What sketches scared you as a kid?

[Luke kun]

I have an old Sesame street tape with these guys with no distinct faces, just basic outlines of mouth and nose's and no eyes. They were purple, orange and green and they came on screen, and one would say "Bat" and the next would say "Cat" and the last would say "Hat" and then a crazy guy would come on and go "Bat and the cat with a Hat.." and just go nuts. It wasn't scary, just very strange. But kinda entertaining.

Sadly I can't help but think of a James Rizzi-esque SS animation from the late 90s that you all know from my posts from a while ago. It ended "Where'd you get that hat? And that was that."

 

[shadesbelow]

The cartoon that you are referring to with the man face changing shape gave me severe nightmares! They was also a lady that did the same thing nose changing the whole bit! I would scream loud that I think the neighbors thought my mom was beating me to death! I couldn't even go up to the tv to change the channel because I was terrified that it would come through the tv! That was the most scariest thing I ever saw on ss. One time when it came on, I was literally trying to climb the wall to escape! To this day I can't look at morphing faces or pictures of drawings my kids do of profiles because this clip gave me such truama that I would burst out in tears! If it ever showed up on YouTube, I would never look at YouTube again. All I can say is that is far most the creepiest, scariest and traumatizing clip ever! Now that my hair is standing on end, I hope I can sleep tonight!

Click on it...if you dare!!!

It is now on YouTube, under the title "Cartoon Face Morph". The animation seems to be by Etienne Delessert, who also did some other weird animation segments on the show, including the one with the apple tree atop the ogre's face in the hillside.

It was weird seeing it again, some 33 years later myself. The nose and face don't change as grotesquely as I remember it happening...maybe it was the other one. The Moog synthesizer sound is pretty darned frightening, though! I remember the guy's nose changing with a loud, echoey sound that sounded like someone streaking their fingertips across a balloon, and then he disappeared with a "pop!" at the end.

 

[shadesbelow]

One of the creepiest segments that I remember was where David is dressed as a snake charmer with a turban and all. He is sitting Indian-style between two wicker baskets. The background is that typical gray one they used for many non-street segments. He starts playing some type of musical instrument, like a clarinet, and this haunting Middle Eastern music plays while out of the left basket appears an animated wiggly number 1 and from the right basket a similar number 2. Once the number 12 fully emerges, David simply says "Twelve!". I believe he goes back to playing his music, while slowly he disappears/fades away and is replaced by some type of painting of an outdoor scene with cows and a farmhouse. The other disturbing aspect is that David just sits there staring at the screen without speaking, but for that one line. Hopefully, one day this clip will surface as it was originally a mid 70's clip that was shown well into the 80's.

I only ever saw this clip once, in 1981 or so, when I was five, and though I never saw it again, I never forgot it. It just seemed so weird, strange and haunting...especially when David fades away while the oboe is playing, leaving the multi-colored background. I think of this clip whenever I hear the ride-out (ending, that is) of the Rolling Stones song "Dandelion". It would be even more haunting to see this one now, considering that David's been gone for so long. It would seem almost ghostly to see this one again.

I'm in with some hardcore "SS" fans/collectors on YouTube, and I always bring this one up with them. Hopefully, one of them will find and post it someday.

 

[Drtooth]

Click on it...if you dare!!!

Uhhh... that video was just posted like 2 posts before yours.

 

[HuggaMahna]

Alright, I gotta get this out...

Even today, I am TERRIFIED of the early Sesame Street closing credits. You know, the early 1970s credits where it showed drawings of all the Muppets on the show as it scrolled downwards? That's the one. The harmonica music is nice, at first, but for some odd reason, the last few notes sound scary to me. I could not fall asleep one night because ONLY the last notes were stuck in my head, no joke. The visuals are okay...except that creepy subliminal drawings of Grover keep popping up everywhere! Seriously, those Grovers are very creepy to me. Then they would show those still images of cast members and Muppets holding up the CTW logo and Sesame Street sign...those weren't as scary to me, but accompanied by those last few notes they were unsettling. Finally, the music for the funding credits scares the ever-loving crud out of me. I haven't listened to in it in a while, but something about those bells... Thankfully, I am not scared at all of the 1971 PBS logo. I actually really like that one.

I'm sorry if that seemed silly to anyone...it just really freaks me out. Give me the 1993 credits any day.

 

[BeckyDR]

Alright, I gotta get this out...

Even today, I am TERRIFIED of the early Sesame Street closing credits. You know, the early 1970s credits where it showed drawings of all the Muppets on the show as it scrolled downwards? That's the one. The harmonica music is nice, at first, but for some odd reason, the last few notes sound scary to me. I could not fall asleep one night because ONLY the last notes were stuck in my head, no joke. The visuals are okay...except that creepy subliminal drawings of Grover keep popping up everywhere! Seriously, those Grovers are very creepy to me. Then they would show those still images of cast members and Muppets holding up the CTW logo and Sesame Street sign...those weren't as scary to me, but accompanied by those last few notes they were unsettling. Finally, the music for the funding credits scares the ever-loving crud out of me. I haven't listened to in it in a while, but something about those bells... Thankfully, I am not scared at all of the 1971 PBS logo. I actually really like that one.

I'm sorry if that seemed silly to anyone...it just really freaks me out.

I had no problem with the ending credits, but the funding credits...I've posted about it before, but for me, it was so bad that I couldn't listen to it at all, and would get very upset and be screaming and crying if I did hear it, and seemed to have at least one nightmare a night featuring those credits.

Give me the 1993 credits any day.

Same here, although in my case they could have kept the ending credits as is and just changed the funding credits (born in 1980 here, by the way)

 

[MrMuppet93]

The 1999-2001 Fundings.......the arrangement of the Sesame Street Theme sounded dissonant at the time and not to mention that super-ugly CPB circle (I didn't mind the circle much the first couple years watching PBS). However the Reading Rainbow and Dragon Tales fundings were worse.......

 

[BeckyDR]

The 1999-2001 Fundings.......the arrangement of the Sesame Street Theme sounded dissonant at the time and not to mention that super-ugly CPB circle (I didn't mind the circle much the first couple years watching PBS). However the Reading Rainbow and Dragon Tales fundings were worse.......

I didn't mind the 1999-2001 funding credits...then again, as far as I was concerned, ANYTHING was better than the 1972-1992 funding credits

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

The "bridge" to the song "Above it All" used to scare me. The whole rest of the song was so upbeat and bouncy but suddenly the tone shifts,the lights get darker and the song starts to sound kind of haunting with that creepy choir of backup singers.She was clearly quite nervous,her eyes bolting back and forth and suddenly this giant bird with a deep voice comes to tell her that everything she knows about life is a lie. It was all too much for a three year old.

If you want to see the part i'm talking about, skip to 1:20.

 

[shadesbelow]

The male version of the "nose/face changes" Sesame Street segment has just been found and posted on YouTube. I haven't seen it since 1982, which is the last time I ever saw it on the show. If any parents wrote to CTW and requested that they stop showing this one, I can easily see why...it's even more bizarre than the female one, as the face-changes grow more grotesque as they go on. Although I hadn't seen it in all these years, I still remember every facet of it as I watched it. Even though it's only 36 seconds in length, those 36 seconds were an eternity in **** to me as it played when I was a toddler.

Animation by Etienne Delessert.

Watch it...if you dare!!!

On a fun note, my 5-year-old son sat on my knee and watched it with me. He'd seen the other one, and wasn't fazed by it. When he saw this one going on, he said, "Oh! A new one? Cool!", though I think he likes the female one better. I guess this had to come on as a total surprise sometime during the episode to have the same effect.