Nightmare fuel in cartoons (2024)

A Tom and Jerry cartoon I saw when I was 4. Tom got squashed by a boulder. It made me so angry, I switched the TV on and off at top speed and blew the fuse xD

The episode of Dr Snuggles where Nobby (the mouse) falls into the diamond machine. That scarred me for life xD

Watership down, especially when the Black Rabbit comes for Hazel.

Animal Farm, where Boxer is taken to the knacker's (sp) yard to be killed. I cried buckets at that

The pink elephant dance from Dumbo. What were they smoking when they made that xD

I don't even watch this show...but my friend sent me this over skype the other day and now I don't think I'm ever gonna watch it.....because slenderman terrifies me...*shivers*

Ah yes, "return the slab" was really scary back when I saw it for the first time (it was dark and I was home alone). Awesome episode, though.

But I think the Moomin episode where Moomin goes under the magic hat and turns into a troll takes the trophy for me. I don't even know what made it so horrifying, but I know I did run out of the tv room whenever that episode aired. And I know I'm not the only kid who was traumatized by that scene, or the series overall. I remember being horrified by many other episodes too.

Oh, and the second episode of Alfred J Kwak where

Cosmic Gerbil said:

Watership Down

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Sweet nostalgia. Noone of my friend watched it and it was so... well, I was quite old when I watched it, but some scenes were still quite terrifying.
But I loved it

Dragonfyre said:

Courage the Cowardly Dog has a lot of Nightmare Fuel in it. Not just the pictorial/visual ones, like King Ramses and the dude from Perfect, but also the themes used like the Apocalypse, curses, zombies, cannibalism and other stuff. Well, its genre is "Comedy horror", so it's expected.

Of course, being the sick, twisted little child I was, I loved Courage the Cowardly Dog.

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I remember when the show first came out the weremole scared me the most. eventhough the show scared the crap out of me i still enjoyed watching it. Freaky fred is probily the number one villian in the nighmare fuel in Courage i can think of

IS1296 said:

pretty much all your suggestions I remember, especially courage. that show was like an animated version of That's So Weird (the weird stuff at least). Anyway, for rugrats, I remember the episode when angelica heard that her parents wanted another baby, and she got all anxious and worried over what the baby will be like. basically her vision of her new brother was very scary, not only in its voice (which sounded like an adult), but in the way it acted. it was a jerk and iirc tried to lock up angelica indefinitely in a closet. and it also ate her. there's some more unsettling stuff about that baby brother but i can't remember. tough it looked like a baby, it certainly wasn't.

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That episode used to scare me too. That baby looked liked the stuff nightmares are made of. It really was big and scary. Plus it had a really scary voice. That nightmare was one of the few times I could actually understand why Angelica was thinking that: sometimes little kids are afraid of being ignored when their mom is having another baby.

Ironically, the nightmare was followed by one of the most heartwarming moments on the show: when Drew rescues Angelica from her nightmare, after she tells him about it, Drew tells Angelica how he and Charlotte will always love her no matter what happens. :awww:

I always thought that at the end Charlotte had miscarried the baby...which worked to Angelica's advantage...

Professor Erin said:

I don't even watch this show...but my friend sent me this over skype the other day and now I don't think I'm ever gonna watch it.....because slenderman terrifies me...*shivers*

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Do I really scare you that much?

I never really watched Courage the Cowardly Dog too much because it scared the crap out of me. There's one episode of Teen Titans I remember that was really creepy. The one where Robin is looking at Slade's mask in the basem*nt, and the dust makes him see, hear, and feel Slade even though he's dead.

Hexxus (Tim Curry's character) from Fern Gully scared the life out of me as a little kid. It doesn't help that, at the end, he turns from a freaky smoke monster into literally a demon straight out of hell.

All in a G-rated movie with lots of vibrant scenery.

garrison-san said:

Any Tiny Toon Adventures episode starring Go-Go Dodo left me with psychological scars as a kid. There's a reason why I don't regard that show with quite the same affection as I do the other "Steven Spielberg Presents" cartoons of the day.

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I must be weird, because I loved anything and everything with Go-Go Dodo. He was sick and twisted so I found him hilarious.

In my case, it was "Cosmic Rust" in the old Transformers G1 series. The very idea that a robot can get sick and die is outright terrifying to me. Always has been, always will be. Then there was an episode of Spider-man and His Amazing Friends that freaked me out as a kid: "Attack of the Arachnoid". A scientist by the name of Dr. Zoltan manages to recreate Spider-man's powers and frames him. But eventually, Dr. Zoltan's powers get the better of him and he mutates into a half-man, half-spider creature that starts wreaking havoc in the city. The transformation sequence in that ep had me completely horrified. Seriously, it was the most frightening thing I had ever seen as a kid....and I watched the original Watership Down when I was four!

the brave little toaster, man. B|
i love it, but it was ridiculously dark for a kids film. especially a kids film about talking appliances.

there's the beginning, with the air conditioner that goes insane and destroys itself... that sh*t gives me the straight up jibblies just remembering it. and then the nightmare that the toaster has with the evil clown. D: there's the "torture scene" with the blender in the spare parts shop, and then of course the ending in the junkyard, with the old cars singing about how useless they are and basically committing suicide. jesus. kids movies in the 80s got away with some crazy stuff.

(speaking of... all dogs go to heaven got a g rating. o_o y'know, the movie that has blatant alcohol consumption, gambling, murder, and much more besides. things have indeed changed over the years, lol.)

Few cartoons scares me.

But i do remember the sound that the THX logo thing would make would make me cry

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That scared me too.

I remember when the Hey Arnold episode "Phoebe Breaks a Leg" first came out, I was creeped out by Phoebe's bad dream. In it, Phoebe is apparently a slave for Helga, who resembles Queen Elizabeth I. Helga makes Phoebe do all these chores. Phoebe asks Helga to do a favour for her: remove her shackles so the chores would be easier. Queen Helga refuses, and has a rather unsettling laugh, which causes Phoebe to wake up from her dream.

Now of course, I think it's funny. When I watched it again the following year, I wasn't bothered at all.

I actually got really creeped out by the SpongeBob episode where SpongeBob buys a new pet, hoping for Gary to have a friend. As it turns out, the pet - a little fish thing - is extremely aggressive and takes on a horrible form. And even at the end SpongeBob incorrectly believes that the new pet was innocent just because it was cute when he bought it (although its angry form was the stuff nightmares are made of - its four tongues had MOUTHS with SHARP TEETH!). And according to the writers, it was a nudibranch. Real-life nudibranchs are carnivorous, but they are actually a variety of sea slug, and do not look threatening at all. It was a relatively recent episodes, but I think it was one of the better-written newer episodes. Still, that "nudibranch" was insanely scary.