Re-watching it now even freaks me out. People freaking out that they were not going home. The Earth being completely irradiated.
Thundercats:The mood of the show was always really ominous, all of those Rankin Bass shows had that stranger with candy feeling.
thebags said:
Hehe, born 1980 so this is my childhood after school memories. Man, we pretty much are the VHS generation. I had a baby recently and it's amazing how easily drawn to the TV they are. Funny that people get on here and try to tell us to 'deprogram'. Thanks for sitting me infront of the TV for hours mum. :)
MJT said:
"Challenge of the SuperFriends" - Swamp of the Living Dead (Season 1, Episode 10) [Original Airdate: November 11, 1978, but rerun in syndication during the 1980's]
Deep within the swamp a frightening witch skulks among the creatures and is tracked by the Legion of Doom. Solomon Grundy doesn’t recognize her and the Legion believes she is a spy sent by the Superfriends. They surround the old hag and confront her with their suspicions. She tells them if they release her, she’ll show them the greatest evil power of all time. The Legion have nothing else to lose so they follow the witch to an unknown part of the swamp. They join hands in a séance to summon an evil spirit (depicted as a disembodied, evil demonic head and the sinister head looks like a cross between Anton LaVey and common artistic depictions of Satan). The Legion of Doom ask the evil being for the power of evil. He accepts but demands an equivalent amount of the power of good in return. The Legion decides to lure the Superfriends into the swamp, getting rid of them in the same stroke. In the Hall of Justice a trouble alert comes in from Hawkman who is trapped in the swamp. Batman and Robin investigate to find Cheetah and Scarecrow. The two Superfriends are grabbed by creeping vines that pull Batman and Robin under the water in the swamp to an underground area where each Superfriend is put to sleep by some sort of gas while sealed in clear glass coffins specially designed to hold each of the Superfriends. The Legion plans to capture all the Superfriends in such a manner. When Hawkman return safely, he and Green Lantern go to the swamp to find Batman and Robin. Sinestro and Solomon Grundy surprise them and animated dead trees push the Superfriends down beneath the murk into two more glass coffins. The evil spirit is pleased at the Legion’s work as the super villains look on. Superman homes in on Green Lantern’s trouble alert beeper to find Bizarro and Lex Luthor. Superman is weakened by kryptonite in the swamp and is also captured. The rest of the Superfriends converge on the swamp and are likewise dragged down into the swamp. The Legion of Doom finds the witch and demand their power of evil for holding up their end of the bargain. The spirit grants them the power and a zombie army arises from the swamp muck to do the Legion's bidding. The Legion now find themselves in command of an army of the living dead. They set out to take over a plutonium plant at the edge of the swamp. The plant’s security forces cannot stop the zombies as they have superhuman strength, can claw their way through steel walls, no matter how thick, and penetrate every defense in their way. The zombies can't be destroyed (because they're already dead). Even if they're vaporized, they just reform again from the ground. The Legion soon become greedy and see no reason why they should be second to anyone. They set out to capture the evil spirit in a radiation bubble to harness all its power. The Legion find the witch once more and demand she summon the spirit. She does so reluctantly and the evil one appears. The Legion trap him in their bubble and bring him back to the Hall of Doom. However their idea of trapping him backfires because he easily escapes and sets the zombies against his former captors. The living dead converge on the Hall of Doom and penetrate its outer hull. The Legion tries everything to stop them to no avail. With no other choices the Legion of Doom are forced to free the Superfriends so they can take care of the zombies. Even they cannot stop them and it is the witch who ultimately helps them. She informs the Superfriends to lure the living dead to the heart of the swamp and tie them to dead trees with dead branches. The Superfriends perform the strange ritual and finish off the zombies. The Superfriends then set their sight on the Hall of Doom which is refueling at the government plutonium plant. Superman captures it and stops their escape. However the strange witch then appears and states she must set things straight by doing a deed for the side of evil after helping the Superfriends stop the undead. She frees the Legion of Doom and the Superfriends believe there is no way to predict what those with evil minds will do. But Superman is sure about their constant battle against justice and the Superfriends.
This cartoon haunted me for weeks. I was fascinated by it, but afraid – terrified might be a more apt description – of the concepts the cartoon evoked at bedtime. November 11, 1978 was only two months after my eighth birthday. I wasn't ready for zombies and this cartoon was my first introduction to the concept.
It was also traumatic to see the Superfriends rendered helpless and sealed in glass caskets (even temporarily).
Another episode, Superfriends, Rest In Peace [Original Airdate: December 16, 1978], showed the Legion of Doom murdering the Superfriends, one by one, using an element called Noxium, created by a one-time member of the Legion of Doom, Dr. Natas (which is Satan spelled backwards). Its radiation had the capability of killing all of the Superfriends. Seeing all the Superfriends also intensely traumatic, but then at the end you learned the dead Superfriends were robots programmed to fail so the Legion would toss the Noxium away.
Briareos said:
Nothing beats Bots Master for insane sexual innuendo in a kids cartoon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNOd7GHeSkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJzmQnLraDE
I really liked the ribbon around her neck for that extra touch of class
On a seperate note does anyone remember a show on nick in the 80's called special delivery that had cartoon and live action family movies on the weekends. I remember this one movie was a almost animeish sci fi movie about a city in outer space on the moon or just floating in space. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Chris said:
Dude...
Didn't any of you guys have a bicycle? or a fishing pole, dog, go-kart, BB gun... anything that would draw you away from that box?
The TV in the basement (I wasn't allowed to lounge around in the living room) was black and white until I was 14, and even after that, it only got 4 channels. The only way I'd turn that darned thing on is if it was cold enough or wet enough to keep me inside. I remember Porky, Roadrunner, Wile E, and Bugs with fondness, but I can't say I've ever seen _anything_ on this list!
Persimmons said:
The fantastic adventures of unico scared me horribly as a child. The entire series revolves around the cutest, sweetest little baby unicorn ever, who's plauged with misery, death, torture, and some seriously messed up villians, all because... hes happy. Yeah.....
The part where the guy turns everyone in the country into people legos to build his castle is just horrifying. The rabid animals are a plus, but the series delves deeper into the horrors of humanity, when unico makes a friend with a girl whos dying of some horrific lung degeneration due to the greed of industry. Just a seriously messed up (abeit well animated, and completely targeted to the 3-10 crowd mid 80's) series. Even watching as an adult... mental scars abound.
Birdzilla said:
Look what happened when they made MIGHTY MOUSE into a drug adic sniffing white powder. And truly if anything during the 90s was brainwashing kids with a left-wing way of thinking it was CAPTIAN PLANET AND THE PLANETEERS this program was brainwashing kids
dragonballz said:
Was anyone here an avid Dragonball Z fan at one point? I remember a few episodes where it showed the green monster guy (cant remember his name) who always used to change what he looked like, going around killing whole cities and getting all of their lifeforce or something. And then 2 quite important characters eventually got killed. He like stuck a huge needle/tail into their backs or something and killed them. Messed me up quite bad :|
dragonballz said:
Was anyone here an avid Dragonball Z fan at one point? I remember a few episodes where it showed the green monster guy (cant remember his name) who always used to change what he looked like, going around killing whole cities and getting all of their lifeforce or something. And then 2 quite important characters eventually got killed. He like stuck a huge needle/tail into their backs or something and killed them. Messed me up quite bad :|
Maximus said:
In the G.I. Joe clip, the amnesiac Shipwreck finds himself living at "number 6, Village Drive." Someone on the writing staff must have been a Prisoner fan...
baz said:
What is snarf up to at 6.10? Sounds like the guy says "Snarf, quit on the head!" then Snarf is giving head haha
Lilorfnannie said:
There was this one cartoon, I'm not sure of the name any more. I think it was this family, and they worked in the circus maybe, or in racing. Not sure. The kids lived an odd life, but they were a solid family. One day the kid was eating an apple, and a woman was there and said, is that your lunch little boy? Is that all you're having for lunch is an apple? And the kid said yes, not thinking about it. It turns out he had had a big breakfast or something, and so he wasn't hungry, but didn't think to mention that. Well that woman turned out to be from Child Welfare, and she started investigating the family, and threatening to take the kids away! That cartoon terrified me.
Zoe said:
LOL.
Amazing.
Anonymous said:
That was awesome, but another one would be from The Chipmunk's Movie: The Great Chipmunk Adventure; I believe that's the title, anyway, the chipettes sing 'Get Lucky With You' to a bunch of snakes.
