History Main / ScareEmStraight

* ''FatAlbertAndTheCosbyKids'': The episode "Busted" is one of the best animated ScareEmStraight episodes. Series' host Bill Cosby warns at the beginning of the episode that some graphic language is used, and indeed it is: When Albert and his buddies are given the prison tour by a police officer, they hear lots of hooting and lurid comments from the inmates. Even without the use of strong profanity, the remarks that various inmates make about wanting the kids to join them ([[PrisonRape so they can have sex with them]]) is enough to convince the gang to stay out of trouble and the hell away from people like Rudy's buddy, who got them in trouble in the first place.

** Plus, there's a sexist DoubleStandard thing going on since the girl is the one who dies & gets the worst physical damage. On the flipside, the boy's disfigured & traumatized for life & the girl's dead so she wouldn't care, anyway.

* The entire point of ''DrSeuss''' ''Literature/TheLorax'' is [[GreenAesop to]] [[GaiasVengeance do]] [[DownerEnding this]]. At least it didn't go as far as "No Pressure" above...

** According to Roger Ebert in their review for the VHS release of the film, this may subconsciously be the reason why he doesn't smoke.

* The massive, multi-series crossover special ''CartoonAllStarsToTheRescue'' featured just about every major Saturday morning cartoon character of the early '90's inflicting massive amounts of psychological torture on a teenage addict to try and scare him off of drugs. (They'll be lucky if their efforts haven't driven the kid to ''drink''.)

** There is some question whether the series was a straight attempt at this Trope, or a prime example of [[PoesLaw Poe's Law]].
* One episode of ''HomeMovies'' had a schoolteacher who was a former prison guard locking the kids in a cell for a few hours in order to scare them straight. They used the time to brainstorm about their next film project.

* ''WesternAnimation/ BeavisAndButthead'' go to prison on a school-sponsored 'Scared Straight' program - you can guess how they absorb the message. The episode ends with B&B promising to return to the joint so they and their new jailbird friends can "party again".

** A&E has a sort of SequelSeries called BeyondScaredStraight, where juvenile delinquents from across the country visit various prisons.

* On ''SavingGrace'', Grace's niece and best friend went to a "scavenger" party where they took random drugs, and the best friend died. Her father and Grace dragged the niece down to the morgue and forced her to look at her friend's corpse.

** Also happened on an episode of ''CrossingJordan'', where Macy took his daughter to the morgue to show her the corpse of a girl who was killed by a mobster after falling into an unsavory life.

* ''BeavisAndButthead'' go to prison on a school-sponsored 'Scared Straight' program - you can guess how they absorb the message.

* The "Deathrace" episode of ''{{Metalocalypse}}'' has Toki and Skwisgaar forced to go to driving school after a DWI arrest. The school forces them to watch a film about drunk driving, with accident scenes so graphic that they become afraid to drive a car, and fail the test as a result.

* An episode of ''{{Rugrats}}'' had the dentist suggest weaning Tommy at age one. And he showed how bad it would be if they ''did not'' wean him at Age one, showing a chart with two kids - one kid had a trophy saying "Best teeth," while the other had huge blanks in between each of his deformed teeth, and apparently, he wasn't weaned.

** WesternAnimation/SouthPark also did a particularly vicious and (ironically) {{anvilicious}} takedown of these tactics in "My Future Self 'N Me." Town parents hire actors to fake being "future" drug addict versions of the kids, scaring them away from ever trying drugs.

* A dentist in ''TheSimpsons'' scares Ralph into brushing his teeth by showing him "The Big Book of [[BritishTeeth British Smiles]]."

* Parodied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers.'' The boys visit a prison "Scare 'em Straight" program... a supervillain program, even. The Monarch, as per usual, shows quite a bit of genuine concern over the boys being there, while other supervillains lament that they've made the wrong choices in life that lead to them having horrible facial deformities and so on.
* In the Treegasm episode of ''UglyAmericans'', Mark has [[AnythingThatMoves Randall]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext convince a tree to stay with its girlfriend]] by giving it a ''very'' long and ''very'' detailed account of his sexual history, culminating with "Oh, and also, my dick recently fell off. I don't know how I forgot that little chestnut."
* In one episode of ''TheBoondocks'', Huey and Riley are sent to a Scare 'em Straight type of program where they go to a prison and see how bad it is. Another episode parodies anti-piracy [=PSAs=], comparing stealing movies to beating up the elderly and MURDER.
* Mr. Krabs did this twice on ''SpongeBob''. First concerning the hooks, then about the main drain. Squidward also did this about the Slasher.

* In the ''FamilyGuy'' episode "Prick Up Your Ears", the school brings in a PSA group advocating for abstinence in the most hyperbolic terms possible. Such claims include "Sex turns straight people gay and gays into Mexicans", "If you have sex, your penis will fall off, and land in another dimension, populated entirely by dogs, who will eat it", and "If you have sex, Al-Qaeda wins!"

** HarlanEllison tells this same story on himself. He was opening boxes of cereal in a grocery store to see if any of them had the one premium of a collect'em all set he did not have.

