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You wouldn't think that The Simpsons, a animated sitcom chronicling the lives and struggles of a realistic and relatable middle-class nuclear family and their many allies and adversaries, could be anywhere near thought-posioningly horrifying enough to have a page of this caliber, right? Think thrice.


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    Regular episodes 

  • "Flanders' Ladder" is creepy within itself. The fact the episode is a parody of The Sixth Sense makes this episode more intense. Then there's the half-disturbing, half-depressing scene at the end of the episode when Bart tells Lisa how they are going to die in a homage to Six Feet Under. It's really morbid, especially when Flanders' wall of pictures of his dead wives is shown, including Maude, Edna, and countless others. Creepy stuff.
  • In "The Nightmare After Krustmas", Maggie has terrifying visions of the toy gnome that Marge gave her for Christmas.
  • "Homer's Odyssey". Homer loses his job to circumstances that aren't entirely his fault, fails to find a new job, slips into a deep depression, and tries to kill himself. Marge finds his suicide note, and she and the family show up just in time to talk him out of it. What’s worse is that an old couple LAUGHS at Homer.
  • Krusty having a heart attack (in front of an audience consisting of several children) in "Krusty Gets Busted" was pretty jarring. The fact that the audience of kids thought it was part of his act and laugh/cheer arguably makes it worse. What's worse is that incidences of performers having heart attacks on stage have actually happened; e.g. the ukuleleist Tiny Tim, and British comedian Tommy Cooper (and in his case, it was not only fatal, but occurred on live television.) The Krusty scene is eerily similar to Tommy Cooper's death in that the audience thinks it's part of the show and laugh as he's dying.
  • Near the end of the flashback in "The Way We Was", it's heavily implied that Marge was almost sexually assaulted by her prom date Artie Ziff. He tries to grope her, and ends up tearing her dress sleeve and bra strap. 20 years later and he’s still a scumbag.
  • In "Bart's Dog Gets an F", the instructor demonstrates how to use a choke collar on the poor dog until he passes out. Even worse, there are dog owners like this in real life. Let's be glad it wasn't a SHOCK collar...
  • In "Blood Feud", after Homer fails to stop his angry letter from reaching Mr. Burns and Burns is just as enraged over it as he feared he would be, the following scene of Homer fretting and despairing over what Burns will do is not played for laughs at all. This isn't simply him worried about losing his job; Homer is deathly aware of the fact that he just made one of the most powerful men in Springfield his mortal enemy, and he is terrified of what Burns will do to him, the point that he seriously comtemplates fleeing town entirely in order to at least spare his family from Burns' wrath. And his fears are entirely justified: the following scenes show that Burns really was planning to take violent revenge on Homer before Smithers manages to talk him down.
  • "All Singing, All Dancing": Snake repeatedly holding the family hostage which creates an unsettling tone for a musical-based clip show. He's also one of the few characters to have pulled the trigger on all five Simpsons members (thankfully, he had no ammo). To make matters worse, Snake even fires said gun during the closing credits.
  • "The PTA Disbands": Bart's Troubling Unchildlike Behavior when school shut down.
  • "Bart Gets Famous": Lisa fantasizes about being incredibly successful and then impaling Bart on a trophy and when Bart tries to snap her back to reality, she doesn't want to because she's so happy.
  • "Bart of Darkness": The bit where the axe-wielding (not-)murderer Ned Flanders slowly walks up to the attic where Lisa is, humming "Mary Had A Little Lamb".
  • At the beginning of "Burns' Heir", Smithers places a wet sponge on Mr. Burns' head. Burns, being extremely frail, nearly drowns to death in his bathtub. The disturbing part comes when Smithers returns to the room, finds Mr. Burns apparently dead, mourns for him... and Mr. Burns wakes up and, experiencing a massive burst of anger-induced adrenaline and strength, nearly strangles Smithers to death with his bare hands, with an enraged look on his face he doesn't normally exhibit. As he's being choked, Smithers is clearly scared and in pain. Then we see Burns, who's usually depicted as being weak and thin, with all of the muscles in his chest tensed up, glowering at Smithers with a look of pure hatred, and he looks absolutely feral.
    • Not to mention Burns' plans for after he dies- he tells Smithers that he wants his loyal assistant Buried Alive with him. Smithers is understandably disturbed.
    • In a more subtle example, the plot is an eerie example of emotional abuse when Mr. Burns becomes a sort of father figure to Bart, and nearly manipulates Bart into thinking that Bart's real family no longer love or want him. It's a rare, disturbing example of a personal, psychological cruelty that Mr. Burns doesn't usually exhibit. The idea of an adult persuading a young child that his family no longer wants anything to do with him is horrific.
  • "Bart Sells His Soul", where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse, in one of the darkest episodes of the series as noted by many. Bart becomes a very Creepy Child pretty soon throughout the episode, eventually culminating in him threatening Ralph Wiggum.
    Bart: I need a soul, Ralph. Any soul. YOURS!
    • The scene when Chief Wiggum flashed the flashlight on Bart, and Bart hissed like a vampire was a bit unsettling.
    • Bart's own nightmare, where his soul can be seen working for Milhouse and he's left alone rowing in circles, unable to reach the magic castle on the island is kinda disturbing, too.
    • Bart's gradually-unfolding realization that selling his soul might have actually done something to him; he's unable to open the automatic door at the Kwik-E-Mart or fog up the glass with his breath, the family pets growl and hiss at him, and he totally loses his sense of humor.
      Bart: I know that's funny, but I'm just not laughing!
    • There's an extra-creepy undertone with Comic Book Guy describing the latest buyer of the paper (who, thankfully, turns out to be Lisa) as "most interested in having possession of a little boy's soul." It's at this point that Bart goes from merely frightened and desperate to scared shitless.
      Bart: I'm...afraid. I'm afraid some weirdo's got my soul and I don't know what they're doing to it.
  • "Bart the Daredevil" has an existential moment for Homer. No matter how young they are, you can't really control what your kids do, you can only attempt to persuade them through reasoning or threats. When it sinks in for Homer that it's literally impossible for him to prevent his 10-year-old son from making a doomed skateboard jump over Springfield Gorge, given that he's made up his mind to do it and doesn't care about punishments or potential consequences, he breaks down crying, saying Bart's "a goner" and "as good as dead."
    Bart: Hey, man, you can tell me not to do it, but there's no way you can watch me 24 hours a day. And the minute your back is turned I'm grabbing my skateboard and headin' for that gorge.
