When I was about 8 years old (2016) I woke up early while my parents were still asleep and turned on the TV to see what to watch. Superjail was on and I cried due to so much gore being on the TV, even if it was cartoon gore. I was 8.

Happy tree friends. No idea how they got the broadcast rights and why they showed it at 8pm.

Twin Peaks. Way too young to see it, when I did.

"The Animals of Farthing Wood". It's a cartoon about a group of animals who try to find a new home after humans destroy their forest. Many of them die horrible deaths along the way. Still vividly remember the hedgehog family being run over on the motorway. And yes, it was a kids show!

This is embarrassing but Goosebumps. I think I watched an episode that just caught me off guard while I was in a strange place (first sleepover at a friend's house) and the super campy episode freaked me right out.

Runner up was poltergeist. My older sister thought it was very funny that it was rated PG and so I saw it when I was maybe 7 or 8. 😂

MacGyver.

Yeah yeah, that one episode with the fire ants (S01E05) and the other one with the fast aging scientist (S03E11) gave me nightmares as a kid.

I should try to watch them today just to see how cool was the young O’Neill with two L.

The X Files inbred family episode almost feels like too easy of an answer.

I loved that show as a kid. No idea why I connected with it so strongly but I always appreciated that it wouldn't shy away from darker themes.

That scared the shit out of me as a kid

I loved horror even as a kid (I'm a millennial and seems common in my gen).

Since I never complained of nightmares my mom would let me watch pretty much any horror movie I wanted. As long as it didn't have titties.

Anywho.

I remember watching something. Idk if it was a movie or TV show. Or anthology. (I've searched all over the internet and can't find it).

In the show there are some boys or kids. And there was this bully at school. Real asshole.

And in one scene the boys are in the bathroom and the bully is being a bully and this big nasty monster creature comes out of the vent in the ceiling and kills the bully.

This is slightly embarrassing to admit, because I'm a rational woman of science and I don't believe in monster creatures. But.

I would get anxiety every time I used a public toilet with a vent above the toilet. To the point I would not use that toilet.

And if there was a ceiling vent and I was the only person in the restroom (even in the stall farthest from the vent), my heart would race and sometimes id leave until someone else came in.

I was also unhappy about the fact that a stupid show did this to me.

I tried to find the show , so that I could watch it with my adult mind and "get over it", see how fake the monster looked, but I never found it.

So I decided I was going to fix it myself. I first started forcing myself to use the stall next to the stall with the vent. And then to use the vent stall when others were around. And then use it when alone.

Only took about 2 weeks to fully get over it. I worked in a big office at the time so lots of opportunities to test myself.

But yeah. Isn't that ridiculous that some cheap horror show made me scared of public restrooms with vents for over a decade. ?

Never had bad effects from Stephen king movies or slashers. Just this one scene in something I can't even find.

The one that always bothered me was like some insect alien creature. That was invisible. But it made insect noises.

I can't remember the details except that the noise really disturbed me.

Chittery sound.

I didn't see that until I was an adult and my stomach still turns upside down whenever I think of it. The mother.... Horrifying.

Yeah, parts of it may have traumatized me, but I ultimately also quite liked the show as a child. I'm sure it helped me empathize with the suffering of wild animals and gave me an early idea of why we should protect the environment.

It definitely wouldn't fly as a kids show today, but I think it's an interesting discussion to have when and how much kids' media should explore darker topics. Ultimately the show was still very tame compared to some of the books my parents got to read as kids, which included things like kids getting ground up in a mill for playing a prank or getting their thumbs cut off for sucking on them.

Watership Down... The old one, not the newer remake. Just so much fucked up imagery and awful themes in that. Legitimately gave me nightmares as a kid.

Not really a kid's movie, but I remember seeing Darkman on TV when I was pretty young and having the image of his horribly burned, disfigured face burned into my memory.

Mine’s also x-files, but the cockroach wall one. I think it’s a much later season episode, scully may have been pregnant? But I have no interest in finding it. It gave me a roach phobia. And then when I was an adult, I learned in the south they are MUCH bigger than up north here, and they can fly, and I learned this because one flew into my apartment through the porch door and just crawled around on my wall by the lamp, and was extra horrified.

Happy Tree Friends on TV? You sure? Omg imagine if they were tricked by the cover and broadcasted it without reviewing 😆

A holiday special, Twas the Night Before Christmas.