** And as Cracked has put it, constantly telling children that strangers are horrible and are going to do terrible things to you [[http://www.cracked.com/article/195_7-things-good-parents-do-that-screw-up-kids-life_p2/ can cause kids to trust absolutely nobody but themselves and think everyone is out to get them.]]

This is the modern equivalent of the (hopefully) ForgottenTrope of children's literature intended to scare the kids into good Christian behavior by depicting the torments of {{Hell}} itself (or at least a painful, horrible, gruesome death) inflicted on "boys and girls like you."[[note]]For instance: most {{fairy tale}}s, like, say, LittleRedRidingHood.[[/note]] Some fringe sects keep this tradition alive with "hell houses," but these are very much disavowed by the mainstream. However, a Hell House graced the cover of Newsweek as recently as 2006. ("Visions of Hell," by Matthew Philips and Lisa Miller, Newsweek, November 6, 2006, 52; also "Signaling Through the Flames: Hell House Performance and Structures of Religious Feeling" by Ann Pellegrini [[http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/american_quarterly/v059/59.3pellegrini.html]])

** ''ShortFilm/XMarksTheSpot'', produced by the New Jersey DMV and eventually featured on an episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', shows that you [[spoiler:will die on your way home]] if you so much as run a stop sign. [[hottip:*:The main character's other driving habits are exaggerated UpToEleven as well.]]

* A ''HalfLife'' Modification called ''AfraidOfMonsters'' is a complete videogame version of this. The main character is David, a drug addict who seeks help for his obsession with painkillers. But before he gets treatment for it, he takes more of them in a hospitals bathroom, and everything goes awry after that. After a nightmare sequence, David encounters ''Dogs with Shaved Human Heads, Gibberish-spouting nonsensical Zombies, Giant Flickering Faces that laugh like children, Levitating aliens, abominations made of human limbs, Random Ghosts appearing, Even more random noises without sources, and a world that is Dark and changes form''. After all that, all the endings in the game are unhappy but one, and all show the consequences of what an addiction to drugs can lead to.

* Domestic violence tends to involve... reinforcers that work like this - through coercion, isolation, and very real fear, the victim is coerced into staying in a relationship that is unhealthy. In fact, one of the warning signs of domestic violence is the fear of retribution from the partner.
** "If you break up with me, I'll kill myself."

* Parodied in TheOffice episode "The Convict". Michael attempts to seriously warn the office of how horrible and frightening prison is by using this technique as he pretends to be a rebellious ex-convict, with ridiculous reasons of why to avoid prison... like the [[HarryPotter Dementors]].

* On a more adult level, the famous [[1987 "Grim Reaper" ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo]] to raise AIDS awareness in Australia has been credited with successfully informing the public about the very real risks of the virus, and that transmission was not limited to gay men through it's terrifying imagery. It backfired somewhat in that some interpreted the reapers in the commercial to symbolise gay men and not the AIDS virus, however.

* There are also anti-drug UrbanLegends, like the story of the baby sitter who took LSD and "Baked a turkey"? It wasn't a turkey... [[spoiler:[[{{MASH}} It was a bay-hay-beee!]]]]

-->-- ''X-Entertainment''