Anonymous said:
That was awesome, but another one would be from The Chipmunk's Movie: The Great Chipmunk Adventure; I believe that's the title, anyway, the chipettes sing 'Get Lucky With You' to a bunch of snakes.
tomas said:
In chinese review,I don't think all of it is Child-Warping, :-))
Your article let me remember childhood.
I translate it to chinese,at http://haodayin.cn/2008/03/27/80%e5%b9%b4%e4%bb%a310%e4%b8%aa%e6%9c%80%e5%8f%98%e6%80%81%e7%9a%84%ef%bc%8c%e5%af%b9%e5%b0%8f%e6%9c%8b%e5%8f%8b%e7%9a%84%e6%88%90%e9%95%bf%e6%9c%89%e5%ae%b3%e7%9a%84%e5%8a%a8%e7%94%bb%e7%89%87/
DinkyInky said:
TO dragonballz: Cell Saga. He even swallowed one of the androids whole.
I wish they'd have animated it a bit closer to Toriyama Akira's books. They spaced out the fight scenes just a wee bit too much for my tastes.
To Chris: Yes, I spent the majority of my time outdoors, and the TV's in my house were also B&W, and I still know most of what is listed here.
I also had to contend with my two siblings for TV time allotments. I know some of these shows simply because their twice weekly two hours were these shows. Weekends we got more time, but rarely used it because we were outside goofing off.
I still have a small B&W that's in the attic(now finished) for those days when I want to get away from people--I generally watch CSI on it.
Anonymous said:
I'm more of a child of the '90s, but I remember being frightened by reruns of Fraggle Rock. Mostly the talking trash thingy... Also, I know this is a 90s movie, but its early 90s: Fern Gully. Does anyone remember it? It also scared the shit outta me. Especially the part when the main character is explaining how the tree is being killed as its going through the mill. And I didn't grow up to be an environmentalist or something. If you think these shows scared you, just watch some of the stuff they are showing kids today. I think most of today's children's shows are mostly brainwashing anyway. I have to wonder about how the next generation of kids is going to turn out...
Julia said:
I haven't thought about that Ghostbuster's Boogieman episode for -- around 20 years!!! I cannot *BELIEVE* I had forgotten--it scared the crap out of me!!! Is it online anywhere?!?
Sam said:
Wow! I'm more of a 90's kid as well but that thundercats episode... oh... i was pissed.. i dont know why... maybe its the fact that they were naked period... or how i was ripped off by the missing genitalia! i like 3:50 in the thundercats vid.. i dont speak spanish but it was hilarious how he was stanced going: NO PUEDO, NO PUEDO, PORFEVOR!!! XD i dont know why but that made me laugh...
Becky said:
I don't get why everyone thinks these shows are screwed up or disturbing to kids. I watched all these growing up and none of them gave me nightmares or warped me. I'm a perfectly normal, well ajusted person. I think today's cartoons are the ones that are messed up. There's not a single one that I would feel comfotable letting my kids watch. I've often said that when I have kids, I'm gonna get all the shows I grew up on for them to watch. Heck, that's mostly what my 2 nephews watch now. Long live 80's cartoons!
Annie said:
I agree on The Chipmunk Adventure . . . A friend that I met in college had ALSO loved the movie, so we sat down once to watch it with all of our suitemates. The two of us had seen it so many times when we were really little that we hadn't ever thought about the "Getting Lucky With You" scene, but of course our friends were totally HORRIFIED.
Brad said:
I was actually just thinking about that G.I. Joe episode the other day. I wasn't really into the show, I just sometimes left the TV on after Transformers. And I happened to see this melting people episode, and holy cow! I think I tuned out when it got just too freaky, but finally decided I needed to see what was really going on to ever hope to sleep again. I thought I remembered it was all a dream, which I guess is pretty close to it all being a fantasy concocted by Cobra (sounds like the TNG episode "Future Imperfect", except the TNG episode doesn't melt people because that's too scary, even for adults!) Anyway, watching this clip again and laughing at its ridiculousness is surely the best therapy.
I'll give the Turtles a pass on their April-ogling. They watched a ton of TV and were doubtless socially inclined to be attracted to human women. It's not like there were a lot of female turtles to chase after.
specs said:
OH my gosh! The Chipmunk Adventure movie!! Yes that WAS a terrifying image of the gals singing and trying to entice the snakes. But then again, the whole incestuous relationship between the evil brother and sister (Claude and what was the chick's name) kinda overrode the snake scene for me back then. Oh and also the little emperor guy who wanted to marry britt?!?! talk about child pornography!!! But I still LOVED that movie. I would play the rock n roll song over and over...i knew ALL the dance moves...LOL...oh wow
Chris G said:
What about the Transformers movie? They killed off almost all the original Transformers (including Prowl... my fave) to make way for the new line of toys.
Who could forget the death of Optimus Prime???
Anders said:
I must be really european to react against a case of nudity being number #1. ButI guess it really is a lot more traumatising to see a pair of breasts than whole sale slaughter and dark magic.
*sigh*
Evan said:
To Lilorfnannie:
The cartoon you're thinking of is Devlin.
The boy was actually a girl, and the child welfare agent was a family relative who tried to have the girl move in with her and her husband cause she thought circus life was not fit for a child.
Birdzilla said:
What dose COBRA COMMANDER LOOK LIKE UNDER HIS HELMET/HOOD?
GREAT BIRD OF THE GALAXY said:
How about the SMURFS episode where smurfett has the pet mouse that save her from the fire and then dies on her or the episode of BRAVESTAR where that little boy dies after taking a drug called SPIN
MAD BLUEBIRD said:
How about the CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFREIND episode DOOMSDAY where the LEGION OF DOOM creates a diaster that dose aciualy destroy all civlaztion leaving METROPOLIS in ruins and the aleins who come to the devistated earth and the ruins of the HALL OF JUSTICE and HALL OF DOOM to learn about what happened
Lauren said:
I have to second the commenters above who mentioned the episode of Captain Planet where the blond planeteer's, like, cousin gets addicted to some drug called Bliss, and he and all the other zombie-like addicts march on the capital or something shouting "More Bliss!" And then he dies. It totally gave me nightmares. And it's why I believe in hugs, not drugs.
Also, for anyone interested, here's the YouTube of "Getting Lucky" from the Chipmunk Adventure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG3VSRZ_RcQ
Disturbing yet hilarious.
joecab said:
Well to be fair, in that Smurfs Christmas episode it was pretty clear that the bad guy was in fact the Devil. So what choice did the little blue fellas (and girl) have?
Dane Clark said:
What about that episode of The Noozles where Sandy found her grandfather trapped in that crystal thing? That was probably the darkest thing ever to air on Nick Jr.
__________________
Birdzilla said:
How about THE RETURN OF OPIMUS PRIME where those two mad scientist use the hate pluage to cuase the tramsformers to turn on one another and rodimus prime sends out skylynx to bring back the quintison to restore opimus prime becuase the quintisons were the orgional builders of the transformers
stymphalian bird said:
How about the 60s cartoon JOHNY QUEST the episode INVISIBLE MONSTER where some scientist accedently creates a energey creature and it ends up consuming first the scientists and then a native we see these victims desolving while theres this weird wailing sounds going on
Birdzilla said:
Or in THUDAR THE BARBARIAN where OOKLA and the big bird when he gets the bird to help take care of that gentic mutant
MAD BLUEBIRD said:
How about TMNT when BAXTER STOCKMAN is mutated in the flyman
laser beak said:
What about whe ether RUMBLE or FENZIE got into that pool and was turned into a tree
thunderbird said:
How about the G.I JOE episode COBRAS CEARTURES where COBRA and that renigade scientist DR LUCIFER builds the device that can control the minds of animals WASHINGTON D.C. is besigned by birds MOSCOW held hostage by wolves and the oil tanker held up by whales and the lions marching accross africa but SPIRIT(INDIAN)and SNAKES EYES get in the place with the help og FREEDOM(EAGLE)and TIMBER(WOLF) after rescuing SCARLET and DUKE they then destroy the device and capture DR LUCIFER and send him to spend the rest of his like with DR ATTILA in prison
diogenes said:
gosh. How much did I miss? My childhood is ruined in thinking how much I didn't drown myself in this stuff! our past that we charished and the various ruffels of distress that allow for a clearing in thoughts of growth.