  • "Bart on the Road" also plays on adult fear, especially in the third act. In the episode proper, Bart uses a fake ID to rent a car and drive Milhouse, Nelson, and Martin down to Knoxville, TN and the four friends end up losing the car and their money, and are stranded far from Springfield. All the parents are tricked into thinking the kids were invited to a "grammar rodeo" and have no idea what's really happening to their children. Bart eventually confides to Lisa about the events that took place, who then tells Homer while they're at the power plant together. Before they come up with a plan however, Homer's (unsuccessful) attempt to conceal his explosive anger from his 8-year-old daughter is pretty creepy: his face turns red while ominous music plays.
    Homer: Yes, that's a real pickle. (red fades away) Would you excuse me for a moment? (screams bloody murder inside the radiation suit headgear) Okay, I have thought this through. I will send Bart the money to fly home, then I will murder him.
  • "Bart the Mother" gives us the (thankfully fictional) Bolivian tree lizard, which eats a bird's eggs and lays its own eggs in its place, leaving the mother bird to care for the eggs until they hatch and eat the mother too. In-universe, they're singlehandedly responsible for the extinction of the Dodo and several other species, and by the end of the episode, there's a booming population of them in Springfield. Nobody cares because they're keeping down the pigeons, and only Lisa is concerned about what will happen when they run out of pigeons.
  • "Bart the Murderer": The nightmare sequence from "Bart the Murderer", where Principal Skinner, who was reported missing and assumed dead thanks to Bart becoming a bartender for the Mob, appears as a corpse —first rising from the ground, then wearing Cement Shoes under a pond, then hanging in a freezer— pointing and shouting "YOU KILLED ME, BART!" Hell, even HOMER turned against his own son.
  • "Bart Vs. Thanksgiving": Bart's nightmarish Imagine Spot where he thinks his family, appearing borderline demonic, won't forgive him for what happened with Lisa's centerpiece.
  • "Black Widower":
    • During Selma and Sideshow Bob's wedding, Bart imagines Sideshow Bob as The Grim Reaper saying "I do".
    • It's heavily implied throughout the episode that Bob wants to kill Bart for exposing his original crimes. The license plates he makes in prison include words like "IH8Bart" and "BartDOA". Bob also says during dinner that if he wanted to kill Bart, he'd have choked the boy as soon as he walked in the Simpsons' front door in a Did I Just Say That Out Loud? moment. When the family is horrified, Bob quickly covers it up with a "Just Joking" Justification. In "Cape Feare" (see below) Bob actually follows through on trying to murder Bart.
  • "The Blunder Years":
    • Homer was hypnotized to age twelve. In the flashback when he pokes the stick into the drain to figure out where the water went and the decomposing (maggots and everything) corpse washes out and lands on top of him: it was Waylon Smithers Sr.
    • While it wasn't seen, Smithers Sr's death wasn't pretty.
      Mr Burns: Look at your heroic daddy in there. Making funny faces, falling to the floor, shedding his hair and... lying perfectly still.
    • Even worse, baby Smithers actually sees his father die right before his eyes. Granted, Smithers was young enough that he has absolutely no memory of this later on, but the way baby Smithers' smile fades as he watches this happen implies that he at least knew something was wrong.
  • In "The Man Who Came to Be Dinner" there was a scene with aliens giving birth over and over again, that also could qualify as Nausea Fuel.
  • "The Bob Next Door" combines this with Squick: After Sideshow Bob has drugged his cellmate, Walt Warren, unconscious, he carries him to a prison hospital, where he makes a surgical face and hair transplant. And no, it's not a comical one, but a rather sickly one: Bob uses a scalpel to cut a line around Walt's face and hair, then tears it off, revealing some blood and muscle. And even worse, when Bob has to do his own face and hair removal, surgically, on himself, he tries easing the pain with some alcohol, before piercing his own face on the dotted line, screaming and wincing in pain! And in a close-up, too! Worse still, there was no Discretion Shot or anything, the whole procedure was shown on camera!
  • "Boy Scoutz 'n the Hood": The end where Ernest Borgnine and the other Junior Campers get attacked by an unknown someone or something hiding in the woods (though the fact that they were at an "abandoned summer camp" coupled with some tell tale sound effects, can allow a reasonable guess to the assailant's identity).
    • On a more mundane level, Homer, Flanders, and their sons, stranded in the ocean on an inflatable raft, with very limited food and water (not helped by Homer consuming both frivolously.)
  • "Brother From The Same Planet": During a Nightmare Sequence earlier in the episode, Homer realizes he forgot Bart and dreams that he drove up to where Bart was supposed to be waiting and all there is left is a (spiky-headed) skeleton.
    • Following that, when Homer actually does pick up Bart, Bart is left speechless in anger as Homer attempts to pass off a very shoddy apology about how "they were both wrong". Bart slowly turns to Homer and imagines his eyes and the flesh on his face melting off like wax, until Homer asks "NOW HOW 'BOUT A HUG" in a horrifying voice. While some consider this a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, in context this scene conveys just how angry Bart feels from his own point of view. He loathes Homer so much at that point that he sees him as a disfigured monster. There's a reason it's the page image.
      • Worth noting: unlike your typical Indulgent Fantasy Segue, this one ends the scene and moves to the other plot without Cutting Back to Reality. It's hard to imagine this didn't confuse a few kids.
      • Made worse by the fact that the aforementioned image is associated with the "Dead Bart" Creepypasta (even though it's Homer).
  • "Marge Gets A Job":
    • Marge is sexually harassed by Mr. Burns, and it's skin-crawlingly creepy. It's really saying something that, out of all the horrible things he's done, this is one of Mr. Burns' most disturbing acts of villainy. And Burns' sexual harassment is actually depicted totally realistically. Later on in the episode, when Marge threatens to "sue the pants" off of him, Burns retorts that she "doesn't need to sue him to get his pants off," and he growls at her lecherously. Even worse, in later episodes, Marge is still shown to be angry about the entire experience, implied that she may have actually been traumatized by Burns' treatment of her.
    • Although Played for Laughs, the drugging and kidnapping of Tom Jones is disturbing, as well, especially when Smithers prods a gun to his back and says in an eerily soft, cheerful voice, "Big smile, everyone's happy." The episode ends with Tom Jones performing for Homer and Marge against his will, his ankles chained up, as he quietly begs them to help him.
    • Near the beginning of the episode, a retirement party is held for an elderly employee at the plant named Jack Marley. The thing is, Jack never wanted to retire, and he claims that his job is the only thing in his life that's worthwhile, and without it, he'd have nothing to live for. In one of Burns' cruelest actions in the series, Mr. Burns coldly declares that he doesn't care in the least. To reiterate, Mr. Burns was perfectly willing to drive a man to suicide for little to no reason. Fortunately, Jack Marley shows up as a background character in later episodes, but it's disturbing to think that Burns nearly made a man kill himself by taking away the only thing in his life that mattered to him.
