Cartoon Characters You Were Irrationally Frightened Of

Hi NeighboUr!

Stromboli from pinocchio. My mom would pick up the phone and pretend to be talking to Stromboli whenever I'd misbehave. She'd say something like, "you better be good, Stromboli is on the phone and he said he'd come over".

Maleficent (the cartoon version). I actually sent a letter to our local theatre the day after I saw it, telling them they shouldn't let such horrible people in their theatre.

The Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes. His hisses and snarling were disturbing.

Were?

Skeletor still scares me!

tHe grOkE😰

Neighbourhood Watch sign robber...he still gives me the creeps.

Medusa and Maleficent definitely. Also I think the villain from an American Tale who was rat pretending to be a mouse. Don't know why but that freaked me out.

The Seahag from Popeye

Side Note: I was in love with Brutus/Bluto

[quote] the villain from an American Tale who was rat pretending to be a mouse. Don't know why but that freaked me out.

The giant automaton thing at the end of that movie always made me feel sick with fear as a child.

If I were a little kid today, I know Tartakovsky’s PRIMAL would scare the shit out of me as a show.

OP were u a poor orphan girl that spoke with rats?

The banality of Madame Medusa’s evil is what makes her so terrible.

When Penny talks about needing to get back to her orphanage so she can be adopted, Medusa tells her “Who would want a homely girl like you?”

I’m surprised she’s not a DL Icon.

I only discovered this Disney cartoon a few years ago and find it creepy AF, but it would, have completely destroyed as a little kid.

R13, I neglected to add (since I'd just found out in a simple Google search when I started this thread) that Disney animator Milt Kahl based Medusa off his ex-wife Phyllis Bounds, who--believe it or not--was one of Walt Disney's nieces! The attached article is a bit long, but I've copied and pasted the crux re: her being the inspiration for Medusa:

"It was not as amicable a parting as some believed with animator Kahl later claiming that his favorite character to animate was the villainous Madame Medusa in The Rescuers (1977) because he based much of her flamboyance and "aging sexpot attitude" on his ex-wife. He ended up doing almost all the animation for the character himself.

Animator Jane Baer, who knew Milt and Phyllis told historian John Canemaker, "Phyllis wore boots. Medusa wore the same boots. In that scene where (Medusa's) pulling off the eyelashes, I said, 'That's Phyllis!' You just knew."

She does, indeed, sound like a cunt, and therefore a DL icon.

I think you were supposed to be at least a little frightened of most of these characters. Maybe Finnish children aren't afraid of the Groke and the Lady of the Cold from the Moomins, but they creep me out as an adult and I'm glad I didn't see them as a child.

I vividly remember hiding from the hag when my dad took me to see Snow White when I was little. "The hag" being the evil queen at the very end. I ducked down beneath the seat in front of me so she wouldn't see me.

R16 what’s funny and touching about the Groke is that we’re supposed to feel sorry for her once the shock of her dread-inducing presence wears off. She’s friendless and very lonely, and isn’t actually an evil villainous character—she is doomed by her intrinsic nature to spread cold and dark wherever she goes, not realising that this scares others away. In a sense, she’s a cipher for the endless Nordic winter where there’s sometimes no sun for months on end. Tove Jansson was masterful at creating nuanced characters that way.

Madame Medusa was voiced by Geraldine Page, and the cartoonists used her as their model for the character. No one could be play a crazy bitch like Page. (Watch Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?).

I wasn’t scared of any villains, but early animation rom the 20s and 30s has always given me anxiety. The warped audio and the ghastly rubber hose limbs…..they look like they don’t have bones.

Dishonest John

When I was very young, I saw an animated version of A Christmas Carol. At one point, Marley’s Ghost appears to Scrooge. He opened his coat and there were all these ghosts and chains or something, I was maybe 4 years old and I still remember the scene, it terrified me. I was positive Marley lived in my closet. I’ll look and see if the scene is on YouTube.

Found the source of my terror all those years ago. Watching it again, its no wonder, its really not for kids. The scene that scares me the most is two beings under one of the ghost’s robes, about 16 minutes in.

Marley appearing in the door knob about 4:30 in, and then him screaming a few minutes later, scared me shitless, too.

Well worth a viewing, lasts about 25 minutes. Pretty gritty animation, reminds me of The Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi a few years later.

The huge, ugly, evil-looking rat with the glowing eyes from "Lady and the Tramp"; thank goodness Tramp's terrier instincts kicked in!