Birdzilla said:
How about CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFREINDS episode GIANTS OF DOOM where BIZZARO uses that ray tp turn himself TOYMAN,CAPTIAN COLD and SINESTRO into 40 foot tall giants they freeze up the superfreinds and shoot them to saturn but the superfreinds return and use the same formula to turn SUPERMAN,BATMAN,THE FLASH, and GREEN LANTURN, into the GIANTS OF JUSTICE
GREAT BIRD OF THE GALAXY said:
How about CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFREINDS episode MONOLITH OF EVIL where SOMOMON GRUNDY takes the leagion of doom down to the center of the earth looking for the power of all evil they trick the superfreinds into recovering it then use it to tip over one of the towers of the WORLD TRADE CENTER open up a fusseir in the streets of NEW YORK and SNUFF OUT THE SUN or INVASION OF THE FEARIANS where CAPTIAN COLD contacts this three heade alein from VENUS to make earth like venus or WANTED THE SUPERFREINDS where LEXX LUTHOR uses a device to control the sleeping minds of the superfreinds where SUPERMAN robs FORT KNOX and BATMAN and ROBIN loot the U.S. MINT THE FLASH steals the crown jewles and WONDER WOMAN steals those valible paintings in paris and BLACK VULCAN steals the stuff from a egyptian tomb
Pennilicious said:
Does anyone remember "The Littles"? (early 80's) They were mice-like little people, (pointy ears/mouse tails) and lived in the walls of a family home? There was always some crazy adventure that would almost get them discovered... My mom hated the show!!! I cried every time I watched it cuz in every episode there was a close-call with humans - they'd almost get stepped on or the family dog would near eat them!! Talk about TRAUMATIC! Scooby-Doo used to scare me too with all the talk of ghosts!
baddogsmaster said:
wow, the care bears thing explains why my 24 year old brother still had a phobia of stuffed bears. I also wonder why He-Man was not on the list? Even back then, the freudian slips of body language bothered me. I have kids and now a days, most shows are VERY P.C. Even shows my ten year old watch were tame compaired to what we watched as kids. Now i noticed with my two year old, most of the fun has gone compleatly. for example, the whole "cookie monster" now saying that cookies are a "sometimes" food. That was one of the best parts on S.S.! Watching cookie eat and the crumbs go flying everyplace. I remember the whole melting family thing from G.I. Joe too. Me and my brothers would fight for t.v. time so i had no choice but to sit and watch their shows. Shudder, shudder, shudder!
To comment to the posters that say they are not bothered by this stuff or grew up in the late 90's and dont see the issue, you have to remember that we did not have many options as far as kids programing. It was what ever show was on while we waited for the bus and/or waking up at the a&&crack of dawn on sat to watch cartoons. I spent alot of time outside and STILL ended up watching this stuff. You lived a sheltered life and should be thanking your parents for it if you did not know any of those shows. From 5 am till noon on saturday, that was the only chance most of us got to watch alvin or G.I. Joe... otherwise, we were left to 3,2,1 contact and Mr. Rogers during the week after school. Who, i may add was creepy as hell also. Like my mom used to say, the t.v. was a great baby sitter but far from a good role model!
Birdzilla said:
Or what about the SPACE GHOST HURCULOIDS espisode where the CRYSTAL CYBORG turns planets to crystal and evey living thing that touches the crystal is turned to crystal including the boy DORNO
Todd said:
It's funny, but as a teen, that little throw-away Jem lyric in "Who is He Kissing?" never really registered with me. It was only a few years ago, when the DVDs of Jem hit, that I really HEARD that lyric, and thought "Oh my GOD....HOW did they manage to keep THAT one in there?!" There was even a whole argument on a Jem board where one member INSISTED that "making love" means "kissing". We pretty much ALL informed that, no, it actually DOES indeed mean "SEX"!
wildbird said:
How about also in JOHNNY QUEST episode INVISIBLE MONSTER when HAJIS jet pact malfuntions and johnny and race have to save him from the monster and when BANDIT gets scared and digs in the ground johnny has to go out and save his dog from the now visible creature or the episode THE SEA HUANT the captian of the freighter just disapears and theres no body of him on the ship with that weird creature aboard and then there was SHADOW OF THE CONDOR where the condor grabs bandit but drops him into the fountian and the owl hooting on the roof when the condor grabs it and then RACE gets saved by the condor
starbird said:
Look at SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES i mean the queen was so jelios of snowhite she wanted her huntsman to take her out in the woods and murder her and put her heart in the box or as snow white is fleeing throught the forests the trees and logs turn into monsters or SLEEPING BEUTY(DISNEY VERSION) where PRINCE PHILLIP must battle those creepy demons and what about THE PIRATES OF DARK WATER where the one CHONCH has his leg bitten off by those snake creatures
wildbird said:
HOW ABOUT THESUPERFREINDS EPISODE WHERE THOSE VILLIANS SINK AUSTALIA BUT IN THE END SUPERMAN EXPOSES THEM TO RED KRYTONITE WHICH ONE TURNS TO STONE ONE SHRINKS AND THE OTHER GROWS BODY HAIR AND SUPERMAN SENDS THEM BACK INTO THE PHANTOM ZONE
T Campbell said:
My nominations:
The THUNDERCATS sequence where Lion-O is mummified, apparently to death, by a bunch of living bandages. That cliffhanger freaked me the hell out.
The "Evilseed" episode of HE-MAN, written by a guy who had done one of the FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH movies. There are some really funny bits as Skeletor is dragged kicking and screaming into a heroic role, but you can totally see the horror-movie influence when those vines overcome everything and everyone in their path. Similarly, the HE-MAN with the giant tentacled blob that overcomes the palace and nearly smothers five characters.
And yeah, Zombie Optimus was hard to top.
THE GREAT BIRD OF THE GALAXY said:
How about the G.I. JOE episode THE GAMESMASTER where that wacko kiddnaps FLINT,LADY J,COBOA COMMANDER and THE BARRONESS and pits them against freaky toys and G.I. JOE and COBRA have to join forces to rescue their leaders or SPIDERMAN AND HIS AMAZING FREINDS with the creature SWARM who turns humans into bee people including ICEMAN and FIRESTAR even PETER PARKERS only AUNT MAY and the final episode of G.I. JOE where COBRA COMMANDER gets turned into a snake and ROADBLOCK jams SUPENTORS cape into the intake of his snake sled and he gets sucked into that vortex or THE NEW ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY QUEST ALEINS AMONG US where the aleins sink the aircraft carreir JOHN F. KENNEDY but thats only becuase of socialists scum like TED TURNER
stymphalian bird said:
TRANSFORMERS and SOUNDWAVE ALWAYS SOUNDED SO CREEPY
war bird said:
How about the SUPERFREINDS episode ROKAN ENEMY FRO SPACE where that big prehstoric bird from KYPTON comes to earth to lay eggs and it can break WONDER WOMANS magic lasso I realy think they copied the name RODAN
golden phoenix said:
LAND BEFORE TIME when LITTLEFOOT looses his mother when she is attacked by the tyranasuorus rex or when THE GHOST(GENTLEMAN JIM CRADDOCK)turns SUPERMAN and WONDER WOMAN into ghosts and how the SUPERFREINDS use those mirrors to restore them and use those wands to banish the ghost back to the other world forever
J$ (A Real Bad Friend) said:
Oh my face!
This is fan friekin' tastic. I recently (a month or so ago) did a photoshop job of a mouse holding a dick in front of Castle Grayskull and saying "by the power of gayskull, i have the power."
Needless to say, visitors found it bizarre and only a few loved it... but I think I've found a kindred spirit.
Underdog10 said:
I can't BELIEVE that in a conversation about warped cartoons, nobody has mentioned the KINGS of disturbing animation.
Who else?
REN AND STIMPY!
OMG! DISTURBING ON SO MANY LEVELS!
~ Behan ~ said:
Geeze, I haven't thought about some of those cartoons in years!!! That's great!!!
~ Behan ~ said:
Wow! I haven't thought about some of these cartoons in years!! That's great...And a little creepy!! lol
Shadowspawn said:
3skulls, I remember the show, but I can't recall the title...if I figure it out, I'll let ya know.
Despoleo said:
The death of Roy Fokker and Ben in Robotech. And, a couple of episodes after that, a soldier speaks with a little girl waiting the Zentraedi attack and -both of them!!!- becomes fire and ashes at our sight. WOW.
