And now for the coup de grace . . . the one video that has haunted me for over two decades before the universality of the internet granted me the ability to seek it out and destroy the power of its memory. Behold the awesome fright of . . .



The Bloodhound Gang and the Case of the Cackling Ghost! Oh my stars, this one stuck with me like no other television experience in the history of television experiences. Supposedly, I was deathly afraid of an "Open Pit BBQ" commercial in which a large man faces the screen and utters a deep, serious "Open. Pit." to the audience, but I was too young to maintain that memory. However, being the young nerd that I was (am?), I was (am?) a fan of the PBS kids' science series "3-2-1 Contact." People familiar with this show are also familiar with The Bloodhound Gang (not to be confused with the hard rock band of the same name), a group of kids who solve benign mysteries with the combined might of deductive reasoning and SCIENCE!
In this particular episode, the details of which were blocked from my mind until I revisited it, an elderly woman is the victim of the scare tactics of her ne'er-do-well nephew as he attempts to steal the supposedly-cursed Darjeeling Necklace that is in her possession. What are the scare tactics he used? On the surface, they are simply the recordings of cartoonish, maniacal laughter played through her radio and light shining upon moths in the woods (You say, "What's that now?" Just go with me on this). But in reality, it's a horror that tapped into some primeval fear center in many kids' brains. Note the comments associated with this video on youtube. The Cackling Ghost has a sobering effect on everyone, even the most idiotic of our society - the YouTube Commentor.

Here's part three for your enjoyment, in case you can't leave this unresolved.



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Part 2 of the Films/Videos that scared the snot out of me as a kid.

It's tough to decide which one to share next. Having found so many of my childhood nightmare videos online, I just want to post them all. Patience . . . patience . . . So here's the next installment:



Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. I remember hiding behind the black vinyl rolling chair in my dad's den while my siblings watched this during some sort of Saturday matinee. Occasionally, I'd need to dart into the living room to escape, but I'd keep coming back. I wanted to be cool like my brother and sister, but I was acting about as uncool as could be . . . and for good reason. Conflicting emotions!
Listen to the sound that the smog monster makes - a psychedelic wheeze with some sound engineer in Kyoto manhandling the phase knob. Absolutely frightening. And look at that! All it has to do is fly over the people and they drop down, polluted and dead. No warning. No fighting back. Very scary to a three year old.
Even the way that thing moves; its lurching, slouchy gliding was not ok with me. Nothing should move like that.