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TV shows as a child that freaked you out

333 replies

Starfish125 · 22/01/2024 21:40

Just thought I would start a threat for fun, I was trying to describe this particular show to my partner and he had no idea what I was talking about but after much researching I found out it was Wizbit, which was played by Paul Daniels. The yellow hat and the rabbit honestly freaked me out. For context I'm 33 so this was early 90s it must have been on..anyone got any shows that still give them the ick as an adult?

OP posts:
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20
WellThisIsFun1 · 23/01/2024 19:15

Armchair thriller.

What the HELL was my mother thinking letting me watch it?
And what the HELL were ITV thinking putting it on before 9.00 at night?

Northernsouloldies · 23/01/2024 19:26

Hartley hare.. You can be naughty with a glove puppet.. Can't you Colin.!!! 😄.
Look it up on you tube.. 🤣

Northernsouloldies · 23/01/2024 19:27

Hartley hare.. You can be naughty with a glove puppet.. Can't you Colin.. Look it up on you tube.. 🤣 🤣

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TV
greengreengrass25 · 23/01/2024 19:38

Stoufer · 22/01/2024 23:15

Late 70s / early 80s… hammer house of horror episode about a creepy hitchhiker in a yellow raincoat with a very long fingernail on his little finger - I was absolutely terrified.. don’t think I should have been watching it (I was about 10) - what were my parents thinking…

So creepy

Doppelgängers

Women driving ambulance at end

All HHOH was creepy

Wonder why they were never repeated

greengreengrass25 · 23/01/2024 19:41

MandyMotherOfBrian · 22/01/2024 23:06

And for some reason Henry Woolf in Words and Pictures terrified me.

There was an episode in early 70s when a boy was trapped in a shed I think and a man came in wearing a motorcycle helmet.

It was so scary when you are 6, this was in school

Bichonmum · 23/01/2024 19:41

HRTQueen · 22/01/2024 22:39

The bbc adaptation of Pinocchio around 1980

The Boy from Space

Dark Towers

Dr Who but I loved Tom Baker the best Dr Who imo

I was just thinking about Boy from space. We watched it at school, I think it was part of the words and pictures series.

The tales of the unexpected, especially the Black Nun episode!

GrandTheftWalrus · 23/01/2024 19:44

AutumnColour89 · 23/01/2024 12:19

There also was an episode of Casualty in the late 90s where the family of one of the staff all die in a gas explosion at home.
That really freaked me out as a child, for about a week I was terrified of turning on light switches etc in case it triggered an explosion!

That actually happened in my home town around 1998ish. Family of 4 killed.

Bichonmum · 23/01/2024 19:45

The tales of the unexpected, especially the Black Nun episode!

Or was it Armchair Thriller, tbh they were all scary

greengreengrass25 · 23/01/2024 19:45

MandyMotherOfBrian · 22/01/2024 22:45

The early 1980s adaptation of The Enchanted Castle with The Uglie Wugglies - absolutely terrifying.

Edited

Was that Phoenix and the Carpet - E H Nesbit

Mid 70s

greengreengrass25 · 23/01/2024 19:53

Chrysanthemum5 · 22/01/2024 21:58

Dougal and the blue cat - beyond terrifying to the point where I don't think I could listen to it even now

Was that at the cinema

There was a creepy castle and it gave me nightmares

Northernsouloldies · 23/01/2024 19:55

It's Michael the glove puppet.. Not Colin.

porridgeisbae · 23/01/2024 20:36

lollipoprainbow · 23/01/2024 13:02

@porridgeisbae also it's the same man doing the voiceover !

That's a good point. And a similar premise, that toys are actually people etc.

porridgeisbae · 23/01/2024 20:41

GrandTheftWalrus · 23/01/2024 19:44

That actually happened in my home town around 1998ish. Family of 4 killed.

Show quote history

This is an aside but the idea of 'spontaneous human combustion' always scared me when I was a bit older. That there would be nothing left of the person but their shoes etc. Maybe it could happen to me any minute :) I've met other people who'd frightened themselves up about it, too.

I'd read about it in some paranormal book/magazine.

We don't have many reports of supposed cases of it now because of changes in how we heat our homes.

bringincrazyback · 23/01/2024 21:00

LutonBeds · 23/01/2024 18:07

What age would you suggest? It’s almost 40 years since I saw it and I’ve never forgotten, nor have I ever messed about on the railway. It worked! Kids need to be taught about dangers if they’re doing something they shouldn’t in an environment that can very quickly become dangerous.

