To ask what irrationally scared you as a child? *lighthearted*

[liverbird10]

My mother insists I was terrified of the Chef from Sesame Street as a toddler, I would howl whenever he appeared on screen.

I was also petrified by the 2ft Bugs Bunny my brother bought me.

A few years later, it was the Gorgs from Fraggle Rock. I seem to have got over that fear though, my fella resembles a blond one slightly.

Was anybody else round here equally odd?

And this...including the night Thames indent...

Russ Abbot as a vampire - I had nightmares about being chased by him!

And...this face scared the shit out of me for a long time, and still does. It was decades before I tracked this down and felt dick with fear! It wasn't even on that late!

Marriage. I promised a boy I’d marry him for some of his sweets. Both sets of parents kept going on about this for a good while. I was terrified of being made to marry him. I genuinely believed that this was going to happen! Married off for a few sweets. 😮

@Shoppingwithmother - Worzel Gummage was terrifyingly. It is not normal to take your head off like he did & I too used to hide behind the sofa
Have you see the picture of the "new" worzel? He is equally terrifying

I was terrified of the arrows on the opening credits of Dads Army. No idea why.

Worzel Gummidge! Taking his head off? Just wrong!

Hector the dog from Hector's House

Also, stairs with just the step and a gap between which you can see through (I'm still not keen).

House fires. I used to imagine that I could smell smoke during the night and would shout for my Mom to go downstairs and see if the house was on fire.

My sister. She's 11 years older than me and once came into my room dressed in a black top and long black skirt (which was the county youth orchestra uniform in the early 1970s) and told me that she was a witch, and to prove how she had magical powers she blew a bubble (I didn't know about bubble gum then).

Clowns, they still frighten me to death.
Lifts, my grandparents lived in a tower block & we got stuck in the lift, the doors opened between floors to a brick wall. I always walked up to their fifth floor flat after that.
Birds, my mum's friend had found an injured bird & had put it in a shoe box, the kind that the whole box was made from one sheet of card, the bird must have flapped & it's wing came out of the box. I've been phobic about birds ever since.

If I were a kid now, I think I'd be afraid of Mr Tumble ...

A Hungarian stamp with a wizard on it. No idea why.
I used to collect stamps for a while and would hide this particular stamp on top of my wardrobe as it scared the crap out of me. My parents would helpfully put it back in the album and I’d find it again and cry.

@wellthatsjustgreat Oh my God - I had no idea there was a new Worzel Gummidge. Now I’ve looked it up though, a) I’ll probably never be able to enjoy Detectorists again and (worse) b) there was a picture of old Worzel Gummidge next to the new one and it’s scared the shit out of me even now.

I’ve got this horrible creepy feeling on the back of my neck and it has literally brought back the horror of it from my childhood - how the fuck was that meant to be enjoyable for children to watch??!

Spacehoppers.

Those orange, rubber bouncy things with the black grinning face and ribbed horns that you held on to.

I distinctly remember being taken into nursery school, (so must have been about 3 years old) , seeing one and screaming so loudly that I had to be taken back out. I can still vividly see the room in my mind's eye and I am 51 now.

51 and still can't stand the sight of them....they literally make me shudder.

I hope you all know what I am on about because I can't bring myself to post an image!

Beef flavoured blood. It was a book I read when very young, about a vampire child who rebelled against her family who sucked human blood so she went and got cow blood but in my mind this became like pureed mince and freaked me out!

Also the Demon Headmaster but the book, not the tv program. If I remember, it all starts with Dinah or Diana, I forget, winning a competition at school and all the trouble in the book starts with that and that terrified me, I never tried to win anything or enter competitions or anything at school because I was sure it was all fake to separate certain children from others. I never tried on sports day, never entered writing competitions or anything else. I left the choir when they started doing competitive stuff! I think I got over it mostly in year 8 when our English teacher told us he'd entered our Christmas poems in a school competition thing in the local gazette. Mine was printed, one among many, no prize but nothing happened to me or anyone else so I finally got over this fear. I have never told anyone this! And it was such a huge fear of mine, I'd literally be up nights worried to death about winning games or anything. Weird!

The end of the world.

By adulthood that becomes a more pleasant thought.

Crabs. the seaside kind

“What’s in those holes mummy”
“Shall I dig one up and show you?”

“SCREAM”

See also spiders

Things under the bed
Windows without blinds when it was dark outside

A very N Irish one but when I grew up Gerry Adams was considered so dangerous that you weren't allowed to both see and hear him on tv at the same time so either his face was blacked out or his voice was dubbed over.

My parents tried to shelter me so I had no Idea who he actually was but was terrified of the strange headless man with different voices !

I was petrified of ladybirds as a very young girl. Although I don't remember it, I heard on a TV show a couple of years back that in the hot summer of 1976, there was a plague of them, so I'm wondering if I remembered that, whilst not really remembering it, if you see what I mean?
I was also scared of The Incredible Hulk - I remember it was always shown before the Muppet Show on a Sunday afternoon and I'd hide behind the sofa at my Nan and Gramp's house while my younger brother watched it!

I was afraid that lightning was attracted to teapots for many of my childhood years. All because of one event when my GM looking after us for the day. I was 4.

We were in the kitchen and the skyscraper outside turned black with thunder and lightning in the distance. GM said "We'd better move the teapot of the window cill as it looks like it's coming this way!"

I didn't realise it was just so she could close the window...

I watched a programme about WWII when I was young but thought it was an ongoing situation (in the early 70’s!!). So whenever a plane came overhead, I would run and hide just in case it tried to bomb us!!

These .... gave me nightmares for weeks

This is a very scary thread considering it is supposed to be lighthearted!

OMG. I remember Wurzel taking his head off, now. Creepy fuckin twit.

@drivemecrazy1974.

My mum and dad used to often talk about the summer if the Lady birds.

By your user name I'll assume you were born in 1974, so You'd be 2 or coming up to 2. Absolutely it could be a memory that you can't consciously remember.

Drop Dead Fred!
I still haven't watched the film since, and every time someone at school mentioned that they had an 'imaginary friend' I was terrified.