Category: Traumafessions

When I was little, I always loved to watch videos of THE ADVENTURES OF SPOT in the playroom, but there was a preview before the episodes that scared me so much, I almost threw out my SPOT videos. It was a preview for a JIM HENSON show called FRAGGLE ROCK, and here's what scared me: The part where these giants called the Gorgs grabbed a Fraggle, but the Fraggle got away. I found it on youtube today, and boy it was different from what I remember:

Scare level ( on a scale of 1 to 5 screams): 2.5 screams, if you are 6 or under, 0 if over.

Whenever I started watching a DISNEY video, I always ran from the room before the movie started. Why? Because of terrifying THX logo. The DEEP NOTE scared me so much, that I haven't watched a DISNEY video ever since. Here's the logo:

Scare level: 4 out of 5 screams!

Your Unkle Lancifer has never had much love for the television movie THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401. It's not a terrible movie, but it could never live up to the exaggerated expectations in my mind. You see, I remember the paperback book lying about in our house when I was young and its cover scared the living crap out of me. The image of the dead pilot, his eyes glowing white with imagined evil power seemed to fry itself into my skull and promise a demonic tale not unlike THE EXORCIST or THE OMEN. Based on the book's cover my young mind conjured up a story of vengeful spirits that pounced on passengers and strangled stewardesses rather than an ambiguous apparition eyed in an appliance; ERNEST BORGNINE was the furthest thing from my mind.

Looking at that book cover again as an adult still brings me back to the horror taunting mind frame of my youth. With the author's name in a tombstone font, the jet black ominous background and yes, of course, those horrible blank eyes, it reminds me of just how concrete and real the supernatural seemed to me back then. I recall imagining unknown forces around every corner waiting patiently for the slightest misstep on my part. In reality the tale of FLIGHT 401 is more eerie urban legend than outright horror tale. It's popularity was probably due more to its implied promise of an afterlife in which the dead might return to issue warnings to the living as opposed to offering them glimpses of hell as in the equally ubiquitous seventies paperback THE AMITYVILLE HORROR.

Much as with the AMITYVILLE case there are many who still question the authenticity of THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401, but it's of little concern or comfort to me either way. In both cases it's not really the details of the story itself or the question of its validity that terrified the young me. The truth is, both legends, regardless of how familiar I was with them at the time, had the power to ignite my unknown fears and let loose the dark beast of my imagination. What kept me up at night were the phantasms that they merely inspired but that I myself planted and sowed. Consequently, even now when a film or book fails to send those harder to come by shivers down my spine I am left asking is it the art of storytelling that has died or is it just a little piece of my imagination itself that is resting in pieces? THE GHOST OF FLIGHT 401 may have never existed at all, but something tells me that the entity that book cover's illustration created within my mind still waits, biding its time…

I'm pretty sure the 1989 FRED SAVAGE film LITTLE MONSTERS hasn't been brought up on Kindertrauma yet. I honestly can't remember much about the plot anymore. Maybe I was too scared of the monstrous HOWIE MANDEL as a four year old to even watch the entire movie. I remember it was supposed to be a film for kids, but what were they thinking?

From what I recall, the climax of the film takes place in this perverted children's playroom (always creepy), where the heroes are confronted by a child-like monster. Then they shoot something at his face, and it rips off, exposing a horribly disfigured face underneath. I think the idea was that the monster was just wearing a "human mask," but to a four year old such as myself, it was as freaky as the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Who greenlights projects like this, anyway?

After seeing that people were traumatized by HERBIE HANCOCK, I'm surprised there's no mention of one-hit-wonder ROCKWELL, whose video for "Somebody's Watchin' Me" used to freak me the hell out as a kid. Highlights include the shadowy floating head, the zombie guy in tighty-whities carrying a roast pig (wtf??) and the shower spouting blood (a particular childhood worry of mine). But these weren't the real traumatizers of this video; I'd been on a steady diet of horror movies practically since birth, thanks to a horror-loving mother.

No, the kicker was in the last moments of the video, where the creepy grinning mailman is seen to have a horribly deformed and strangely slimy-looking left arm, poorly concealed behind his mailbag. I suspect that it was scary because he looked otherwise normal (if a bit serial-killerish); making it worse is the way that poor ROCKWELL walks up to him in obvious relief after dealing with all the rest, only to be faced with this misshapen horror. Let me tell you, it made me suspicious of mailmen for quite some time! I would eye them surreptitiously, on the lookout for a disgusting withered claw, and all because of ROCKWELL.

O.K., this one is weird but there was this one scene from THE WALTONS where the young girl is playing on a tall triangle shaped woodpile. She is told that it is dangerous, but keeps playing. The next thing you know she falls, and she gets hurt. I don't know why I obsessed about this but I would re-enact it with my paper dolls, Barbies… whatever I could get my hands on!

