Gen Xers name the scariest things they saw on TV as kids. It’s nostalgic nightmare fuel.

For some of us Gen Xers, it felt like once we came home from school, we were given merely Pop-Tarts and a remote. What many of us watched on TV (and in movie theaters, for that matter) could easily scare the wits out of any emotionally mature adult. For us, it was both joyous and absolutely terrifying. In a Threads post, a woman who goes by Steph (@calmcreatorclub) specifically reaches out to Gen X to ask, “What was the scariest thing on TV when you were a kid? Name it.” Perhaps because it’s almost Halloween, this post deeply resonated. In fact, it received over 4.3 thousand comments in less than three days. People from all over the world were ready to talk about the shows, movies, and commercials that kept them looking under the bed every few hours for years. Stephen King With the introduction of cable TV, including HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax, many of us were exposed to movies we’d normally have had to sneak into. Writer Stephen King was a hot topic. From Carrie (where Sissy Spacek played a high schooler with an unfortunate fate at her prom) to Cujo to Pet Sematary, no one was safe from his nefarious characters. One person writes of Pet Sematary, “The baby with the scalpel from under the bed.” Another concurs, “Pet Semetery, also but the scene where church appears around the corner of the shower curtain with part of the garbage bag he was buried in still attached to his whiskers???? EEEEK!! I slept on the living room couch for two weeks after that in 1983. When I did a re-listen last year i knew it was coming and it still scared the living crap out of me you could just SEE it.” Clowns for the win As one might imagine, anything with clowns stood out in many Gen Xers’ nightmares. In keeping with the King theme, many people mentioned It and its horrifying “star” clown, Pennywise, who was introduced in the 1990 miniseries. One responder throws in a few sitcoms for laughs: “IT. But also the episode of Punky Brewster with the refrigerator and the episode of Webster with the fire from the chemistry set.” Another adds, regarding IT, “That clown did a lot of damage.” Speaking of clowns, Spielberg’s Poltergeist also got quite a few votes. Sleestacks and other oddities The 1970s TV show Land of the Lost starred Wesley Eure (and Phillip Paley as “Cha-ka”) as creatures who travel through “pocket universes” peppered with dinosaurs, monkey-creatures, and lizard-type folks called Sleestacks. And, of course, kids tuned in to this time-traveling, existential, angsty nightmare. Quite a few mention the show, with one Threader adding, “The Sleestacks! The slow-walk was the worst bit!” Little House on the Prairie? Surprisingly (or perhaps not for some), quite a few mentioned specific episodes of the popular ’70s/’80s TV show Little House on the Prairie. One writes, “Not kidding… the Halloween episode of little house. Mr. Olsen scared Laura somehow. No details have been retained but I was young and it terrified me.” And the rest… Of course, ghosts, UFOs, and quicksand were topics of many shows back in the day. One Threader shares their answers, writing, “In Search Of, w/Leonard Nimoy. I was scared of ghosts, UFOs, voodoo…and especially spontaneous human combustion. Definitely spent a lot of time worrying about that. Also the Sleestacks.” Another points out that TV shows weren’t always as light as they seemed: “Fantasy Island had a darker side than people remember.” This Threader adds that there were regularly dark themes, writing: “I don’t know about ‘scary’, but there was just so much melancholy in the regular ‘family’ dramas. Not to mention. Their theme songs: The Waltons, Grizzly Adams, The Incredible Hulk (starring Bill Bixby). And if like me you were allowed to watch M*A*S*H.”