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

Talking of display figures, at the height of my interest in Americana, I bought a 6' high fibreglass statue of a US highway patrol officer. I had it at the far end of the landing which is quite dark. It was quite funny listening to the reaction of people going upstairs to use the loo when they glimpsed a large figure lurking in the darkness. Girls would let out a scream, blokes would yell wtf. Caught me out once or twice too. Eldest son had it for a while and now passed to his younger brother who just last week bought it's identical twin. Both stand at the back of his dining room and can be vaguely seen through the front windows, comments about people lurking in his house have already been made by neighbours. Funny.
 
Hi folks. We had a few posts about the Michelin Man / Bibendum previously in this thread, starting at around post #433. He is a bit if a favourite of mine!

Coincidentally, yesterday I was browsing through a book I read 20-odd years ago called 'Alien Base' by Timothy Good. Published in 1998. It contains many detailed and bizarre 'eye-witness account' type reports of UFOs and ETs (many of which really stretch even my very elastic credulity), and some which include mentions of ETs who appeared to be wearing Michelin Man-like suits. The French witness even described them as looking like the Michelin Man. There's a small artist's impression of them which I will post on here in a few minutes.

No intention of de-railing the topic. Just interesting to note the remarkable similarity to Bibendum.

Cheers - Kam
 
@CharmerKamelion

I found this pic a while ago

original.jpg


Original caption: April 17, 1928—A novel hour of entertainment was recently presented to the radio audience of the nation with the inauguration of the Michelin Hour, presented by the rubber tire manufacturing concern. The orchestra's members are attired in grotesque fashion, as shown above.
 
and here he is in action
Brilliant post, Psychomania! That video of the Michelin Man is HILARIOUS! Where is the air being pumped into him?? No wonder he is looking startled! Poor old Bib.

I can see why a small kid would find it creepy - but - c'mon, whoever thought of that as a display item was having a good laugh, weren't they?
 
@CharmerKamelion

I found this pic a while ago

View attachment 42279

Original caption: April 17, 1928—A novel hour of entertainment was recently presented to the radio audience of the nation with the inauguration of the Michelin Hour, presented by the rubber tire manufacturing concern. The orchestra's members are attired in grotesque fashion, as shown above.
Bloody hell!! :oops:
 
Did anyone else find Max Headroom scary? As a kid I hated him, and tbh, I still do. Brrrr.
 
Did anyone else find Max Headroom scary? As a kid I hated him, and tbh, I still do. Brrrr.
What was it about Max Headroom that you found scary or disconcerting? For example, was it something to do with the visual motif? Or did it have more to do with the way his utterances and actions "stuttered" or "skipped" (as with a vinyl record) rather than being smoothly continuous?
 
I hated the moving backgrounds and his stutter o_O Although, that Max Headroom signal hijacking doesnt have the same effect on me :chuckle:
 
I used to rush out of the room when ‘Some Mothers do ‘ave ‘em’ was on. Frank Spencer absolutely creeped me out. I wanted to vomit when he was on. I know he was harmless and ineffectual, but he terrified me and made me feel sick.

I loathed the programme - That portrayal of hapless and stupid as something to love is just...

Apologies to anyone who classes themselves as hapless and stupid!
 
That’s the bugger!
oh… oh dear god. I always thought my child mind had distorted his memory to be more terrifying than he actually was. Now I realise that I was remembering him pretty accurately.

Edit: and here he is in action
Man! That is creepy!
 
I loathed the programme - That portrayal of hapless and stupid as something to love is just...
Yup. Nobody'd find a hapless and stupid female character funny.

*pops on Sociology/Media Studies hat* It was about the dire effects of feminism on fragile male egos. The point was that No Matter How Inept, A Man Was Still A Man and his woman must look up to him.

I could go on about how TV adverts, mostly devised in the past by male creatives, portray how society sees aspects of itself at any given time but you've heard it all before. :chuckle:
 
Apologies to anyone who classes themselves as hapless and stupid!
That's ok Frideswide. No offence taken.

Nobody'd find a hapless and stupid female character funny.

I take the thrust of your point, escargot. But I can think of a few examples of such female characters - Alice Tinker (played by the wonderful and sadly missed Emma Chambers) in 'The Vicar of Dibley' springs immediately to mind. She was the dictionary definition of hapless and stupid - and people (including me) loved her. She stole most of the scenes she was in!

Also Miranda Hart's variation of herself in "Miranda" - and (one for us oldsters here) Lucille Ball in her "I Love Lucy" show. And some of Catherine Tate's creations are hapless and/or stupid (though perhaps they are a bit less easy to find lovable!!).

Clearly Hart, Ball and Tate are/were all far from hapless or stupid in reality, as their bodies of work, as writers and performers, testify.

I'm just off to dig out my DVD box set of 'dinnerladies' now........
 
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That's ok Frideswide. No offence taken.



I take the thrust of your point, escargot. But I can think of a few examples of such female characters - Alice Tinker (played by the wonderful and sadly missed Emma Chambers) in 'The Vicar of Dibley' springs immediately to mind. She was the dictionary definition of hapless and stupid - and people (including me) loved her. She stole most of the scenes she was in!

Also Miranda Hart's variation of herself in "Miranda" - and (one for us oldsters here) Lucille Ball in her "I Love Lucy" show. And some of Catherine Tate's creations are hapless and/or stupid (though perhaps they are a bit less easy to find lovable!!).