[[folder:Advertising]]
* "Mr. Yuk," a grimacing green face intended to warn kids of poisonous materials, is notoriously creepy. While he was intended to be a little scary, his creators certainly did not intend for him to cause the mass nightmares and burning horror that Mr. Yuk did. Steel yourself for the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLsONa3gKIQ short]], or sing along to the full song [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqHxKVUG8cU&feature=related here]].
** It also establishes that ''even in your own home'', [[ParanoiaFuel you're not safe]]. No wonder this generation is paranoid.
* Another classic from the bad old days: ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijbovskICjk Boys Beware]]''. The short swaps the word ''child molester'' with ''homosexual'', and is {{egregious}} enough in its mischaracterization even of ''that'' to make Pat Robertson wince. Contains lines like, "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious; a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual, a person who ''demands'' an intimate relationship with members of their own sex." Make a "scared straight" joke at your own risk!
** Entertainingly, the film bends over backwards to [[{{Demonization}} demonize]] gays, but gives unqualified approval of hitchhiking.
** There's also the female version called [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAKo-i4jpQ Girls Beware]]. Remember ladies, [[TheUnFairSex don't talk to any man]]; [[AllMenArePerverts all he wants to do is rape you]].
* [[ScareCampaign Scare Campaigns]] are common in political advertising - and several studies suggest that they are one of the most effective types of political campaign.
** Interestingly, studies done in 2008 found that they had decreased greatly in efficiency since a similar study in 2004.
** Similarly, in 2004, British progressives were given the voter rolls in various swing-state counties that narrowly went Bush in 2000, and encouraged to write letters to residents explaining why they should vote for Kerry instead. Bush handily won all of them.
* Example aimed at adults: The UK government doesn't like benefit cheats. The UK government doesn't like people who dodge their TV license payment. The UK government doesn't like people who don't pay their car tax. Their solution is to broadcast dark/grey shaded adverts with monotone voice overs that wouldn't be out of place in a horror film: "We know where you live. We can check your post. Our computers can find you anywhere." If anyone else sent a tape like this, it would be called "stalking." Instead, it's perfectly reasonable to commission a series of adverts that solemnly inform you that if you claim benefits while employed, you will be hounded by [[CaptainScarlet Mysterons]] before there's an ominous knocking at your door...
** Hilariously undermined by the "lost databases" fiasco. An agency which puts million-person databases on unencrypted, take-home laptops and can't even manage to keep them in the right country isn't likely to run the [[TheTerminator omniscient killing machine]] the adverts suggest.
** Also rather annoying. The government can fine people because it knows where they live, what car they drive, and the intimate details of their back account. Why the hell can't they just bill them automatically, then?!
*** Because they need proof, which often requires the necessary surveillance.
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo chilling ad]] for NACAID where the ''Grim Reaper'' goes bowling for AIDS victims may well be the TropeMaker, as it led to [[UnfortunateImplications widespread fear of homosexuals]].
-->The downside was that the Grim Reaper became identified with gay men rather than as the Reaper. That was what we had unintentionally produced - [the belief] by some that the Reaper was people with HIV infection, rather than the Reaper harvesting the dead.
* There is a poster in high school Chemistry classes: "Carol never wore her safety goggles... now she doesn't need them." The picture beneath is of a blind woman.
** This poster has gone through MemeticMutation because of how much more alarming and terrible a fate she suffers compared to ''everyone else'' in that particular poster series.
*** Carol wore her safety goggles. [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons THEY DID NOTHING]].
* The UK [=PSAs=] about making sure you have a working smoke alarm have become more and more grim; years ago the reminder to regularly check the batteries was a benign "thumbs up on a Monday!" Today the ads are set in a dismal waiting room to the afterlife with a sadistic administrator barking at people why they're dead, with the punchline of a child telling their parent [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmVU0mm9fwI "you forgot to check the battery, Mummy."]] This same tagline was used in a disturbing poster - it's scrawled in soot on a charred wall, in a child's handwriting.
** There was also a nineties UK fire alarm advert featuring a couple weeping and constantly rewinding a video of a child opening a present, followed by the voiceover 'Check your smoke alarm.' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XtmMoK2fkQ Horrified me for years.]]
*** [[FridgeHorror They're going to feel even worse when that constant rewinding destroys the tape.]]
** There are people who still can't get the sounds of the old woman screaming for help out of their head years later. Also, the third one saying to keep your exits clear, with a shot of a man struggling to get past a bicycle in his hallway is terrifying if you live in a house which has a thin narrow hallway leading to the door.
*** Hong Kong regularly runs fire safety campaigns ''worse'' than this, showing people trapped in high-rise apartment buildings that they can't escape from. The campaigns have become less severe over the years, but up until the early to mid-2000s it was common to switch on and see scenes of panicking people trapped in basements or barricaded into hallways because of items stored there.
** An ad was showing a bedroom with a couple sleeping in it, wonderful CG making it seem underwater. A calm voice says "Dying of smoke inhalation is just like drowning..." - and the CG disappears, the bedroom is almost invisible due to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kh3Ag4j1Ng black smoke]].
** There was a campaign shot in grim black and white, with a soundtrack of creepy choral music. All the while we see memorials for the dead (such as a funeral wreath, the order of service booklet for a funeral, and a memorial plaque on a gate) with excuses that people make for not having working smoke alarms: "I didn't know where to buy one," "I didn't get around to it," etc. Finally, we see a gravestone with the dates of death of a married couple ("My husband should have fitted the smoke alarm," "My landlord should have fitted the smoke alarm") and their baby, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBdbi99C0uI&feature=related who was three months old.]]
* Back in the nineties, there was an anti-drug PSA that featured a little girl sitting in her room when it suddenly began to rapidly fill up with water. You got to see her frantically try to open her window before presumably drowning and floating offscreen. It was about the effects of huffing, which has the same effect on the brain as drowning.