  • "Cape Feare":
    • Bob's prison tattoo of Bart's severed, bloody head on a skateboard saying, "Ouch, man!"
    • Homer twice scaring Bart (who's already fearing for his life because of Sideshow Bob) before bed. Particularly, the silhouette of Homer's head as he's holding the knife, with glowing yellow eyes.
    • The episode's whole plot is disturbing. While we see Bob suffer as a Butt-Monkey, the fact remains that he's trying to stalk and murder a ten-year old child for exposing his original crimes. It was foreshadowed in Black Widower (see above), but the scene when Bob surprises Bart in his bedroom, holding a large knife, is chilling.
  • "Children of a Lesser Clod": Ralph getting trapped in Homer's scabbing knee injury.
    Homer: It knows you're afraid.
  • "Eight Misbehavin": after meeting the mascot of ShĂžp, the following exchange occurs.
    Alan Wrench: "You put it together yourself! All you need is me, Alan Wrench!"
    Homer: "He's named after what he is!"
    Bart: "Hey, cool costume!"
    Alan Wrench: [Robotic voice] "It's not a costume. They found me inside a meteor."
    Marge: Excuse me, where do you keep your hamper lids?
    Alan Wrench: [Normal voice] "Hamper lids? Uh, third floor." [Robotic, to Bart] "Help! I need tungsten to live! Tungsten!"
  • "Fraudcast News":
    • When Mr. Burns tries to get Lisa to sell her newspaper, he offers her some cute little ponies in exchange. When she refuses, they hiss at her, revealing sets of pointy teeth and lizard tongues.
    • Earlier in the episode, Mr. Burns ends up being Buried Alive during a rock avalanche. He was apparently trapped underground for days. Granted, he doesn't seem too rattled by the ordeal, but the image of him trapped underground is disconcertingly claustrophobic. Worse, Burns' dialogue implies that if he hadn't found insects and a mother mole's milk to feed on, he would have starved to death underground.
  • "Funeral for a Fiend": During Sideshow Bob's trial in this clip, when his parents reveal that their son has a congenital heart defect, and they put the blame on Bart, the boy tries responding that Bob is a Manipulative Bastard. It gets a thousand times worse at the 56-second mark, when he angrily pulls a nitroglycerin vial (for his heart defect) out of his pocket with an "I didn't want to use this, but you've left me no choice!" Chief Wiggum sees that the nitroglycerin is a "bomb" and the crowd panics, but Bart snatches the vial and tosses it out of the window. Bob becomes horrified when he has lost the medicine and cries out, with a pained look on his face, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAAAAND! I- I-" And then his body goes out of control as he wobbles around, still clutching his chest in a dizzying manner, before his body collapses and falls onto the floor in a lifeless pose (oh, and the unsettling music doespn't help matters either). Sure, the nitroglycerin-as-medicine thing is all a ploy, and Bob gets better thanks to the "fake death" IV anesthesia his father, Dr. Robert Terwilliger Sr., had discreetly administered to him when he collapsed during the trial so that he can later wake up in an effort to incinerate his Arch-Enemy in his coffin, but still, watching Bob in a pretense of agony as he falls into a temporary deathlike state like that is very unsettling, especially for kids.
  • "Future-Drama": Professor Frink's skeleton is shown hanging in his lab in the future, implying that he committed suicide and that no-one either noticed or cared enough to bother to look into his disappearance.
    • One of the other future scenarios was "Flander's Revenge", where we get to see Homer being impaled by Ned Flanders sporting a psychotic grin.
  • "Gone Maggie Gone": Marge staring at the solar eclipse and burning her retinas. Unlike some disfigurements in the show, this one is not treated as a joke: Marge screams in pain as her retinas give a sickening crackle noise. Even worse, she spends the entire episode blind.
  • "The Great Louse Detective":
    • Near the beginning of the episode, Homer has an Asian masseuse walking on his back, when she suddenly starts SINKING into it like it's quicksand, trying to pull herself free as she cries for help. The scariest part about that whole scene is Homer's completely nonchalant tune as he tells her not to struggle or she'll sink faster. Then it cuts to the next scene and is never talked about again. Has that happened to other people before? What happened to the lady?
    • Also scary is the thought of an old enemy, or a friend/family member of an old enemy getting revenge on Homer because of something he did. It's scary because this actually can happen in real life. Imagine you think your enemy is gone for good but several years later, you realize that the old enemy of yours has come back for revenge, or worse, a friend or family member of your old enemy has come for revenge. It's the unnerving thought to think about.
    • Although it's almost instantly softened by the fact that he can't go through with it (and sings a Villain Song about it), Sideshow Bob catches a very quick wave of Villain Decay reversal and reminds us why he was scary in the first place when he hides in Bart's bedroom until Homer leaves, then tapes up his mouth and attempts a quick disposal by stabbing. For once, Bart doesn't cheat death by either being rescued or pulling a clever eleventh-hour trick: he gets to live simply because Bob himself suddenly decides not to kill him. In other words, Bart's Plot Armor is the only reason that his family doesn't go to sleep suspecting nothing and wake up to find him dead and bleeding in his own bed.
      Sideshow Bob: Now I'm going to take some advice that was given to me by Lenny and kill you without delay.
  • Bart having a heart attack in The Heartbroke Kid. When he enters the living room for a Couch Gag, Bart begins moaning and groaning in pain and complains how it feels like his heart is "caught in a vice" as he falls straight to the floor from a heart attack. Doubles as a Tear Jerker as evidenced by his family rushing over to him with worried expressions on their faces to see if he's okay.
  • "Homer Alone": Two scenes of Marge getting angry: First after Marge stops the car at school she turns to them with an angry look on her face and says in a demonic voice "Get Out" Which Bart and Lisa do so very quickly. Another moment is where Marge goes berserk after Maggie spills milk on her by mistake causing her to swerve the car in front of the bus on the bridge the bus driver asks what's wrong with her but Marge roars at him like a lion causing the bus driver to get back on the bus.
  • "Halloween of Horror": The only canonical Halloween episode, it has a home invasion played completely straight. Three men, who got fired because Homer revealed they were stealing, decide to take revenge while Homer and Lisa are home, forcing the two of them to hide in the attic.
    • A lot of what happens at the Krustyland Halloween Horror Night. Lisa bumps into a zombie in costume, which then TEARS ITS OWN FACE OFF right in front of her, freaking her out. As Homer walks with Lisa through a zombie horde, Lisa is terrified to see she's holding a zombie's hand. Then when Lisa tries telling a random woman she's lost, she gets threatened with a chainsaw from the child with her. A face bursting out of the chest of the guard Lisa tries talking to right after that. It's hard to blame Lisa for huddling on the ground, utterly terrified and surrounded by zombies.
