Nightmare Fuel / Smiling Friends

Seen: Black-faced demon. Not seen: Blackface demon.

For a show about making people smile, it sure is dedicated to making people scared.

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"Desmond's Big Day Out":

• The very premise of having to cheer up a man threatening suicide, holding a gun to his own head the entire time.
• The grotesque 3D alien that the characters watch on the TV.
• Desmond's unintentional Breaking Speech to Pim.
• After failing to make Desmond smile, Charlie and Pim return to the office to find that it's in the middle of a "Bliblie" infestation, where the little purple creatures have swarmed the entire building and crucified Alan.
  Alan: I JUST WANTED MY CHEEEEEEESE!
• Desmond finally cleans up himself and starts a Bliblie extermination service, which entails killing the little things in the most inhumane ways possible. Shooting, stabbing, stomping, setting them on fire, you name it.
• All is well and good in the end (except for the emotionally-drained Pim, complete with Gross-Up Close-Up). And then the alien bursts out of the TV to thank everyone at home for watching while Charlie and Alan panic.

"Mr. Frog":

• Mr. Frog is a very, very problematic celebrity. If it's not putting a TMZ reporter in his mouth, it's yanking Pim's "hair" (which, seeing as the next episode confirmed that hair is actually an exposed nerve ending, must’ve been agonizingly painful), strangling a fan who he believes was insulting him, or dropping an undisclosed racial/ethnic slur on live television.
• The scene at Mr. Frog's private shooting range feels genuinely unnerving despite being one of the few times he doesn't hurt anyone. Watching the erratic celebrity play with bigger and bigger guns while getting high as a kite on some kind of purple drug creates a strong sensation of tension.
• The Boss cheers at Mr. Frog's return to television with a deranged look on his face. It doesn't help that the red sauce from the spaghetti he was eating messily spread around his face looks HEAVILY like blood.
• Mr. Frog finally gets his show back by apologizing on air... then eating the producer live, to rave reception. Everything seems to be just fine... until he rushes a TV hostess with a hammer.
  • The worst part about eating the producer is how instantaneous it is. All you get is a second's warning of him staring at the producer, before not even half a second later the man's devoured and Mr. Frog's chewing his food down. The blood doesn't even hit the floor before the man's dead, murdered in six frames of animation without even the opportunity to try to scream.
• Mr. Frog seems like he was designed to evoke a feeling of primal fear from the viewer. He has a very simple but humanoid design, acts with extreme aggression with little to no provocation and moves so. Damn. Fast. But the worst part is that despite being extremely dangerous, Mr. Frog is such a nice guy in a very disarming way. Until he eats you. Thank God this guy doesn't want anything more than to be an actor.

"Shrimp's Odyssey":

• There's a man in the apartment across from Shrimp's that's getting his head stomped in repeatedly until it's pink mush.
• Shrimp emerges from the dressing room clothed in a black leather jacket, black metal t-shirt and a panoply of edgy, Hot Topic-ish accessories. What makes this unnerving are Charlie's remarks.
  Charlie: You look like you're about to tell your friend not to come to school tomorrow, man.
• Shrimp's gross, red, blistery self after emerging from the tanning booth. He doesn't really seem all that affected by the issue. Even when an overweight customer takes a bite out of his head.
  Customer: Mmm...cooked shrimp.
• Charlie takes Shrimp to a gym to make an "alpha male" out of him. He makes the hopelessly out of shape nerd press extremely heavy weights without any warm-ups. Cue Shrimp's agonized scream.
• Pim's single hair is revealed to be an exposed nerve ending. Remember that Mr. Frog yanked it.
• Most of the In Memoriam gags are just photoshopped images, but Smormu's memorial is a drawing of his face as his corpse lays on a slab in a morgue. Looking at his expression and the bruises on his face, what happened to him?
• In the puppet remake of this episode that was released on April Fool's Day, Pim's fantasy about having a future with "Shrimpina" ends with the two of them dying together, only she's a skeleton that's still moving.

