What sketches scared you as a kid?

[fuzzygobo]

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.

I said it before and I'll say it again. It amazes me how something like this can scare some people, and others won't bat an eye.

These face-morphing clips didn't scare me (I was actually mesmerized by them), but there was plenty else to give me nightmares.

 

[jasonsesame]

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.

I seem to remember another version of this, possibly made later (not the female one). It had the same or similar sound effects to this version, but with a man facing forward or at an angle rather than directly to the side. In that version, his mouth kept changing shape to these sounds. The mouth would go from closed, to open, to smiling, to frowning, etc. Anyone else remember that one?

 

[shadesbelow]

Wow...that really sounds familiar, like maybe there was a third one with the guy described just as you said (I seem to remember the guy being at an angle). Maybe that's the one where he disappeared with a "pop!" at the end. Why not have a face-changing trilogy? Yikes...!

 

[Drtooth]

Animation by Etienne Delessert.

Well, at least we know who's to blame for this.

I said it before and I'll say it again. It amazes me how something like this can scare some people, and others won't bat an eye.

These face-morphing clips didn't scare me (I was actually mesmerized by them), but there was plenty else to give me nightmares.

I watched an Oddity Archive about "scary closing logos" and while the host wasn't phased much by them as a adult looking back on them (but had some choice words for that intentionally disturbing Russian one), but he analyzed why others thought they were. And it boiled down to moog synthesizers (the composers were trying to be "futuristic") and coldness of the logo design. And somehow, I feel that applies here. Thrown in with added "I'm an arteest" level of surrealism for surrealism's sake. Add to that, the cartoon is silent except for some creaky sound effects, giving it that cold, distant, and nightmarish feel.

That said, the male version is actually more disturbing than the female one, and here's why.

The deformations, first of all, are more grotesque and extreme. And while I thought it was mildly alarming that the woman had absolutely no reaction to her face shifting, this guy almost seems to be reacting in silent horror and madness. And both could be overlooked if it wasn't for that horrifying Moog sting at the beginning. Even the face shift sound effects are creepier. Now, there's the unintentional buzz of 30-something year old clip deteriorating on a home video cassette. It gives a very creepy atmosphere in this specific capture, but I'm discounting it. Grainy, old footage of something always comes off a bit ghostly anyway. Now that's YMMV stuff, and some will be more disturbed by it than others. Still, you wonder why they went with surrealistic body horror in a kid's show, especially one for the younger set. It's like that Wanda's Knees cartoon I mentioned before. There's a difference between saying "being lazy might make you gain weight" and saying "Here's a little girl gaining 500 pounds in 30 seconds." Of course, I'll discount the fact the animation was too off model for it's own good.

 

[shadesbelow]

One other odd thing about the Moog sounds is that they sound echoey, like the transformations are really loud as they occur.

I noticed that the guy's face kind of goes back to normal around the 15-second mark, and then they get really grotesque and "out there" right after that.

That "cold, distant, nightmarish" feel you mention really applies to these two clips, but especially the male variation. Seeing it for the first time, I seem to remember wondering "Is that really happening to him? Is it a dream? Does it hurt? Why is this happening?", but with a few subsequent viewings, I would fling myself behind the couch, or run into the next room until it was over.

One that didn't scare me, but raised similar questions, was one of the Mummenschanz clips. It was the one with the pink bean-bag chair rolling around on the floor, and then clambering up onto a box-type of platform, falling off onto the floor with a plop, and then wandering off. I found myself wondering what this pink thing was, and when it seemed to be a bean-bag chair with someone rolling around on the inside of it, I found myself wondering "Is someone in it? Can they get out of it? Who's in it?...Bob? Luis? Maria?".

That one hasn't surfaced yet, but here's what it looked sort of looked like, at the 32-second mark...

And then another short clip...

 

[Drtooth]

One other odd thing about the Moog sounds is that they sound echoey, like the transformations are really loud as they occur.

I noticed that the guy's face kind of goes back to normal around the 15-second mark, and then they get really grotesque and "out there" right after that.

That "cold, distant, nightmarish" feel you mention really applies to these two clips, but especially the male variation. Seeing it for the first time, I seem to remember wondering "Is that really happening to him? Is it a dream? Does it hurt? Why is this happening?", but with a few subsequent viewings, I would fling myself behind the couch, or run into the next room until it was over.

