Top 10 Creepy Children’s TV Shows
10.
BooBah
The best way to describe this show, believe it or not, is that it consists entirely of
multi-colored creatures with anime eyes, dancing and floating around in a hyperbaric nightmare
dimension full of psychedelic rainbows and sparkles.
Any child who doesn’t nervously back away from the television mouthing “…what the
hell…” will no doubt suffer an epileptic seizure soon enough.
The show does an admirable job of combining the drug fuelled cacophony of the 70s with
inherently scary doll heads and warped alien bodies.
There’s no story, no sets, no writing, and no voices save for an annoying child who screams
“Boobah!”
every few minutes and yet, it’s difficult to imagine anything that would cause children
watching to question the purpose of their little worlds more.
There is nothing creepier and more unsettling than the wanton destruction of one’s own
sanity, let alone a child’s.
Peppermint Park was pretty much the epitome of the art of creepy puppets.
Lifeless rolling eyes, rigid plastic bodies with cloth human hands, and voices that sound
like they were recorded in an insane asylum all culminate in a perfect storm of childhood
trauma.
The show featured a couple different sets of puppets, one of which was a perverse rip-off
of Bert and Ernie if Bert and Ernie suddenly devolved into autistic ape-men, while the
other set were a couple of semi-lobotomized dragons (dinosaurs?)
with voices even more odd than the “human” puppets, which is saying something.
The show was bargain basement stuff and it looked it, complete with filthy curtains that
flank a dingy cellar window, creepy stock footage of random children playing in a playground,
and completely pointless Dixieland performances.
All the show was lacking was an unpainted van lurking around.
8.
Jay Jay The Jet Plane
Something about putting oddly shaped, realistic faces on airplanes and helicopters is very
unsettling, especially considering that, in the show, these creatures are completely sentient
with minds of their own.
It begs the question, in this universe where airplanes are alive, do people ride in them?
Are they enslaved to serve man or just another species of animal?
How are new planes “born”?
Anyway, where Thomas the Tank Engine succeeds in placing a face on an otherwise inanimate
object without making kids nervous, Jay Jay does not.
The faces dominate the planes they are stuck onto, have bulbously inflated features and
are strangely rigid.
In fact, the only parts that move are the eyes (barely) and the eyelids.
Yeah, eyelids on an airplane.
There’s a bunch of other weird imagery that pops up every now and then like naked cartoon
monkeys and virtually featureless, rubbery human characters but it’s the airplanes
themselves that really take the horror of the uncanny valley and bludgeon our children
with it.
7.
Rupert The Bear
Starting the tradition of disturbing TV shows designed to freak out many a British child,
The Adventures of Rupert Bear was born in the decade few want to remember; the 70s.
Those who have good memories of this show probably only remember the animated version
that came later which was relatively harmless and most likely aren’t aware of the marionette
version that came before.
Marionettes are creepy enough by themselves, but when they come in strange shapes vaguely
resembling anthropomorphic animals wearing clothing operated by amateurs who clearly
forgot how a body is supposed to move, the creepiness factor skyrockets.
Besides Rupert, there were a myriad of odd looking characters in the show including a
deformed sheep, a floating fireball with legs, and most notorious of all, Raggety, who looked
like a gnarled and haunted tree branch crossed with a Snork.
Research has shown that many a British nightmare in the early 70s was centered on Raggety.
Reportedly all the episodes were lost in a fire, and I like to think it was God’s way
of expunging the Earth from the unholiness that was Rupert.
6.
Pipkins
Pipkins was another British TV show in the 70s that featured, you guessed it, puppets.
Puppets aren’t inherently scary and can be used to great effect on shows like Sesame
Street and Lamb Chop’s Play-A-Long when operated correctly and made with love.
You can’t just find a ratty piece of carpet, shove your hand into its ass and call it good
children’s fare.
Well, Pipkins did just that which led to a rich cast of misfit puppets with regional
accents that no one wanted to love.
Most famous of the bunch was the character of Hartley Hare.
He is one of the skankiest, dirtiest, and spazziest puppets to ever appear on kids TV.
Not only did he look like a deceased pet that was dug up and brought back to life after
being dead for three weeks, but his repertoire consists mostly of snide comments and innuendos.
You know, for kids!
5.
Dirtgirlworld
Dirtgirlworld is a relatively new show that is currently being shown in the UK, US, and
Canada and is about a girl who loves to go outside and get dirty.
Not a bad idea, but there’s something wrong with this girl though as she can’t decide
whether she is a human or a badly animated cartoon.
She has a huge cartoon head and barely perceptible nose, but real human eyes and a real human
mouth which all top a disproportionately tiny and childlike body.