"A Silly Halloween Special":

• It turns out to be sound advice, but the Boss goes about his warning to Pim in quite a disturbing manner, complete with another Gross-Up Close-Up of his face.
  The Boss: WAIT! One more thing. Whatever you do...don't go beyond the rickety bridge.
  Pim, worriedly looking around: Why not?
  The Boss, breathing and towering over Pim: Because...you'll GET LOST!
• The Forest Demon. A stop-motion abomination with a serious Nightmare Face that stalks Pim through the Enchanted Forest. And is then killed, beaten, eaten and torched on the spot by everyone at the party because they thought he was in blackface.
  • Although the fact that the Forest Demon suddenly starting to speak English to defend itself is extremely hilarious because of how unexpected it is, the fact that the partygoers proceed to eat its corpse after they kill it makes it's death even more disturbing, given that the partygoers have no problems with eating a sapient being intelligent enough to understand concepts like racism and why wearing blackface is seen as offensive without a second thought.
    Charlie: See? That's exactly the reason why I don't dress up for Halloween. Right there. That's the reason.
• Pim's utter panic and terrors when he's being chased by the Forest Demon. Obviously, being scared while a demon is chasing you is normal, but Michael Cusack genuinely sounds like he's fucking terrified and running for his life. It's extremely distressing, to say the least.
  • Even before the demon shows up, Pim's desperate struggle to stay above the water when the storm blows him into a river is horrifying. He's barely able to keep his head up, gasping desperately for breath until the river mercifully pushes him towards the bank.
• After realizing he's being stalked inside the abandoned cabin, his imaginary children repeatedly chant for him to start running while his imaginary "exotic wife" turns into a horrific, wizened parody of his fantasy.
  Evil!Exotic Wife: YOU'lL NEVER ESCAPE! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE HERE, PIM!! BLAAAAGHH!!!
• The Boss's face as he's eating one of the demon's arms is straight up sleep paralysis material.
• The first real look at the Demon and everything leading up to it. A frantic, intense chase scene with a panicked, screaming Pim running for his life, a quiet moment where we see it approaching in the background...and then a sudden, genuinely terrifying Jump Scare.

"Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?":

• Century Egg's startling appearance, namely due to his red sclerae and irises and pitch black body, along with his constant agonized expression, thankfully he's completely harmless, but the situation he's in is also nightmarish, given that he's been locked inside of a secret room with no way to contact the outside world for who knows how long by his boss, just because the menu item that corresponded with him didn't sell very well.
  • The way the Century Egg hastily tries to dissuade Charlie from looking into a drawer filled with hard drives has a few disturbing implications.
• Some of the ways that the Mascots tried to kill Salty's corpse count as this, such as Salt & Pepper draining all the blood in his body with the vacuum machine they're in charge of using and the Fun Twins simultaneously pumelling him while also attacking him with a cattle prod.

"The Enchanted Forest":

• The witch's sudden, screaming appearance.
• Mip is accidentally Impaled with Extreme Prejudice on a spear before finally dying and dissolving into a grotesque heap of sludge.
• In a case of pure and utter Mood Whiplash, Mip's revealed to have been the Princess of the Enchanted Forest's stalker, having persistently followed her from two separate movings, and causing her to lose her ability to smile. Her revealing this to Charlie and Pim is treated as dead serious as possible, even more so as Mip's gift to her is revealed to be an IED, which neither Pim or Charlie picked up on.
  • Worst of all, this was inspired by an actual event.
    Charlie: Oh my god, that was a BOMB the whole time?!
    Pim: JESUS CHRIST!

"Frowning Friends":

• The Boss' complete and utter breakdown over the Frowning Friends' success shows an unhinged element to him that goes beyond anything previously shown, from imagining financial advisors with poor advice, to his own reflection urging him to go on a rampage, which borders on a psychotic Split Personality. It very nearly culminates with the Boss, huffing and snarling like a rabid animal, gunning down the Frowning Friends in a fit of maddened rage, if it weren't for Grim being a Dirty Coward when he's held at Boss' mercy.
• 3D Squelton is not pretty to look at. Thankfully, like Century Egg, he's completely harmless, and even kind of cute when he smiles.
• Pim and Charlie's horrified reactions to DJ Spit pointing a gun at them and screaming "Get out of me head!" It happens twice, with the second time being even more horrifying due Mr. Man's head shapeshifting into DJ Spit's head inexplicably, which feels like something out of a David Lynch film.
• Grim's speech from the Frowning Friends headquarters looks less like a TED Talk and more like a fascist rally. Complete with an off-hand call for genocide against Puerto Ricans that only momentarily discourages the crowd. Even Glep and Alan join them, arresting Charlie and Pim simply because the Frowning Friends have a better 401k plan.
  • Right after Grim and Gnarly discover the joys of smiling, they are shot dead with arrows by the Rennaissance Men. And nobody has an explanation as to who they are or why they came.