In another thread, I brought up another face morph cartoon from the 90's by a different animator for comparison sake.

The major difference being that this one has some snappy background music to give it atmosphere. I'm sure there are those who were freaked out by that one too, but I like how they went full blown cartoon instead of grotesque morphing.

Moog synthesizers are usually a play in why so many are afraid of old TV closing logos. They want to go for that space age, futuristic quality (hilariously, synthetic music sounds more natural than ever now in the real future of the past). I think Moogs were good for one thing and one thing only, early 80's anime sound effects. I have no idea why, but I've always been fascinated by them.

Of course, the interesting thing you brought up is that these face morph things is that they have a bad dream quality to them. I don't know how many times I had a pleasant dream go south and get horrifyingly surreal as a sign for me to wake up. It really feels like that last 30 seconds of a dream. Not to mention that as someone who watched a lot of indie animation, especially foreign ones, the probability that I'll have bizarre dreams about creepy foreign animation is higher than most. These segments feel just incomprehensible enough to be that odd Xerox of a xerox of a xerox quality of so bizarre it feels like a parody of what Eastern European animation is.

 

[shadesbelow]

One that was pretty bizarre was of the elevator operator going up ten flights, letting on various people, vehicles and objects until the car exploded at the end. It's hard to tell what was more disturbing: the weird noise when the witch/goblin gets on at the 4th floor, or when the elevator operator falls down the shaft at the end, horrendously screaming all the way down.

Another one that was on the weird side was the "speech balloon" one for the word "open". It's not on YouTube at the moment, so here's how it goes: an older guy announces the letter and word, but shows that the speech-balloon opens up on one side. He clambers up into it, seems happy that he made it, and then the door slams shut on him. He pounds on one side of it, shouting "Open! Open!", and then dejectedly moans "Oh!" as he fades to the background.

When I first saw this one (so to speak), I had been napping on the couch, but I was woken up out of it by hearing the guy shouting "Open! Open!". By the time I woke up and looked at the TV, it was over, so I thought I had perhaps just dreamed it. It wasn't until ten years later that I saw and heard it on the show, and said to myself: So I didn't dream that one! I waited until the next airing of that episode so I could tape it onto the VCR.

 

[CookieKing90]

For my scariest memory I remember watching sesame street 123 count with me. and when they came to the 15 elephants stampede chase I was absolutely scared because of how loud the elephants were, and every time we watch that video or any episode with that hand rod elephant Muppet. I would always just run into my parents bedroom and close the door. Then As I got older my fear of elephants went away because I found out that there are just muppets. Now that I'm older I been craving to see every sesame street episode where they have that elephant Muppet especially the old ones.

 

[MuppetSpot]

I will admit I was afraid of the Honkers for while on SST.

 

[fuzzygobo]

One that was pretty bizarre was of the elevator operator going up ten flights, letting on various people, vehicles and objects until the car exploded at the end. It's hard to tell what was more disturbing: the weird noise when the witch/goblin gets on at the 4th floor, or when the elevator operator falls down the shaft at the end, horrendously screaming all the way down.

Another one that was on the weird side was the "speech balloon" one for the word "open". It's not on YouTube at the moment, so here's how it goes: an older guy announces the letter and word, but shows that the speech-balloon opens up on one side. He clambers up into it, seems happy that he made it, and then the door slams shut on him. He pounds on one side of it, shouting "Open! Open!", and then dejectedly moans "Oh!" as he fades to the background.

When I first saw this one (so to speak), I had been napping on the couch, but I was woken up out of it by hearing the guy shouting "Open! Open!". By the time I woke up and looked at the TV, it was over, so I thought I had perhaps just dreamed it. It wasn't until ten years later that I saw and heard it on the show, and said to myself: So I didn't dream that one! I waited until the next airing of that episode so I could tape it onto the VCR.

The face-morphing clips mentioned before didn't bother me, but this elevator clip more than made up for it.
When I was little, my grandparents lived in a tenth floor apartment, and an elevator like this was the only way up. Took me until I was six to get over it.
The nice thing, over the last 15 years, with Noggin, Sprout, YouTube, DVDs and everything else, a lot of clips that were crippling to us as toddlers, we can watch now as adults and get some closure. Put a few boogey-men to rest.