Silly things you feared as a child

[Bo]

- Darkness
- I always felt that when I was alone a gunman would appear behind me and try to shoot me, so when I was alone in the house I'd always sprint until I was around a corner, or usually until I was in my room. Still do sometimes. I can't shake the feeling that there's something behind me.
- A solitary light in the distance. I can't watch those bigfoot hunting shows because I freak out when I see one of the shots of a long pan of a row of trees and a pair of red eyes flash in the distance. I know that often those are just flashlights or something, but I just cannot deal with that. Even a lone streetlamp from my window used to cause me to throw my curtains shut. It kind of tied in with the gunman thing, that the light was a sniper waiting to shoot me (but naturally he only could when I could see him too).

I know there's nothing behind me in my room, but I always think there's something behind me. When I sleep, I can't look around me. I have to pull the covers over my head, because I think that there'll be a face of some kind just staring at me.

 

[Jacob]

Xenomorphs.

Watched Alien and Aliens in the same session one late night as they were doing an Alien-marathon on TV, I think I was 6-7 or something. Had nightmares about 'em for like a year afterwards.

 

[Kitten]

No one else was scared of the Grinch I must be different.

 

[Danny]

No one else was scared of the Grinch I must be different.

That's a legitimate concern! The dude stole Christmas!

 

[Wiegert]

One I failed to mentioned before, but this unnecessarily freakish scare tactic that Action 2000 employed for one of their TV ads in the late 90s:

 

[Bo]

One I failed to mentioned before, but this unnecessarily freakish scare tactic that Action 2000 employed for one of their TV ads in the late 90s:

Another person scared by an advert! This one is particularly notable in my books for being simply horrific, so it's not really silly to fear it. I'm really surprised this got the OK to air.

 

[Slash]

I wish I could find the one I was scared of, it was aired on PBS years ago during Sesame Street around 11am in the late 90s. It gave me horrible nightmares but wasn't anything all that bad IIRC. I remember it was a kid lying in bed during a thunderstorm with all his toys moving around his room with a particular robot (that gave me nightmares) and his dad came in to comfort him.

 

[Bo]

I can't find one the other ones I as scared of, it was a deodorant advert set at a fairground. The people were basically in pieces and they were revealed once they got sprayed. Other notable terrifying adverts include:

This THINK! road safety ad. All of them are scary in some way, but this was a bit OTT (be prepared for a bit of a shock):

 

[Turbo_snail]

Still no one else with pelicans, and another weird one, down the side of our house, there is let's say a 4 meter gap between the house and fence, and because my house is built on a slop, whenever I kicked my AFL ball to the other end of the yard, it would run down to the fence, and I always used to be scared that a dragon would be in my front yard, yeah really.

 

[Jump_Ace]

Ghosts, what else?

Jerome

 

[Sage Ages]

Choo choo mother:censored:er.

 

[Murcie_LP640]

"Unknown", the final boss chick/wolf in Tekken Tag Tournament.

Mostly the floating wolf part. Also the vast majority of the original Tomb Raider.

Yep, this as well. Have no idea why that one was though.

 

[Harley45]

Daleks ,

Nuclear War ,

School .

 

[Vitocorp]

This.

Not sure if it's more disturbing the fact that the game could be broken or the red screen...luckly never happened to me when I was a child, 2/3 years ago I had this problem and I was a bit scared to be honest.
Personally I was scared by some advertising on tv, one in particular involving the skull of a cow in the desert, I barely remember these but if I start thinking about it I have goosebumps even today, after almost 15 years!

 

[Bo]

Personally I was scared by some advertising on tv, one in particular involving the skull of a cow in the desert, I barely remember these but if I start thinking about it I have goosebumps even today, after almost 15 years!

Advertising's power is a wondrous thing. Its blank board for creativity often mean you can get some unique, and sometimes terrifying images or scenarios. For any of you who are of a nervous disposition, 2014 is the year for scarevertising (branch of shockvertising). It's not going to be pleasant

 

[TorqueHappenS08]

Vaccum cleaners in general and flood lights in the back of old school walmart's....