Witch Hazel from the midcentury "Bugs Bunny" animated shorts, she of the flying hairpins when she zoomed away at high velocity. She reminded me of an aunt.

It just struck me that, in his new look, Tommy Dorfsman looks very much like Madame Medusa.

I had a bad dream about Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget back in the day.

The Secret of the NIMH. Not one character, but everything in the movie. Couldn't watch the entire movie until I was older.

I'm a bit off topic, but thanks to R14, I discovered this 1930 cartoon. It was suggested on the sidebar of the skeleton dance clip. How weird, creepy, fun and hopeless. You have to wonder what they were smoking.

The Siamese Cats from Lady And The Tramp scarred the crap out of me as a kid!!!!

Weren’t there lots of problems with kids freaking out over Watership Down, though in actuality it’s not a kid’s story to begin with anyways?

https: //www .imdb. com /title/tt0097757/mediaviewer/rm3432624128/.

Had to break it up!

URSULA - Little Mermaid!

The cobras in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi".

As a kid, this cartoon confused and scared me. As an adult, I find it to be a fairly realistic depiction of the hopelessness of day to day life.

Madame Medusa looks like a frau who is demanding to speak to the manager after her coupon was rejected.

How about this one, R14?

R34, that was confusing and nightmarish.

This fat lady dancing is terrifying.

R36, I'm not R14, but while the premise is spooky, I think it was entertaining !

Madame Medusa was originally intended to be Cruella, but they were worried children would confuse the films.

what kind of gaywad would be scared of a cartoon?

[quote]You have to wonder what they were smoking.

Given Max Fleischer's fondness for Cab Calloway, complete with drug references, I don't think we can rule it out, but there was a certain strain of the grotesque and macabre in the humor of the 1920s and early 1930s (post-World War I zeitgeist.) Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley used to have a subscription to a mortician's journal and an embalming illustration on the office they shared back in the day.

[quote] on the office

On the wall of the office.

I hated all the plate-lipped characters on Bugs Bunny! That shit was scary - not to mention Racist as fuck!

The Spooky Space Kook from "Sooby Doo, Where Are You?", with his terrifying laugh.

The Really Rottens on "Laff-a-Lympics". I always rooted for the Yogi Yahooies and Scooby Doobies.

The whale in Disney's Pinnochio.

Smokey the Bear and his 'only you can prevent forest fire' PSAs. His voice scared me and he looked cruelly authoritarian in that uniform.

The Ghost of Christmas Past in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Weird non-binary little thing with a creepy voice.

Those Max Fleischer cartons are so fucking weird.

"Yellow Submarine" as a whole freaked me out as a kid. I just couldn't watch it. Blue meanies!

PINOCCHIO: The donkey transformation on Treasure Island is one of the most terrifying scenes in American cinema.

R23 Ralph Bakshi is my favourite animated filmmaker, and frankly I think he’s a genius. His WIZARDS changed my life.

That said, he has animated some creepy and terrifying shit. The arc in FRITZ THE CAT involving Blue the bunny neo-Nazi and Harriet the hippo prostitute getting high, getting into an sexually-abusive altercation, and then getting involved in a cult ritual is horrifying on so many deep levels. It’s a sequence I wish I could erase from my mind. Every time I want to weep and throw up after seeing it, but I also can’t look away. The way it is coloured and animated and blocked is just so completely oozing with manic despair and misery.

R10 Wewease The Secwet Weapon!!

The Giant Mouse of Minsk scared the shit out of me when I saw this movie as a five year old. The roars were scary as hell. This is for sure my number one scariest cartoon character

The Boogeyman from The Real Ghostbusters cartoon was scary. I think it was the giant head and hooves.

The Sandman’s voice freaked me out, but he wasn’t so scary.

Creepy motherfucker

Sandman’s voice at 2:20

Donald J. Trump

Alice (the Goon)

Marvin the Martian and that big red shaggy monster from Looney Tunes. I think because neither really had faces, just eyes

For me it was Spider-Man. The fact that he didn’t have a mouth freaked me out. The first time he came onscreen I ran to the fireplace & screamed; my mother ran in & said all the color had drained from my face & I was trembling & pointing at the screen: he has no MOUF!

For me it was this drawing of Medusa that was in a book of Greek Myths my parents read me when I was six or seven.

Terrifying.

Rasputin from Anastasia. Hexxus from Ferngully. And The Mask.

The primary villain in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Right after he gets taken out by the steamroller and then inflates.

