Frightening moments in comedy

[The Giggling Bean]

The scene in Fawlty Towers where Basil refuses to listen and pushes Manuel back into the burning kitchen. I was terrified of fire, and things burning, as a kid...probably due to that sparkler psa they used to show. I was terrified that Manuel was going to be burnt alive. Even to this day I find it really uncomfortable to watch.

[Phil_A]

The scene in Fawlty Towers where Basil refuses to listen and pushes Manuel back into the burning kitchen. I was terrified of fire, and things burning, as a kid...probably due to that sparkler psa they used to show. I was terrified that Manuel was going to be burnt alive. Even to this day I find it really uncomfortable to watch.

The sound of Manuel screaming and banging on the door is pretty horrifying I agree, although it's slightly undermined when you realise there are two other routes he could've uaed to escape - the dining room or out the back.

Can't imagine a BBC sitcom actor setting themselvea on fire for a gag now, amazed Sachs agreed to do it!

[another Mr. Lizard]

Good review here https://downstairslounge.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/dora-bryan-bold-as-brass/ of Dora Bryan's LP 'Dora' - which features a terrifying sketch called 'Miss Manderson', where Dora plays a psycho with a compulsion to push people to their deaths from high places.

[gib]

The Big Train sketch where Mark Heap is being reunited with his birth mother and she comes in and she's like a tiny monster lady with a really long tongue. Ugh even thinking about it now makes me shudder

https://youtu.be/kxEhKjUwqAQ

Also the wonderful  'is this some kind of joke about me not being married?' sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUEV4rnu5V8

[wosl]

Frightening with the benefit of background info: the scene in Fawlty Towers where Basil brains Manuel with a pan. Cannot enjoy it for what it was anymore, knowing that Cleese was wielding an actual, heavy pan rather than a prepared prop version, and that it as good as knocked Andrew Sachs unconscious; it's become a scene you wince or grit your teeth through.  That 'BONNG' when it connects with the back of Sachs' skull is horrible. 

[Scarymole]

This gave me nightmares for a long time.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=kenny+everett++liquifies&view=detail&mid=AD7A01B39B22773B1C39AD7A01B39B22773B1C39&FORM=VIRE

Oh yes, that's a repressed memory from childhood.... it explains why I've always been a bit funny about taramasalata

[A Hat Like That]

Yeah, 2point4 Children unsettled me too.

I totally get that.

It was filmed in Reading.

[Perplexicon]

The bit in forgotten CBBC comedy show 'Dizzy Heights Hotel' where the already disgusting mum puppet character doesn't get fed for a couple of days and goes on rampage with massive, bulging eyes. I guess it was supposed to be funny but badly misjudged, as while I can't find any video of it I have found plenty of comments from people who remember that scene. We all remember.

[purlieu]

I think there were a few moments in that series that were quite creepy, I always get an uneasy feeling when I think about it.

[Cerys]

Not to mention some of Gilliam's animations throughout the Python canon, such as this.

I knew it would be that one.  Gilliam's animations didn't frighten me as such - they just unsettled me in an intangible way that made me feel as if I was dreaming something inescapable.  I credit them for playing a large part in creating the artist I became as an adult.

[spanky]

The general existence of the matron in Let The Blood Run Free. Her and Ghostwatch were the scariest things I saw as a kid

[Twed]

Not to mention some of Gilliam's animations throughout the Python canon, such as this.

I need to share this inane YouTube comment:

[Cardenio I]

There's a sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look which is genuinely unsettling, where a Dad on an innocent trip to a theme park ends up becoming a weird dandy flamingo person. Freaks me right the fuck out.

[TrappedInMyFlat]

The 2point4 Children episode that starts with a chain letter and gets increasingly fucked up until, I think, at least one of them dies, before it turning out to be a dream and then all starting again. That left me so uncomfortable when I first saw it. It always had moments of queasy surrealism, but that one had this horribly inescapable hopelessness to it for me. I'd fucking love to watch that show again.

2point4 Children is one of those shows that gets described as "A family sitcom" by those who don't remember it.

It was SO surreal and at times very sinister. The genius of the show was that it presented itself as an "average family sitcom" on the surface but it could go off any tangent, at any moment, into the bizarre, dark or dramatic. Of course, it WAS a sitcom. And it DID centre around a family. But it was so much more than that. I just hate to see it lumped in with the likes of The Upper Hand or My Family.

The subway scene is genuinely scary. Apparently the original take of that scene was so terrifying the BBC refused to air it and they had to refilm a tamer version.

[Twilkes]

The various incarnations of Benny Hill as Dracula used to scare me as a six year old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx-sYZ7zX28#t=0m26s

[Jerzy Bondov]

That Down the Line with "GARY BELLAMY! I AM TAKING YOU TO HELL!"

[Utter Shit]

Oh God that was brilliant. Down The Line was incredible.

[Pink Gregory]

That Down the Line with "GARY BELLAMY! I AM TAKING YOU TO HELL!"

It's just for *how long* that he's screaming to himself as well at the very end.

[Gurke and Hare]

The various incarnations of Benny Hill as Dracula used to scare me as a six year old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx-sYZ7zX28#t=0m26s

Garlic, crucifixes, daylight and old women with handbags.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

A lot of Crawford's stunts in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

[The Mollusk]

The end credits of the penultimate episode of season 7 of Frasier really weirded me out when I rewatched it recently. It's a "double" episode with the finale but aired normally across separate weeks, and since it was a dramatic cliffhanger and all the characters are away at Daphne and Donny's wedding, the credits roll but just with very slow panning shots of Frasier's empty apartment with all the lights off. It's such a huge contrast, having binge watched about 120 episodes where cute and silly things happen at the end and suddenly there's this really odd and haunting set of shots. I kept expecting to see something skulking about in the shadows or to crawl out of the dark and scream at the camera. Weirdly nightmarish, an extremely familiar setting completely altered to something we were never supposed to see.

[mr. logic]

Frasier also has that really unsettling dream episode right near the end of its run.

[The Mollusk]

Ah I've not reached that yet. Up till now the most terrifying thing has been the existence of Simon Moon.

[TheMonk]

The laugh tracks on the Diff'rent Strokes Very Special Episodes.

[PammySpacek]

Frasier also has that really unsettling dream episode right near the end of its run.

I can't recall that one, but you did remind me of this... fangame?... which I think sort of counts for this thread:

Do you miss the hit sitcom Frasier (1993 - 2004)? Do you wish that you could live in that weird, sterile version of Seattle alongside all of your old friends, like Niles, Martin, Daphne, and Roz? Using cutting edge Markov Chain technology, we have created an infinite Frasier Episode creator just for you. Sit back, relax, and guide Frasier through a typical day at the studio, coffee shop, and ridiculously spacious apartment.

Stream Frasier, Online. Free.

(This does not involve actually literally watching pirate streams of Frasier. Instead it involves

Spoiler alert

a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head.

[close]

So there you go.)