Frightening moments in comedy

[backdrifter]

Sergei in Delocated has a few points where he crosses the line from scary/funny to just scary. Particularly the finale of season 3.

[DrGreggles]

Ftumch the midget devil in The Young Ones gave me nightmares for about a week as a kid

But he has the greatest scene entrance in comedy history!

[neveragain]

Ever Decreasing Circles used to unnerve me as a kid. Just the whole bleak beige atmosphere. It was a really weird show.

I almost mentioned it but couldn't think of any particular moment, it's just a wonderfully sustained atmosphere.

As for another nomination, I've stumbled upon an adultswim series called Infomercials (which featured the famous Too Many Cooks) - a series of diverse parodies, each of which start very realistically then descend into various shades of horror. Very funny too. They're on Youtube.

[Dusty Substance]

Peter Baynham's voicebox voice in the canal break commercial in I'm Alan Partridge.

Cricket's various scars in It's Always Sunny.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Ever Decreasing Circles used to unnerve me as a kid. Just the whole bleak beige atmosphere. It was a really weird show.

One Foot in the Grave had the same effect on me. The knowing something terrible was going to happen but not being quite sure what it would be. Eric Idle's singing was a nice palate cleanser.

[SteK]

Surprised no ones mentioned Vulva from Spaced, and Hoover, Dennis Pennis with a vacuum cleaner, still don't like it and I'm 58....

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Much of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'em.

[canadagoose]

The first time I saw the episode of Men Behaving Badly with the dream sequence where Gary gets stabbed in the throat with a pair of scissors, it scared the life out of me.

Yes! I saw that one as a kid and it gave me shivers, like I'd seen something "wrong".

Helvetica Scenario is another good one - definitely made me jump when I saw it. Inside No 9 is absolutely full of scary moments, obviously - that "live" episode genuinely left me a bit shaken.

Edit: Also as a kid, the One Foot in the Grave episode with the "haunted" caravan gave me the creeps slightly - I think it was the choice of music that made it a bit eerie.

I almost mentioned it but couldn't think of any particular moment, it's just a wonderfully sustained atmosphere.

As for another nomination, I've stumbled upon an adultswim series called Infomercials (which featured the famous Too Many Cooks) - a series of diverse parodies, each of which start very realistically then descend into various shades of horror. Very funny too. They're on Youtube.

There was a still from that which tapped into one of my childhood fears - a garbled caption in an old-fashioned font with the murderer giving a creepy look to the camera. It didn't scare me that much as an adult, but still made me feel a bit "off".

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

But he has the greatest scene entrance in comedy history!

Also machine guns a feller to death as his parting shot. I remember being disturbed by that upon seeing it on its original broadcast.

[C_Larence]

[Utter Shit]

They had a few weird dream sequences though, another being when Gary and Dorothy get married and the camera pulls back to reveal Gary is heavily pregnant.

Oh God I'd forgotten about that - probably my number one pick for this thread. It's just so horribly unsettling, that creepy grin Clunes does with make up on is horrifying, and the organ music shits me up too.

Another one - the first time you see the face at the door in the Only Fools and Horses episode "Friday the 14th" is like something out of a horror movie. As confirmed by the woman in the audience who screams at the top of her voice.

[BeardFaceMan]

I'm pretty sure that MBB ep was edited to remove a lot of the gore for tv broadcasts. I remember seeing it on DVD for the first time and being a bit shocked by how graphic it was, considering the kind of show it was, I didn't remember it being anywhere near as bad when I saw it on tv, I must have seen one of the repeats.

The post-credits sequence ending to the last ep of Blackadder II. The open eyes, the noise in the background, Hugh Laurie's dubbed voice, I still can't watch it now.

That ep of Black Books where Bernard plays cards with Dot from Line Of Duty. Dot is incredibly unnerving.

[dr_christian_troy]

The post-credits sequence ending to the last ep of Blackadder II. The open eyes, the noise in the background, Hugh Laurie's dubbed voice, I still can't watch it now.

I totally forgot about this - I remember seeing this on VHS when I was 6 and being absolutely freaked out. That music too.

[Psychotic Mongoose]

Without a doubt, the Red Dwarf episode 'Quarantine'

Made excellent use of the claustrophobic feeing of being stranded in space being stalked by a crazed lunatic. Chris Barrie is brilliant in this episode. Particularly creepy part is when Rimmer is sat outside quarantine all along listening to the rest of the crew as they talk. I still find it an unsettling watch to this day.

[dr_christian_troy]

The last episode of Series 2 of Mid Morning Matters has some creepy parts in it (Simon in the parka hovering ominously and the freeze frame ending).

[BJBMK2]

Tons of Jam, of course. It was the first Morris thing I saw, when I was quite young, and back then was disturbed by the more conventionally frightsome sketches (boiler baby, little girl body disposal etc). Now it's the sheer misanthropy of it that gets to me, how many of the sketches seem to present a society that's gone wrong in a weirdly believable way, where the UK's mental illnesses, fetishes, dark secrets and antisocial behaviours are no more exaggerated, just brought gently up above the surface.

I saw Jam at quite a young age too, and found a lot of it hard to stomach at first. I'd just been in a car accident myself a couple of months before I picked up the DVD (with that bleak fucking cover). So when Episode 1 started, and that intro begins with the woozy, nightmarish shot of the wreckage of a car crash...yeesh. Took me about a week to get past that first scene alone. Considering how much of Jam seems to take place in a surreal, nightmare version of Britain, I found that brief scene hauntingly real, almost like the cold brutality of the drinking driving PIF's circulating at the time.

