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Strange Things That Scared You (But Aren't Obviously 'Scary')

Bigphoot2 said:
A factory siren near where I lived as a kid used to scare me. I always thought it was some sort of monster. And I never liked the puppets in Supercar, I just found them really creepy. I was ok with later Anderson shows though.
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Yup, these are just scary. Mind, Fireball, Stingray and Thunderbirds were also a bit off. The puppets seem to be crafted with smiles as the main face. I always quietly asked them, 'Why are you smiling? You're in serious danger!'
Thankfully, the more real Captain Scarlet puppets didn't have smiles as the main mouth.
 
Swifty said:
Chewbacca used to scare me. I could never work out how anyone would want to hang out with a half werewolf, half sasquatch even if he was a decent bloke. He looked/looks absolutely terrifying.
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I think he looks like a Yorkie dog.

images.jpg
 
Stpauli9 said:
Yup, these are just scary. Mind, Fireball, Stingray and Thunderbirds were also a bit off. The puppets seem to be crafted with smiles as the main face. I always quietly asked them, 'Why are you smiling? You're in serious danger!'
Thankfully, the more real Captain Scarlet puppets didn't have smiles as the main mouth.
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I've recently seen a couple of episodes of Gerry Anderson's "Fireball XL-5" on the Talking Pictures channel. So much weirder than I remember it. I was very young when it was originally on, but I remember it chiefly because my older brother was probably exactly the right age for it.

I always found it creepy (my tiny kid brain probably watched it thinking "okaaaay... this is some weird sh*t, bro". Not just the standard 'big head odd grin googly eyes' puppets, but the sleepy-eyed alien Lazoon thing, with its evil-sounding strangulated voice - ugh!) - and one of the episodes featured the villainous Lillispatians, sadistic little green men with domed heads, pointy noses and giggly voices.

Watching it now, it seems somehow even more off-kilter and nightmarish.

But I do still love the song over the closing titles. Even better than Stingray's 'Aqua Marina' song.
 
catseye said:
Two separate things, Scargie! Ceiling lump downstairs, completely unrelated scary toilet upstairs. At least, I think it was unrelated. In our house, it was sometimes hard to be sure.
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We also have a ceiling lump in the living room.
It's right under the airing cupboard, so I think there's been a leak at some point.
In fact, there is a hole drilled through the ceiling which I think was done to let the water out.
 
The true back story of Aqua Marina. I think I'm in love.

https://stingray.fandom.com/wiki/Marina

19 year old Marina was born on May 28th, 2046, and is the daughter of Aphony, ruler of Pacifica. After losing her mother at age 8, she grew up as a princess in her city before being kidnapped in a raid by King Titan, when she was enslaved for a year. She was rescued by Troy Tempest and Phones after helping them escape from Titanica, and was allowed to live at Marineville.

Marina is mute but communicates with the expressive use of her hands; her people are physically unable to speak (see Trivia section for more info). She joins the Stingray crew regularly, and is valued at Marineville for her knowledge of the underwater world and it peoples and cultures.

Marina can breathe equally well in water and air. She is a tail-less mermaid who cares very much for Troy. While she has a healthy rivalry with Atlanta Shore for the affections of Troy, she and Atlanta remain very good friends.

Trivia:
  • Marina's puppet was not equipped with a mouth mechanism, as she has no speaking lines in the entire series.
  • Depending on the source, the reason for Marina's muteness varies. In the series, it is indicated that all of her people cannot physically speak. Two reasons are given for this-one is that her people speak telepathically and do not use words to speak. The other is that Titan placed a curse on her people so that if any one of them ever spoke again, their entire city would be destroyed.
  • Her face was modeled after actress Brigitte Bardot.
 
Definitely see the Bardot influence in Marina but she didn't scare me - it was the Aquaphibians, their fish sub and more specifically their language.

 
What scared me witless as a kid was Dr Who and the Sibernauts. The episodes where they were down on the London Underground, with the Brigadier, where the tunnels were filled up with some foam type stuff. A soldier was sent into the foam wearing a mask and pushing a trolley on wheels. He had a rope tied around his waist. After a short while of no activity, as the rope was not being fed out, he was pulled back out the tunnel... dead.

