And that's full-body Muppets that are way into choreography and reminiscent of the horrible mutants from Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
5) Frazzle
The song above would have you believe that Muppet monster Frazzle "looks ferocious but he's really fine." That may be true, but with his sinister eyes and razor sharp teeth I'm too busy trying to maintain control of my bladder to find out what he's really like.
4) Uncle Deadly
Uncle Deadly spends most of his appearances on The Muppet Show haunting the Muppet Theater. As such, he is a shoo-in to grace the top five of this list. Scary looks are one thing, but when you pair them with Uncle Deadly's "ac-tor" persona you've got the making of a truly nightmarish character.
3) Yorick
Yorick is a one-and-done Muppet whose sole appearance was in the episode of The Muppet Show that was hosted by Christopher Reeve. Jump to 3:58 in the above clip to witness how Reeve's attempts to bring Hamlet to life are thwarted by the Muppets, including Shakespeare's famous skull, rendered here as an awesome (from my 2013 perspective) and horrific (circa 1980 me) puppet.
2) Swedish Chef
At one point becoming popular enough to spawn his own breakfast cereal, the Swedish Chef is arguably the silliest of all the Muppets. (Certainly one of the most popular). Yet beyond all of the goofy faux-Swedish lies a strange element to the otherwise puppety character: his hands are those of a human. As a child, I became so fixated on this aspect of the Chef that I couldn't focus on what dish he was trying to make whenever he appeared on The Muppet Show. Those hands...why? Was there a person trapped under his skin, trying to somehow cook his way to freedom? Or was I just an over-sensitive kid whose unblinking focus on those hands caused uneasiness? Such are the bizarre worries of adolescence. Those things still do kinda creep me out though.
1) Gary Cahuenga
Have we learned nothing from Magic? You know why Muppets Tonight character/living ventriloquist dummy Gary Cahuenga didn't appear in The Muppets? Because he's serving 25 to life for choking Robin to death.
Oh, and I'm surprised Statler and Waldorf didn't make this list? When their freaky skinny legs would appear, they scared me especially.
And what about Fraggles? I grew up in a border town, so we watched mostly Canadian TV, Fraggles were big on the CBC. The garbage heap, doozers, and the Gorgs caused me many sleepless nights.
As for Dark Crystal and its ilk, thank you for not including them at all. The fact that those movies exist sometimes prevents me from getting a decent rest. [Shudder].
In answer to the question re: which Muppets scared me, the answer is: ALL OF THEM! Shit. Muppets were the most terrifying thing in my childhood, and I was subjected to them every single Saturday night after bath time. Why get clean when my mind was just going to be dirtied with horrifying puppetry?
The only tolerable Muppets are a couple of the Sesame Street folks, Kermit (but only on Sesame St., when he was on the Muppet stage he scared me as much as any of them), Ernie (NOT Bert), Elmo, and maybe Grover.
The key to my Muppet fear was that they surrounded their human hosts on the Muppet Show. I was convinced that they'd turn on the human at any moment. The human to Muppet ration on Sesame St., on the other hand, made these terrifying creatures easier to handle because they were outnumbered. Because of this fear of Muppets gobbling up their human captives, Swedish Chef actually scared me less than most Muppets. His human hands reminded me that there were people under those scary beasts, that helped me sleep a *tad* more easily.
That said, I was a Muppet Babies devotee, go figure. But then I'd picture that at the top of Nanny's striped tights was a face like Animal's, and then I'd go down that rabbit hole...
@DetectiveFork Sam scared the soup out of me too! Those menacing eyebrows. And does anyone else think he looks like Steve Carell?
The only ones from this list that bothered me at all when I was a child were the Yip Yips. Don't know why but they freaked me the hell out.
Thought Gonzo was great though.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/502/lasvegasparanot.jpg/
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I thought Yorick was this terror from Sam and Friends...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RUWQKwrbcvA
Just watch what he does to poor Kermit at the end of this vid...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OkNE4FiUtOE
surprised to see both Janice and the sweddish chef on the list. for true she came off as a peace love child muppet she actully was not that bad other then whinning all the time. the chef was hilerious. and glad i am not the only one who thought uncle dudely was scary looking . Sweetums . when i first saw him i did not want to watch the muppets for fear of seeing him wanting to eat kermit ,or the celeb on the muppet show
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It was actually Ernie that induced nightmares in me when I was little. Not everyday, fun-loving, troublemaker Ernie. No, no, I'm talking about a particular appearance of Ernie. In the episode the Count sleeps over at Bert & Ernie's place and takes Bert's bed. When the Count can't sleep, Ernie suggests he count sheep. Well, the Count being the Count enjoys counting sheep so much that he does it all night (loudly) rather than sleep. In the morning Ernie stumbles out of the bedroom 'zombified' with his hair matted down and scary glazed eyes muttering numbers to himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LH62UQ8pSR4#t=195s
I stopped watching Sesame Street for a week out of fear that 'sleep deprived Ernie' would make a reappearance.
