What's something odd that you were scared of as a kid?

I used to be scared of the first Birdo from Super Mario Bros 2. I don't know why, though. I eventually got over that fear and beat the game, though.

Edited by CosmosAndChaos on Jan 24th 2024 at 3:22:12 PM

When I was very little, like kindergarten-aged, I was afraid of:

• Fireworks. Or, rather, the sounds they made - I thought they were pretty, but the loud noises upset me so much that, when we fired them off at New Year’s Eve or any other celebration where we fire them off, I sat in my parents’ room and watched them through the window instead of being outside with everyone else. (I also recall us grtting to draw a ”wish” in kindergarten, and mine was ”nice fireworks” that didn’t make noise)

• Masks. More specifically, masks with large eyes where they cut out the pupils for eyeholes. I think they fell under Uncanny Valley for me, and I recall one or two instances of somebody entering a room at kindergarten wearing a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck mask, and I just ran off screaming when I saw them.

• The room with the laughing Thwomps on the Bowser’s Castle map on Mario Kart 64. I have no idea what set me off so badly, but that one room gave me nightmares every time I saw it without fail.

• … So this one is the weirdest one: On one of the VHS tapes we had when I was little, one of them had a trailer for Flubber… And one of the scenes shown there was the scene where Flubber leaps down a guy’s throat or whatever. I honestly thought the trailer was a little bit… iffy overall^note It also had a scene where Robin Williams presses his face into the little blob to make an imprint of his face and stretching it, which was a bit creepy to me. The sound design of the scene didn’t help, either., but THAT scene absolutely terrified me.

When I was about 5 or 6, I remember being mildly creeped out by the "Skate to Victory" level in the first LittleBigPlanet game, specifically the part with the castle of ghosts.

In my defense, it is a mild Surprisingly Creepy Moment, given that up until that point the game was taking place in a happy, sunny garden...

I had a similar fear growing up, except this was for the trailer of the live action 101 Dalmatians movie (I wasn't scared of the movie in general or Cruella, just that trailer. Like you I would have mild anxiety when my cousins put on tapes that I knew had that trailer or any of the other VHS trailers I was scared of as a little kid (like Toy Story and Bambi (which has the Honey We Shrunk Ourselves trailer I was also scared of)

Edited by AdventurousYak9234 on Jan 24th 2024 at 5:32:11 AM

I had some that I would chalk to my wild imaginations:

• The PS2 intro scared me a lot when I was younger. I remembered running away so many times I turned the console on because I kept thinking I would get sucked into that void of an intro screen.
• The Jim Henson Television logo of all things. I have no idea why, but when the credits to Bear in the Big Blue House start playing, I would freak out especially when it reaches that part. Must be the jazz music and the light that shows up at the logo. That might have been correlated to the above example because both intros have light streaks in them.
• Classical music. There was one time my family was on a van ride and I was the only one in the very back row. Then my dad started playing classical music on the radio and I was screaming the whole way through. I thought those kinds of music were "scary" and "ominous" to me back then.
• Rocking chairs. That freaking jumpscare video my cousin showed me.
• "Distorted" faces. There was one YouTube video my siblings watched back then that showed (and I quote) "Funny faces" in the title, but my 9-year-old brain saw them as grotesque Uncanny Valley faces and freaked out. Too bad I can't find that video now.

The X Files intro.

There was some game on the PBS Kids website (or something like that) which featured a circus, and one part involved a clown getting a Pie in the Face. For some reason, this scared me so much that I hid under the desk so I wouldn't have to look at it. Probably worth a mention that I wasn't normally Afraid of Clowns, though, so I'm not sure what that was about.

Similarly, there was some kids' show that had a part in which a man's top hat got blown off by the wind, and a goat ate it, which also freaked me out... for some reason.

Can remember a time in my teens when I was first old enough to be left at home alone, and the wardrobe in my parents' bedroom at the time had full length mirror doors. I had this silly fear that my reflection would somehow jump out of the mirror when I wasn't even in the same room, and come and attack me for no good reason.

There are a few other things half in the back of my mind (the footnotes to a certain funny poem kept me awake one night, for example!) but can't be quite sure of them.