These mice are experts at fixing clocks, and have to fix the town square clock for some reason? Animation of humans and santa was terrifying. Then in the end I just remembered they did this weird switching back from the town square clocktower from below to the face of the clock superimposed while loud banging clock rolling was happening. It keeping in on giant hands of the clock and back out.

Later in life I learned this was the cause of my megalophobia. Giant clock tower from the perspective of mice.

Oh man I loved happy tree friends, but I definitely never saw it on tv, only their website and YouTube, and I was in highchool when it came out.

It was the 1970s
I was ~5 years old

Land of the Lost

Dad standing on top of mountain, looks thru binoculars, sees backs of family's heads. "It's a closed world, son"

Holly (daughter) stumbles into a trippy Pylon touches a glowing crystal and phases into an alternate, insane reality.

Jesus Christ that was some acid-trip inspired existential crisis.

Watership permanently affected my personality.

I was 12 years old and my parents were watching the Ghost Ship movie on TV. I happened to be in the room during the scene where the line slices through the huge crowd of people and everyone is dismembered or cut in half.... That scene stuck with me for a while.

Gollum from the animated Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings..freaked me the fuck out. My father would torment me with _my precious. while rubbing his hands.

I think there was a POW scene in Magnum P.I. that was a lot for little me. Not sure episode/season.

Honestly, though, coming to the realization at abput 13 that the "General Lee" and the prominent placement for Confederate flags the Dukes of Hazzard represent an American South that promotes white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and segregation — all antithetical to my BIPOC existence.

The cognitive dissonance involved in the song, pre-programming me to lend them the excuse that they're "just a good ol' boys..." — yeah, my parents should've known better.

The thoughts I had for Daisy Duke would've had me lynched, like Emmitt Till, under that flag. Still might.

I believe it was America's most wanted. Usually it ends with the criminal getting caught, but when they end with case gone cold and they add a phone number. It feels unsettling and sits with you.

Courage the Cowardly Dog. I know it's a kids' show, but I was terrified of entering the basement for months after seeing the episode with the floating white head

Yup. It was after something else little me was actually trying to watch. Couldn't unsee.

kids getting ground up in a mill for playing a prank or getting their thumbs cut off for sucking on them.

That sounds like Struwelpeter. Yeah, quality entertainment there.

I'm hongry.

The one that gets my wife is the Tooms episodes.

I was four and I caught a rerun of the Transformers movie where Optimus Prime dies. I was not okay for a few weeks.

My granddad had also died right about the same time, so it was a double whammy.

Yeah, they were hanging in cages and one got shot in the leg. "put your finger in it!" as he bled out.

Dr Who !!!!

The News.

The Are You Afraid of the Dark episode with the drain monster. Couldn't stand on the drain in the shower for about 8 years afterward.

Saw “Them!” when I was like 6. That was pretty bad.

And then Starship Troopers when I was like 10. That one really got me.

Huh. Never thought about how they’re both bug movies.

I was going to say the most traumatizing thing was hearing this kid was 8 in 2016 …

Was that the "cat in the bag" movie?

No, it was giant radioactive ants.

But now I am actually not sure if what I saw was Them! or Matinee (which features a film that very well may be based on Them!)

the way that she defended the way that her family "loved" each other rings in my ears when i hear a maga person.

I just remember the pinball episode. Actually I remember almost nothing about the episode except a giant pinball showing up at the end. I don't remember why that was so terrifying but it definitely left a mark for some reason.

I agree. Those true crime documentary-style shows are probably the closest thing to traumatizing. All this other fake, fictional stuff other people are posting? That crap made me laugh.

But something about knowing that some lady got murdered near the lake we used to go swimming at? Yes, that would scare me.

It was this red kelpy blood clot that would come out of swimming pool drains and shower drains and kill children. I don't know anything else about it than that, but it got me good. I don't remember the pinball 😹

So I’m not particularly proud of this, but the emergency broadcasting tests used to scare the bejebus out of me when I was a little kid. Like run into another room and hide scared. I don’t even really know what they were or were for, but they just seemed scary.

no, no, you're right, them! is the ants one, I was thinking of something else

I remember the pinball one, but it was the one with the weird house with all the mirrors that got me.

Also: Return the slab!

Face of death

That mummy episode of courage the cowardly dog. Scared the piss outta me.

The Chipmunks Movie, not the live action one but the animated one from the mid-80s. I had nightmares for years about a scene where their hot air balloon gets blown around by a hurricane, which I watched I guess around the same time as Hurricane Hugo.

It's also very possible that my brain invented the whole thing.

American Gothic.

"Someone's at the door."