** The end of the PSA adds to the scare factor, as we get to see the little girl's dead corpse float across the screen, eyes open and all. This was so scary, that future airings of the PSA completely edit out the ending.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwMhepuJMA It only takes a second...]] to be [[{{Narm}} unintentionally]] [[BlackComedy hilarious]].
* Canadian work-safety ads released around 2007 were made even more popular on Website/YouTube when passed around as "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwCyVku1HvI&feature=related seriously disturbing]]"; one includes [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llQL9RM_KOo a rising chef about to get married being scalded by boiling water]], including a high-pitched scream that cuts off her narrative and a close-up of her burn-scarred face. Others include [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mai2s5MSrsc construction accidents]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4X4vyBdHvA a factory accident (in which a man stands up after having a beam driven through him to narrate), and a similarly-narrated retail accident]]. Of course, some people just found the commercials hilarious.
** Or, alternately, they send an [[AccidentalAesop unintended message:]] "Don't get these jobs. Work in an office where you won't get hurt." That seems to be a perfectly [[ParanoiaFuel natural response]] for people who already have anxiety disorders.
** Another one featured a construction worker talking about how he's about to [[FatalFamilyPhoto go on vacation with his wife and kids]] fall down to his death in super slow-motion. The lesson here is that when you're on construction site, [[BreakingTheFourthWall don't walk around talking directly to the camera.]]
* UK cinemas tend to run several of these kinds of ads before every movie.
** Ricky Gervais chastised one for "encouraging gambling!" before adding "I like those odds, but still..."
** A predecessor in the UK government's ''Think!'' road safety campaign showed [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipnJbSnmc24 a very realistic-looking slow motion collision with a child.]]
** There's one 'wear your seatbelt' ad (I've not seen it for a while, so it may have been discontinued) that shows - in quite gory detail - a man having to brake suddenly for some reason. His organs get flung against his ribs, the ribs snap and dig into his lungs. On a twenty-foot-high screen. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsp-nrf_8KQ Lovely]].
* Without a doubt, this is one of the most favored tactics of [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets PETA]] [[AnimalWrongsGroup (and other animal rights groups to a degree)]], who resorts to using graphic images of animals being killed, accusing young children's mothers of killing animals, and repeating harsh (and debatable) warnings that eating meat will cause all manner of health problems in order to frighten the naive and squeamish. The veracity of their claims is often doubtful, as many of the videos and pictures they show portray uncommon and/or outdated practices [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzTzAPYn2AA (many people involved in animal agriculture are quite shocked at the inaccuracy and exaggeration in the materials)]], and many of their "scientific" claims (such as the claim that [[YouFailBiologyForever humans are "natural herbivores")]] are based on ''very'' outdated, flawed, biased, or just plain discredited research.
** One hilariously ineffective billboard put up by PETA showed a picture of a child eating a hamburger with every visible sign of enjoyment, that still expected us to believe it when it told us that feeding children meat was child abuse.
** Some even more ridiculous ads showed ''[[{{NSFW}} naked humans]]'' being subject to the "torture" animals are put through.
** These things are what make some vegetarians cringe and say "DontShootTheMessage".
* [=UNICEF=] did a PSA [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa8MjjMajEA that showed the Smurfs]] [[SugarApocalypse getting carpet bombed]].
* The "Click It Or Ticket" seatbelt ads often lurch into either self-parody and/or incitement to rebellion; as inane as the ''national'' slogan is, the ''local'' cops should definitely not be allowed to star in their own [=PSAs=].
** Many of the [=PSAs=] depict an officer pulling a person over and giving them a ticket for seat belt violations. This is inaccurate in many states where seat belt violations are only secondary offenses, meaning that you have to be pulled over for something else before you can be cited for a seat belt violation.
* Many anti-drug or anti-smoking ads love to show some pretty graphic images of what will happen to your body, inside and out, if you do drugs or smoke. Bonus points for using the GuiltTrip by showing the consequences of doing either if you are a ''pregnant mother'' and show what will happen to the baby after it is born. May also show the negative effects of smoking being passed down to children in the house during the ad.
** A particularly scary one is when a smoking ad showed a human aorta (taken from a dead smoker) and then they squeezed the plaque out of it. It was graphic and disturbing, and it ''showed up on a channel for kids.''
*** Another disturbing one shows how a smokers lung would look if squeezed like a sponge into a beaker: black, thick sludge. This one is also shown frequently during kids' programming.
*** Another one featured a smoker being dragged away with a fish-hook through his cheek. This appeared on posters and on TV.
*** Yet another one is the Australian ad that basically goes through their horrorfolder, complete with strokes, gangrene, and even mouth cancer. Why must they inflict this on us non-smokers?
**** The Australian one's got a sequel, which shows some sorta X-Ray silhouette of a toddler inhaling second-hand smoke or something. Then it shows toddlers becoming ill and wearing oxygen masks. It also comes with the usual images of people's insides rotting.
** ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPl7KE_CVPc The First Natural Born Smoker]]''.
** The latest batch of anti-smoking [=PSA=]s in the states show what longtime smokers have to live with everyday, such as one where a man is constantly gasping for breath, and a woman is lying in bed, having had a stroke, and now being unable to take care of herself. Perhaps the most disturbing, however, is shoing a picture of a woman, then showing the woman now, getting ready for the day, first by putting on her wig, then putting a plastic plug in the hole in her neck, then putting a wrap around this, all while she says what she's doing in a very cracked, barely understandable voice.
** As the push towards NoSmoking in Australia has increased so has the effort to scare smokers into quitting. As well as disallowing the display of cigarettes plain packaging had been introduced with only the brand name and the graphic consequences of the habit. Not only has this come with discontinuing the production of certain brands the remaining ones allowed for sale have changed in branding and taste, making Marlboros for example and JBS or Superkings very much the same.
* In Finnish radio, there is a fishing license ad where two men discuss their license situation. One man warns the other: "If you don't have a fishing license, the authorities can take away your equipment." The trick is that the word used for equipment, "vehkeet," can also mean the [[DoubleEntendre male-only equipment]].
