Topic: Weird/scary moments in comedy.

[bgmnts]

I caught a bit of Blackadder Goes Forth on BBC iPlayer and I remembered how much a scene in it used to freak me out and terrify me as a child. I know the scene at the very end with the transition to a field of poppies is famous but the more haunting scene is the moment where Darling is picked up at the office to go to front line in the middle of the night.

I genuinely can't laugh during that scene, it still gets me.

Any other really weird, uncomfortable moments in comedies that spring to your mind?

[The Mollusk]

Helvetica Scenario.

[shagatha crustie]

I caught a bit of Blackadder Goes Forth on BBC iPlayer and I remembered how much a scene in it used to freak me out and terrify me as a child. I know the scene at the very end with the transition to a field of poppies is famous but the more haunting scene is the moment where Darling is picked up at the office to go to front line in the middle of the night.

I genuinely can't laugh during that scene, it still gets me.

I know what you mean but I do find something darkly hilarious about the frivolous evil of of Melchett referring to his 'feathery hat.'

[Jumblegraws]

The tooth fairy sketch from The Armando Iannucci Shows, where a couple of grimy, feckless parents realise they can make a bit of cash by bashing each other’s teeth out. The realism of the violence feels really out of place on the show and makes me queasy, especially when there’s so little comic payoff (the idea isn’t even original, Kirstie Alley did a TV movie in the 90s involving kids exploiting a tooth fairy for money, ffs). I’m sure if the sketch had been on Jam, with double-printing and an ambient soundtrack, it wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

It scares me how often this topic has come up before. That edition of the AI show with the tooth fairy sketch had a " bit of a violent sketch coming up in this show, lads" warning before it was broadcast, y'know.

[Jumblegraws]

It scares me how often this topic has come up before. That edition of the AI show with the tooth fairy sketch had a " bit of a violent sketch coming up in this show, lads" warning before it was broadcast, y'know.

Interesting. I didn’t watch the show when it aired, caught up with it on DVD years later.

[SavageHedgehog]

That bit at the start of Kingpin where they force Woody's hand in the ball return.

[Billy]

I was six years old when Alan Partridge shot that guest at the end of Knowing Me Knowing You, and it genuinely traumatised me for a bit - even watching it today it’s done brilliantly well, the sudden horrified silence from the audience, the panicked camera cutting, the shot of the BBC slide briefly appearing etc. The kid me also thought Patrick Marber’s character was actually an old woman for some reason, who I thought I’d just watched be killed live on air.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Evil Pinocchio, from the Two Ronnies, shat me right up as a kid.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaNWnsoM0eA

The tooth fairy sketch from The Armando Iannucci Shows

I watched that episode just the other day. I suppose it's making a valid point about the terrible effects of poverty, but it really is horribly fucking bleak.

[magval]

THURSDAY in Down the Line made my eyes water and my arm hair stand on end the first time I heard it, walking through Belfast bus depot just off the train. I was completely unprepared.

[Tombola]

Peter Cook's ghostly antics in the first episode of The Black Adder shitted me up a bit as a nipper. That whole series has very grim, disturbing atmosphere that I found quite captivating.

[BeardFaceMan]

Post-credits sequence of the last episode of Blackadder II, every fucking time, even though it's 30 years later and I'm a big boy and everything.

[olliebean]

Mitchell & Webb's "Now we know" sketch freaks me the fuck out. The memory of it still rises every time anyone says "Now we know" in anything ever.

[Noodle Lizard]

Post-credits sequence of the last episode of Blackadder II, every fucking time, even though it's 30 years later and I'm a big boy and everything.

Yeah, I'm sure it's been discussed before, but I remember watching the VHS endlessly as a kid and thinking I knew the show back-to-front, but I always stopped and rewound it before the final credits finished. Then one day I got up to get some apple crumble or something from the kitchen before stopping it and came back to ... that. Seeing them all dead with that ominous bell tolling, then the Queen talking weirdly (I didn't instantly make the connection) - scared the ever-living fuck out of me. I can't remember if I thought I'd gone mad or the tape itself had somehow become haunted, but everything about it felt so wrong. Still does!

the more haunting scene is the moment where Darling is picked up at the office to go to front line in the middle of the night.