  • "Homer and Lisa Exchange Crosswords": "No... I'm not mad."
  • "The mark of evil upon Cain's face in "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass".
  • "Homer vs. Lisa and the Eighth Commandment": What better way is there to instill the fear of eternal damnation into the viewer than with a vision of your family, blissfully ignorant of their surroundings, suddenly watching their stolen cable TV within the bowels of hell?
    Devil: C'mon, Lisa. Watch a little cable with us. It won't cost you a thing. EXCEPT YOUR SOUL!
  • "Homer's Enemy": Frank Grimes' complete mental breakdown and slow descent into insanity throughout the episode.
    Frank Grimes: Extremely High Voltage? [Well, I don't need safety gloves, because I'm Homer Simps-
  • "Homer Goes to Prep School": The Gainax Ending where a meteor is shown heading for Springfield and it's covered with zombies.
  • "Homer Loves Flanders": Homer randomly emerges through Flanders' hedge accompanied by creepy music.
  • "Homer the Heretic": God help you if you're pyrophobic during the end of this episode. Homer skips church for the second time in a fortnight and falls asleep with a lit cigar in his mouth, igniting some magazines on the floor. By the time he's woken up, the whole house is engulfed in flames. Just think about that. Homer is asleep, in a house fire. Only when the fire ignites his two hairs does he wake up. Luckily for Homer, Ned returns from church and is able to save him before the fire department arrives. This is made all the worse because it's Truth in Television. Smoking while lying down and not putting out the cigar/cigarette properly (in this case, at all) is one of the leading causes of smoking-related fatalities because of how easily they can start fires.
  • "Homer the Moe": The jukebox in Moe's bar gets stuck, leading Homer to imitate Fonzie by smashing it. Unlike Fonzie, he cuts his hand and bleeds out in spectacular fashion.
    • Moe's former bartending school professor also drowns himself right in front of him.
  • "Homer the Smithers": After a montage of getting berated by Mr. Burns, Homer actually punches Burns, hard enough that it seems like he killed him, leaving Homer muttering in fear before running away. From the punch to the panic, the scene is silent until "Psycho" Strings start to play. It's extremely frightening because up until this point, we were amused at Homer struggling to keep up as an assistant.
    • It's followed up by Burns extremely shaken and terrified from Homer's punch, even when Homer tries to apologize, and being alone with Smithers far away on vacation. Even an attempt to call for help fails by accidentally ringing Moe who presumes it to be another prank and threatens Burns.
  • "The Homer They Fall": Homer is in the ring with Heavyweight Boxing Champion Drederick Tatum. Up to this point, Homer has withstood blows from other boxers and even three thugs with weapons without even a wince. But one blow from Tatum is enough to daze him and send him reeling. His wife Marge understandably freaks, screaming for someone to stop the fight, and even Grampa, whose relationship with his son is tenuous at best, exclaims in horror that his son will die on his feet. The whole sequence is very reminiscent of the tragic scene in Rocky IV.
  • "Hurricane Neddy": Ned Flanders exploding with decades of pent up anger after he witnesses the half-assed attempt the town made to rebuid his house after a hurricane:
    • After he finishes laying into everyone, he proceeds to get into his car, drive away completely ignoring his family, and sing "Aloha Oe" as he drives off to a mental hospital (as in, barreling straight through the iron gate) to commit himself in an act of admittance towards the fact that he's completely lost his mind from the stress that the ordeal and the years of mistreatment has put him through.
  • "I Am Furious (Yellow)": Homer Hulking Out. Yeah, it's followed by the heaviest dose of Nightmare Retardant of all time (not least of which is Bart saying, "Thank God his pants stayed on"), but Homer screaming in pure, unbridled fury can be incredibly jarring with just how genuinely, hellishly enraged he sounds.
  • Marge's Sanity Slippage, especially in the third act, is especially disturbing in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Marge", considering, you know, it's MARGE. GOING INSANE.
  • "Kamp Krusty". The dilapidated buildings and canoes are certainly scary enough for the kids (not to mention the idea of three school bullies-cum-local teenaged thugs — one of which is actually a father, though Kearney does love and care for his son more than the other kids — being assigned as counselors), and there's also plenty of worries at the idea of your kids being sent to such a death trap with an In Name Only Money, Dear Boy connection to a popular children's celebrity.
  • "Krusty Gets Kancelled": By the end of Krusty's failed ventriloquist act Alphonse the Dummy looks... rather scary. Understandably, the poor kids were horrified.
  • "Lard of the Dance": Homer's eye popping after his face is sucked inside the hose and during his fight with Willie. Doubles as Nausea Fuel.
  • In "Large Marge", when Marge was trying to hold Maggie but her breasts were so big Maggie got scared from her point of view and there is ominous music being played in the background.
  • "Last Exit to Springfield" has the series of pictures of what Lisa could look like without braces. The last one depicts her teeth being so bad that one tooth goes through her skull.
    Bart: Cool, she'll be a freak!
  • "Last Tap Dance in Springfield": Homer gets laser eye surgery, but forgets (read: doesn't want to spend any further money) to use his prescribed eye drops immediately after. Both eyes are instantly engulfed by thick, foot long crusts. The whole thing is made less disturbing (or more, if you think that Homer is being kidnapped) with the scene of Kearney and his hoodlum friends taking Homer to buy Jack Daniels and smokes, and then completely forgotten about after act one.
  • "Lemon of Troy": During the climax, a guard dog runs at the Springfieldians, who manage to make it into Flanders' RV and shut the door just in time. The dog slams into the door and makes an imprint of its jaws. The dog holds its position and tries to chew through the folds of the ruined door, which makes an unsettling creaking sound as it almost gives in.
  • "Lisa's First Word": clown bed, Homer made for Bart when he was a toddler.
    Clown Bed: (with fake cheerfulness) If you should die before you wake... (Evil Laugh)
    Bart: Can't sleep, clown will eat me. Can't sleep, clown will eat me.
  • The Boys Of Bummer: Just the fact that such a seemingly cheerful, quirky town like Springfield would do something so heinous as what they did to Bart alone counts as this, especially to a number of long-time Simpsons fans who saw the episode for the first time. The intense cruelty that Bart faces in this episode unfortunately happens in real life, especially when social media is thrown into the mix. Even worse, plenty of people have died because of this.
  • "Lisa's Pony": Lisa's scream when she finds her horse in her bed (in a Shout-Out to The Godfather).
  • "Lisa's Wedding" has the running gag of people revealing themselves as robots when they cry, short-circuit and go up in flames. Seeing a human head catch fire, burn and melt into goop is quite disturbing, as is the fact that nobody seems to really care.
  • "Little Big Mom": The wild deer turning feral and about to murder Lisa until she's unintentionally saved by a ranger. What's worse is they act cute when they are near the ranger. And to top it all off, they give Lisa one last menacing glare while the ranger isn't watching.