** In English they could use the word "tackle".
* A drunk-driving PSA, which ran in Romania circa 2008-2009, started out like a car salon presentation: expensive cars with hot girls sprawled over them... and then the camera zooms in on the girls: some are missing limbs, others have half their face burnt off, and such.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f03WDDwz2bo This classic 80s anti-cocaine commercial.]] [[ThisIsWrongOnSoManyLevels It's just wrong on all levels.]]
** In the 80's, Spain had a Just Say No campaign starring then-FC Barcelona star player Diego Armando Maradona. As you can guess, once Maradona's own drug problems became known, humorists had ''a fucking field day'' parodying it as "if someone offers you cocaine, just say no. I want it all for me."
* The Montana Meth Project (look it up on ThatOtherWiki) is, despite its name, a fairly successful, multi-medium anti-meth campaign that works on showing the results, frequently given out by former meth users themselves (at least, on a few of the radio ads). Fairly notable due to being started as a privately funded campaign, although the state has taken over some of the funding duties, and for the fact that it started (as the name suggests) in Montana, but has spread to Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, and Wyoming.
* Ireland has a serious [[StopBeingStereotypical drunk-driving problem]], and has been producing extremely graphic TV ads for years now to combat it. One of the earlier examples, entitled [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pATbxxkoikg " Could you live with the shame?"]] has a man involved in a drink-related crash flying through a fence into someone's back garden and killing their son.
* There was a PSA that showed this guy calling himself "Snake" who comes off as just some drug dealer. Throughout the PSA, Snake discusses what drugs do to you and what you'll do to get them, and as he does so, Snake's voice distorts and he turns into a [[ScaledUp snakelike monster]]. At the end, he adds "Hey, do I look like the kind of guy that would do that to you? ''YESSSSSSSS!''"
* Australian ScareEmStraight [=PSAs=] about drunk driving are no longer "if you do it, you will die," but "if you do it, you'll get arrested," because Australians are more concerned with getting caught by police than, y'know, the whole "dying" thing.
** Well of course. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou They live in Australia]].
** Cracked.com is like one long PSA [[http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia not]] to go to [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16868_6-deadliest-creatures-that-can-fit-in-your-shoe.html Australia.]] And yeah, that's some nightmare fuel.
*** To quote Cracked - "Things In Australia That Will Kill You: Everything. No, seriously - everything." "Things In Australia That Will Not Kill You: ... Hugh Jackman seems nice."
** NSW's recent speeding campaign similarly disregards the [[SarcasmMode boring "dying" part]], and instead points out that it will make people think you have a small penis. Only in Australia...
* This [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJTC_sX5cxs surprisingly well-animated]] PSA by Hanna-Barbera, where a dude wanders through a psychedelic landscape of pills and spliffs... then walks into a ''closet full of zombies, which grab him and age him 50 years in two seconds while a ScareChord plays.''
* One anti-reckless driving ad shown in Ontario in the early 90s showed a family who'd been in a car accident being handled in the emergency room. The mother dies, and the commercial ends with a cut to black followed by the sound of a tween daughter shrieking, "I want mommy!"
** Another ad from the same series had a husband who was paralyzed or in a coma following a car accident in a hospital room. His wife is telling him platitudes like "everyone in the other car was OK" while his daughter screams, "Their little girl's dead! I hate you!" Small girls screaming horrible things was the theme of the series.
* A (thankfully brief) series of AIDS campaigns in France pictured a woman being, erm, made love to by an enormous spider and a man having sex with a large scorpion. You can see them both [[http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1051 here]].
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1d7UA4A2KI This PSA]] about kitchen safety. The cord that turns into a cobra is kind of scary, but it's the evil, laughing pot that does it for most people.
** The appliances (especially the pot) act like they [[ForTheEvulz really want to hurt children]], then make it clear that it was all just an act. DudeNotFunny.
* [[http://www.parentdish.com/2009/08/25/will-bloody-texting-psa-get-the-message-to-teens/ This PSA]] about texting while driving was actually so over the top that officials decided not to show it.
** Ironically, while the ad is very graphic, unlike in many [=PSAs=] cited here, the events are not all that implausible.
*** That PSA was actually a full length film that they made to show around school, which showed that if you cause an accident: people will spray paint rude words onto your house, your family won't be able to have a social life... Not to mention that not only were the girls texting, they were also drinking alcohol, not much though.
** The Australian island of Tasmania were going to air an ad very similar to this; in fact, The Examiner placed this very ad up for people to review, in a bid to slow the record road toll. Then there was a horror day on the roads with (I think) five rashes and eleven fatalities, and the idea was pulled.
* In America, there's a fleet of anti-abortion trucks that drive around showing graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, partial birth abortions, dismembered fetal body parts compared to everyday items such as erasers, quarters, bottlecaps, on the sides and backs of their trailers. [[http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2008/07/read_this_before_that_antiabor.html Here's the link to an article about a confrontation one of the drivers had.]] [[http://www.jillstanek.com/dnc%20truth%20truck%20road.jpg And here is a pic of one of the trucks.]]
** In some places (like Kansas), these types of trucks are parked in front of elementary schools. Just in case a 3rd grader was planning to get an abortion, or something.
** On the truck's bumper sticker: "Abortion causes breast cancer." Technically, the link is caused by the fact that breast-feeding reduces the chance of breast cancer. Having an abortion raises a pregnant woman's risk of breast cancer, but no more than ''not becoming pregnant in the first place''.
** Most of those pictures aren't even of what they claim to be, but show the result of stillbirths and miscarriages, because those images make for a higher grade of nightmare fuel.
* Those "Above the Influence" ads are usually tame, but remember the early one with the unattended little girl tugging the raft into the swimming pool, and the voiceover saying, "Just tell her parents you weren't watching her because you were getting stoned. [[SarcasmMode They'll understand]]"? That one's arguably even worse than an over-the-top illustration of what drugs will actually ''do'' to you, because the message is more like, "YouBastard, your natural inclination to choose fun over responsibility '''IS GOING TO KILL THIS CHILD.'''" Because obviously if you'll do drugs at all, you'll do them ''anywhere'', including while you're babysitting a four-year-old with access to an open pool.
