I have searched for this for years, and have found nothing…but I remember in great detail a song on SESAME STREET (this would have been 1980 or before) called "Surprise!" It involved various scenes and cast members from the show doing silly things that involved an element of surprise. Then at some point in the song, someone knocks on Oscar's trashcan and Maria pops up in a red devil suit and with a deep scary voice proclaims, "Oscar isn't here!!"

This scared the piss out of me as a kid and I would like to see if it still does, but I find absolutely no reference to this scene and no one who remembers it…I know I am sane, but I would love to see this again or at least hear from someone who remembers it.

Thanks,

Stephen

UNK SEZ: No luck finding that "Maria as Satan" clip Stephen, but I did find this old clip of Oscar which reveals him to be a natural ginger! He's even singing my theme song "I love trash!"

Dear Kindertrauma team,

My name is Marc Hendriks and I'm the author of the anthology Monstruos. This is my traumafession:

Now, for the first time, I am bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day in 1985, when I was eight years old. My friends, I cannot keep this a secret any longer.

Back in the swinging eighties, I was known by peers and relatives alike as a spineless momma's boy. Eager to rid myself of that stigma and to be thenceforth known as a tough guy, I boldly stepped into my BFFW's (Best Friend For a While) bedroom and demanded to be shown his copy of a magazine devoted to MICHAEL JACKSON's Thriller video. My buddy reluctantly obliged, warning me that the pictures in the magazine might prove too much for me. Obstreperously waiving his concerns, I grabbed the magazine from his hands, opened it at a random page, and was confronted with a photo of MICHAEL JACKSON transforming into the werecat.

All color drained from my face and I tossed the magazine out of the window. Those teeth, those yellow eyes…it was too much for me, all right. Way, way too much. Gone were the thoughts of wanting to be a tough guy, born to be bad. I bolted for the door, screaming for my mom as fresh salty tears trickled down my cheeks.

My bemused friend not only had to physically support me on my way home, but also endure repeated cries of "I'm hallucinating! I'm seeing the JACKSON werecat behind that tree/that lamppost/that car!"

When my mom answered the door for us, her first reaction to the sorry state I was in consisted of an indignant "Have you been giving my son alcohol?!"

I let my friend take care of the explaining, ran up the stairs and hid under my bed; surely, the JACKSON werecat wouldn't be able to get me there.

The next day at school, I learned that my friend's pinky swear to keep things under wraps had been superseded by the enormous LOL-potential of my mental undoing. Every kid who owned a copy of the Thriller magazine brought it to school after lunch break, waving it in my face in the hope I'd turn on the sprinklers again. I didn't, for the harmless picture couldn't match the sheer terror of the JACKSON werecat I'd encountered in my nightmares the night before.

Kind regards,

Marc Hendriks

Hello Kindertrauma!

I'd like to share with you a couple of things that scared the holy whatsit out of me as a kid, if I may. I was reminded of the first one by your recent post about Super Naturals – here in the U.K. we had a Super Naturals comic, and there was a separate strip in it about an evil ventriloquist doll, just called, I think, "The Doll."

If I remember correctly, a young boy goes to live with foster parents, and discovers the ugly doll in his bedroom. I think it belonged to the foster carers' dead son, and the dad goes mental and chucks the doll in the bin, and the image that always stays with me is how the doll scratches him as he throws it away…brrr!

The other thing that had a deeply unpleasant effect on me as a kid was Disney's THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS. I only managed to gather up the balls to watch the full film a few years ago, and discovered it to be a weird sci-fi thing, but the idea/image that always bothered me was the parts of the film which used the POV of some invisible force watching people…in the woods!

I couldn't go in or near wooded areas for YEARS; I even had to avoid large front gardens with a lot of trees in them, because I was certain the "Watcher" was in there, being all creepy.

Regards,

Rev. Austin

Hey again guys:

I'm not quite sure if it's just me, but I'm assuming that many folks my age were equally affected by the mid-eighties triad of The Bomb, AIDS and Crack, whose growth-stunting effects on the young teen mind were unmatched at the time.

Being in 7th grade and watching THE DAY AFTER (Thanks Andi T.) three nights in a row was, for me, terrifying.

AIDS didn't even need a made-for-TV movie to screw up a 13 year-old, hormone-riddled mind.

And, thank you, CRACKED UP for showing us how even such a fun thing as smoking pot can quickly lead to the untimely death of a budding high-school sports star.

Now, before The Big Three came at me, I had been content to believe the biggest concerns in America were with their far more innocent analogs, Bulllies (MY BODYGUARD), Premarital Sex (see a very special episode of GIMME A BREAK), and just plain-old Pot (Do yourself a favor and get a copy of the ABC Afterschool Special, STONED with SCOTT BAIO.)

And somewhere between these two groups, my brain was branded with an indelible memory.

Perhaps, not so indelible, as I don't really remember every aspect of it.

I just remember the icky-ness of it.

And the icky-ness was huge.

At least the way I remember it.

Aside from The Big Three, one of the largest psychic scars I garnered as a kid occurred upon viewing FALLEN ANGEL.

In it, RICHARD MASUR plays a consummate creep, and DANA HILL is the newest addition to his softball-team / kiddie-porn ring. Mostly, what I recall is a never-ending bounty of pills for the kids to enjoy and a cooler full of Orange Crush to wash them down with, accompanied by a blurry cascade of satin jackets and too much lip gloss.

The only line I can remember enough to butcher is from when a more experienced girl tries to get DANA HILL's character to ease into the whole gig, telling her, "It's no big deal. Just show a little skin and give a toothpaste smile."

Anyone?

Eric McDade

P.S.: By the way, all that icky-ness from FALLEN ANGEL would eventually come flooding back to me in a tidal wave of revulsion while watching DANA HILL chew gum and blow bubbles on the train in EUROPEAN VACATION.The sounds….

UNK SEZ: Eric, I was traumatized by FALLEN ANGEL too; I never watched ONE DAY AT A TIME the same way again and I think RICHARD MASUR's mustache alone should have been arrested for indecency! As disturbing as that 1981 television film was, who can deny the fact that DANA HILL delivered a fine performance, just as she was always known to do. DANA seemed to be in just about everything in the early eighties (most notably in SHOOT THE MOON opposite DIANE KEATON and ALBERT FINNEY ) but then disappeared due to poor health. Thanks to her signature raspy voice though, she went on to do a lot of voice over work in popular cartoons like GUMMI BEARS. Sadly DANA died of diabetes in 1996 at the age of 32. If anybody out there would like to help people with diabetes in honor of DANA this holiday season, just do some shopping HERE!