 

[Joel]

 

[NoobMan DS]

Just some that I recall:

- Clowns
- Santa Claus
- Windows 95 error sounds
- Butterflies
- The depiction of hell in the Tom & Jerry episode "Heavenly Puss"
- The nightmare scene in the Mr. Bean episode "Mr. Bean in Room 426"
- Instantaneously loud and sharp flushing noises
- The scene and music that plays when the painting's ink is dripping in "Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie"
- Women with too much makeup surrounding their eyes. (really long eyelashes, huge darkened areas surrounding their eyes, things like that) Oh, and the addition of too much red lipstick scares me more

 

[Vitocorp]

Advertising's power is a wondrous thing. Its blank board for creativity often mean you can get some unique, and sometimes terrifying images or scenarios. For any of you who are of a nervous disposition, 2014 is the year for scarevertising (branch of shockvertising). It's not going to be pleasant

I always thought that scaring people is not a good marketing strategy but I'm probably wrong then.
When something was scary during your childhood it leaves a mark on you and that thing probably still remains scary!
In my case is true, never had a good feeling about television, now I remember, when I was a little child (3/4 years old) I was afraid of fixed images on the screen and I was like 'in a minute something bad or scary will happen' and there was an advertising (more like a memorial or something) after the 11/9/2001 including a fixed frame at the end of it with a big pause symbol ( I I ) resembling the twin towers, I was 7 years old back then and I was still afraid of that.
Seems stupid but thinking about those memories are still making me nervous now.
I mostly use the tv as a screen for my PS3 but eventually it will happen to see one of those new advertising you were talking about, and this will scare the 🤬 out of me.
Luckly italian advertising are getting dumber and dumber, involving stupid jokes or fake crappy superheroes/monsters/robots to convince the children. Never thought it was a good thing, but I'm ok with that then!

 

[SVT Cobra GT]

Also, there used to be another one that featured on the Clarkson DVD's I seem to recall. It was prominently grey with red featuring. I can't for the life of me remember what it was though.

You mean this?

 

[Bo]

I always thought that scaring people is not a good marketing strategy but I'm probably wrong then.
When something was scary during your childhood it leaves a mark on you and that thing probably still remains scary!
In my case is true, never had a good feeling about television, now I remember, when I was a little child (3/4 years old) I was afraid of fixed images on the screen and I was like 'in a minute something bad or scary will happen' and there was an advertising (more like a memorial or something) after the 11/9/2001 including a fixed frame at the end of it with a big pause symbol ( I I ) resembling the twin towers, I was 7 years old back then and I was still afraid of that.
Seems stupid but thinking about those memories are still making me nervous now.
I mostly use the tv as a screen for my PS3 but eventually it will happen to see one of those new advertising you were talking about, and this will scare the 🤬 out of me.
Luckly italian advertising are getting dumber and dumber, involving stupid jokes or fake crappy superheroes/monsters/robots to convince the children. Never thought it was a good thing, but I'm ok with that then!

Google shockvertising. It was pioneered by Benetton, nobody has ever really topped them for completely OTT freakishness. On another note, does anybody know of this video ident? It was a man shoveling coal or possibly a blacksmith, and the logo of the production company was spinning across his eyeball . It really freaked me out when I was about 4.

 

[Tom]

You mean this?

That's the one. Scared the daylights out me every time it came on.

 

[Dean]

Danish stop-motion movie from 2000. I still find such movies kind of creepy to this date. I have no explanation to why the picture's written in French, by the way.

 

[Lucas]

The ocean. And I still do.

 

[AlvaroF]

The ocean. And I still do.

I can relate to this. If I can't reach the bottom with my feet I return to shore in a blink of an eye. And I'm that scared because of the Marianas Trench

 

[Slash]

I've got a free Xbox 360 full game code to give away to the first person that finds/to anyone can find the commercial I spoke about a few posts back.

 

[Yarf]

The boob shots seen in this intro. ROFL see 0:29 and 0:35 ish

 

[Vitocorp]

I've got a free Xbox 360 full game code to give away to the first person that finds/to anyone can find the commercial I spoke about a few posts back.

Too bad I can't help you...a good number of us were scared about advertising back then, I tought I was the only one.
I found another spot I was scared of...the music+fat woman combination was terrifiyng, common children were threatened with the boogeyman, I feared this ugly woman...
To find this spot again I had to ask my mother the brand and she told me that I was afraid of a lot of advertising...I remember hearing that sick music and running faster than a lightning bolt under the table (I was pretty damn fast in these occasions ), covering my ears, I have chills right now...

 

[Sage Ages]

Any string instrument that wasn't a guitar. I always thought they sounded creepy.

 

[ENDURANCEGUY]

Any string instrument that wasn't a guitar. I always thought they sounded creepy.

Hmmm...

It was more of synths that kinda scared me in the younger ages.
Oh, and the Klasky Csupo logo scared me a lot.
~ENDURANCEGUY