** There are similar advertisements in magazines, except a little LighterAndSofter. (Often showing stuff like a kid waiting on the side of the road with the message, "Just tell your parents you didn't pick him up because you were getting stoned. They'll understand." ''Much'' better than implying a girl about to drown in the pool.)
** And even ''[[http://herbaldrink.deviantart.com/art/Old-work-number-two-57842591 Mario]]'' isn't safe from this... of ''course'', the [[MushroomSamba magic mushroom gags]] are ''way'' too easy.
* Keira Knightly appeared in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctoZbeD-GlY this PSA]] for UK Domestic Violence charity Women's Aid. It was only shown in cinemas, because it was considered too upsetting for TV!
* The New Zealand [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRDXG5IlP-8 road safety]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm-MhFrL8ms adverts]] where an intersection is compared to a circus wheel of fortune, with the segments marked off as "near miss," "minor crash," "major crash," and "death" - The wheel is spun when the car in the advert makes a risky entrance to an intersection, by the creepiest man to ever be shown on TV. While the crashes are not graphic, the tinkly circus music and whispering background noises, in conjunction with Mr. Creepy, make the ad NightmareFuel.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMMbVlN-BoY Another safety advert]] from New Zealand comments on drunk driving and is pretty impressive because of its simplicity.
** One of the less gruesome New Zealand [=PSAs=] over the years. There are countless bloody car wrecks that stick in a New Zealander's mind from childhood in both Speeding and Drinking Campaigns. Perhaps the most prominent is a guy packing out his desk at work, then flashing to 'Minor Accident', where his car crashes into another stopped at a pedestrian crossing, killing a woman while her young child stands there watching his now-deceased mother ... *shudder*
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azqc4i7fAC4&feature=related Tracks are for trains]]. (Actually, they kinda held themselves back on that one, at least according to the commenters.)
** New Zealand deliberately averted this trope in a drink-driving campaign aimed at the Maori community. The ad showed a boy at a party trying to decide whether to intervene to stop a drunk friend from driving, in a humorous FlightOfTheConchords-esque monologue. The state body responsible for the campaign claimed that they had deliberately been trying to avoid shock approaches because research had shown these to be unsuccessful with the target group of young drivers. The commercial went viral and was a huge success, creating at least two internet memes ("I've been internalizing a really complicated situation in my head" and "You know I can't grab your ghost chips!")
** Going back further, New Zealand's National Film Unit produced "[[http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/such-a-stupid-way-to-die-1971 Such A Stupid Way To Die]]", a PSA on the dangers of hypothermia in the wilds. When shown in school classrooms, the psychedelic music score and deadpan voiceovers made it unintentionally funny.
* A controversial German anti-AIDS spot shows a woman having sex with a man whose face is only revealed at the end: it turns out it's [[spoiler:Hitler!]] The tagline: "AIDS is a mass murderer." Watch the video [[http://vimeo.com/6417862 here]], or see the (equally disturbing) print version [[http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/09/05/aids-is-a-mass-murderer-ad-campaign/ here]].
** They also used JosephStalin and SaddamHussein, but not SlobodanMilosevic.
* In the UK, there was an advertisement warning people against using unbooked cabs. The posters are images of a lady crying and pressed up against the window of a cab, locked in. The text accompanying it says "Please, no. Stop, please. Stop. Please stop taking unbooked minicabs." There is a video version of this as well, with a shaky videocamera image of the inside of a dark taxi and [[RapeAsDrama you can hear a woman crying.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xe7M8aKLRU The same text appears on screen.]]
* An anti-heroin PSA from the early '70s showed a wind-up toy monkey while a childlike voice said, "They say that people on heroin have a monkey on their back. Isn't that cute?" Then the camera zoomed in on the monkey's face as it morphed into the face of a live, screaming monkey. It was a scary PSA with a LastNoteNightmare.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AegsJYtwccw&feature=player_embedded Here's]] the PSA itself, in all its LastNoteNightmare-based glory.
* In 2010 there was an ad going on the radio in Norway that goes like this (paraphrased), all narrator lines are given in the same creepy monotone:
--> Narrator: "here are three lessons in what to tell a loved one who drinks and drives. Repeat after me"
--> Narrator: "you're drunk. You can't drive like this"
--> Young Woman: "you're drunk. You can't drive like this"
--> Narrator: "come on, give me those keys"
--> Young Woman: "come on, give me those keys"
--> Narrator: "I still love you"
--> *rasping breath, beeping life support in the background*
--> Young Woman: "I still love you"
* For over twenty years now, South Carolina has been promoting driver's safety with a series of [=PSAs=] called "Highways or Dieways: The Choice Is Yours." They're all filmed in intentionally grainy, jerky, cheap-documentary style, showing how in just sixty seconds of bad driving your life can change forever, and again in the sixty minutes after that. One of the most effective subset features parents grieving over their dead children in the back of an ambulance. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qEZqbNTNB4 Here's a pretty typical example]].
* Not so long ago, in the UK, there was a warning advert against drink driving. It followed round a man in his daily life, who saw the mangled body of a child he had hit in the past everywhere he looked. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7fhzDUOsxI Yes, it was horrifying.]]
* This PSA for not swimming where you're not supposed to: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Y6t0V5IJc One order of]] NightmareFuel, please.
* Older Quebec road security ads have a tendency towards this... Speeding [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgljmCVvUvs (1)]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgO0bw1Ykc (2)]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_C897kj9F0 DUI]], or just... [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrSLW8Pi5Po bad driving is bad!]]
* Presumably it was the attempt of the PRO-environmental video in [[http://www.theblaze.com/stories/no-pressure-new-environmental-campaign-glorifies-eco-fascism/ this article.]] Basically, it amounts to "[[GaiasVengeance go green or we will murder you in the most graphic way possible]]." Beware, this is scary shit.
