It’s inevitable that when you’re a child, you’ll get scared. Whether it’s your older brother throwing a spider in your face, or your dad forcing you to balance on a ladder to clear out some guttering, it happens. And Television also plays a part in this, as we can all remember something on TV that filled us with fear when we were growing up.

As children, alot of the things that happened in the cartoons we watched went right over our heads. And as the shows were aimed at kids, our parents probably didn’t pay too much attention to what happened in them either, but they should have, because some of them were really, really scary!

We’ve picked the following 8 cartoon episodes that scared us loads, but we’re sure that you’ll have your own selection, so please do let us know what they are with a comment…

Dungeons & Dragons

We can only remember details about a handful of Dungeons & Dragons episodes, probably because we’ve suppressed the trauma! One scary episode called ‘Maze of Darkness’ featured the friends trying to escape a maze and encountering hypnotic lights that made them hate and attack each-other…

Another one that sticks in the mind was ‘City at the Edge of Midnight’, which involved small children being dragged through a portal located under their beds by a sinister force and made to work in some kind of demonic factory. It was horrific…

And then there was ‘The Dragon’s Graveyard’, which many people list as being their favourite episode of Dungeons & Dragons. In it, the children finally bring the fight to Venger after losing patience with his continued attempts to prevent them from getting home…

The Real Ghostbusters

The Real Ghostbusters didn’t end up being that scary, but the first couple of series definitely were, featuring H.P. Lovecraft references as well as stories that had nods to Norse mythology and even the Bermuda Triangle.

Remember the episode ‘The Boogieman Cometh’? It gave us nightmares for weeks…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdW-hKcMNNs

And there was also the terrifying ‘Knock Knock’, which began with some subway tunnel workers finding a ‘Doomsday Door’ buried beneath New York, and ended up with us hiding behind the sofa!

The Smurfs

You may not remember The Smurfs as being a scary show, but Gargamel was a surprisingly horrible evil wizard whose main goal in life was to destroy the little blue creatures. As well as that, in ‘The Smurfs Christmas Special’, a mysterious character called ‘The Stranger’ summoned a circle of fire with the purpose of dragging children and smurfs into the darkest pits of hell. What a lovely Christmas feel-good show to watch as a young child…

G.I. Joe

G.I. Joe dealt with some surprisingly adult themes, and there were some rather scary moments too! In The Episode ‘There’s No Place Like Springfield’, Shipwreck becomes trapped in a simulated version of the future in which everyone around him suddenly melts and his wife and kid try to murder him, forcing him to kill them whilst his home burns down. Sweet dreams!

SuperTed

“SuperTed wasn’t scary”, we can hear you say? What about the episode ‘SuperTed’s Dream’, when SuperTed dreams of a giant baby crawling towards him as he desperately tries to transform, peeling off layer after layer of skin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT8dpdBvirQ

Which cartoon episodes do you remember scaring you the most when you were a kid? Please do let us know with a comment, and be sure to share this post with your fellow 80s kids!