"Charlie Dies And Doesn't Come Back":

• Charlie's death. He gets his axe stuck in a tree trunk, and when he tries to yank it out the tree instead falls over and graphically crushes him, killing him instantly. Eesh.
  Pim: Careful, Charlie.
  Charlie: [Hitting the tree with an axe] Pim, I'm just helping out, right? Something that I never do according to you, right? Oh, is this- is this putting anyone in a bad mood, eh? Is this putting anyone in a bad moo- *CRUNCH*
• A demon welcomes Charlie to his eternal punishment, mere inches away from both his face and the screen. His "hell-toilet" is a living mouth, his "hell-mattress" is stitched together from skin and still twitching, and his hellish source of entertainment is...Jeremy.
• Jeremy can be this, due to his noodly appearance and oversized hands, plus the bizarre noises he makes, and while the first time he "entertains" Charlie is just hilarious, the second time is rather frightening due to him popping out of nowhere without any warning, although it quickly becomes hilarious again due to Charlie following through with his threat to punch him if he "entertains" him again.
• When Charlie walks across a frozen lake he encounters multiple damned souls with freaky, semi-mummified appearances embedded in it who all utter various threats at him in demonic voices. except for the very last one, who politely apologizes to Charlie because he couldn't think of anything to say, which Charlie assures him that's nothing to be sorry about.
• Satan's design is remarkably frightening, though softened by his depiction as a lazy, unmotivated PC gamer. Then Charlie points out how he's stuck in a cycle of short-term dopamine rushes and shit hits the fan HARD.
  Satan: ENOUGH!!! I'M NOT ADDICTED!!! I CAN QUIT MY ADDICTIVE VICES ANY TIME I WANT!!!
• Satan, naturally, dismisses his promise to Charlie that he'll let him return to the living if he can snap him out of his depression. A swarm of red Bliblies tie the critter to a rack, stab him with tiny pitchforks and a pissed-off Jeremy punches him in the face. Thankfully, God arrives just in time to rescue Charlie and throw him back into the land of the living.
  Charlie: I saw the Devil.

Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director's Cut)

• The episode ends with Mr Boss suddenly bursting into the rec room and having a psychotic breakdown/seizure as the others watch in screaming panic.
  • Even worse, this breakdown/seizure might have been happening for a while, according to a disturbing Seinfeldian Conversation Pim had with Charlie at the start of the episode:
    Pim: Hey, Charlie, have you seen the boss today?
    Charlie: Uhh, no. No, I haven't, what's up?
    Pim: I-I actually had this weird run-in with him recently, where I was-I was walking in the office and... and he cornered me and started like mumbling some-
    Charlie: Oh my god...
    Pim: Yeah, some like weird phrases. They weren't in English, and then... and then I didn't know what to say back and then he started screaming. Screaming like-
    Charlie: He screamed at you?
    Pim: ..screaming these sou-these sounds at me, and it- like he was stuck in a loop.
    Charlie: That's scary, dude.
    Pim: Yeah, it was-
    Charlie: That's really scary.
    Pim: It was the most- the most terrifying thing I've seen in my life.
• The abuse Charlie takes from James can be disturbing. At one point, he rips Charlie's nose off and then threatens to decapitate him when Charlie tries to call 911. What finally gets him to smile is murdering the CEO of Insane Groundbreaking Games by stabbing him through the forehead with a knife.
  • And then there's The Stinger of the episode; we see a miserable James sitting in his apartment crying over a photo of Charlie, telling himself that he "pushed away the one guy who gave a damn" about him. Some fans have openly compared this behavior to narcissistic behavior and Domestic Abuse.

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