I know it’s been a while since my last post but you should know I’m still around and still scarred. I’ve shared some of my most memorable ones with you and as the years rolled by I found myself less and less affected by the things that would have scarred me in younger times. This is, I think, a natural part of growing older. But enough about me, here’s one I dodged.
In 1986 this little gem, The Adventures of Mark Twain, smashed the hopes and dreams of children across the nation. It promised happy-go-lucky fun filled adventure with the likes of Tom Sawyer but delivered Satan! Luck me, I missed it. Here is the clip about Satan and I believe it cuts to the creepy chase…
“Life itself is only a vision. A dream. Nothing exist save empty space and you…and you are but a thought.” Wow…I guess if you hate children the thing to do is make a kid’s film!
Photo by Laughing Squid
Hope you all survived the holiday without too much drama. Feeling rested? At peace? Filled with good cheer and ham? Good. Let the scarring begin!
The Heat Miser was a character in the Rankin-Bass 1974 Christmas classic “The Year Without a Santa Claus“. Interestingly enough, few people can remember the name of the movie, but everehboddy remembers the HEAT MISER. I mean, come on, dude melts the f*&%#*-ing MOON! This guys is like one of the X-Men, only without Hugh Jackman’s lithe dancer’s physique…. … … …
Sorry, mind wandered a bit.
At any rate, The Heat Miser and his little naked doppelgangers were just 9 kinds of wrong wrapped in a claymation candy coating. This song has been covered by numerous bands, and everyone knows someone who has had an unfortunate Heat Miser hairdo.
Photo by Alyssa L. Miller
Why? Why?! WHY?!? If you have been living in a cave for the last 88 years and have never read The Velveteen Rabbit, you missed one of the cruelest stories ever put down in ink. I can only assume that the parties responsible for this atrocity were pure sadists, probably belonging to some occult illuminati organization bent on damaging the minds of youth so wholly that they can no longer pose a threat to our reptilian overlords. Some people find this tale an uplifting allegory for… something I can’t grasp. I found it’s message to be more along the lines of, “you are disposable and replaceable, and not as good as a real rabbit. Enjoy the flames of hell!” The whole Nursery Magic Fairy always felt a bit “deus ex machina” for my taste, like the author showed the first draft to her publisher and was promptly threatened with being charged with war crimes unless she changed the ending.
I want to thank the bunnies over at Metachat for their help and inspiration with this site. SFL was inspired by the litany of posts on sites like Ask Metafilter and the sadly now defunct Ask The AV Club where people beg to put a name to that horrible, life-altering, experience that swooped into the facade of childhood innocence like an oily, black pterodactyl. Like 99.99% of teh interwebs, we are built on the backs of the hive-mind, so cheers to you all for helping us poke our tongues into the mouth sores of childhood memories!
So, by popular request:
While I was much too old to consider “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” a childhood scar (I was 18, about to drop out of high school, and was more interested in guys with bad tribal tattoos who played guitar in their mother’s basement at that point. Don’t worry, the story ends well, and without any unplanned pregnancies or trips to rehab, even), two scenes are stuck so deep in my memory that I have refused to watch this movie ever again. The Shoe, and The Steamroller. The steamroller scene was a level of mayhem that no human should be exposed to, let alone a small child. I tried to find a decent clip of this scene, but could only find poorly done mashups and edit jobs. The shoe, however…. *shudder*…
As a child, I believed my stuffed animals were real. Not in an animated way (I mean I wasn’t STUPID, I knew they didn’t eat or move, sheesh), but I believed they had sentience. Like some sort of magical, felt-driven “locked in syndrome”, they could see and feel everything around them. The least little trauma inflicted on my fluffy friends would send me into hysterics. I still have my first stuffed toy, my Henry dog, and was internal inconsolable a few years ago when one of my dogs chewed off his tail. Yeah, mid-30s and weepy over a ratty stuffed dog. Sad, isn’t it. So, needless to say, this scene was unbearable for me. I still can’t watch it. Here, YOU watch it!
We have discussed previously the horrors of television logos. Someone has gone ahead and made a movie about these assassins of dreams. Hear ’tis (the trailer for it, at least)!
Photo by Torley I Used to Believe is a really cool site that lets users submit those weird goofy misconceptions children have of the world around them. You know, little nuggets like:
My cousin told me that there was a creature in outhouses (we did a lot of camping) called the toilet Dracula that had a head like Dracula and the body of a snake. It would crawl up the hole in the toilet and bite you when you sat on it. I was horrified for years.
Yeah, that one was mine. Thanks, Cousin Carolyn! To this day I can’t use an outhouse.
Photo by stuant63
The big challenge to running this site (other than finding the time) is trying to find content worthy of its subject matter. Since the focus has been so narrow, I would often find myself coming across things that were truly creepy, but weren’t necessarily childhood related. I have decided to expand the scope to encompass a broader swathe of unsettling and nightmare-inducing topics. Look for new posts coming soon!
Ok, this movie confused me as a child. Why are these people living in a place that is infested with venomous, talking snakes? Like, seriously, what on the gods’ green earth would make someone say “hey, that’s a good place to raise a child”!? Ah, the stubborness of colonialists. You stick to your guns, good sir. Don’t let pesky things like poisonous creatures, plagues, and angry locals get in the way of progress! What’s one child dying an agonizing death from neurotoxin induced cardiovascular collapse? Stiff upper lip and all that!