  • "Marge vs The Monorail": Burns and Smithers debate where to dump their nuclear waste. Burns is against dumping it in the park because "All those bald children are raising suspicions". Not "three-eyed children". Not "glowing children". Bald children. Whatever side-effects those poor kids have suffered from Burns' negligence isn't the usual Simpson-esque fantasy, but something very real.
    • Not to mention, the near-fatal monorail accident...
    • The scene where Marge goes to North Haverbrook, one of the previous towns where conman Lyle Lanley installed a monorail. She finds that it's become a damaged Ghost Town full of faded evidence of the same monorail fever currently gripping Springfield, with only a handful of traumatized residents left and the wreckage of its own monorail still on view.
      Waitress: (at pickup window) Go away! There ain't no monorail and there never was! (She slams down a blind that reads MONORAIL CAFE)
  • "My Fare Lady": Marge quits her Ride Service job and gives Moe's the smile from her car's grill, to brighten up his refurbished bar. But just before the credits, the grill ornament suddenly animates and tells Moe he's not alone anymore. When Moe questions what the hell's going on, it eerily replies, "Ohhh, you'll find out..."
  • "My Sister, My Sitter": Bart doing everything he can to upset Lisa, getting injured and trying to make his injury worse, eventually falling unconscious
 followed by Lisa's nightmarish odyssey to get him to a doctor, resulting in the whole town thinking she’s on drugs and killed Bart.
  • In "Marge On the Lam," Homer getting his arm caught in a vending machine at work while trying to steal soda. Carl tells him to be careful because someone lost an arm doing the same thing, which Homer dismisses as an old wives' tale. When a shot shows Homer's hand moving through the works, we see an entire skeletal arm pitifully clutching a can of Fresca. (The fact that, when emergency personnel show up, amputation by saw blade is their immediate suggested solution makes it easy to understand how this happened. If Homer's case is anything to go on, all his less-fortunate predecessor would have had to do was let go of the can.)
  • As sympathetic as Moe is throughout "Moe Baby Blues," the situation when considered from the perspective of Homer and Marge is the stuff of horror films. A sad, lonely, somewhat odd friend of Homer's saves their baby's life, and they're so grateful that they let him bond with her by becoming her babysitter, even as he increasingly starts to betray an obsession with their child, overstepping his boundaries by infringing on their roles as parents and claiming to know their daughter better than they do. One night they find he's actually broken into their house after leaving a camera and a baby monitor in her room unbeknownst to them, letting him know when she's crying at night. They, naturally, are so creeped out that they forbid him from ever having contact with her again—and that's all before Maggie disappears from her crib...!
  • "New Kids on the Blecch": Yvan eht nioj, yvan eht nioj, yvan eht nioj...
  • "Papa Don't Leech": Homer dreaming about suffocating Grampa after a car accident. It was meant to be a funny parody of a similar scene from an episode of The Sopranos, but it was still disturbing and a sign that the days of the Simpsons writers doing the kind of dark humor that emphasizes the "humor" part are done.
  • "The Parent Rap": The scene where Bart drags a tethered Homer across the baseball field. By the time Bart reaches home base, he's rather justifiably horrified when he looks back to see a dazed and bloodied Homer saying to him "Come on, hug me."
  • "24 Minutes": Bart carves the phrase "death before homework" into his arm with a knife. That's right, a child willingly injuring himself with a sharp object in a slow and painful fashion. One of the darkest moments in the series.
  • "Peeping Mom": Bart gets executed by electric chair. His eye pops out with the optic nerve.
  • "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'": Mr. Burns kicks Bart into a heavy crate which falls off the boat they're on and fills with water as Bart sinks, with Abe racing against time to rescue him.
  • "Realty Bites": Snake is spanning a wire over a road with the intention of decapitating Homer when he comes driving along. Luckily, that doesn't work out. What it does accomplish however is completely severing off Kirk van Houten's arm! (In a later scene, we briefly see him with his arm now complete again in a bandage - but still...)
    • The bits and pieces of the story behind the Murder House, which includes a "torso heap" in front of the fireplace.
  • "Rosebud": The ending, where we see, in a distant future, men (or rather, several Homer clones) are slaves to apes, Mr. Burns is still alive in some strange robotic life support machine, and Smithers's head is grafted onto a robo-dog's body, followed by the disturbing music that plays whenever there's chaos or a riot on the show.
  • "Selma's Choice": Selma takes Bart and Lisa to Duff Gardens after Homer falls ill from food poisoning. The trio are on this "It's A Small World"-esque ride called, "The Little Land of Duff," with robot kids from all over the world singing, "Duff Beer for me/Duff Beer for you/I'll have a Duff/You have one too..." Bart dares his sister to drink the water. Lisa is then forced to drink it by Selma and Lisa begins tripping — first, she sees the Little Land of Duff robots fading away, then Lisa begins rambling, "They're all around me! No way out! NO WAY OUT, I TELL YOU!", and finally, Lisa sees Selma as a Medusa-like creature with multiple eyes and a snarling mouth for a shoulder. Lisa then screams and tries to beat Bart and Selma with an oar. Also counts as a funny moment.
  • "Separate Vocations": Snake attempting to run over and kill Bart with his car, while Bart screams in terror and covers his eyes as he braces for being hit.
  • "Simple Simpson" has Homer, who is dressed as a secret identity superhero, the Pie Man, get shot in the arm by Chief Wiggum for his troubles. He the decides to dig the bullet out of his arm himself and while successful, he casually names all the areas of his body that he feels with his knife while getting it out, including bone, muscle and artery.
  • "Simpsons Bible Stories": The Apocalypse, especially since the Simpsons go to hell, while the Flanderses go to heaven.
  • "Simpson Safari": DIAMONDS!!!
  • "Some Enchanted Evening":
    • Marge. Twice. First, she growls at the kids with a menacing face when they ask her for dinner. Then, her eyes turn demon red while she is waiting for Homer to return home.
    • The "Babysitter Bandit".
  • "Summer of 4 ft. 2": Lisa imagines literary characters coming to life inside a library and enticing her inside. When Alice tries inviting Lisa to a tea party, she then immediately starts warning Lisa to get away before the Mad Hatter pulls a gun to her head.
  • "A Tale Of Two Springfields": A badger mauls Homer and it appears it tore open his stomach.
    Homer: What am I, a tailor?
  • "Team Homer": Mr. Burns (high on ether), drilling Moleman's head off-screen.
  • "There's No Disgrace Like Home": Homer's hellish vision of his dysfunctional family compared to the family of another worker.
