Top 5 Scary Sitcom Episodes

Recently we celebrated Halloween and I did a blog on sitcoms that do that very well. The episodes are usually creepy, even kind of scary. However, I can think of five sitcom episodes that had nothing to do with Halloween, but still scared the ever living crap out of me. These are shows I still remember how I felt when I first saw them, they stay with me to this day. I thought I would share them with you today. You will notice this list is very 80's specific, mostly because this is when I was a kid and as I got older it was not so easy to freak me out. In fact I look back at all these now and realize how silly they are. These choices are very personal and someone else may wonder why in the world I was freaked out by them, but I was a kid. Hey, we're all different.
 

Here are my top 5 scary sitcom episodes

#5.The Cosby Show,"Cliff's Nightmare". This episode is number five because it is a little bit of a stretch to say that it scared me. Creeped me out would be better I think. The plot is that Cliff stays up late eating a sausage sandwich. He then proceeds to have a bizarre nightmare which included the Muppets. In what has to have been intended as a tribute to Jim Henson, this strange dream just gets odder and odder. We get monsters, the cast gets to act all silly, and in the end we see Cliff strapped down to a table as he is being sawed! Thank goodness he wakes up, and everything is normal again. Except for the talking fruit in the refrigerator.

#4.Facts of Life, "Seven Little Indians". On a dark and stormy night, Tootie has a nightmare about a serial killer going after all of them. I only saw this episode once and never forgot it. Then a few years later my brother recorded it so I got to see it again. I still remember the syndication cuts. A Rod Serling knock off narrates the story as the girls are killed one by one. George is hung, Natalie is strangled, Blair is moussed to death, Beverly Ann is poisoned. After Jo is killed, Tootie is the last one, until from behind the counter comes Blair, in a scary as hell freight wig and heavy makeup. The music in this episode is perfect and really sells the over acting. How could anyone forget this episode?

#3.The Hogan Family, "Nightmare on Oak Street". On another dark and stormy night (aren't they all?) David, Mark and Willie stay up late watching a zombie movie. Then the power goes out, and they got to bed scared. The three each have nightmares. Mark's nightmare is about him losing his brain. David's is about him becoming a nerd. However, it was Willie's nightmare I always remembered. In his nightmare Mike, Sandy, and Dave all become zombies and start to attack him. This narrative does not do this scene justice; if you can find it go check it out.

#2.Punky Brewster, "Perils of Punky". If you watched Punky Brewster, then you remember this episode. Punky and her friends get lost while on a camping trip, and end up in some old cave. To pass the time they tell stories until they are interrupted by a princess who tells them they need to battle an evil spirit. The spirit taunts and teases Punky by making her friends disappear one at a time. Then he shows them to her, and they are deformed. Alan has weird teeth, Margot is a skeleton, Cheri has glowing eyes. And they are all screaming her name as if they are blaming her for this. The dog even becomes a skeleton. Freaked out? Yes! When I watch this now I can see right through the creepy effects, but at the time this was very scary (I realize that this episode did come out around Halloween, but it has nothing to do with it as far I am concerned). On a side note, a couple years later I was in NBC studios and saw the masks they used for this episode. Pretty cool.

#1. The Brady Bunch.  This one is going to take some explaining, so bear with me. This episode gave me a nightmare I remember to this day, I was so shaken up by it. No, I am not talking about the episode where the kids dress up as ghosts or the one where the play practical jokes on each other. I am not referring to the one where Greg almost drowns, or where Bobby has the dream about the aliens landing in their backyard. The one I am talking about it is the episode "Bobby's Hero". In this episode Bobby picks Jesse James as his hero, even though his family tries to explain how evil this guy was. To Bobby he was just cool. Then Bobby has a nightmare where the Brady's are on a train which is robbed by Jesse James. Bobby is excited to see his hero, until the outlaw starts shooting the Brady's one by one! Maybe it was because they made this scene kind of realistic, and Mike Lookinland's screaming while the family is killed really sells it. Call me a wimp, its fine, but this scene shook me up and I still remember the nightmare I had (I won't reveal that, let's just say my imagination gave this scene a happy ending).

Well, that's my list. Hope you liked it. As I said now that I am older and wiser I look back at these and laugh. At the time though, laughing wasn't my reaction. What episodes scared you growing up?