And the double love of Rick Hunter (Lisa Hayes-Lin Minmei)
Anonymous said:
Does anyone remember that superted episode where ted and his camp robot go aboard that rocket that looks like a p*nis and when the robot sees it he goes 'oooh ive never seen one that big before' i cant remember what episode it was but that bit if it can be found should be added to the list
dave said:
Great post! Reading made me remember an episode from The Real Ghostbusters where they're supposed to catch this ghost jazz band in Louisiana. All the band ever played throughout the whole episode was this really creepy version of "When the saints come marching in". Really weird. I remember the bad dreams to this day....
Deppie said:
I remember a transformers episode with some kind of rust virus, and bits and pieces start falling off. At the end there is a shoot-out on the statue of liberty at night. Optimus Prime was hanging there, really messed up...
Anonymous said:
I think that little monster in my little pony may have been Charlie Adler, not Welker, but that's just a guess.
man, you guys picked episodes that I recall seeing but barely remember. And all I ever did back then was watch cartoons.
CosmoP Justy said:
Awesome piece!
You're one of the few people who feel that Inhumanoids was "the" freaky toon of the 80s with #2 on your list. I still find it hard to believe it acutally aired. Where were the cesors with this one...asleep?
Cay said:
I almost died when I saw #9. I REMEMBER that movie in my brain so vividly now! And that scene! i remember I cried every time it came up.
It's not an 80s flick per say, but I remember the Fantastic Adventures of Unico also scared the crap out of me when I was little. And Felix the cat the movie >.>
DAVID said:
I know it sounds lame, but the most scarring cartoon I ever watched was the first episode of Rainbow Brite, where Brite, a normal girl, is sucked into the colorful kingdom (or whatever it was called). But as the vortex sucked her in she dropped her lunchbox! I was so sad about her losing her lunch box that I cried.
polkera said:
Wow... I am so glad that I grew up in the 90's. I remember the Care Bears movie though... haven't thought about that in years. I watched about a minute of the clip, then suddenly went "Oh my God, the giant cloud of red smoke should be wearing a HALF MASK! 'Christine! Angel of Music!'"
Ok, off to purge my brain of this horror with the Sweeney
Todd soundtrack...
Steve H said:
Hey, the Thundercats thing explains quite clearly why they were 'naked' - though only Tigro and Snarf were really.
Thundera was a safe place, and they didn't need to wear armor, but to protect Lion-o and the Eye of Thundera they needed to be given armor and weapons. Which is why Snarf didn't get any - he was only good for inspiring truly horrifying fan-porn.
ManekiNeko said:
J. Michael Stracyznski worked on Spiral Zone, which probably explains the dystopic setting and the zombie children. It's well known that Stracyznski hates all things cute and cuddly, and did whatever he could in his productions to make those images as unappealing to his audience as he found them.
As for the Smurfs Christmas Special, I thought that was pretty cool... but then again, I've always been a fan of Rene Auberjonois, who plays the evil sorcerer in that clip. There was one cartoon I vaguely remember from my childhood which I would have nominated instead... it was some giant robot anime, and one of the villains was a sickly green fiend who carried his own head under his arm. Nasty!
The first couple of Chipmunks episodes from the 1980s were also rather disturbing. The singing rodents, still helpless and in diapers, were carelessly tossed into a snake pen as food for an enormous fanged python. Even if you weren't a fan of the Chipmunks, it was still a pretty chilling moment.
Hooper_X said:
I'm going with the Dystopian Alternate Universe GIJoe episode as most insanely child-warping. Not only were Our Heroes stuck on a weird alternate world where Cobra won - THEY WERE ALL DEAD AND THEY FOUND THEIR OWN CORPSES LEFT TO ROT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.
Holy christ.
Krinn DNZ said:
I think that the most disturbing thing with the Smurfs since the 80s may be the UNICEF ad. It's no imitation, either - they got the creator of the Smurfs in on that.
Robotech_Master said:
I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention (as I see other people have in the comments) the G.I. Joe episode "Worlds Without End," which not only used a play on a phrase found in Christian doxologies as its title, but involved several Joes being transported to an alternate universe where Cobra won. Steeler gets bitten by a bug carrying a virus and starts hallucinating, and when the 'Joes stumble upon their own skeletons (or, rather, the skeletons of the versions of themselves from this universe) he utters the memorable phrase, "We've gone to the devil!" (Thank you, broadcast standards and practices.)
Back when G.I. Joe was still good, the Hasbroverse people really did an excellent job of sneaking mature themes and creepiness into their cartoons from time to time.
Dani said:
Nobody has mentioned the cartoon version of 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,' that always disturbed me. I was terrified the girl would turn into a tomato and get stepped on. And the vampire tomatoes! Stuff of nightmares.
Joe Abernathy said:
What a disappointment....I had my pants off and lube and Kleenex close at hand when I started watching the Thundercats.
It's obvious to me that they are just in form-fitting flesh colored costumes...
Oh, well, back to NSFW.com
Joe
Dan Morris said:
Holy crap, I forgot about that GI Joe sequence and I remembered being incredibly bothered by it back then and the idea of it freaking me out even now.
Affie said:
I think mighty Max was personall the most fraky kids cartoon. That along with mutant league and maybe ExoSquad always left me in a WTF daze. And I loved every second of it.
Back in the day somehow they got away with showing the little asian kid's grandpa dying on screen while being crushed by a boulder in Defenders Of The Earth but that sort of thing would never fly today.
Martha said:
Seriously! Thanks for doing this .... I'm still trying to figure out this strange phenomenon of what the eighties did to children. The movies were incredibly warped, esp. those TV movies like "I know my first name is Steven" and "Don't Go to Sleep," where children become demons or get abducted by child molesters and psychos. No other decade had that much intensely traumatic viewing to offer its generation of children. There are theories that say that you can gage a society by how it depicts children in the media -- no wonder all of us gen-exers are so warped -- society at large forgot us in the eighties and our parents left us as latch-key kids so they could go have their affairs, work their careers, get divorced and leave us for dead (or insane). I hyperbolize of course, but still....
jeff buckley said:
Does anyone notice the Care Bears run around naked except for when they go swimming, then they put on swimsuits? One little care bear suddenly becomes shy when losing their swimsuit. I find this all very disturbing.
Dantor said:
I think that my purple things work for the bunnies. But.. you all laugh.....
Beany McPickles said:
Persimmons!!! I can't believe you remembered Unico! There were two movies that rotated on Disney channel, of all channels, and both of them were horrifying. The first had some 20-something year old count guy kidnap a cat-turned-preteen-girl and drug her, then tie her up in chains atop a turret so he could transform into a 200 ft. tall ox skeleton that vomited red bats out its mouth. Oh, and Unico dies trying to kill it, but when the beast does die the ground splits open and melts it in liquid hot magma. And yeah, those "living puppets" from the second movie. SHIVER. Gah, just thinking about the creepy puppet villain guy from the second movie still has me rocking back and forth in the fetal position...freaking scariest animated character *EVER*.
...and yet I watched those movies, the Last Unicorn, the My Little Pony pilot, the Transformers movie and the Chipmunk Adventure like they were going out of style. Definitely explains why I'm typing this from a padded cell.
Sho the Wanderer said:
3skull - That show was called "Turbo Teen"
Birdzilla - Under his mask Cobra Commander is a blueish-grayish humanoid with many eyes all over his head. You can briefly see what he looked like before his chemical accident and then with the eyes and disfigurement in G.I. Joe: the movie (the cartoon one from the 80s, not the live action disaster they are vomitting up now--Global Intergrated Joint Operating Entity, how's that for a slap in the face to the American people? Thanks Paramount).
Jyri Snellman, Finland said:
Where's the beef?
Jessie said:
I seriously think (and hope that there is) there needs to be a list of kids movies that were traumatizing....I remember the Ewoks movie scaring the shit out of me, as well as The Last Unicorn being seriously upsetting. I also remember the Never Ending Story having some stuff that was upsetting.....on the other had I remember crying during the movie Snoopy Come Home, so maybe Im the one with the issues, lol!
Anonymous said:
how the fuck did you get jem having sex from that clip?
pissing moral christfag
Friginator said:
It's not Jem HAVING sex. It's just the suggestive lyrics at the beginning.
Though I've watched Jem, and it's seriously just hentai without sex.
