Gurl on Girl-Gaming: Memory Lane Monday: Scarred For Life Edition or What Were Our Parents Thinking?

Do you remember? You do, don't you? You remember that random scene in that one movie that had little consequence to the rest of the film, but it scared you. Terrified you to your very core. It gave you nightmares and scarred your wee child soul. For life.
Or maybe it was a TV show. Or a commercial. Or a picture in a book. Never intended to ruin your mind, but just create drama within the medium. Oh but it did. It created drama and fear in your brain. It ruined you didn't it?

OK, I'm being overly dramatic, but you know what I'm talking about: we all had images we were exposed to in our childhood that were upsetting or terrified us. And most of these came from children's books/movies/TV! What were the grown-ups thinking?

So here are some things from children's movies/TV/books that scarred me for life:

-The Rite of Spring sequence in Disney's Fantasia

OK, I don't know how much Disney actually intended this movie for children per se, but this entire sequence of the movie crushed my soul and haunted my dreams. We start off with an awesome scene of dinosaurs. Hell yes. Then a storm rolls in and holy shit it's a T-Rex and all the other dinos and critters are scared shitless, but the bad ass stego decided to take him on. And then dies a horrible and dramatic death. Now I'm sad and scared. But it doersn't stop there. Then we get to watch as every dinosaur on the planet suffers a slow and agonizing death as we see the great extinction. Yay. I'm serious when I say this gave me bad dreams for a week.

-The "Giant Mouse of Minsk" scene from An American Tail

If I have one person in all of entertainment to thank for single-handedly scarring me for life more than anyone else, it would be one Mr. Don Bluth. Most of the "kids" movies that ruined me, Don Bluth had a hand in (I'm looking at you Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven!) Really anything directed by Don Bluth belongs on this list, but I chose this scene from An American Tail because look at it!

Thanks for the nightmares, Don Bluth.

-In a Dark Dark Room and Other Scary Stories

Yup, that's the same Alvin Schwartz who penned the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series which was just a treasure trove of haunting imagery. Seriously, pick up any Scary Stories book and flip to a random page. Boom. Nightmare fuel.

You didn't need to sleep tonight, right?

But In a Dark Dark Room was intended for very young readers and it haunted six-year-old me with images like this:

That cat could not give less of a shit.

Yup. Nothing like reading a small child a story that ends with an old lady's head falling off. (Spoilers)

-Pretty much any episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

90's kids, this show was our jam, amiright?! Every Saturday night, my butt was firmly planted in my favorite arm chair and I was glued to this show. But let's be real, this show was scary as shit. The opening credits alone were pulled directly from your nightmares. They were like the creepy VHS tape in The Ring but less...horse-murdery. Pick any AYAotD? episode and there was probably a terrifying image that made hundreds of kids pee themselves.

Exhibit A