  • "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again": The breakdown of civilization on board the ship after ten days due to Bart's prank to extend the family's vacation forever, with no regard given to the consequences of his actions whatsoever. Made even more grimly ironic as the cruise started out as the funnest thing ever, but descended into a floating hellhole. It's even implied that some passengers have reverted to cannibalism.
  • The Mysterious Voyage Of Homer". Homer eats several hot chili peppers and hallucinates, causing him to go on a mysterious voyage.
    • In the same episode, after spending the whole episode desperately looking for his soulmate and believing he'd found one in the lighthouse keeper only to find out it's just a computer, Homer sees a ship heading towards Springfield. Believing they'll "have to be his friend" if they come to him, he smashes the light so that the ship will crash into the lighthouse. We see him not long after standing in the dark cackling to himself while he awaits the inevitable.
    Homer: Hehehehe. Well, I won't be lonely for long! Hehehehe HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
    • The music that plays during Homer's laughing fit is just disturbing. It perfectly shows that for that moment, he'd completely lost it.
    • Something that makes it even scarier is that it's likely Homer knew exactly what was going to happen if the ship did crash into the lighthouse and that he'd just had enough and wanted to end it all while telling himself he wouldn't be lonely anymore.
  • "Trilogy of Error": The scene where Marge accidentally cuts Homer's thumb (and with blood squirting out) is surprisingly dark for a Simpsons episode that isn't part of the Treehouse of Horror series.
  • "When Flanders Failed": Homer's Evil Laugh after he wins the wishbone contest, complete with an ascending Scare Chord. That is, until he starts choking on his hamburger. (His wish: The Leftorium going out of business.)
  • "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One": The ending of the episode has a very creepy feeling to it. It depicts triumphant Burns walking down the dark street with action cutting to various characters noticing odd details (Smithers forgetting his jacket, Skinner forgetting his mom at the town hall, Marge not being able to find other family members). One scene depicts a box in which Marge buried Grampa’s gun lying empty near a dug hole and being overturned by a gust of wind. The feeling of something bad forthcoming is almost palpable. And then Burns get shot...
    • To say nothing of the scene at the meeting when you get to see how many characters brought guns to that meeting with the intent to kill Burns. Sideshow Mel brought a knife, which isn't exactly comforting either.
  • "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two": When Mr Burns can only say Homer's name after waking from his coma, it makes everyone think he shot him, not helped by the time the mob finds him, where he's practically strangling Mr. Burns whilst ranting at him to tell everyone that he didn't do it. Further made worse, as Mr. Burns chooses that moment to snap out of his daze and ask who the hell he is, causing Homer to completely snap, grab a nearby gun and hold it to Mr. Burns's head, visibly shaking with rage.
    Homer: Say it, Burns! SAY I NEVER SHOT YOU... before.
    • Not to mention the ending where it's heavily implied that Maggie shot Mr. Burns intentionally as she starts shiftily looking around, all while a Scare Chord goes off and her pacifier sounds are replaced by gunshot sounds.
  • "The Springfield Files", with its ominous nighttime shots, spindly alien, and liberal use of The X-Files theme, is pretty damn creepy at times.
  • "Yokel Chords": The story Bart makes up to scare the other kids during lunch in one episode, about the murderous cafeteria cook Dark Stanley who killed the children who made fun of him and cooked them into a soup. The bizarre switch in animation during this segment doesn't help. Even worse, it's implied by some dialogue at the end that Dark Stanley was real!
  • In "The Last Traction Hero", Lisa had arranged where everyone sits on the bus. Bart warned her that everyone is not happy with it. Cue "The Night On Bald Mountain".
  • "Marge Vs. SSCCATAGAPP" features a cultural reference to the "Weeping Frenchman" photo during a montage. In execution, it manages to make Milhouse's face look unsettling.
  • "The Girl Code" kicks off with an Imagine Spot where Homer is so starved at work, he faints into a nuclear vat, and we're treated to his body graphically dissolving.
  • "Lady Bouvier's Lover": When the family celebrating Maggie's birthday, there's a surprisingly unnerving shot of Homer, Lisa, and Patty gleefully taking pictures of her, where they appear as ghostly cyclops with their mouths agape. No wonder poor Maggie looked so terrified of them!
  • "Gone Boy", in which Bart goes missing after peeing in the woods, is played relatively straight. The police's normal incompetence only makes Marge angry and there's an overall sense of doom. It really says something when Sideshow Bob attempting to murder Bart (again) is the least worrying part of the episode.
  • "A Serious Flanders" has Kostas Becker, aka the debt collector, who basically walks right out of a serious drama and acts as a Knight of Cerebus throughout the entire two-parter. After violently murdering the Rich Texan, chopping him to pieces and ripping his face off, he single-handedly kills Fat Tony's crew in a bloody shoot-out, before killing Fat Tony by putting his head in a donut maker. He also forces Ned into hiding for three years, only to shoot him once Marge unintentionally reveals his hiding spot. He has almost no funny scenes or jokes, and is probably the most serious villain to step foot in Springfield.
  • In "My Life as a Vlog", after their family vlog career leads them to the dark side of fame, the Simpsons start hyping up an announcement... only to abruptly disappear. Cue various conspiracy theories on what happened to them. As it turned out, the panic room in their new mansion had a design flaw, leaving them trapped with no hope for freedom and forcing them to live off of the sponsored products they had been taking for granted. They're only saved after the other Springfield residents find out where they lived and raided the mansion.
  • "Homie the Clown": Homer gets way too in-character as Krusty and gives a genuine No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the actor playing the Krusty Burglar, bashing his head against the asphalt before delivering some very crunchy punches that are very much not just acting, to the point Homer has to be hauled away while the Krusty Burglar's actor begs for medical attention. All of this in front of a group of now-traumatized children who just wanted to watch a fun and harmless skit featuring their favorite fast-food mascots.

    Couch gags 
Even the couch gags aren't safe from the occasional moments of Nightmare Fuel!
  • The "Mobile Homer" couch gag has the Simpsons sit down per usual, only to have Homer take off his mask and reveal Sideshow Bob underneath. Bob then proceeds to chase Bart offscreen with a knife, while Marge, Lisa, and Maggie cower on the sofa in terror. The intense "Psycho" Strings don't help. Watch it here, if you wish.
  • A season 9/10 couch gag had a live-action hand spinning the image around and distorting it. Especially creepy when watching it the first time...
  • Another couch gag features the Simpson family sitting down, only to discover too late that it's the lure of an angler fish (a la Finding Nemo) that devours them and swims away.
  • A particularly disturbing one features the Simpson family rushing to the couch as usual, only to suffer Rapid Aging and crumble into dust.
