What Really Scares Me (An Essay)

Okay, since Halloween is a scant couple of days away, and I've really done nothing that could be construed as a truly "Halloween-based" post, or even anything with a scary basis, I felt that I owed it to you, my faithful few, to give a little essay on what little stupid, nonsensical things really and truly scare me, TheGreatWhiteDope.

I guess this qualifies as an essay, even if it's just another one of my stupid little lists but, let's face it: this is a list that will probably come back to haunt me - even if I did bring it upon myself. After all, content is content.

Now, let's begin.

Hi. My name is TheGreatWhiteDope. I watch bad movies. Some of them are scary. They don't faze me all that much, though. Why? Because they're just little forms of entertainment that pass the time in an otherwise uneventful life. Everyone needs a good jolt just t prove they're alive, right? Just ask Frankenstein's Monster.

There are other kinds of scares, though. Ones that make you wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night. Ones that make your skin crawl. Ones that make the hair on various parts of your body twinge and shudder. Ones that just outright give you the creeps. I have them, just like anyone else does. And so I give you, dear reader:

What Really Scares Me.

THE KIDS FROM THE BROOD

David Cronenberg made some really creepy movies back in the day.

Anyone who ever saw Scanners, Videodrome or Dead Ringers knows this is a fact.

But when he gave us poor witless jerks The Brood back in 1979, it featured some creepy little kids in colorful jumpers and dead eyes that kill people.

Just look at these little monsters.

Imagine these things toddling slowly towards you or grabbing at you through a splintered hole in a door.

Creeps. Me. Out.

And if you have a soul of any kind...

Then this ad will creep you out, too.

THE TELEVISION AD FOR IT'S ALIVE

I know; it was really just more or less a spoof of monster movies, only this time with an overly-exaggerated killer baby this time out.

It's really just a riot, honestly.

HOWEVER, the ad campaign for this thing absolutely freaked me out when it came on TV back in 1974 when I was young, impressionable, and a wuss.

Yes, I realize that it's innocuous enough but...but...

I mean, look at this thing!!! This is the ad they played on prime time television; a time when they knew families would be gathered around their televisions watching the latest episodes of "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley" and "Bridget Loves Bernie" and stuff!

Who in the hell was thinking of the children, I ask you!

Look at this freaking ad and tell me what you'd think if you were a very small, still-impressionable child and was expecting NOT to be scared out of 12 years of your life!

LOOK! AT! IT!!!

Yeah, right; tell me that wouldn't have given you nightmares when you were nine years old. No wonder I'm so paranoid of bassinets.

THE SCREEN GEMS END CREDIT

Any long-time addicts of the blog already have read about this one. I've had a hate/hate relationship with certain TV end credits, but none moreso than the 'S' From Hell.

This literally made me run out of the room at top speed after any given episode of "I Dream of Jeannie", which was stupid; any reason to watch Barbara Eden in her skimpy little costume, y'know?

But then this horrid orange "S" slithered at me through a sea of vile yellow, its shrill tinny horns blaring at me.

This is playing on an endless loop on every TV in Hell.

Then there are two last things I will talk about at length that absolutely are the most horrifying things I have ever seen in my life and will haunt me till my dying day, I just know it.

BUT...this is meant as a strengthening exercise, so I will talk about them regardless.

And they are both tied for #1 in the "What Really Scares Me" sweepstakes.

And they are...

ALFRED E. NEWMAN and FATS FROM MAGIC (1978)

...and no, I refuse to post any pictures of them. They freak me out to this day that much. Plus, I want to be able to sleep tonight. Google them yourself and may God have mercy on your tortured soul soon afterwards. I will explain my fear of them, at any rate.

Alfred E. Newman you'll recognize as the namesake of the representative of Mad Magazine, naturally. But ever since I saw him on the covers of those same-said magazines, I was seriously freaked out at his dead eyes, constant missing-tooth smile and other-worldly shock of red hair. Those eyes, they always followed me, no matter how far I walked away from that damned magazine.

There he was...leering at me like a demented leprechaun, he haunted my dreams growing up until I would literally shake with fright whenever I walked by the magazine rack at Foodland. I refuse to even look at any issue of Mad Magazine to this day because I can't stand Alfred E. Newman's face. It's just really freaky, real or not.

I haven't even watched all of Up the Academy because I accidentally caught a glimpse of it on TV one night and saw...HIM. In human form. That same look on his face...his eyes stabbing through me.

I know I'm an idiot, but...jeez.

And as far as Fats goes...I'm well-aware that Magic is more of a psychological thriller than a "killer-puppet -on-the-loose" movie. Not that you or anyone else would have been able to tell from the basis of the TV ad that premiered on prime time TV back in 1978. It freaked everyone, myself included, out of their wits so badly that angry calls and parents with freaked-out little kids who probably shouldn't have been up watching TV during prime time forced the producers to pull it almost immediately.

Not that it did any good to promote the movie, since it did so badly. Anthony Hopkins would have to wait a few years to be cast as a cannibalistic genius before he could fittingly scare people out of their wits without angry phone calls to the network playing into the equation.

After all, this Fats dummy, though a dummy he was, was the only character in this ad. But for 30 seconds the camera just trained on him as he did his little rhyming, creepy little ditty...closing in slowly as he spoke, wide eyes staring dead into your slowly cringing soul...until, near the end, his eyes fluttered and he finished. The title of the movie was superimposed over his face as the ad finished, trained tight on his horrific, wooden, dead eyes.

HOLY %$!#!!! The hair on the back of my neck stood on end just remembering it!!

Myself, I refused to go to sleep all night after seeing that, would not watch TV at all for a couple of weeks and I'm pretty sure that it kept me from watching a re-release of Star Wars at my local theater out of the fear that I would see that same damned ad for Magic before the movie.

Still, for kids of the late 1970s, Fats will be a part of their scarred, catatonic psyche.

And when you look them up, you may even notice a resemblance between Alfred and Fats. I'd post a picture of the two for comparison, but I don't want to end up in a strait jacket out of fear for my own life.

And so there you have it: What Really Scares Me.

I hope you're satisfied with me sharing my inner-most fears; now I'm going to be dreaming about Alfred E. Newman popping out of a baby bassinet holding a ventriloquist doll: a Screen Gems production.

Pleasant dreams.

Dope out.

- TGWD