Even worse, the eyes seem to move independently of each other and with her mouth flying all
over her face, dirtgirl constantly makes some very disturbing facial expressions.
It’s as if Jessica Rabbit hooked up with Eddie Valiant instead of Roger Rabbit and
this girl was their half human, half cartoon love child.
Alongside her is a male equivalent who is just as messed up, a yellow worm thing with
Super Dave Osborne’s face, and a human/cricket hybrid abomination that wears a short bus
helmet as if to telegraph the reason to everyone why insects and humans shouldn’t mate.
What’s wrong with using just humans or just cartoons?
Stop trying to combine them!
It’s weird!
4.
Terrahawks
This show itself isn’t too bad despite prominently featuring marionettes, otherwise known as
“the devil’s toy” which are usually creepy enough in their own right.
What puts Terrahawks on this list though is the character of Zelda, who is probably the
scariest looking villain to ever appear in a kid’s show, and her equally frightening
henchmen.
Zelda is scary on a real level as she looks like a1 mentally unstable grandmother wearing
a shrivelled and rotten apple skin on her face.
She is the inspiration of old crones everywhere who aspire to achieve her Freddy Krueger claw,
scraggly dead hair, and ghostly nightgown.
As for her henchmen, one of them looks vaguely like Frankenstein, but with evil eyes and
a voice that sounds like he’s gurgling the blood of innocent children with every syllable.
The other is a mute that looks like Zelda but with clown makeup, a very fake looking
yellow wig, and a stoma.
Yea, a stoma; one of those throat holes smokers get after a losing battle with cancer.
Charming.
3.
Jigsaw
Jigsaw was a British show (good lord, what is it with the British and giving nightmares
to children?) in the early 80s that featured a few standard human presenters who come together
to solve riddles and puzzles along with the children watching.
Pretty normal stuff really, however one specific character from this show, Mr. Noseybonk, has
single-handedly placed this program in the hallowed echelon of children’s nightmares
that stick with them to adulthood.
Any description of this character wouldn’t be half as unsettling as seeing a picture
of him, or even worse, watching him grow more demonic noseybonks in his greenhouse.
I like to think this show is where the Jigsaw killer from the Saw films got his inspiration
from.
Instead of using the warped puppet that rides the tricycle though, Mr. Noseybonk would have
made a much scarier and foreboding calling card for Jigsaw.
In fact, I don’t think there’s anything more terrifying to be alone with in a dark
room than that white mask with its big white nose, soul-less eyes and hellish grin.
Some messed up person actually thought this was something kids would love to see and be
charmed by.
2.
EI EI Yoga
Creepiness comes in many different flavors and we’ve covered many of them already;
puppets, marionettes, dingy sets, bizarre CGI, etc.
However, we’ve neglected one of the major pillars of childhood terror: pedophilia.
That is, until we visit that little corner of Hell known as EI EI Yoga.
Only existing on VHS tapes, this program was about Yogi Oki Doki and his Rastafarian rooster
pal (no, really) teaching children how to do yoga because everyone knows how much rastamen
love to do Yoga.
It’s one of the most disturbing things a normal human being can see and yet, like any
train wreck featuring a big chinned hippy and Jamaican rooster, you can’t take your
eyes off it.
Yogi Oki Doki prefers a hands-on approach to teaching so throughout the “lesson”,
he often hugs and touches all the children as they do various Yoga poses in skin-tight
leotards because, why not put them in skin-tight leotards, right?
At one point, he even begins moaning and uncontrollably uttering “Mmm mm mm” sounds as he inspects
his harem of Yoga youth as if he were admiring a juicy hamburger.
You know the old saying, “whenever you see a grown man who is really excited to teach
Yoga to children, call the police”?
What, that’s not a saying?
Well, it damn well should be!
1.
Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson
Neither Christian nor scientific, the Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson is an abomination
placed on this Earth that may never again be repeated.
Completely orchestrated by a borderline schizophrenic named David Hart, the public access show relies
on puppets, uncomfortable human accomplices, and horrifically bad religious songs to bring
its message to children.
The puppets are, as you’d imagine, the freakiest looking figures ever put to screen and could
hang with Chucky in terms of scare factor.
They literally fall apart as the program goes on, and since Hart controls each one individually,
characters which were previously animated suddenly fall lifeless when he switches to
a different puppet as if their very soul itself was torn away.
Flanking the puppets are human beings in alien masks, someone’s grandfather wearing face
paint and Elton John’s glasses who scowls at the camera, and myriad other nightmare
fuel.
Words just cannot do it justice.