One of my favorite books as a kid was The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. But there was one picture that scared me so much I would have to close my eyes and quickly turn the page so I didn’t have to look at it.

It was after the three kids climbed over a sleeping bear in the woods and it woke up and chased them . The bear’s yellow eyes scared me so much, lol.

Simon Barsinister of "Underdog".

"Highlights for Children" magazine used to feature several cartoon strips - "Goofus and Gallant" being especially famous. One of the less-remembered strips was "The Timbertoes" about a family of wooden puppets. In one strip little Tommy Timbertoes went swimming and the fish ate his feet. I was terrified by the drawing of a bawling Tommy sitting on the ground with no feet on his legs

His father carved new ones, and all was right in Timerbertoes land. But I was like r65: I had to turn the page quickly. I eventually just ripped out the page and threw it away.

I don’t consider this one irrational because he is scary- the Minotaur from the Scooby Doo episode Lock The Door, It’s A Minotaur. I didn’t know what a Minotaur was before this episode but I definitely had a fear of them after.

The Red Bull in The Last Unicorn. That whole movie was creepy. The vulture was no picnic but I guess she wasn’t all evil. She was a witch?

I don’t remember the vulture, but I don’t think I’ve seen it since the 80’s. I do remember the Red Bull, though.

I also remember a scary guy at the top of a crumbling tower, and a song sung by Art Garfunkel, which is vaguely scary by itself. He also sang in Watership Down. I guess that’s the only movie related gigs he could get after his movie career went nowhere.

This Fleischer Bros. classic:

Magilla Gorilla and the Grape Ape. As a tiny child, I was afraid of primates.

R69 the harpy? The one who killed Madame Fortuna. She was vicious. And she had floppy tits.

A few years ago I was babysitting a friend’s four year old and she wanted to watch this movie, so I said sure. It’s a cartoon about a unicorn, right? No biggie. But the kid lost her shit at the harpy scene and I told her to keep watching the movie b/c that was the scariest part and it was over. (I was just guessing, I’d never seen the movie). But then there was the Red Bull, which was even scarier to her. Oops.

Your names not phoebe, is it r69?

Anyone see the 1977 Rankin and Bass version of The Hobbit? Gollum scared me so much. His creepy froglike look, raspy voice, and anger/craziness were terrifying. And of course my older brother would do the Gollum voice at me for years growing up.

I thought the Gollum from the Lord of the Rings live action movies was kind of cute, but the cartoon version terrified me.

He’s part one of his scene:

Part 2

Creepy motherfucker

Smaug the dragon from the same movie was also scary. He looked like a fucked up cat thing.

No thanks

Snow monster in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964, repeated every Xmas season).

r71: the Fleischers were always using frightening demonic faces, skeletons and ghosts in their films all the way through "Popeye" .

They just got just ....weird.... Betty Boop, Bimbo and KoKo among the cannibals and Louis Armstrong singing "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You" ("You gave my wife a bottle of Coca-Cola so you could play on her vag-ola")

Then the Fleischers did this...considered the best and raciest of their musical Betty Boop shorts.

Well, I think we need to add Arthur and his deformed aardvark face to this list.

The Night on Bald Mountain sequence from Disney's Fantasia used to freak me out. When my family went on a trip to Disney World and were on The Great Movie Ride, there was a part where you were rolled into a giant room with a floor to ceiling projector where they were playing that scene and I had to close my eyes.

I wasn't even in the double digits age wise when

this gang of 13 invaded my favorite tv show =

From the Rock & Rule film =

How about Super Friends "The Universe of Evil" episode where their

evil counterparts are destroying Earth 1 & their own home planet?

The Chameleon invites 7 super-heroes who have previous stopped him (but not in the comics which was strange) to a small island only to off them one by one & take over their costumed identity to do in the remaining heroes. Some scary stuff even before the island explodes at the end.

The Wolf Pack episode of Thundarr The Barbarian. He gets changed by magical werewolves & I wondered how Ariel & Okla would be able to change him back.

How about the Dungeons & Dragons episode where Presto stays behind with a wizard who the viewers quickly learn is Venger in disguise as his 5 teammates leave him behind.

Gargamel

When the Wonder Twins' powers activated and he became a bucket of water or an ice waterfall, that was really spooky.

How about when Scooby & co. battled the 10,000 Volt Ghost (what kind of ghost is that anyway?)

I thought for sure he'd fry at least one of them based on his powers & their humanness.