SteveSmithJupiter said:
Loved the article and I'd like to add a warped moment from my childhood.
We had just got cable in 1979 and HBO was showing a cartoon my parents thought I might enjoy. So I sat down to watch it one night, alone mind you, and it had some of the most disturbing scenes and dialogue in animation history. I sat there and watched most of the movie with my jaw wide open and my parents were completely oblivious to the content of this "kids movie." It's a wonder I didn't end up in Arkham Asylum.
Fiver: Hazel, look... the field... it's covered with blood!
So I nominate "Watership Down" for the list.
adam arber said:
I was particularly scarred by Watership down. Why does Hazel have to die at the end.
I've got a range of teddies. They're Roadkill Teddies. Cute little animals that have been runover. I'd love to get people's feedback on them. Too sick or too cute?
Have a look at them on www.roadkilltoys.com
Chad AD said:
I see nobody's mentioned the episode of "Spider Man and his Amazing Friends" where the meteor crashed near a bee hive and made this gestalt intelligence out of the bees called "Swarm" (I guess). Swarm had the ability to turn people into bizarre bee-human hybrids (complete with antennae and compound eyes) who would constantly repeat "Swarm! Swarm!" as they built this giant hive-thing and turn other people into bee-people. That one creeped me out, and has stuck with me to this day.
BBCurt said:
I'm pretty sure there was an episode of GIJoe where Dr Mindbender turned Iceburg into a killer whale. If I remember correctly, as he is transforming, his clothes rip and we get a quick peek at Iceburg's dong. Creeped me out big time.
Isaiah said:
Robotech, by far, had so many things going on in that first series, Macross, I couldn't believe it. Even as a kid I knew, "Wow...this is crazy". Roy & Claudia's relationship (which was cool, I loved it), Roy then getting killed, shortly followed by Ben and Toronto being destroyed! The drug like nature of protoculture in the 2nd series. Yellowdancer the cross-dresser in the Invid Invasion! I remember my Dad and I would be late getting me to school everyday because we had to stay and finish watching the end. I remember all the guys at school would spend the first 30 minutes of the day going over Robotech. And I'll never forget the day Roy died. We all acted like it was a member of our family. Up until that point, prior to the Transformers: The Movie, no one had ever seen a TV cartoon show character die. Then there was Roy. The greatest big brother, coolest guy, best pilot, hope of the RDF...cut down. We were in shock. But we loved it.
Kamiyu said:
Now I understand why I'm so screwed up ^.^
Does anyone remember a cartoon that had children trying to save a world? My boyfriend described it as having golden cities that weren't really gold, but made of something like sand, and in the ending episode they defeated the ultimate bad guy and freed a bunch of people from being mind slaves. He said they were all dressed in red robes and they all looked the same, but when they were freed, the robes fell off and they all started regaining their original personalities and looks.
He also said that a boy sat in a stone thrown and apparently triggered something that may have poked the kid in the back of the neck or back, making him sit up straight. He said he thinks it triggered a vision, but is not certain, then the rest of the group entered.
He described the intro as being two words, block letters made of stone that was falling apart and one of the begining letters was an A or O that became a door that the kids went through.
I cannot find anything on this, but he said it really disturbed him.
P said:
I'm sorry I don't remember this better but it has been a long time, but the scene that fucked with me the most was in G.I. Joe (don't remember the episode or if it was a movie). Can't remember his name but it was one of the main Joes and he got fuckin stabbed in the chest by Cobra Commander staff or something and it showed the blood. I still remember that along with when Race Bannon in Johnny Quest got captured and was shot with a needle with some kind of stuff.
lol said:
OK, I just don't get all this talk of cartoons messing people up and whatnot. I mean come on, it's a cartoon... I buy all the old cartoon DVDs so my kids will have something to watch. Today's cartoons are sugar coated fluff. Cartoons don't screw kids up, bad parenting does. If you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality, don't blame the cartoons blame your parents for sheltering you during your entire receptive peak, and not explaining the difference between the two. If your only response to this post will be "I did know the difference." then what are you complaining about? I have seen it first hand, the kids growing up being able to watch this stuff turn out a lot more rounded than the kids forced to watch Barney until they are 15. Don't take this personal. I'm not "disin" your mom or anything. All I'm saying is while they are complete fantasy, it's cartoons like these that help prepare kids for what's ahead. I'd rather my kids know that life is hard and there just might be a coyote around the corner aiming to launch a rocket up their but than to have them think everything is sunshine and gumdrops, and everyone is helpful and nice all the time. Well, I think I have had my rant, you can all start telling me I'm wrong now :-).
Capt. Dry said:
I was three or four when Space Ghost and the Herculoids were 1st on. The Beginning or End Title showed this ship getting destroyed and I always wondered was it occupied or did the passengers get out. It just haunted me.
Anonymous said:
The last unicorn is seriously the most messed up ball of erotica ever to be played on the Disney channel. Over and over.
Anonymous said:
The last unicorn is seriously the most messed up ball of erotica ever to be played on the Disney channel. Over and over.
Rob said:
Wow, what a strange and terrible collection, and yeah, sadly, I remember most of these. The Little Pony one always surprised me, as there was a time when the show featured some of the nastiest, creepiest enemies to the ponies, one of whom, I believe, shaved their heads for their hair(!!!). This was aimed at children?
Brian Real said:
Thanks for this list. It's awesome. Though I still think Geisha Perceptor is the most fucked up moment in Transformers next to the Tracks & Raoul "cross-species-same-gender" love story, Optimus Prime & Bumblebee "special buddies" moments, Grappler and Hoist "Bird Cage" moments, and of course the Megatron, Starscream, and Nightbird love triangle.
Seaspray is a man of the sea. He loves both cabin boys and the ladies. He's a metrosexual kind of robot man. Personally, I think it was great to see that at least some Transformers weren't totally gay for each other like Red Alert was for Inferno, Cliffjumper was for Mirage, Starscream for Megatron, Grappler for Hoist, Tracks for Raoul, or Optimus Prime for Bumblebee.
As for Thundercats, about the only good thing about that bore-fest of a show was the fact that Cheetara was naked in the first episode.
And with the Ninja Turtles? It's not that disturbing if 1) April never dresses up thus never really showing how hot she is (this explains why her boss was an idiot and didn't commit sexual harassment considering all the other hoes he had), 2) The are "TEENAGE" Mutant Ninja Turtles. Teenagers are horn dogs; and 3)Splinter used to be a man so it would make sense he would find April attractive.
Keep up the good work and thanks again!
Laserstrike said:
You forgot a cartoon. Tranzor Z, the show about a giant robot vehicle and the female counterpart that had missles for breasts. She would shoot those off and that was it for her.
RTek said:
Man, I notice that Robotech has been a pretty common topic running through this discussion. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that through all three chapters it the highest death toll of any 80's cartoon.
Seriously. The episode 'Force Of Arms', when the Zentraedi take out 70% of the Earth's either population or surface, I forget which. And don't forget the Master's saga, featuring constant 'Charges Of The Light Brigade'. I don't think the Southern Cross ever really decisively won an engagement with the Robotech Masters. Nobody else comes close.
Also, in the last episode, it is implied that Lisa was the only surviving member of the SDF-1 bridge crew. However, in the original Japanese version (Super Dimensional Fortress Macross), the whole crew SURVIVED! I think this is the only known example of an imported show being rewritten to KILL OFF characters!
Grok Bokker said:
I was creeped out by the Super Friends episode where the Justice League is turn into trolls and sent to middle earth.
I was like WTF is going on, everyone looks so creepy and they are in a hellish place. I think the episode was called Escape from Middle Earth circa 1979. Why was it that the Super Friends reruns never showed any of the good episodes, they'd usually re-run the most boring stuff.
carter said:
I grew up in Europe where the most disturbing cartoon I ever saw involved people who are drawn to look like foxes, cats and dogs. That would be creepy enough but there was such bizarre, interspecial, sexual tension (especially in a nightclub scene) that I could never forget it- does anyone know what I am talking about? Is it Bucky O'Hare? There was a creepy/sexy girl fox in that one too I think.
Also, my folks thought that anything animated MUST be for children so they let me watch Wizards. I couldn't believe my eyes when the little, slave fairy started to strip off her dress in front of a crowd of sneering goblin, bar patrons! She clearly didn't want to be doing a strip tease for her captures! That was my first introduction to the idea of Dom/Sub. I felt strange and upset... for years.