That bit just reminded me of being woken up at 6am to go to school.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

This terrifying model.

[Brundle-Fly]

Victoria Wood sketch where Julie Walters plays a psychotic hairdresser. The payoff is so unexpected. It's not indicative of Wood's usual humour at all and you see how much she influenced LOG here. Yes, a couple of moments from LOG and Psychoville creeped me out in a taphephobia manner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Dz7xcKUyo

Oh and, Terry Gilliam's animations must get the obligatory mention in a 'weird/ scary comedy moments' thread. Conrad Poo's sinister eyes always freaked me as a kid.

[Blue Jam]

"Thrilling Miracles" from Mr. Show. Bob's mood whiplash/chirpy psychopath acting is genuinely terrifying, Jill's terrified acting is genuinely disturbing and I feel guilty for laughing at the all too real portrayal of gaslighting and domestic abuse.

It is fucking funny though:

https://youtu.be/HQAFv1sI6TU

[GarethOval]

More Blackadder: when Fry and Atkinson are giving poor Prince George a massive shoeing. He seems so scared and sad. Something about the way his hair pops out from underneath his wig. I think to a school-age mind it’s like the bullies have taken over.

[shh]

It's the mind...

Also as a child that OFAH episode with the escaped madman.

[jobotic]

THURSDAY in Down the Line made my eyes water and my arm hair stand on end the first time I heard it, walking through Belfast bus depot just off the train. I was completely unprepared.

What is that please?

[Cuellar]

The Yeti episode of The Goon Show.

[Glebe]

The Yeti episode of The Goon Show.

Remember watching that as a kid with a mate, we were in hysterics. The bigfoot song is very funny.

[Norton Canes]

What is that please?

It's in this episode. Can't tell you when though, you need to listen right through.

[Cuellar]

Remember watching that as a kid with a mate, we were in hysterics. The bigfoot song is very funny.

watching??

[Glebe]

watching??

Fucks sake, I read that as The Goodies. I'm losing it, mate. Losing it.

[jobotic]

It's in this episode. Can't tell you when though, you need to listen right through.

Thanks!

[Urinal Cake]

Johnny Vegas in 18 Stone of Idiot. The guy punching him is a highlight.

[Utter Shit]

Also as a child that OFAH episode with the escaped madman.

The scream from a woman in the audience gets me every time. Absolutely shits herself.

[Misspent Boners]

I was six years old when Alan Partridge shot that guest at the end of Knowing Me Knowing You, and it genuinely traumatised me for a bit - even watching it today it’s done brilliantly well, the sudden horrified silence from the audience, the panicked camera cutting, the shot of the BBC slide briefly appearing etc. The kid me also thought Patrick Marber’s character was actually an old woman for some reason, who I thought I’d just watched be killed live on air.

It's funny the things that can seem so traumatising and scary as a young child. I caught fist of fun one night when I was around 8 or 9 and was absolutely terrified due to Kevin Eldons abstract Rod Hull character and his love for jelly. I dont think I slept properly that night, remember I envisioned him turning up at our house and chasing me and my dad out into the night, screaming in that high pitched voice. Really fucked me up on par only with the legless tartan warrior fella in the Tango ad

[sheddyian]

For years I'd been trying to find a film (as I remembered it) where someone was being menaced by trucks and digging machines that has come to life. I saw it as a small child, and it scared me, sticking in my mind to this day.

But I couldn't find it. In describing it to friends, "you never saw a driver", I was often recommended to watch that early Spielberg film where the big truck keeps following a driver along a road and trying to kill him. Yeah, it's a good film but that wasn't what I was remembering.

And then, last year, quite unexpectedly, I found it.

It was The Goodies episode The New Office.

There's a sequence in that where The Goodies (Graeme in particular) get chased by digging machines / JCBs with no drivers. And watching it now, as well as having silly bits, it is still quite menacing and scary.