Sorry for the late post, but here are your Freak-Out Friday Winners! Each of you should email me your addy or look me up on Facebook (under the moniker “Chris Ward”) to receive your WORST PRIZES EVER Gift Box! You won’t be disappointed. The first winner is none other than Friginator. How could I not give this guy a box of free crap? His entry was ridiculously long, for starters, but very entertaining. I once wrote a 600 word panegyric to Willie Aames from Charles in Charge, so I’m not one to point fingers at verbose web comment entries. Here’s the cartoon that scared him most as a child. He is apparently a giant pussy.

Also, I want to send a box of free crap to Rock Ripsnort. A.) for having the coolest Ninja Turtle villain name that never was and, B.) for making me want to find some episodes of Chuck Jones’ Curiosity Shop, which isn’t on DVD. I couldn’t track  down the cartoon that scared him, but this is pretty much all I need to see.

Stay tuned, because this week I’ll announce the winner of the Most Terrifying Childhood Cartoon contest. Feel free to scroll down to the post and keep those entries coming…Or even write them over 4 separate, novel-length posts, like friend of the site Friginator! Your posts are one of the main reasons I keep the site up, I love all you guys who hang out here. Some of you, like previous contest winner and all around good guy Jeff Sparkman, even sent me one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: The ABC Pac-Man Preview. And just let me say, over the next 4-5 weeks, you guys are in for a special treat…kind of like that free ice cream you get after a brutal dentist appointment. There are a million things to observe in horror on this tape that make me a little sad to have a Pac-Man tattoo. Ok, a lot sad. Here’s a taste:

Yes, it’s going to be a good couple of weeks. Henry Winkler stops by to no one’s joy, Dick Clark berates some more kids in his patented dickish manner, kids feign enthusiasm for a Laverne and Shirley cartoon, Pac-Man’s legacy is defecated upon and shat out in pellet form…

All this, and I’ll even leave the eighties commercials on this VHS gem in tact.

While we’re on the subject of cartoons that terrified us as children (please, I implore you: enter the contest. There’s one entry for god’s sake. your odds are pretty good.), I think it’s safe to say every child crapped themselves on the inside (which is shortly followed by the inevitable actual pants-crapping) when they see Claymation for the first time: it’s unnatural, it’s jerky, it sometimes involves large raisins playing saxophones. I remember catching this Mark Twain cartoon on TV when I was a child before it was banned altogether for sending most 6-year-olds screaming into rubber rooms for the rest of their lives. I’m sure you have too. If you haven’t, your memories of Mark Twain still include occasionally-racist rafting journeys down the Mississippi. For the rest of us, the Mysterious Stranger (not to be confused with the Phantom Stranger) ranks right up there with Phanto, the flying mask/key-stealing hellbeast from Super Mario 2. Oh, except he’s an Angel named Satan. Goof Troop it’s not.

Shown: one-way ticket to tears-land.

My friend Joe and I were talking about cartoons that scared the living shit out of us when we were kids, and I was hoping to hear some of your stories. I had the misfortune of stopping on an animated segment of Creepshow when I was young, and assuming the whole movie must be for kids because cartoons were the green-light for “kid friendly.” Big Mistake.

“Hey, Creepshow! Must be a great animated film…I’ll keep watching.”

“I’ll have to admit, I’m a bit surprised that I’ve just ruined my childhood.”

So post your stories! The winners will get a nice box of terrifying crap from me. Here’s one that apparently scared my friend Joe, a cartoon called “Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night.” I’ve never seen it, but the guy posting it lists this as “the scariest scene,” so clearly someone else has been traumatized by this gem.

Thanks to SqueezeBot for the video tip!
That sound you hear is Alan Moore throwing up in his beard and praying to his Snake Jesus to please make it all stop. Parody doesn’t get much better than this nineties bastardization of the sacred cow Watchmen. Had Watchmen been written by Eastman & Laird, there’s a pretty damn good chance this show would have actually aired. I’m crossing my fingers that it still does, if not to see Rorschach yell “Cowabunga!” while breaking a dude’s pinky. And, if we’re really lucky…

My buddy Ryan has the best ideas: My PhotoShop skills are limited, so send your own versions of a Watchmen Adventures comic my way (ie: comment and post a link to it) and I’ll pick the best, and send you a Worst Cartoons Junk Swag Surprise Box! You’re gonna love my junk.