@JuliusGryphon I managed to escape this episode in my childhood, but now I'll never be able to look at Ernie the same way again.
The Muppets that terrified me were twofold:
1) The man-sized Muppets that would open up their mouths and basically inhale people and other Muppets.
2) The giant Chopped Liver from the Pigs In Space episode.
The only Muppet I ever found more frightening than these was the nightmare I had where one killed Henry Winkler with an axe. I realized later it was my step-mother.
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For some reason, Lew Zealand and Guy Smiley always unnerved me. But then as a kid I had no problem with the Skeksis, but cried if I had to look at a Gelfling for more than twenty seconds.
@EliasAlgorithm Guy Smiley's mouth just opened too big. It was creepy. Very Terrance and Phillip.
@EliasAlgorithm The only time I was creeped out by the Skeksis was the dinner scene. Even now, I prefer not to watch that.
@EliasAlgorithm Gelflings were the creepiest - it's the uncanny valley effect, where more humanoid replicas are creepier because we identify what's "off" about them more quickly.
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As a wee one, it was never the regular Muppets that freaked me out, but this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLyyBWsdbXo
It's an awesome bit of performance and genuinely lovely puppetry, but as a kid, that ghost face just about sent me behind the couch.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57oUeO_OJMg
Obligatory in a thread mentioning the Chef.
It hasn't been too long that I did, a friend on a music video fb group posted it. Chris Hardwick has a country parody about science, as well, which is probably better than this one. ("Trace Elements")
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Hey... where's Animal? The guy's so dangerous he has to be kept on a chain so he doesn't go berserk and murder everyone. He's what happens when you cross a wolverine, a honey badger and Keith Moon.
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@aphthakid I think kids identify with Animal rather than being scared of him. That's my recollection of elementary school perceptions, anyway.
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Wait...you compared a member of Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem to a Manson girl?!?
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/XAWQ7xB.gif[/IMG]
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Gonzo scared me up to the age of six. Nice to hear from Chris and a most excellent list.
Nice with the Magic reference. Anthony Hopkins--fuck Hannibal--at his finest*
*Sub weirdest/creepiest/most scenery-chewing as you see fit.
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Personally i prefer muppets in real life...
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3bLwqKU.jpg[/IMG]
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@rabidronnie @Canadian.Scott http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m90hxitXCo1rwz405o1_400.gif
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Your choices are too nice. Here's a muppet from the early days of Sesame Street that scared the crap out of me.
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@skrag2112 don't make eye contact. . . proceed slowly backwards. . . [IMG]http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm227/ciaosushi/tumblr_lmhwmhfzpA1qkkljxo1_400.gif[/IMG]
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My sister was terrified of Uncle Deadly, who until now I only knew as the Phantom of the Muppet Show. I was a year younger and he didn't phase me but my sister went hysterical alternately crying and screaming for hours the night that show aired - far more scary than the muppet. I guess having to deal with an older sister made the horrors of the world pale in comparison.
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@Gallen_Dugall As an older sister myelf, I am not sure whether to be deeply offended or to go find your sister and shake her hand.
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@rabidronnie @Gallen_Dugall she has a tendency to hysteria. I was called out of class to calm her down in high school once after she was struck with hysterical blindness during a frog dissection.
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@Theodore_T_Theodore @Gallen_Dugall hysterical blindness is some scary stuff if you've never experienced it before. I'd never heard of it before and since only because the character Albert Blithe is stuck with it in that episode of Band of Brothers. There's a tendency to think the person is faking since there's no physical cause (I certainly did) but it's an actual thing.
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@Gallen_Dugall My coping mechanisms suddenly seem quite reasonable. Bless you, dear sir.
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@rabidronnie @Gallen_Dugall She was one of the "cool people" who did things everyone talked about; like getting the principle to break down during the morning announcements into the "lumberjack song" and other such shenanigans. Plus she was selling paintings at that point and starting to make a serious name for herself (some of her things were displayed in a Miami gallery) until she swore off painting because it was too much about money and not art and gave away all her work instead of taking the money. I also credit her with the resurgence of '60s fashion among other things.
Nerd news, humor and self-loathing. Edited by Luke Y. Thompson