One time in elementary school, we watched a video about volcanoes that scared the shit out of me (in part because it showed the destruction they can cause). I distinctly remember asking my family when I got home that day if there were volcanoes in our town, because I was worried about one erupting.

I live in the Midwest.

When watching the Disney Magic English video about numbers and it counted to 100, I would always cover myself with a pillow when it reached 100. Though maybe I was just startled by how excitedly he says it.

Edited by Hqami on Feb 19th 2024 at 10:28:59 PM

Voldemort, the lack of a nose and pale skin creeped me out. Now I realize how good of a design it was.

Edited by ChicoTheParakeet on Feb 19th 2024 at 5:24:03 AM

I was scared of the Lady of the Cold from The Moomins as a kid. I distinctly remember watching a cartoon that was directly based on the books with my grandmother, and saying, "I don't like the Lady of the Cold!".

One word: Gargamel. I mean it. The fear was so bad that I avoided the franchise like the plague for several literal years and it took genuine time before I was "cured". Any time I saw a Smurf I would look or run away because Gargamel was the most common association.

Even though I'm over it now, some of the fear has actually remained too deep-seated to go away. It... sorta sucks.

Spider-Man and Tony the Tiger inhabiting my closet, when I fell asleep, I had dreams they would come out and attack me

Edited by Zarius on Feb 22nd 2024 at 4:18:11 AM

I was terrified of the basilisk from the second Harry Potter movie, as well as Silas Scratch, a character from one of the wimpy kid books.

I just remembered this one. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you got encased in a giant crystal whenever you go to the Sages’ Realm. That part scared me. I can even still remember the conversation I had about it. ^_^;;

Me: That looks kind of creepy.
My younger brother: What, the crystal?
Me: No, being in it. x_x

Another video we watched in elementary school that scared me — a fire safety video. I don't really remember much of it, so I'm not sure if it'd still scare me as an adult, but I think it relied on Scare 'Em Straight at least somewhat more than other fire safety education we received at that age.

What I do remember is that I was still pretty scared of whatever happened in that video when I was waiting to go to my dad's house several hours later.

I never played the original Final Fantasy, but this poster came with an issue of Nintendo Power and I had my parents put it up. Within a week or so I decided I was scared of it for some reason and asked them to take it back down.

Edited by MikeK on Feb 22nd 2024 at 5:43:10 AM

Chauncey’s wails from Luigi's Mansion. They just got to me when I was younger. It got to the point where whenever Chauncey would wail, I’d run into another room until he stopped.

First-Person Shooters. I’m serious, the idea of a monster getting in my face actually terrified me when I was younger, thanks to the Quake demo my dad downloaded. Thankfully I slowly overcame that as I got older (after all, I own games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim).

Okay granted, he wasn’t happy that I tried it out (I was like 9 at the time back when AOL was a thing).

Edited by wooden-ladybug93 on Feb 22nd 2024 at 4:34:13 PM

Five Nights At Freddys. I feel really ashamed considering how the prestigious people perceive it.

You Are Not Alone the game scared me too. I wouldn’t feel ashamed about it. I doubt anyone here will judge you for that.

The first time I ever played Plants vs. Zombies as a kid, I remember the Game Over screen scaring me so badly that I turned off the game and did something else for a while. It was mainly because of the Big "NO!", if I remember correctly.

Apparently, I was far from the only kid who was scared of that.

Because of that game over screen, I have had recurring nightmares since I was 7 about trying to play PvZ but the game is unfairly hard and kills me immediately, even long after I stopped being scared of it.

At age 12, I watched a top-list video about the 50 scariest PSAs in the middle of the night. Ever since then, whenever I'm about to sleep, I always have a video from my tablet or smartphone (either from YouTube or the M P4s I downloaded via YTMP 3 conversion websites) playing as my background because of the constant uncomfortableness of all the nightmares I could think of.

In fact, just reading the Nightmare Fuel section of PS As is enough to never sleep ever again. I swore it off never to watch them ever again because it has, and will always, bring so much needless trauma and haunting memories to me. Have I didn't watch a compilation of the scariest PS As at night time, I would've slept just as normal like the others.