Nightmare fuel: 21 horrifying moments from children’s entertainment

The Muppets’ premier prime-time series had a knack for changing tones on a dime, best exemplified by the fact that all of its characters, no matter how prominent, were at constant risk of being blown up or eaten. This gives the show a marvelously chaotic sense of comedic tension, one that produced bizarre and occasionally startling moments like Kermit The Frog growing vampire fangs (and going after Vincent Price’s neck) or Tony Randall turning Scooter into a series of increasingly gruesome ghouls (and the most gruesome of all, The Great Gonzo). Such sudden and shocking transformations are at the center of “You Do Something To Me”—from the first­-season episode guest-­starring British polymath Peter Ustinov—which begins on a particularly unnerving note, as a sinister-­looking sorcerer pops into frame and skulks toward the pink puffball of a Muppet seated stage left. The canned laughter feels incongruous, but not as much as the sound effect that follows it: The booming combination of a laser blast and a detonation that precedes the sorcerer’s wicked tricks. As the song wears on, it’s not so much the various forms the puffball takes—a cat, a snake, a bearded­-and-horned devil—that disturb, but rather the sense that we’re witnessing some sort of Jim Henson-­endorsed torture, a sense reinforced by the character’s whimpering voice and upturned mouth. Ultimately, she gets her revenge, but it requires one last hit of that ear-shattering voodoo that “You Do Something To Me” does so well—and the most upsetting puppet design in a segment full of upsetting puppet design. [Erik Adams]