Most people who know me would agree that I prefer the company of animals to that of my own species. As a child, when other kids might have had imaginary friends, I had imaginary pets. A homeless person on the side of the road might be ignored or rationalized out of existence, but seeing a malnourished dog or cat will stick with me for the rest of the day. I'm pretty immune from news stories of man's inhumanity to his fellow man (or rather, his humanity towards his fellow man), but stories of abused animals sicken me.

Anyway, when I was a child, there was a particular phenomenon that made me dread going up to the counter of most restaurants: The Crying Dog Animal Donation/Extortion Bank! If you've seen one of these, I'm sure you could instantly describe it, down to the smallest detail. You also understand why I'm writing about it. If you have NOT ever seen one of these calculated, inanimate manipulators, I'll educate you.

The Crying Dog Animal Donation/Extortion Bank was a plastic piggy-bank type device about 10 to 12 inches tall. It's form was that of some sort of yellowish hound dog, with long flowing ears, matched only by its long face. Its eyes welled with tears, with a single drop spilling onto it's cheek. There was almost always an attached placcard or business card for some local animal shelter with the following poem (which has been etched into my mind for at least the last quarter century):

"I'm so hungry I could cry. If you don't help me, I may die."

No doubt early super-computers were used to optimize the heart-tugging at work here. I'm pretty sure that the RAND corporation had some of their excess post-Vietnam War analysts work up some 10 volume set detailing the exact means to squeeze the hearts of children right in their chests. Needless to say, I was highly susceptible to this sort of manipulation. I would usually deposit money if I had any or, for days after I'd regret not having any.

I don't know if this is a Southern thing or just an '80s thing. I don't see them at restaurants as much anymore, which I am conflicted about. I like not getting depressed every time I go to the counter of A&W to pay for my Coney dogs, but I hate that a potential funding stream for homeless animals might be drying up.

If you missed out on this delightful cultural icon, don't worry. The RAND folks are still hard at work in their cramped basement offices, cranking out pure sadness and pathos. Now they'll beam it straight into your living room…and this time they've got SARAH McLACHLAN helping out.

I couldn't find this in your archives, so I decided to send it in. If you have it, well, I gotta get this out anyway.

PUNKY BREWSTER was my all time favorite show as a tyke. I developed my first unrequited crush on SOLEIL MOON FRYE, wrote her a fan letter, the whole nine yards. There was something so perfect about that show to elementary school-aged me. Perfect.

Until Season Two.

Season Two featured a very strange two-part episode called "The Perils of Punky." In it, Punky, Cheri, Alan, the dog Brandon and Margeaux end up lost in a cave during a camping trip. They get told by an old Indian about a lost princess who was captured by an evil spirit and trapped in the cave. One by one as they explore the cave, they disappear. Only Punky is left. As she sits down on a rock, all hell breaks loose:

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was terrified. What had been up to that point a relatively benign episode of a beloved sitcom, turned into a whole bucket of nightmare fuel for weeks to come. I stopped trusting the television, especially my formerly favorite show.

At the end of the episode, Punky fights a demon (!) and rescues her friends, but I didn't see that until the season was released on DVD. Years later.

Punky. I'll never trust you again.

I'm scared by all sorts of stuff. But the biggest scare-fest for me is Thriller, starring MICHAEL JACKSON. From the werewolf-type-thingy to the zombie that peeps into the camera right at the very end, it scares the holy crap out of me! Thanks for 16 years of trauma, Mr. JACKSON and Mr. LANDIS!

AUNT JOHN SEZ: Luckily for you Ally, the Gloved-One and/or his production company has forbidden the embedding of his seminal zombie video, so we can't display the full visuals.

Unfortunately for you, we do have the power to embed the below LEGO and BOLLYWOOD versions. Ummm… enjoy?

In THE MOD SQUAD episode "Twinkle Twinkle Little Starlet," pretty little Julie Barnes is used as bait to catch someone who uses silk scarves to strangle blond girls who get to close to a talk show host. When Julie finds herself alone in the woods with the strangler she reaches into his vest pocket thinking it's a hankie, instead she pulls out a scarf and sees it's like the ones that the strangler used on the other girls. She is frozen in fear, and my heart was pounding feeling her fear too. I was between 8 and 11.

UNK SEZ: Thanks Ian for turning me on to this creepy and obviously very groovy episode of THE MOD SQUAD. I tracked down a very informative post on just this episode at a great site called MOON IN THE GUTTER,
you can check that out HERE!

I used to literally run away crying and screaming when an older neighborhood kid would hold up the front cover of FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine. BASIL GOGOS amazing detail and crazy color scheme apparently freaked me out. I am happy to say I think that's what made me love horror movies and Halloween later on in life. I also met him in 2008 and bought his beautiful hardcover book with all those photos that made me cry.

UNK SEZ: Andrew, thanks for bringing up this exceptional artist. You can be sure that a couple of his works are hanging in the Kindertrauma Castle gallery (Not so much originals as tacked up back issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS MAGAZINE. Hey, we ain't made of money!) All you kids out there should stop by Andrew's home turf today and give it a look-see. It's called SCARESDALE MANOR!