Clearly Hart, Ball and Tate are/were all far from hapless or stupid in reality, as their bodies of work, as writers and performers, testify.

I'm just off to dig out my DVD box set of 'dinnerladies' now........
Alice Tinker wasn't the main character though, she was a foil for the Vicar. An 'Alice Tinker Show' would have been a boring series of humiliations.
Miranda Hart's apparent ineptitude was conscious. She often reminded us she was acting by commenting wryly direct to the camera.
Lucy wasn't stupid or inept, she was overconfident of her own abilities (in the way that men often are) and had to deal with the consequences.
 
Dougal is a brilliantly creation ** pauses to remember the 'far away cows' moment ** ..... and just like Alice in 'Dibley' he stole the show, not that Ted, Jack and (my distant relative) Mrs Doyle weren't all 'grand' too!

I find it very hard not to love Stan & Ollie, and no-one could be more hapless and stupid than them! Their humour - some of it very stupid indeed - still makes me belly laugh all these years on.

But getting back on topic, namely Frank Spencer being a bit creepy, he definitely was. It was almost an uncomfortable feeling of 'this is a grown man pretending to be a child' (mentally anyway). Of course, it was Michael Crawford pretending to be someone who was very child-like. And the flasher raincoat and beret were odd signifiers of 'different' that worked at a subconscious level (get me). It never really worked for me - I was probably happier guffawing about Mrs Slocombe's pussy - but there's no denying it pulled in the audiences. Err... "Some Mothers", I mean, not Mrs Slocombe's pussy.
 
As I've said before on this thread, Frank Spencer was the 70s TV audience's revenge on every authoritarian bastard they had ever encountered at work or away from it. He was a nightmare for those in charge (or thought they were) Either that or he was really easy to impersonate. Maybe a combination of the two.
 
There is an advert on TV where a baby in a cot appears to sing the lyrics to a song through lip-synch, CGI or maybe demonic possession. It is so fundamentally creepy I have to turn away - no idea what is being advertised, which doesn't make for a good advert. There was a similar campaign about 10 years ago (not the AA kid singing 'Rolling on a River') and it has left mental scars.
 
I totally agree, Bad Bungle. I saw that on tv tonight. It made me shudder. Who the hell thinks of these things? I am tempted to ask who do they think it appeals to - but that 'Rolling on a River' ad (or "Proud Mary") you mention was once cited by my elderly aunt as her favourite ad ! I wasn't sure she was serious at first, but she genuinely thought it was charming. I never quite thought of auntie in the same light after that revelation.
 
There is an advert on TV where a baby in a cot appears to sing the lyrics to a song through lip-synch, CGI or maybe demonic possession. It is so fundamentally creepy I have to turn away - no idea what is being advertised, which doesn't make for a good advert. There was a similar campaign about 10 years ago (not the AA kid singing 'Rolling on a River') and it has left mental scars.
It is really well done though, compared to the terribly done 'injury lawyers4you' ad with the many talking.
 
This blooming well scared me when I read it, years ago. Can anyone find the thread for the IHTM story about the children in America who were warned by their grandparents NOT to go into the cellar at any time, but did and encountered a huge mickey mouse creature. Jeez that still gives me the willies....
 
... Can anyone find the thread for the IHTM story about the children in America who were warned by their grandparents NOT to go into the cellar at any time, but did and encountered a huge mickey mouse creature. Jeez that still gives me the willies....

There's not a thread dedicated to it, but such a story has been mentioned twice on this forum. It originated with a letter written to Fortean Times no later than 2002.

The basic storyline presented in the letter was mentioned by a long-gone member in 2002 and again in 2003 within these threads:

Men In Black & Bogus Social Workers As Tulpa Folk Devils
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...-workers-as-tulpa-folk-devils.4567/post-83996
(July 2002)

The Dog That Turned Into Green Mist, Cows Standing On Hind Legs & Other Cases Of Gibbering Insanity
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...-cases-of-gibbering-insanity.4630/post-287796
(November 2003)

Unless you're remembering the published letter itself the grandparents and America attributions are coming solely from you, because they're not mentioned in either of the story's mentions here on this forum.
 
There's not a thread dedicated to it, but such a story has been mentioned twice on this forum. It originated with a letter written to Fortean Times no later than 2002.

The basic storyline presented in the letter was mentioned by a long-gone member in 2002 and again in 2003 within these threads:

Men In Black & Bogus Social Workers As Tulpa Folk Devils
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...-workers-as-tulpa-folk-devils.4567/post-83996
(July 2002)

The Dog That Turned Into Green Mist, Cows Standing On Hind Legs & Other Cases Of Gibbering Insanity
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...-cases-of-gibbering-insanity.4630/post-287796
(November 2003)

Unless you're remembering the published letter itself the grandparents and America attributions are coming solely from you, because they're not mentioned in either of the story's mentions here on this forum.
Thank you.... Yes that was the one I read years ago. I appreciate your time and effort. And anything to get me away from those terrifying, revolting giant spider threads.... Brrrrr
 
@CharmerKamelion

I found this pic a while ago

View attachment 42279

Original caption: April 17, 1928—A novel hour of entertainment was recently presented to the radio audience of the nation with the inauguration of the Michelin Hour, presented by the rubber tire manufacturing concern. The orchestra's members are attired in grotesque fashion, as shown above.

They dressed up in those costumes for a radio show?
 
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