Show quote history

It's a bit of a conundrum really, isn't it, as I agree these things do/did an effective job of frightening kids out of doing daft things. I'd say maybe around the age when they're old enough to play out unsupervised, as it feels kind of irrelevant before then? I never had kids though, so I've no idea what the norms are around playing outside these days, other than presumably parents today are a lot wiser to possible dangers. I seem to remember some 70s kids (though not me) being allowed to basically disappear for hours in the school holidays, only giving their parents the faintest idea where they were going, or maybe that was just the street I lived in. 😄

PrudeyTwoShoes · 23/01/2024 21:28

Maybe it's already been mention but... Courage the Cowardly Dog! Myself and DH are early 30s and both have said how awful this is looking back.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 23/01/2024 21:49

Mojodojocasahaus · 22/01/2024 22:21

Willo the wisp and this monstrosity:

Oh evil Edna. I remember her. (The bitch)😂

JustACountryMusicGirlInCowboyBoots · 23/01/2024 22:08

One of my exes looked like Pob <sigh>

donteatthedaisies0 · 23/01/2024 22:20

I remember being allowed to watch Armchair Thriller ,Sapphire And Steel and Hammer House of Horror oh and Jaws at the cinema . What were my parents thinking , I was only in primary school . I should have been a nervous wreck , actually I was scared of the dark . Oh and BBC's Ghostwatch . Actually I was newly married for the last oneBlush and was angry because my husband fell asleep and I was sitting in bed hugging my knees 😂

toastandtwo · 23/01/2024 22:41

999 fans - (I’m sure it was 999 that features the kid getting impaled on a railing) - does anyone remember a TV show about the paranormal that I’m sure used to be on just after 999? Would’ve been mid/late 90s.

i can’t recall the name of it but the theme music was horrifying. It always features girls being possessed by poltergeists and being lifted up out of their beds etc. So scary and inspired my friends and I to do many a ouija board…

Thecatmaster · 23/01/2024 22:49

FijiSea · 22/01/2024 23:41

Actually also Threads , the nuclear war tv show.
We were made to watch this in Modern Studies at school , honestly scarred me for life and made me forever fear a nuclear winter 😬

It was hideous wasn't it. We had to watch it at school aged about 14. Vile! I mean, why did they ever think it a good idea to expose children to such a film where a nuclear bomb is dropped, the hospital steps run with blood, people wet themselves, the survivors live in a dystopian derelict world where dead rats are traded as food for sex and the young lady ends up giving birth to a deformed baby? The mind boggles.

Thecatmaster · 23/01/2024 22:53

Thecatmaster · 22/01/2024 22:38

There was some horrible three part series on rabies that freaked me out. I recalled an alsatian frothing at the mouth.

An absolutely awful depressing film that was on TV on Xmas eve one year. It involved a boy that had cancer as a result of radioactive matter being dropped on him/near him further war. He died on Xmas eve under the Xmas tree. He had pet wolves I think that howled at his death. That was a cheery little film.

There were two films that still haunt me that my grandma let me sit up and watch when I was about 8. The first involved witchcraft and entailed a suspected witch being crushed to death by being placed under a wooden door and having rocks piled on top of her. Another involved two twin sisters (or maybe just sisters). On a car journey, one tied the others shoe laces together, the car crashed, went up in flames and she was unable to get out and died. She got her revenge by plotting the deaths of other family members, including using a pizza cutter through a bannister and causing someone to plunge to their death.

There was one awful film that I saw that stuck in my mind. I have never been able to track it down. It involved a teenage boy in Sheffield, I think, whose parents moved house without him one day. He ended up homeless in a parking lot with a bunch of equally depressing characters. One sat on top of a lifeguards chair whilst ringing an old air raid alarm. There was also someone who played a saxophone. I have hated the saxophone ever since.

And Threads. We were subjected to it at school. Now that was a cheery little film!

After much research, I have actually tracked the films down.

The Christmas Tree
The Crucible
Don't go to Sleep
and Safe

FijiSea · 23/01/2024 22:55

I know @Thecatmaster , the birth scene at the end is the bit that haunted me.
I googled it last night after posting on here and there was a Reddit thread with loads of people saying they watched it in social studies or modern studies.

@Beetlebumz I quite liked Pob 😆 not the spitting on the screen though

porridgeisbae · 23/01/2024 22:57

Pob was ok. I don't remember him spitting- that's not good.

FijiSea · 23/01/2024 23:04

@porridgeisbae pob used to spit on the tv screen and wipe it with a little cloth ?