Zietgeist said:
Robotech may not have got interracial dating past some of the wowsers, but the age difference between Rick and Lyn Minmei got lost in translation... Rick's 19 and Lyn is still jailbait at 15 years old...
Though at the time I was watching Robotech on the breakfast cartoon show, I always thought she was 12 from the way she carried on (too much like the other cootie carrying ickypants girls I knew in real life)... It was a relief when Rick finally choose the more mature Lisa.
Belunan said:
Alice Cooper on the Muppets. The end - I win.
Chuixupu said:
What's REALLY missing from this list is that horrible PSA "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue" where all the popular cartoon characters joined together to save a boy from the evil clutches of marijuana.
The great bird of the galaxy said:
Do you remember DINOSUACERS? it was creepy the way they could dinovole
Mike said:
About the "Ninja Turtles" clip, you complain that Splinter was "ogling a woman not of his species." WRONG!!! In case you forgot, watch the opening credits again. Splinter was a human before being transformed into a rat. Ergo, he has every right to drool over April's new look. As for the Turtles though, I will second the "Creepy" vote.
kiwimon said:
whats wrong with that chuixupu i mean thats bad stuff that dope its deadly and nasty
Birdzilla said:
How about the SUPERFREINDS episode SUPERFREINDS RIP where the LEGION OF DOOM use that material to kill off the superfreinds i mean it begins with BATMANS funeral but as was they superfreind andriod were the ones killed off and APACHE CHEIF got rid of that crystal or SWAMP OF THE LIVING DEAD where the legion get that witch to summon that evil entity which must have been satan
PESTO THE PSYCOPATHIC PIGEON said:
SUPERFREIND episode HISTORY OF DOOM where those aleins come to a devistated earth we see SAN FRANCISCO,NEW YORK,PARIS,EGYPT, and METROPOLIS in ruins and find out that THE LEGION OF DOOM had cuased a solar flare and then couldnt stop it
Razor said:
These were indeed all the creepy moments I remember, and then some! LOL
I even remember talking with a friend when we started watching Robotech in 1985--she was telling me about this cartoon where someone died. I immediately said, "Nuh uh! They can't show that on cartoons!" She said, "Nono, it's made in Japan. It's different over there." Of course I HAD to see what that was all about...
My mom started watching Robotech with me, and to this day I get emotional at "Farewell Big Brother", the episode where Roy Fokker dies. My mom said that it was at that moment that she knew the show was more like a soap opera (the ones she used to watch back in the day!) and less like a cartoon. Thus my introduction to anime vs. 'cartoons' (though at that time no one in the US knew what anime was...except maybe Fred Patten).
That episode of GI Joe freaked me out well and good back then. Yikes!
However the freakiest thing I ever saw in the 80s was not a cartoon but a toy--a doll that talked, something like Teddy Ruxpin (which ALSO freaked me out!). When you picked it up, the doll would say, "Where are we going?" When the lights came on, it would say "Ooh, it's getting brighter." 'Talking Tina' anyone?? 0_0
Thanks for the memories! Heh, I think! XD
hhbx said:
I swear that sorcerer from reminds me of Skeletor.
JINZONINGEN 73 said:
I remember the Bravestarr (ep.47, "The Price") where the kid died from doing "spin".
But I was more awed by a scene from ep.44, "Tex's Terrible Night" ...it was your basic christmas carol episode, with Shaman taking Hex through his life. They reused animation from the original movie (YES, it was a movie before a series) in which Tex apparently crashes a kerium-filled transport (greedy bastard!) and winds up DEAD on the doorstep of the villain's hideout. Stampede then hits him with evil magic and his lifeless, dangling body is flailing around in the air with each bolt.
ExoSquad had it's moments too... I remember one episode where the NeoSapiens were doing a concentration camp-like "relocation" scam, in which a space freighter supposedly bringing the humans to another place in fact gets ditched halfway and hurled into the SUN. Many minutes went by with the humans suffering from heatstroke and asphyxiation.
Then, later in the series, the Neos started making mutant monster versions of themselves... you had a scene where these giant crab-people were rising out of the water and DRAGGING people screaming into the water. Shocking!
Let's not forget the Transformers episode with some eccentric hunter who has the Autobots tied up to a bunch of long-term torture devices.
i remember how fucked up it was that Bumblebee had to keep transforming and untransforming so a swinging guillotine blade over the table wouldn't cut him in two. DAMN.
Really though, Captain Planet was just a BAD cartoon... just New World Order training crap being shoved into kid's heads, like the idea that global warming is real (lol, the earth is now in a cooling period) or any other number of bad-science nonsense to get kids guilty feeling for merely breathing air.
I guess some of the stuff on the list diesn't bother me that much. I grew up more in the 70's, watching dudes get killed in anime like Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets and Starblazers. "Death" and violence were nothing new to me. I was more scared of indoctrinating GARBAGE like Captain Planet and the endless stream of Saturday morning cartoons being pumped out by the major networks with HORRIBLE quality control or sane storylines.
JINZONINGEN 73 said:
Oh yes, let's not forget "GI JOE the Movie" which aired on TV.
You had Cobra Commander bget betrayed by Serpentor, forced to breathe a strange mist that mutated him even further, all the way into a giant snake with arms that just kept repeating "Wass oncccce a maaaaan, wassssss ooooncccce a maaaaaaan".
Later in the movie, you had Joes getting grabbed by bulbous plants or some junk and swallowed whole. Duke was supposed to die in this, but after seeing reactions from Optimus dying in Transformers, he was merely badly hurt.
JimHensonFan4EVA said:
To SteveSmithJupiter & adam arber: I'd just like to say that "Watership Down" was a novel before being released as a movie, and it was definitely NOT for kids. I actually bought a VHS tape (years ago when a store was going out of business) which had a large strip across the front which clearly read 'NOT A CHILDREN'S MOVIE'.
The above also applies to Peter S. Beagle's novella "The Last Unicorn". While having some truly disturbing imagery, this movie was also not intended for anyone under the age of consent.
Just my .02 worth....
Anonymous said:
This is a bit off-topic, but when I saw the "who is he kissin'" music video, I immediately thought of the first OP of Macross Frontier. Translated, the first lines read "Who are you going to kiss?/ Me, or that girl?" If that weren't enough, the characters' appearances reminded me of Alto and Sheryl, too.
Koby Fish said:
Oh yeah all this stuff is brane breaking but the one that beats them all out is the non-animated Buck Rogers from the 80s. You wanna see people melting? And not just melting, but incinerating into a pile of smoking ashes? Check out the episode "Hand of the Goral" (Buck Rogers Season 2). Haunted me for YEARS.
Also the episode where Buck morphs into a Satyr was pretty messed-up. Cool, but wow.
megan said:
I enjoyed the article but was sad that my two horrifying moments weren't listed anywhere. The first is from G.I. Joe, Scarlet is turned into a mermaid. I cannot find proof that this episode existed, but I remember it. The second is in the story of how Jem's parents died. When she was a teen, Jerrica (Jem's "real" identity) refuses to tell her parents goodbye before they take a private plane. Then it crashes and they die. Yep, she NEVER SEES THEM AGAIN. I still have to tell everyone goodbye or I love you before they leave. I'm 30 and still scarred.
heimp said:
I think the cartoon incident that scarred me the most was when Princess got eaten by one of those giant plants in Battle of the Planets or G-Force or whatever it was called. I remember being just devastated. I was like 5 or 6. I think she survived.
Also there was an episode of MASK where Sly Rax was trapped in an underwater cave-in and they never showed him escaping.
Inhumanoids was so awesome. I remember it being voted my violent show by some parents group.
And naked Chetara isn't disturbing, it's awesome.
Dave daniels said:
This has 2 get honarable mention on this eisode od tom and jerry tom gets killed and goes 2 heaven before u can get in peter or somecat is at the gates asking how they died after a few cats give there reason here comes a wet sack hoping 2 the gate it opens up out comes 3 kittens thegte keeper says boy some peoplea tmentmentioned
primal convoy in Japan said:
Nice! I was just watching the pilot of Thundercats and BAM! It hit me. However here are some other shocking moments in kids' TV history:
1/ The Girl Who Loved Powerglide
This was an ENTIRE episode about the romantic relationship between the Transformer, Powerglide and a human female.
2/ Centurions
Almost every episode had some poor, innocent creature or person "assimilated" into a cyborg. At least it desensitized us to the Borg in Startrek though, eh readers?