* There was an award-winning UK radio ad about why children should always wear seatbelts when traveling in a car. In the style of "Watch with Mother," with nursery rhyme music playing, a woman talks about little AliceAndBob who loved the story of Peter Pan and wanted to be like him. They got their wish when the car crashed on their way to school. Just like Peter Pan, Bob flew (through the windscreen) and Alice "never grew up"! What a cheery little tale!
** This ad aired alongside another one aimed at teenagers, with a doctor describing (in far too upbeat a tone) the reconstructive surgery you'll need if you crash face-first through the windscreen during a road accident.
* An ad campaign from the early 90's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyl5Mwr84MA intending to teach young children]] not to put dangerous objects in their mouth. Of course they explain this so terribly that it tells kids, ''and I quote'' "Always ask someone you love before putting something in your mouth." Yeah, that won't get annoying at dinner time when the kid asks permission for each individual bite. Not to mention the AccidentalInnuendo involved in a song called "Don'tcha put it in your mouth."
** That was either unintentionally disturbing or intentionally disturbing in a very grim way.
* Another PSA about the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxAYHOWxGi8 dangers of meth]], using a catchy upbeat song describing it as something that will fill you with energy, keep your house clean, and keeps you attentive about your personal hygiene. Needless to say, it was pulled off the air shortly afterwards, because it seemed like an advertisement ''for'' Meth.
** It seems the entirety of that ad was anti-coffee. "Need energy to clean your house? Do meth! Need to wake up in the morning Do meth! Meth: The better-tasting alternative to coffee."
** A lesser-known PSA in the same series featured a cheery song about heroin, accompanied by visuals of an addict injecting themselves and vomiting into a filthy public toilet.
* Australian [=PSAs=] tend to be made of this trope. In addition to the graphic AIDS and drink-driving [=PSAs=], anti-smoking [=PSAs=] frequently show footage of diseased and damaged tissues (blood clots, mouth and lung cancer, and so on), usually taken from autopsied corpses whose previous owners died of causes related to smoking. Also, photographs of damaged organs are shown on the cigarette boxes along with the written health warning, So, yeah..... Australia beat pretty much everywhere else, at least as far as 'scare 'em straight' [=PSAs=] go.
* And then there's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LpxuMaeI_w a 2011 Italian anti-drug commercial]] where a dude goes on a trip[[note]] not ''that'' kind of trip, at least initially.[[/note]] and ''then'' does drugs. Then a girl approaches him, hugging him before quickly morphing into an extremely '''[[NightmareFace hideous]]''' [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffyverse-esque vampire...]] [[BuffySpeak thing]]. A song by Italian pop singer Nek was used as the BGM, [[SoundtrackDissonance with very predictable results.]] Then it turns out to be [[AllJustADream all just some kind of hallucination shit]] and the guy goes away with an actual girl, and after that a message pops up, "Don't do drugs, do your own life," thus ending the ad. [[AC: Warning:]] it may sound silly, but seriously, it isn't.
* A series of carbon monoxide detector ads/[=PSAs=] in California serve as yet another example of the "this person forgot to buy a detector and now their child is dead!" variety of Scare 'Em Straight.
* A British carbon monoxide PSA shows a young woman coming home, turning on the gas heater and getting ready for bed. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR9QJo7BcYg Cut to the next morning, showing her pale corpse lying in bed....]] This was a deliberate scare campaign created after several cases of carbon monoxide-related deaths of university students in rented accommodation.
* A string of anti-obesity campaigns have been dominating the advertisements in New York City that are trying to convince people to cut back on sugar based drinks (soda, sweetened iced tea, etc). At first, the advertisements showed a group of young people eating a ton of sugar packets and then tells the viewers that you wouldn't eat this much sugar in a single day. The ads then became more aggressive like the anti-smoking ads by showing morbidly obese people being confined to a motorized scooter, suffering a heart attack in the hospital, and a person with diabetes whose feet has turned black and has to be amputated.
** The ads are backed by the city's mayor, Micheal Bloomberg, who wants to cut the obesity rate in the city (he managed to get trans fat banned in most eateries) and have also wanted to make super sized drinks (which most people use for soda) at eateries illegal. The move plus the ads have caused people to rebel against the entire campaign instead with the most common complaints being that the government doesn't have a right to determine what people can eat and drink.
* A UK PSA to discourage speeding which played on the radio went along these lines:
--> Sound of tires squealing, a crash, then silence.
--> [[CreepyChild Young child]]: "Hit me at 40mph, and there's an 80% chance I'll die. Hit me at 30mph, and there's a 80% chance I'll live."
--> Sound of tires squealing, a crash, silence... then a child begins to cry loudly.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjJCdBohRPk This UK PSA for seatbelts]]:
--> Voice-over: "Like most victims, Julie knew her killer..."
* There many advertisements telling people they can either adopt a pet or donate money to the ad's charity to help animals that were abused. Most of the time, the ads just shows the faces of the dogs or cats looking at the camera with sad eyes to tug at your heartstrings. The more aggressive forms of these ads will show animals in their actual abused state (bruising, starvation, etc.) and one ad even showed someone about to beat a seal to death with a wooden plank with the ad freeze framing right before the moment of impact. Animal cruelty is horrible, but people who can't afford to donate to charity will usually hate being guilt tripped by the aggressive ads and choose to ignore them.
* Anti-Cholesterol drug commercials have a pretty long history with this trope. For example, in early-2003, there was a series of commercials that would show otherwise healthy (and downright gorgeous) women suddenly collapsing once their "Cholesterol levels" (I use that in quotations since they were most likely just actresses) were displayed on screen.
* Northern Ireland's unsafe driving [=PSAs=] are ''grim''. The latest round don't utilise any fancy tricks or catchy tunes, preferring the heartbroken [[TalkingHeads talking-head]] testimonials of a bereaved mother and father (who break down on screen) or ''the translated moans of a paraplegic''. It'd be funny if it wasn't so traumatic.
* In Canada, the War Amps have intermittently aired a number of PSAs showing a child-looking robot engaged in energetic, parkour-like play in hazardous, science-fictional environments. They always end the same way: "I am Astar, a robot. I can put my arm back on. You can't, so play safe."
[[/folder]]

