Scared Silly

[Corey Kensinger]

Scared Silly

Fright is weird.

Some of the things people find scary are weird.

Like candles, clowns or cows.

But little kids (and some adults) find the oddest aspects of something to be afraid of.

With it being Halloween eve, I thought it would be fun to share ridiculous aspects of games, shows, what have you that scared you as a kid. Little things that are not even scary, but for whatever reason, it really struck something with you as a kid. I’m not looking for the obvious scary elements, like zombies or monsters, I’m looking for the ridiculous and laughable.

[caption id="attachment_1062" align="aligncenter" width="612"] An Incredible 3-D Adventure Until Candy Pops Up![/caption]

Back when Donkey Kong Country released, it was an advancement in graphical possibilities on aging SNES hardware. 3D characters and 3D environments, popping with color, recognizable style and smart usage of the hardware limitations. What’s not to like?

Candy Kong.

Of all the enemies and elements in DKC, I was afraid of Candy Kong.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="342"] Pink spandex and eyes.[/caption]

Something about her really bugged me. Was it the eyes? The pink spandex? Both? It’s hard to say. Something about her really made playing the game a scary experience, and she wasn’t even featured THAT much, but all it took was one look to kill the game for a 5-year-old me.

It got to the point where I wouldn’t even go into the same room where the copy of DKC was, loaded into the SNES cartridge slot.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Stay away.[/caption]

(Years later I would have similar experiences with Oregon Trail and Tomb Raider, but neither of those were as ridiculous.)

My parents, who were so proud in presenting me the game, eventually had to return the game within the week because it bugged me so bad that Candy Kong was, for some reason, disturbing to me. I had to have the game taken away. That’s completely ridiculous and weird, but that’s part of finding the littlest, weirdest things as scary.

I laugh now. But even in looking up the images for this article, that nostalgia of being afraid of it is more memorable than I thought it was.

Now, feel free to embarrass yourself with your own stories. What is so completely ridiculous, looking back, that terrified you as a child?
[See the full post at: Scared Silly]

[Daniel]

If we’re talking about games then I can remember being terrified of the first zombie encounter in Resi 1. The way he slowly turned his head gave me the heebeegeebees (I have no clue how to spell that word).

If we’re talking outside of games, there was this tv channel (I was about 4ish at the time, I remember because it was in the first house I lived in) that showed cartoons early in the day. But everyday at like 1 minute to 12 noon, they’d stop whatever they were showing and they’d show this countdown clock/timer thing that counted down til the news was shown. For some reason the timer freaked me out, I think it was because of the silence, my mother would always be outside doing something and I’d be by myself in the sitting room and all of a sudden when the silence came I’d be very aware of how alone I was while also feeling like I was being watched, I’d leave the room whenever it came on after a while.

So I was terrified of a countdown timer as a child.

[Jacob Kellogg]

@gunreloaded The timer thing just sounds plain creepy to me.

In TV related ones, those dang muppets in the box at the beginning of Labyrinth Freaked me out when I was young.

[Jacob Kellogg]

That’s an interesting thing…I can’t remember being really scared much as a kid from anything gaming…..Gah…that monkey from DK….man, as a kid she didn’t bother me…But me as an adult..she is horrifying.

A level I hated in a somewhat scarey/just disliked way was the treetop level with all the boosting…the heights and the jumping just freaked me out… I mean, sure I’m afraid of heights in real life, but …it was just a game with a friggen flying dragon but it still bothered me..:|

[Author]

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