Muppets: Concentrated Nightmare Juice

I had a lot of nightmares as a kid. Thanks to these nightmares and various frightening films I’ve developed a hilarious set of OCD habits such as opening and closing closet doors before sleeping and checking behind the shower curtain before I saddle up to the toilet (you laugh but one day someone is gonna be in there and then who’s the dumb one!)

My imagination is easily inspired. For a while I couldn’t even watch a commercial for a horror movie because I knew those 30 seconds were enough to create an entire world of horrific fantasy that I’d be trapped inside for the rest of the evening. The one thing more unnerving then horror characters and sharks (I don’t swim in the ocean, at all, ever) is muppets.

Not all muppets, Kermit is fine, Fozzy, whatever. I’m talking about those LSD muppets that creators slip in films and TV shows, mixed with other cute, lovable creatures. They lure you in with Grover and then BAM, some abomination walks onto the screen that’s burned into your mind forever. Some horribly disfigured, warbly voiced monstrosity that may as well be drenched in blood, because thats how you’ll remember them, regardless.

Here’s five of the worst perpetrators.

5) Sesame Street’s Big Bad Wolf

He first appeared in a mock ‘News Report’ that Kermit was doing about the story of the 3 Little Pigs, but eventually was cast in a full time role in my brain as the monster that lived in the crawlspace behind our dryer. His nose and mouth are almost crocodilian in length, making him a hybrid death machine that can not only eat you whole, but smell (and enjoy) your fear.

4) Sesame Street’s Yip Yip Aliens

Who the f*ck invented these? I’ve seen like 3/4th’s of every science fiction movie ever and I’ve never observed a more frightening rendition of creatures from another planet. They have no body, and their circular mouths are contorted into a look of excruciating pain. The sound they omit — ‘Yip Yip‘ — over and over gives them an almost zombie-like demeanor. Incapable of love or communication, their race knows only war.

3) Skeksis from ‘The Dark Crystal’

Bird reptiles that appear to have some type of bizarre bone disease and turn infantile when they die/age. As someone who grew up around wild turkeys, the thought of gangs of intelligent, upright walking, violent minded birds hit very close to home.

2) The Rockbiter from ‘The Never-ending Story’

Could you have designed a more horribly disfigured face? My cousins would loop this scene and force me to watch it as a form of torture.

1) The Fiery Gang from ‘The Labyrinth’

A gang of forest dwelling, possible serial rapist apes who sing about ’showing you a good time’ while removing their limbs and creating a gallery of horrifyingly twisted body shapes. Then they try to rip your head off, in an effort to make you more like them. Awesome, just awesome.

[Got any childhood fears induced by muppets? We want to know]