** Another [[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I98ySIVczG4 episode]] features Didi encouraging Lou to eat healthy in which he downright refuses, but when a video depicting the importance of heart healthiness that he is suggested to watch gets accidentally played in front of him, it convinces him well enough to change his eating habits, which starts out with Lou deciding to chow down on a dish of soybean casserole that Didi cooked for him.

* The [[IncrediblyLamePun godawful]] Christian play ''Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames''. It's a series of vignettes where people die and stand before the gates of Heaven. If they accepted Christ beforehand, they're allowed in. If not, cue the creepy music as some guy in a [[StarWars Darth Maul]] costume who talks like [[PowerRangers Lord Zedd]] comes out and drags the "heathen" off to Hell, whose only crime in many cases was skipping church. As one can imagine, the play is chock full of {{Narm}} to anyone who doesn't fear or believe in divine punishment, and [[DontShootTheMessage plenty that do]].

* [[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Benzaie]] got hired to make a PSA about seat belts. He made a Flipnote animation of [[VideoGame/{{Kirby}} Yarn Kirby]] turning into a car and crashing into a rock, causing his face to fly off and splatter against a boulder. [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/bt/benzaie/5-second-games/28493-kirbys-epic-yarn Watch it here.]]

** This character has gained a sort of tongue-in-cheek fame in finland. There is a famous children's song named after him that's basically 'stop telling boring stories!'

* The Finnish primary childrens' TV show had [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpjR5a7IXUU a segment]] in the '80s and '90s that seems to have been out to intentionally traumatize toddlers about thin ice. Featured were panic, UncannyValley animation, and music that was just plain wrong. Good thing, too - the way Finland is crammed full of nature means that each winter fills the country with open, inviting death traps. Falling through lake ice doesn't dick around but kills you in a hurry.

* In the Treegasm episode of ''UglyAmericans'', Mark has [[AnythingThatMoves Randall]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext convince a tree to stay with it's girlfriend]] by giving it a ''very'' long and ''very'' detailed account of his sexual history, culminating with "Oh, and also, my dick recently fell off. I don't know how I forgot that little chestnut."

** ''{{Cheating}}'', a short showing you that if you cheat once, the entire world will ''hate'' you.

* Played for laughs in ''WesterAnimation/AmericanDad'' where it shows a younger Hayley refusing to eat her vegetables until Stan tells her she needs to eat them in order to get strong and fend off sexual predator Bill Clinton. Stan then knocks under the table and say "Oh! I think he's here right now!", which causes Hayley to quickly finish her food out of fear.