  • "Clown In the Dumps" has a couch gag guest directed by Don Hertzfeldt, and yes, it's just as weird and disturbing as all of his other shorts. Watch it here. Highlights include:
    • Homer convulsing in pain and undergoing a horrific transformation just (thankfully) offscreen when he accidentally fast-forwards all the way to the 106th century. Special mention goes to once his limbs turn into cephalopod arms, abruptly making him seem less human.
    • Future Bart and Future Lisa are hideously deformed mutants who can only communicate by yelling "Don't have cow, man!" and "I am Sampsan!" respectively.
    • Future Marge shouting things like "ALL HAIL THE DARK LORD OF THE TWIN MOONS." and "ALL ANIMALS CAN SCREAM."
  • "Marge's Son Poisoning" and "Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play" begin with a particularly nasty couch gag, wherein all the couches and seating furniture come to life, and attack the citizens of Springfield. The Simpsons are menaced and pursued by their couch, which has sprouted More Teeth than the Osmond Family. Sherri and Terri are devoured by their beanbag chair. Frink nearly getting shot at by a futurisitc hover couch. Moe getting drunk and trying to fend off the advancing bar stools and booths in his tavern, with his odds not looking great. And Homer, rather idiotically, attempts to seek shelter in the local couch store, only for all the couches present to lunge and pile on top of him. Given what transpires, and the eerie music that ends it, many have wondered if this was meant to precede a "Treehouse of Horror" episode.
  • "MoneyBart" features an infamous couch gag, courtesy of Banksy, where the cheery world of The Simpsons cuts back to show a dark and dreary sweatshop, with poor souls who are made to mass-produce Simpsons merchandise. Animators toil away to create cells for the cartoon, with noticeable piles of bones and toxic waste around them. The stuffing for Bart Simpson dolls is manufactured from kittens that are fed into a woodchipper. A sickly unicorn is chained and has its horn used to puncture holes in DVDs. And to top it all off, the shot cuts back to reveal the sweatshop is located inside the 20th Century Fox logo, redesigned to resemble a prison.
  • The couch gag in "What to Expect When Bart's Expecting" made by MichaƂ Socha, (also known as Inside Homer), has the Simpson family going into a nightmarish trip through Homer's body, one rife with various disturbing visuals.
  • The couch gag in "Mathlete's Feat" crosses over with Rick and Morty...where Morty accidentally crashes Rick's spaceship into the Simpsons, splattering them into yellow goop. Rick then collects some goop in a vial and sends Morty to some kind of alien Kinkos to get them cloned. However, the cloning turns out to be a failure and the Simpsons are cloned as hideous mutants because Rick kept the vial clean with his own spit. And to top it all off, Rick shoots Flanders with a freeze gun when he walks into the wreckage, and the Frozen Ned falls over and shatters when the two leave.
    Bart: No more guest animators, man!
  • The couch gag in "Dad Behavior", in which the entire family manages to die on the way home from school/work, except for Bart (who happily settles down on the couch with the remote). Most unsettling is Marge and Maggie drowning after Maggie drives the car into a lake, and Marge's body floating to the surface.
  • The couch gag called Homer's Face, which has some Body Horror...
  • The couch gag in "Bart's New Friend" features Homer, Marge, and Bart as the Three Bears, discovering Lisa as Goldilocks sleeping on their couch. This results in a Big Ball of Violence followed by a rather disturbing scene of Goldilocks!Lisa and Bear!Marge and Bart eating Bear!Homer (and then a reveal that it's actually a story that Homer was reading to a traumatized Maggie, so it's also Nightmare Fuel in-universe).
  • The appearance of Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War in the couch gag for "The Girl on the Bus". With a snap of his fingers, Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa suffer the same fate as many Marvel heroes note , which is fading away into dust.

    The Itchy and Scratchy Show 

The premise of the show is a sociopath plotting to murder his best friend for no reason, typically with loads of gorn.

  • The "Scratchtasia" segment that Bart and Lisa watch in "Itchy & Scratchy Land". Scratchy chops up Itchy to a microscopic, airborne-particle size, only to be literally turned into dust from the inside out by the invincible, axewielding Itchies after breathing them in.
    • The animatronic characters going berserk at the end (a la Westworld) was unsettling as well.
  • The Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, which in addition to sporting a picture-perfect, shot-by-shot parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, is where Itchy breaks any possible barriers by slicing Scratchy at the waist with some planet rings, followed by yanking his helmet off, causing his head to blow up like a balloon, and then popping his head with a pin, causing blood to splatter on the TV screen in the form of the words "The End". Even harder to watch for Homer, who had a space travel ahead.
    The preceding program contained scenes of extreme violence and should not have been viewed by young children.
  • Itchy and Scratchy has countless more examples. When Scratchy was showing off his new muscles at the gym, Itchy assumes they are fake inflatable muscles. So he tries to pop them with a pin, and they do not deflate. Itchy, for no reason, decides to stab Scratchy with the needle a couple hundred more times, until Scratchy faints from blood loss. Itchy then starts dissecting Scratchy with a chainsaw, starting with the skin... and he stops halfway through for an in-episode Product Placement commercial break.
  • Another Itchy and Scratchy episode had Scratchy apply to be Itchy's apprentice in a glass blowing shop. Itchy shoves Scratchy into the furnace and starts to blow him out like a piece of glass as he screams. Itchy pulls him out and Scratchy says "i quit" only to get shoved back into the furnace. Later, we see Itchy and his girlfriend drinking in a hot-tub while Scratchy, as a "No Vacancy" sign is in the background flashing. Each time Scratchy lights up, he says "No" in a voice that suggests he's continuously in pain, but not dead.
  • Itchy & Scratchy are visiting the U.S. Mint. Itchy throws Scratchy onto a press, where he is flattened, stamped, and sliced into individual hundred-dollar bills. He then takes a bundle to a lounge, where millionaire dogs are smoking cigars. One of them uses a Scratchy-bill to light his. Scratchy's eye is atop the pyramid on the seal, panics when he sees the fire, and lets out a blood-curdling scream as he's consumed by flames.
    • In-Universe, Mr. Burns takes such sadistic joy in the episode that even superfan Bart is disturbed.
  • The short scene when staying with the Flanders: Scratchy is sitting in his cottage, reading "Nice" magazine. He hears a knock at the door, and discovers Itchy in an orphan basket. Hugs and hearts until Itchy smashes his bottle, lets out a maniacal laugh, and stabs Scratchy repeatedly in the chest. He then steals Scratchy's TV, leaving bloody footprints as he walks over his chest, Scratchy's skin getting sucked upward by Itchy pulling the bottle away. Scratchy can only cry out weakly, "Why? Why? My only son...". While Bart & Lisa think it's hysterical, Rod & Todd are terrified beyond comprehension, with Todd being convinced that he should stab Rod with a broken glass bottle like Itchy did to Scratchy.