For some reason, my DVD copy always used to have subtitles on as a default, and would occasionally just skip the intros altogether. For a while I  thought this was just a nice Morris-esque touch, and not just an incredibly scratched, worn out disc.

[ASFTSN]

The Helvetica Scenario on the "Calcium" pilot episode of Look Around You.

So much of LAY is amazingly creepy, which is why it's probably in my top 3 comedy...er...things. It's like Unit 731 via the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

One of my favourite moments is in 'Germs' where they feed an elderly academic raw sewage to determine the effects it has on him, which of course ends up with him being carried away on a stretcher, delirious and yammering, and the coldly contemptuous way the plummy voiceover says:

"Get well soon.....professor..."

[Chriddof]

"The Comic Dead" from (I think) the 1989 Comic Relief Night. It was meant to be deliberately horrific, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way - but there was still something incredibly off about it. Especially the ending where a woman rips her face off to reveal the cackling visage of Frank Carson.

Agreed on the old man with the digitally morphed face in The Day Today. (He was apparently demonstrating how he was "menaced by Hugh Scully". I'd never seen that kind of digital manipulation before, genuinely gave me a start.

Another old Spitting Image sketch, where The Pope (?) stuck a puppet cat into a blender head first and drags it out again, with it all its skin gone and it meowing and shaking with fear. There were loads of Spitting Image sketches like this, really - one from around the late 80s also stick in the mind, where a group of skeleton puppets in bow ties and straw hats sang a jaunty 1920s style song about war. Also the ending of the 1987 election special, which is chilling in a very real life way (and that you can't legally buy because of music rights disagreements).

[dr_christian_troy]

Another old Spitting Image sketch, where The Pope (?) stuck a puppet cat into a blender head first and drags it out again, with it all its skin gone and it meowing and shaking with fear. There were loads of Spitting Image sketches like this, really - one from around the late 80s also stick in the mind, where a group of skeleton puppets in bow ties and straw hats sang a jaunty 1920s style song about war. Also the ending of the 1987 election special, which is chilling in a very real life way (and that you can't legally buy because of music rights disagreements).

Ah yes! I remember all of these now. Another one was when they introduced Princess Diana for the first time. The press were getting riled as to how she would be portrayed, and so in the episode that they introduced her, Charles asks her to open the door, only for the most DISGUSTING SPITTING IMAGE PUPPET EVER with a mangled distorted unfinished green-ish face appears. Charles and this horrible thing then walk off, only then for a surprisingly tasteful Diana puppet to appear, asking where Charles has gone. A good old switcheroo, but that unfinished puppet is the stuff of nightmares.

[MojoJojo]

So much of LAY is amazingly creepy, which is why it's probably in my top 3 comedy...er...things. It's like Unit 731 via the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

One of my favourite moments is in 'Germs' where they feed an elderly academic raw sewage to determine the effects it has on him, which of course ends up with him being carried away on a stretcher, delirious and yammering, and the coldly contemptuous way the plummy voiceover says:

"Get well soon.....professor..."

Doesn't the professor turn up in the later episode 'Ghosts' ? I hope I haven't misremembered that, lovely little detail.

[Old Gold Tooth]

"The Comic Dead" from (I think) the 1989 Comic Relief Night. It was meant to be deliberately horrific, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way - but there was still something incredibly off about it. Especially the ending where a woman rips her face off to reveal the cackling visage of Frank Carson.

Fuck yes, this really shit me up when I was little. There's a brief bit where human eyes appear in a smooth blank mask on a wall that used to terrify me.

We had the official Comic Relief VHS from that year and I'd always fast-forward this to the episodes of Young Ones etc. because I was a coward.

[madhair60]

Anywhere I can see the above? (and old Comic Relief in general)

[petril]

Doesn't the professor turn up in the later episode 'Ghosts' ? I hope I haven't misremembered that, lovely little detail.

aye. I always thought that was a perfect bit of continuity

[ASFTSN]

aye. I always thought that was a perfect bit of continuity

Exactly, it's the kind of attention to detail that makes that first series shine. I find something about the ghost-torturing in that episode disturbing too.

[dr_christian_troy]

Anywhere I can see the above? (and old Comic Relief in general)

Here you go.

[Keebleman]

Much of The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case seriously spooked me as a kid, especially the moment when the butler slowly makes a long ghoulish face as he is closing the door to the boys' bedroom.

[rasta-spouse]

The Python episode with the timeloop at the end gets a bit unnerving.

Also, Limmy on camera just seems to have the eyes of serial killer. I think he's the most frightening man in comedy.

[Old Gold Tooth]

You're right, I love Limmy because every character he plays (even/especially his Limmy persona) is about 5 seconds away from complete psychotic break. No matter what the rest of his face is up to, his eyes are always seeing something not quite there.

[Twed]

You're right, I love Limmy because every character he plays (even/especially his Limmy persona) is about 5 seconds away from complete psychotic break. No matter what the rest of his face is up to, his eyes are always seeing something not quite there.

I find it very comforting.

[Jumblegraws]

Whilst they didn't scare me exactly, I think I was maybe mildly emetophobic when I was a youngster because Mr Creosote, the final scene of the Round the Twist episode "The Great Spaghetti Pig-Out", the climax of Guest House Paradiso and the bit in The Parole Officer where Steve Coogan pukes on the roller-coaster all significantly upset me. Funnily enough, the projectile vomiting in the Exorcist didn't bother me at all, I think the framing of chundering as comedy was key for some reason.

Large chunks of Meet the Feebles gave me the wingle-wangles, Heidi the Hippo haunted my thoughts (in a strictly bad, scary way) from time to time when I was lying in bed in the dark.