What sketches scared you as a kid?

[Whatnot1988]

I am not sure why, but I used to have an aversion to the Guy Smiley sketches as a youngster. It is one of the mysteries of my childhood I never will solve...

 

[jasonsesame]

I have read through this entire thread, and one of the scariest ones to me has not even been mentioned. I am surprised no one else has mentioned this, but here it goes:

On screen we see a man (perhaps one of the muppeteers?) against what I think was a plain blue or white background. Off screen we hear Maria's voice talking about different parts of the body. Maria will mention the name of a body part (eyes, ears, etc.) and the man on the screen will point to it on himself.

Now comes the scary part. At the end Maria makes a joke like "Oh, and you couldn't have forgotten your head!" With that the man's head becomes detached from his body and stays suspended in mid-air. The body then starts walking away without the head. The head turns and looks, sees it is being left behind, and starts bouncing along after the body until both are off the screen.

Am I really the only one who remembers this? Maybe it was considered too scary and they stopped showing it after a short time. This one and the sketch where Bob and Luis put up the train tunnel get my votes for the scariest sketches ever on Sesame Street.

 

[BeckyDR]

I have read through this entire thread, and one of the scariest ones to me has not even been mentioned. I am surprised no one else has mentioned this, but here it goes:

On screen we see a man (perhaps one of the muppeteers?) against what I think was a plain blue or white background. Off screen we hear Maria's voice talking about different parts of the body. Maria will mention the name of a body part (eyes, ears, etc.) and the man on the screen will point to it on himself.

Now comes the scary part. At the end Maria makes a joke like "Oh, and you couldn't have forgotten your head!" With that the man's head becomes detached from his body and stays suspended in mid-air. The body then starts walking away without the head. The head turns and looks, sees it is being left behind, and starts bouncing along after the body until both are off the screen.

Am I really the only one who remembers this? Maybe it was considered too scary and they stopped showing it after a short time. This one and the sketch where Bob and Luis put up the train tunnel get my votes for the scariest sketches ever on Sesame Street.

Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor, but that sketch sounds more funny than scary. Especially when the head sees it's being left behind and starts bouncing along after the body; I was laughing uproariously at that part. Then again, I can see how that might be scary to a little kid, but as an adult I just find it funny.

 

[Gonzo's Hobbit]

I haven't ever seen that one before. But it reminded me of one that I always thought was scary (or at least a bit creepy)
It's the one where kerimt is x-raying Harry Monster to show what your insides are like. When the get to the muscle part, Harry gets down to look at his muscles and then Kermit goes up behind the x-ray machine. Then Harry makes the machine show Kermit's skeleton and Kermit starts jumping and dancing around. That one always kinda freaked me out.

 

[jasonsesame]

Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor, but that sketch sounds more funny than scary. Especially when the head sees it's being left behind and starts bouncing along after the body; I was laughing uproariously at that part. Then again, I can see how that might be scary to a little kid, but as an adult I just find it funny.

I agree with you about finding it funny as an adult. It was a play on the old expression "I would forget my head if it wasn't attached". But I was no more than 3 or 4 years old when I saw the sketch. At that age I was too busy being afraid of seeing a detached head and a headless body to find the joke funny.

 

[Muppet Newsgirl]

Hmmm, good question - well, there was a Sherlock Hemlock sketch that bothered me a little bit, mostly because, as I remember, he kept shouting and carrying on at his sidekick. The details are all pretty hazy.

But apart from that, there weren't any sketches that scared me, I don't think.

 

[torontoguy]

When I browse Dejanews, I find this a favorite topic on the alt.tv.sesame-street group: What sketches/cartoons/skits scared you as a kid?

The only ones I can clearly remember frightening me were as follows. There was a counting cartoon with bugs. It started off on a blank yellow screen with a weird clicking sound. Then a rather ugly bug crawls on screen, then three more, counted off by the announcer until we have "five cute little bugs." Then the last bug turns and crawls "over" the first...and gets bigger. This is repeated until we have "one big ugly bug!" filling up the screen. That used to creep me out when I was little.

The other one was BIG TIME scary to me. This was actually a series of several, but I didn't know this till years later cause I'd always head for the hills when it came on! Yes, friends...we are speaking of the dreaded Willy Wimple Anti-Pollution Cartoons.

For those of you who don't remember, there were several folk-songish cartoons about a careless and rather nasty-looking kid named Willy Wimple, who in each one did something nasty to the environment: throwing trash on the land or in the water, and cutting down trees. The song went on to say, "Now if every kid did it, can't you see, what an icky mess it would be?" The cartoon and song would go into the consequences of what the world would look like if "every kid did it". They all concluded with a shot of the earth from space...brown and dirty...and a gruff, "YUCK!"

I think what scared me when I was a kid was that I somehow missed the "if every kid did it" line. Therefore, I thought that this one kid was responsible for screwing up the entire world. (I cheered myself up, though, by imagining a little story inside my head in which Big Bird and the gang, sans Oscar of course, tracked down Willy and forced him to clean up his mess.)

Anyway, thanks to this and other anti-pollution sketches, I became a real bear for not throwing trash around. But even now, I get a bit of a scare even thinking of them...

Other minor scares: that cartoon with the cracks on the wall turning into animals and one evil-looking "crack monster", and the News Flash with the horse running up the clock and smashing the thing to bits. But this was nothing compared to the pure stark horror that was Willy Wimple, Arch Polluter.

Some of the sketches that others have said scared them either had no effect on me or were sketches I loved. For example, the orange that sang Carmen's Habanera is often put in the scary category...but that used to crack me up no end!

Anyway, consider this thread therapy. What sketches used to scare you?

i do was scared of the willie wimple cartoons and still am. i cannot watch them or i will go into a funk/daze. part of me wants to find that person who came up with the idea or the person who sang the song and yell at them for scaring me when i was a kid. i am turning 39 this spring.

 

[CensoredAlso]

i do was scared of the willie wimple cartoons and still am. i cannot watch them or i will go into a funk/daze. part of me wants to find that person who came up with the idea or the person who sang the song and yell at them for scaring me when i was a kid. i am turning 39 this spring.

I don't remember seeing them as a kid, but I can see now where they'd be creepy. But I actually think they'd make good PSAs even outside of Sesame Street! Lol.

 

[Canadian Fan]

The Bert & Ernie sketch where Ernie was taking a bath with his umbrella, bowling ball, and flashlight. When it started thunder and lightning in the bathroom with the rain, I was scared Ernie was going to get electrocuted because of it. To this day, I hate thunderstorms with a passion. Sounds weird, but it's true.

 

[torontoguy]

I don't remember seeing them as a kid, but I can see now where they'd be creepy. But I actually think they'd make good PSAs even outside of Sesame Street! Lol.

yes they had a good message, but i am thinking that their visual effects were too stronge. take care.