3/ He-Man kissing She-Ra
I mean, she was his COUSIN, for cryin' out loud.
4/ Sue is Pregnant
In the UK, a famous, classic puppet show, known as "The Sooty Show" fell from grace when it was announced that Sue, the female panda and "sister" of the group of three puppets was now "pregnant". When asked on a CHILDRENS' saturday magazine show about this new storyline, and whether Sooty was the father (remember, the puppets are meant to be kids with the human their adopted father), the main puppeteer, Mathew Corbett replied, "Well, perhaps (Sue's baby) is Sooty's glove-child".
It was eventually discovered that Sue had either a phantom pregnancy or a miscarriage. I shit you not.
5/ BBC Saturday Morning Shows
Just like other countries, the UK had its fair share of Saturday morning shows, complete with one or two cartoons, plenty of games and comedy skits. The BBC once had a game, where lots of "gunge" was used (the type of jelly and gunky stuff they throw at kids and contestants on such shows). In it, the kids had to line up and run through all manner of gunge, whereby, as one little girl ran through a load of gunk to the back of the line to have another bash, the adult presenter for the BBC said "I love sloppy lasts".
I leave you to work out exactly what he meant.
BBC Presenter's Rude T-Shirt
One presenter also wore a "FCUK" (French Connection United Kingdom" t-shirt, but at least they were scolded and reprimanded by BBC bosses. Also, one female presenter for "Blue Peter" got in trouble for wearing increasingly skimpy tops, revealing more and more cleavage. At least Dad was happy.
tahrey said:
Sooty ... well, I can believe. The puppets in British kids shows have been getting away with everything just short of murder for decades :) See if you can scare up the "scripts" for the Clangers at some point. And there's even some now that push a similar envelope (I don't see much of it any more, but idle moments have led me to both Ed & Oucho, and Little Howard, which are both hilarious and very fortunate that both the censors are probably too cut & dried to notice half of it, and the kids have *no* idea).
Wouldn't all of Centurions and a few other shows - for example, Bravestarr or even He-Man (...Visionaries?) count as one long headfuck?
I present to you at the very least Mysterious Cities of Gold (how did nothing from that get in? the lead character goes on a seasickness-induced acid trip in the second episode, just for a start, not to mention all the native american shenanigans that have stopped it ever being repeated once the censors woke up), Ulysses 31 (terrifying in places), Jace and the Wheeled Warriors (the *concept* alone is freaky) for further consideration.
(I have a sneaking suspicion the acid trip sequence was the inspiration for a similar Magic Mushroom event in Avatar more recently... that, or Cowboy Bebop was responsible)
But then I accept it is a top ten, not a 20, 50 or 100!
I thank Josh for bringing The Real Ghostbusters back to my attention - one that's stuck in my mind ever since I saw it as a kid was the episode where they were all stuck "asleep" and their dreams were becoming real... and only Janine, with her dream of becoming a Ghostbuster, could save the day. Also pretty trippy and frightening at times, as *things from peoples dreams threatened to kill them*. Very Nightmare on Elm Street. I probably didn't get much sleep that night...
No wonder our generation is so emotionally retarded.
Even dungeons and dragons was likely to react badly with the sugar and artificial colours in your sweets, with that lurid red and orange landscape...
((BTW - no shit about there being a Transformer called... Powerglide? And a girl that loved him? Isn't that also some kind of "personal lubricant"?))
carter - you really that disturbed by furries? :D I mean freaky yeah, but not really frightening.
For all the faults though, I must thank this article for introducing me to three things:
* Naked Thundercats (oh yes... ohhhhh yes :p),
* That sweeeet 2~3 minutes where My Little Pony was no longer sickeningly twee musical theatre for pre-school girls, and suddenly went all goth and postmodern... We are lizardmen riding on the storm, come to abduct the cutesy ponies to a CASTLE OF DESPAIRRRRRRRR. It really deserves a metal soundtrack overdubbed on it - if that wouldn't then drown out the awesome cameo of THE GUY FROM THRILLER (Vincent Price - seriously, did NO-ONE else spot his distinctive tones?) as the baddie. Genius!
* Oh yeah, and being the second site in three days to inform me that the still-shrinkwrapped Last Unicorn DVD that I picked up a couple years ago cheap as a joke may actually be worth unwrapping, as it's got far more interesting wierdness and far less disturbing my-little-pony tweeness than the cover would have you believe. Maybe not Watership Down levels, maybe not even Dark Crystal levels (which I bought at the same time) but enough to stave off ridicule for owning up to watching it.
PS If that sort of TV-movie-ish material is to be included, as well as straight-up Saturday Morning series, I will trump you all with WHEN THE WIND BLOWS.
Gentle, well known British kids' book illustrator takes on the topic of Nuclear War, including a slow buildup (...the world knows it's on the path to total destruction, but somehow doesn't stop, and the elderly, Blitz-escapee characters simply prepare themselves for missile attack in a calm, stoic british way), and a Terminator 2 "Bombing of LA" type sequence with trains being blown off their tracks, cities ... trees ... people turning to dust, etc. And the protagonists then slowly dying of radiation sickness for the final third. I managed to eventually force my way through to the end of the book when I was in my teens, and had nightmares after. I STILL haven't yet managed to stomach the complete movie. Shit, I'm slightly breathless at the memory, having written that.
(And there it must be left lest we end up diversifying into Round The Twist and other such live-action horrors also)
OK... End!
tahrey said:
un-end: Kamiyu, I have no idea what that is (unless it's MCoG and a couple other things filtered together through the haze of the years)... but damn, I wish I did. It sounds awesome.
Perhaps he got to see Nausicaa / Warriors of the Wind at about the same time, and the two of them stuck as being part of the same entity in his head (at least some shared animators and designers between the two of them).
Also, a lot of the links have unfortunately expired, can we get them refreshed with working videos pleeez? kthx,
re-end.
CheshireMoon said:
I was always freaked out in that episode of D&D when the actobat aged rapidly and the barbarian turned into a baby.
My little Pony was hardcore back then.
How about in the GI Joe movie when Cobra cCommander removes his faceplate after Serpentor blasts him with those spores - and he's all multi-eyed and scaley, I'm still freaked out.
alvinic said:
Wht aws the title of the japanese cartoon where the character is alvin with the magical doll that travel in a toy car with a glider? anyone knows.
Xixen said:
Anyone else notice that the intro to My Little Ponies looks a hell of a lot like the Greek mythology inspired sequence from Fantasia? In fact, the whole demon arriving scene is oddly reminiscent of the storm scene from that same film. I'm not sure whether that's amusing or depressing.
Darren said:
Well, this isn't 80s or a cartoon, but something that really REALLY disturbed me was in the HARRY POTTER movies. Voldermort? No. All the deaths? No.
Scabbers the Paedo rat!
The first couple of films had the Weasley kid letting the rat crawl all over him and SLEEP in his bed. The it then turns out that it was a 50-something year-old MAN _disguised_ as a rat instead!!!!
Darren said:
Well, this isn't 80s or a cartoon, but something that really REALLY disturbed me was in the HARRY POTTER movies. Voldermort? No. All the deaths? No.
Scabbers the Paedo rat!
The first couple of films had the Weasley kid letting the rat crawl all over him and SLEEP in his bed. The it then turns out that it was a 50-something year-old MAN _disguised_ as a rat instead!!!!
jakeonhisplanet said:
Roll on a few years, does anyone remember Pirates of Darkwater? Many, many characters buying the farm within half a dozen episodes, scarily huge and inhospitable water world.
And no cartoon came close to the Vader/Skywalker scrap in Empire Strikes Back, thats some damn severe corporal punishment!
Yax said:
Ok not at all 80's but Ren and Stimpy was on Nickelodeon. Ren and Stimpy. They actually said "crap" that that show once, CRAP! That's like, actually sort of a swear word. It was the episode when Ren gets entered in a dog show.
Years later this cartoon would be remade for a short time on Spike TV and Ren and Stimpy were gay. Really necessary?
SteveFox said:
I can remember ab animated movie with animals as the main characters. Nothing out of the ordinary, but at some point in the movie, it's revealed that it's earth after a huge war killed off EVERY SINGLE HUMAN. The only part of the movie i remember now is the flashback of the battlefield, where you see two shadowy soldier figures against a desolate backdrop shoot each other dead, thus ending the human race.