I don't know why but it scared the living sh*t out of me. I did once find that particular scene on you tube a while back and it seemed laughable but I guess to a kids mind?
 
kesavaross said:
What scared me witless as a kid was Dr Who and the Sibernauts. The episodes where they were down on the London Underground, with the Brigadier, where the tunnels were filled up with some foam type stuff. A soldier was sent into the foam wearing a mask and pushing a trolley on wheels. He had a rope tied around his waist. After a short while of no activity, as the rope was not being fed out, he was pulled back out the tunnel... dead.

I don't know why but it scared the living sh*t out of me. I did once find that particular scene on you tube a while back and it seemed laughable but I guess to a kids mind?
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Yeah, I'm a big fan of "Doctor Who" and was exactly the right age to have the crap scared out of me by that story (namely "The Web of Fear" broadcast in early 1968). The scene you refer to made a similar impression on me, along with 3 or 4 other web/foam/fungus related moments from the same story. It was a story that was mostly missing from the archives (for many years, only episode 1 of the 6 episodes was known to exist). Happily, episodes 2,4,5 and 6 were returned to the BBC about 10 years ago and are now available for anyone to enjoy. For a story of that era, it holds up pretty well, directed solidly by Douglas Camfield. The monsters in the story were the Yeti (rather than the Cybermen, who haven't - so far - used the underground tunnels to invade, but they did use the sewers of London in "The Invasion", which was broadcast later the same year, and was one of the few stories of the Troughton era that didn't feature foamy type stuff as a menace!).

But of course, both of these stories, and indeed "Doctor Who" in general, are meant to be scary (for kids, at least!) ... so I suppose we ought not to be discussing them in this thread.

The Cybernauts were robots featured in a couple of episodes of "The Avengers" in the late 60s (entitled "The Cybernauts" and "Return of the Cybernauts") and one episode of "The New Avengers" in the late 70s ("The Last of the Cybernauts...?").
 
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Tunn11 said:
I'm sure I saw somewhere that one of the die cast toy makers (Dinky, Corgi) had made a model of Stingray and that it was available in colour or black and white as most kids would see it on black and white TVs.
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Corgi have just retooled to produce a new run of Stingrays. Here's an engineering prototype "in the white":


maximus otter
 
Tunn11 said:
I'm sure I saw somewhere that one of the die cast toy makers (Dinky, Corgi) had made a model of Stingray and that it was available in colour or black and white as most kids would see it on black and white TVs.
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I never knew Crystal Tip's hair was purple. I believed for years that Bagpuss was grey/white. It was only when there was a sudden renewed interest in Bagpuss regalia/toys and I saw them, that I realised Bagpuss was pink/white with blue eyes.....Weirdly enough though there was an annual in the household during my childhood with lots of different pictures with a tiny drawing of Bagpuss in pink/white but I don't remember even noticing that or asking anyone why he was pink/white in the book.....
 
Tunn11 said:
I'm sure I saw somewhere that one of the die cast toy makers (Dinky, Corgi) had made a model of Stingray and that it was available in colour or black and white as most kids would see it on black and white TVs.
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I had a plastic toy Stingray, not waterproof* but had little friction-motor driven wheels on the bottom. It was bright blue and yellow. The "rotor"-style thingie it had instead of propellors actually turned as it went along.

* Didn't stop me having it as my favourite bath-toy.
 
Tunn11 said:
I'm sure I saw somewhere that one of the die cast toy makers (Dinky, Corgi) had made a model of Stingray and that it was available in colour or black and white as most kids would see it on black and white TVs.
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Just like Ernie Wise, I had a little Dinky. And I still have.

I have a small plastic Thunderbird 4, which was always my 2nd Favourite Thunderbird vehicle. Such a nice design. Very 'bath tub friendly.

(My favourite favourite was Thunderbird 2 - obviously - big and green and it's pilot Virgil was the coolest dude).
 
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