  • Another Itchy and Scratchy episode, where Itchy jumps down a well in a fake suicide attempt. Scratchy dives in to save him, only to be devoured horribly by a crocodile, and to have the water turn blood red. But when he flies up to Heaven, Itchy shoots him in the head, and his wings and halo fall off, which he then plummets again. What's worse is that this was dedicated to "Timmy O'Toole," the boy allegedly stuck in the town well.
  • In another occasion, Itchy prays to God, depicted as a violent mouse like himself, to kill Scratchy and cast him down to Hell for no reason. Given all the other animals shown in Hell and the god's depiction, one wonders how many innocent animals were cast to Hell for similar reasons?
  • "Homer the Father"'s Itchy and Scratchy cartoon "Ain't I a Stinger?": the bees turn Scratchy's stomach into a fleshy hive of honeycombs.
  • In one of the comics, we have Scratchy's attempt to stop a chandelier from falling on his former girlfriend. He grabs it before it falls, but it winds up slowly and graphically ripping him in half.
  • Worker and Parasite. The one where, in a parody of Eastern European animation, a badly drawn cat and mouse are fighting in what appears to be the Greek underworld. Or something. Krusty sums it up best:
    Krusty: What the hell was that?
  • Kitty Kill Condition is really scary. Scratchy runs on a treadmill, eventually having to avoid crocodiles and fire hoops. Itchy put a stick of dynamite in his heart, then Scratchy suffers a fatal heart attack. At his funeral, he explodes, killing his friends and family.
  • "Planet of the Aches" from "Bart of Darkness". Scratchy is sealed in a chamber for 3000 years, and is finally freed by a bunch of evolved, big-brained Itchys. These Itchys don't speak but merely pulse their brains to communicate and perform telekinetic actions, and every time they pulse, they emit a sound which is like a miniature choir inside their heads. Anyway, these futuristic Itchys are surprisingly nice to Scratchy; they groom him and give him a nice robe. Of course, this unexplained kindness doesn't last, and they use their telekinetic powers to throw sharp objects at Scratchy in an arena, chopping him to pieces.
  • "Skinless In Seattle" from "Bart Sells His Soul," where Itchy saws off the top of the Seattle Space Needle and it falls and stabs Scratchy in the eye.
  • "House Of Pain" (or "This Old Mouse") from "Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk", where Itchy drives a nail through Scratchy's head. And hangs a picture of them happily being friends.
  • One segment has Scratchy dining at a fancy restaurant, with Itchy as his waiter. Itchy brings (what is supposedly) a bottle of wine and Scratchy starts drinking it. It's then revealed that the "wine" is actually acid and Scratchy realizes this too late as he dissolves from the inside out.
  • Black & Blue Swan from "The Ten-Per-Cent Solution", in which Itchy spins Stratchy around at such a rapid speed that he's Stripped to the Bone in a matter of seconds, along with his body parts and organs flying off his body. This sequence of events makes this particular cartoon just as scary as the film it's lampooning.

    Other examples 
  • The "Game Over" screen to Bart vs. the Space Mutants. Bart is shown in a jail cell with some minimalistic "GAME OVER" text overlaid and the scene being completely pitch-black; only being lit from the door of the cell. Note that this screen only appears in the Sega Genesis version of the game — every other version of the game goes straight back to the title screen.
    • Interesting fact; it's actually based on a screenshot from the beginning of the obscure 1990 Simpsons music video Deep Deep Trouble.
  • The Itchy & Scratchy level in Bart's Nightmare has the cat and mouse duo chasing Bart with hammers, flamethrowers, bazookas and giant butcher knives. On top of that, household items come to life and also try to kill Bart including giant out of control vacuums, exploding telephones and an oven that shoots fire.
  • The arcade game:
    • Defeating the Krusty Balloon boss. It expands until it nearly fills the entire screen. Then, it explodes, taking out the platform underneath it!
    • The zombies from the Springfield Discount Cemetery, then the chained ghosts that chase the Simpsons into the Krusty the Clown grave.
    • Everything from the Dreamland stage, made to represent the bowels of the worst nightmares from the family. You fight off giant saxophones, Bart-vampires that shoot electricity and Homer's gigantic bowling ball at the end. Said bowling ball also explodes when you defeat it.
    • The X-Ray Sparks seen when a character is electrocuted may be unsettling for those scared of skeletons. Homer's high-pitched scream when it happens to him (sampled from his Catapult Nightmare in "Moaning Lisa") only intensifies it.
  • Behind-the-scenes example: In the DVD Commentary for "When Flanders Failed", they mention how one drawing of Bart came back from Korea looking really horrifying. Bart was supposed to look beaten up, but the Korean animators went overboard and made Bart all bloody, dirty, and overly bruised. Needless to say, they didn't use such a drawing in the episode.
  • During the show's classic seasons, characters had far more exaggerated facial expressions, some of which can be properly seen when pausing certain scenes. While many of these help contribute to the comedic factor, others can be rather harrowing and can fall right into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. Not to mention some of them can be quite creepy if taken out of context.
  • Some of the Tracey Ullman shorts can come off as this, due to the more often than not Deranged Animation used such as in the short "Making Faces" where Bart and Lisa compete in making ugly faces, though meant to be Played for Laughs, some of the said faces actually look uncanny at best like when Lisa makes a face by pulling her lower eye-lids down to an unrealistic length or when she makes a face she calls "The Howler Monkey". GOOD GOD.
    • There's also one moment in the short, "Maggie's Brain" where Bart and Lisa wonder how Maggie sees them in her perspective. We then switch to Maggie's POV which shows Bart and Lisa as hideous gibberish-speaking alien-monsters with sharp teeth and snake-like tongues.
    • The short, "Grampa and the Kids" has a rather unsettling moment where Bart asks Grandpa to tell them a scary story. Grandpa does so, but only after a few words suddenly screams... and falls limp. Lisa is quick to accuse Bart of killing Grandpa and a few seconds later asks if he prefers the gas chamber or the electric chair.note  Grampa chuckles however, revealing it to just be a prank and Lisa and Maggie both celebrate. Turns into a bit of Tear Jerker as poor Bart however is left absolutely traumatised as he stands motionlessly with a silent gaze before collapsing to the floor, with Lisa still dancing with Maggie.
    • "Bart's Nightmare" has Bart fall asleep after nearly eating all the cookies in the jar and falls into a dream which starts off with the boy in bed as giant floating heads of the family members appear and threaten and chastise Bart before he falls out of his bed and into the kitchen, now the size of an ant. The jar falls on top of him and shatters, causing a giant black shadowy caricature of Homer to slowly advance towards the tiny Bart. Luckily, the nightmare ends there before we are shown what happens next.

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