That scared the shit outta me when i was little.
Wish i could remember more 'bout the movie...
Anon said:
SteveFox: I 99% sure that the animation you mentioned is the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon "Peace on Earth" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8OYvHPpGDY where, as you said, the last two humans shoot each other dead, then the animals take over ala Planet of the Apes. And this was a Christmas story!!! Yep, scare the crap out of the kids at that jolly time of year!
Thunderlover said:
Never disrespect the thundercats again, lest ye be smited.
Peritemno said:
I'll tell you a trippy one was the Rainbow Bright movie. (Was my sister's and I saw it ok) Where all of her little friends got zapped by the lightning ray and got turned into stone or crystal or whatever it was. That was one dark movie!
Getstefunky said:
What about when Roy Focker dies in Robotech? The dude's just sitting there playing guitar when he bleeds (internally) to death.
Emily said:
I'm amused that multiple people pointed out that Splinter was human in TMNT-cartoon continuity, but nobody commented that at least one of the turtles' canon love interests in the cartoon was human.
Scooter said:
That kid who turned into a car, red convertable if I recall, was called Turbo Teen. It came on the same time as a short lived robot cartoon called the mighty orbots, but thats all i remember about it.
hurricane567 said:
I was going to mention "Worlds Without End" but someone beat me to it. Cheetara with no clothes on=FREAKING HOT! Also, Jem is probably where i grew out of the "girls are grody" phase lol
TberK said:
Shipwreck's family melting is the reason why I stopped watching G.I. Joe.
I still love Jem and the Holograms. As an adult, I wonder if Jem/Jerrica was a drag queen. Jerrica sounds like drag stage name.
If you do one for the 90's, Captain Planet definitely needs to be on that list.
kzz said:
The worst ever mind blowing cartoon i saw was pac man the U.S animated tv show,,in it all innocent at the time miss pac man calles her husband for short packy,affectionatly,,which in the uk sounds like a racist slur to asian/east indians (Pakistani) people.man that was so messed up but un intentional.
*** Dave said:
The Cheetara clip is down right now, but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuiZJP8cxoM shows the full first part of the first episode to the point (around 8 minutes) where they get their clothing.
The most disturbing thing about the video is not the nekkid (save for shoes) Cheetara, but that the male Thundercats are all nekkid, too ... and, um, have fewer sexual characteristics than Cheetara shows.
Kinda makes the ever-growing Sword of Omens even more metaphorical.
Other comment -- like the above viewer, the original Jonny Quest "energy monster" ep scared the heck out of me. Interestingly, it did the same to my daughter when she first watched it a few years back. Of course, that's a 60s cartoon, so out of the running for this post.
Kal-El Summers said:
The Last Unicorn was some of the most trippy shit I'd ever seen til the second Unico movie where the people turn into puppet-blocks. I think I was 7 when I saw the "GNAP!" episode of the Smurfs which haunted my dreams for at least 5 years. Talk about fuckin' NIGHTMARE FUEL. David the Gnome's ending freaked me the fuck out so much that I'd blocked it from my memory til someone brought up the show 5 years ago when we were talking about old 80's toons. I also never thought that girl from the second Care Bears movie was dead til I watched it again a while back and even that wasn't as freaky as the Care Bears and Cousins asking everyone to say how much they cared(btw, I hate the song they played over the ending credits with a passion because it was so sickeningly sweet and sad that I used to tear up just hearing the instrumental).
"Snoopy Come Home" is insanely depressing when Snoopy gets to the girl that had him before and she can't take him back because they didn't allow dogs in their new apartment. "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown!" wasn't depressing, but the part where Linus and Charile have to sleep outside and are scared shitless by the candlelight in the tower and the storm was kinda hard to sit through when you're 5-6 years old.
I still remember that episode of TMNT where April gets mutated into a cat-woman and Shredder locks her in a cage always kinda bothered me. Speaking of inter-species lust, does anyone remember on Chip 'N' Dale's Rescue Rangers how both Chip and Dale were constantly trying to impress Gadget? Always found that a bit weird(though not as much as both of them dressing in drag, seducing/distracting Fat Cat, and Dale getting VERY into it...).
I have to say that you guys are evil BASTARDS for making me remember *all* of the songs from the Chipmunks movie.
Sean said:
All of Robotech was pretty damn disturbing compared to most kids' fare. You have Roy's long, drawn-out death in the first season (Macross), the final battle of the first season with most of the cast dying, the second season (Southern Cross) finale (epic mood whiplash, considering the lighter tone of the rest of it), and... pretty much the entire third season (MOSPEADA). What can I say, the Invid are fucking scary.
Is it sad that I actually know the original anime aside from Macross off the top of my head? On that note, Macross Plus and Macross Frontier are both fucking awesome, go watch them.
darkseed said:
One thing about Tranzor Z that bothered me was the girl who piloted the female robot was in some episodes played as Tommy's girlfriend and in other episodes she seemed like his sister. And was the scientist Dr. Davis Tommy's father, or was it a guy who happened to have the same last name. And don't get me started on that hermaphrodite, Devlene. Or that guy with the floating head.
Aidan said:
My nominations:
"Transformers"
TV series -- When Starscream tries to blow up the Earth for energon and enlists Dr. Arkeville's help. Dr. Arkeville tries to stop him, but the control panel backfires as it's set for Decepticon use only. When Arkeville wakes up, his body has been rebuilt into a cyborg. THAT is flat-out insane.
What never makes sense now is: what would cause Arkeville to be so injured that he would need new body parts to begin with?
"Transformers: The Movie"
The opening scene where Unicron eats the first planet is pretty scary. Also the Quintesson judges "Guilty or innocent".
And this one has been almost forgotten. Not a cartoon series, but a short film from the 80's...
"Mickey's Christmas Carol"
Does anyone remember the climactic scene where Pete/Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge the duck his grave? That is dark on its own, but THEN, the ground opens up, and Scrooge is slipping down on his way to Hell! That scene still freaks me out today. Lucky of course that he doesn't actually go there.
Electronic Cigarette said:
Yo, the care bears were raising the dead using the music! Party on Man!
Asuka said:
You forgot the episode from The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse in 1985 where Might Mouse was snorting cocaine in an episode. they explained to the audience that MM was down and depressed and he took some magic pixie dust to make himself feel better!!!
thumbzye8 said:
i watched that gi joe clip wen i was little it was fuckin scary
NuttyByNature said:
SEXUAL GROANING OPTIMUS PRIME!!
One that messed me up was the episode of Transformers where Optimus takes love-interest Elita One to be fixed, and he has to "plug into" Elita to transfer his energy to her. The sound he makes is legend to Transfans!!
DAF said:
This is good Stuff.........
Silly_Me said:
ok this isn't an 80s cartoon.. heck it isn't even a cartoon... but if you want to watch something warped... watch the movie Teeth lol
dyeek said:
That GI Joe episode freaked the shit out of me when I was 9 -- like seriously, my first experience of existential panic. Completely sadistic episode of that show.
miss l said:
how can u watch that kind of stupid cartoons ,i really don't like it ,it's not funny,and u can't learn anything good only disgusting characters>(((((
Bloublibo said:
My friend next to me at that moment was my computer and I told it, I don't give a shit.
miss I: Never had a childhood, did you?
Des said:
One of the cartoons I grew up watching was the Rambo cartoon, and one of the villains was an android. What freaked me out was when his face would lift up and guns would come out, and as I remember it looked red, so it was like his face was peeled back. I hated that. Creepy.
leah said:
it wasn't a T.V cartoon, but The Last Unicorn was a cartoon movie that i loved growing up. there were a few fucked up scences, several with the red bull, one with the king, and a witch gets eaten alive by a harpy. crazy...
Electronic Cigarette said:
but The Last Unicorn was a cartoon movie that i loved growing up. there were a few fucked up scences, several with the red bull
e cigarette said:
*gasp* You don't ever, ever put the phrase "making love" in a children's cartoon!
smkedtky said:
Who was the old cyborg guy who worked with the Decepticons in TRANSFORMERS? He had white hair poking out from under a metal cap and was, sometimes, in a wheel chair. If I recall correctly, Megatron forced the robotic parts on him, against his will. That guy used to creep the shit out of me.
john Jenkins said:
All of these cartoon back in the 80s seem so harmless compared to what kids are being exposed to nowadays. cartoons shape alof of kids are like...we should bring this style back to life
