Reasons To Be Fearful

The internet can be quite therapeutic. Especially when you can use it to exorcise the demons of your childhood. I’ve used Youtube to watch allsorts of things and recently I’ve come across videos of scary images that graced my T.V. screen during my upbringing. Quite frankly it's laughable when I watch them and I feel like a right idiot but I suppose everything is a bit frightening when you're a child. Here are some of the clips I got from the site of things that terrified the life out of me when I was growing up. I’m sure some will strike a chord with anyone born end of the seventies/early eighties.


(1) The “Zuul” scene in ‘Ghostbusters’.

This scene is responsible for giving me an irrational fear of fridges and is the most likely explanation of why I was a skinny fussy eater as a child. Maybe if one of these terror dogs lived in every fridge in Britain it’d be the perfect way to combat child obesity. Every time little fatty goes to grab some Cheese Strings from the refrigerator one of these monsters shouts “Zuul” down his lughole. Problem solved, they even get some excise as they run in fear. Mind you the desensitised kids of today would probably just ‘happy-slap’ the dog while his mates film it on their camera phones…the bastards. I see all these teenagers around Cardiff on their mobiles and they’ve all got better ones than me. What the hell is that about? I work all the hours God sends and what have I got to show for it? A Nokia from three years ago.



(2) BBC Ghostwatch

Don’t know if anybody will remember this one but it left a big impression on me. On Halloween in1992 the BBC decided they would show a fake live documentary as part of the Screen One drama series, it was called ‘Ghostwatch’. It followed a household in London that was being terrorised by an evil spirit called Mr Pipes. The young girls of the family were regularly being scratched and possessed by the ghost and the mother had called in the paranormal investigators to sort it out. The action was shared between a camera crew in the house and the BBC studio. Problem was they did a far too convincing job in selling it. They brought in respected TV presenters such as Michael Parkinson adding weight to the show. They even set up a hoax phone number to call up if you witnessed any activity. This left the thousands of viewers who missed the short disclaimer at the beginning of the show believing they were watching a genuine phenomenon unfolding, Orson Welles ‘War of the Worlds’ style. I’ve got to admit it does look very dated now but as a thirteen year old I was totally suckered in by the hoax. I wasn’t the only one. Various claims were reported in the papers, kids being diagnosed with post traumatic stress and even a teenager even committing suicide. The BBC have never repeated it to this day.



(3) Terrahawks

Who on Gods green Earth thought this was a good idea for a children’s TV show? A bunch of frightening puppets standing round talking bollocks in the scariest voices imaginable. I was petrified of this show. ‘Terrahawks’ was intended to be the most laidback and fun of the Gerry Anderson shows. Looking back I appreciate there’s a lot of humour here that isn’t present in something like ‘Thunderbirds’ but to be fair to my four year old self there’s a lot of monsters here that aren’t present in ‘Thunderbirds’. Watch this and you’ll have trouble sleeping for at least a week.



(4) Thriller

How come he looks scarier now in real life than he does in this video? I know it’s been said a million times but it really is true. I remember being fascinated with Thriller. As a result in later years I got into ‘An American Werewolf in London’ in a big way. As a child the bit that frightened me comes at the end of the video. The bit where Michael Jackson reassures his girlfriend that it was all just a dream, he turns to the camera then he smiles as his eyes turn yellow. That use to freak me out.



(5) Charley Says Adverts

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one side you’ve got a sex offender, the other you’ve got a cat speaking in devilish tongues. Fair play the young lad deals with it well although all he gets for his trouble is an apple. If I’d have fought off a child molester I’d have wanted something better than a bloody apple, possibly the latest Now Album. Maybe that bloke wasn’t really a sex offender, maybe he did genuinely want to show the boy his puppies. I reckon Charley was so insecure that he couldn’t stand the thought of his owner looking at another pet. So Charley plays the paedophile card, the devious sod.