What were you scared of as a kid that wasn't meant to be scary?

[Kala24]

For me it was Dastardly and Muttley. I have no idea why but I was terrified of them and if I woke up in the night to use the bathroom I used to run because I thought they were hiding in my attic and would snatch me and pull me up.

It's just funny looking back because they're not even scary characters and not meant to be😂

A large mop and broom that my uncle and aunt had in their rather ancient farmhouse. I wouldn't walk past it.
the cast iron bath, also in their house.
in my defence I was only about 4.

scooby doo, I used to watch it from behind the sofa. In the end my mother wouldn't let me watch it. Similarly Godzilla.

Road Sweepers! Right up until I was a teen

Hartley Hare from Pipkins. He looked rabid.

Also my uncle's sheepdog, it bit me when I was about 3 and I still have the scar. I'm 47 and was terrified of dogs until I joined the police which curiously helped cure my fear as all the police dogs were so well trained I could bring myself to approach them. Still very wary though.

Escalators. Terrifying.

The wobbly heads on the Noah's Ark ride in Great Yarmouth.

E.T was nightmare fuel

Bonnie Tyler.

My grandmother had a Hoover with a light on the front. It was fucking terrifying.

My dm had that too. I was also terrified. It was definitely the light.

I've always insisted that we don't have upright hoovers-I've never got over it!

I've just googled Hartley Hare - what the FUCK?! No wonder so many people have mentioned him.

Mine was the album cover for Queen's News of the World. It still makes me a bit uncomfortable to be honest.

Also ventriloquist's dummies, although I think that's a totally reasonable fear.

The song "The Key, The Secret" by Urban Cookie Collective 😂

It happened to be playing once when I was about 3 and my mum was testing the smoke alarm. I was terrified of fire!

My Nan's wardrobe
A Mexican doll I had with big feet

Hartley Hare was cool, I loved him with a passion. That may explain how I turned out! 😄

The outboard boat motor my dad kept in the shed.
Terrified me when he started it up.

Also in the same shed -2 wartime gas masks hanging from a beam - scared the hell out of me.

Bagpipes. I remember new years Eve at a relatives house when I was about 6, they had a piper come round all the houses in the street, and I was terrified. I didn’t know what the hell it was, or why it was making such a horrifying noise! Ever since then I want to cry and punch the piper in the face when I hear bagpipes.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As soon as they started whistling I was inconsolable.

As a pre-schooler, I was terrified of the plug hole in the bath.

Also terrified of wee Willie Winkie looking through my window and discovering I was still awake.

Am still scared of plane toilet flushes.

As a young teenager had to count to three minutes if I heard a plane overhead after I discovered nuclear weapons and heard about the 3 minute warning. After 3 minutes, no nuclear bomb was going drop...obviously. Thanks for that Threads and When the Wind Blows.

Playdoh

Bernard Cribbins’ scary eyebrows when he was frowning on Jackanory.

My DH has never let me live that one down.

Shower heads. My gran had one that was tiled into the wall over the bath. I was absolutely terrified of it suddenly coming on when I was in the bath and used to squish myself up at the top end.
Interestingly a discussion with all my cousins years later revealed that they all were terrified of it too!

The wheelers on return to oz

@boobot1 YES! Although I was much more scared of Mombi and the sneaky rock spies. I watched it again as an adult and the whole thing is infinitely more horrifying when you get the allegory and really think about the context. The whole mental ward bit also flew over my head as a child when I didn’t appreciate what they were about to do to her or how badly mental patients were treated back then overall.

I used to be terrified of the song 'Self Control' by Laura Brannigan. I don't know why.
. I remember being at a school disco and going to hide in the toilets when it came on. I remember telling my mum and she just said. "You fuckin cracked cow". 😂😂

I'd forgotten being scared of flushing the toilet, especially at night.

Old fashioned illustrations, like in old versions of the book Alice in Wonderland and Edward Scissorhands.

And @RaspberryHouseBlues , also the Moomins. So creepy. Still don't like them

There was a stop-motion animation of the Moomins when I was young (late 80’s/early 90’s?). I remember a creepy episode about an invisible girl who gradually became visible. Near the end of this transition, she was walking down the stairs apparently headless. That freaked me out.

Later, I saw a cartoon series of the Moomins which wasn’t scary at all.