History NightmareFuel / AdultSwim

[[caption-width-right:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39FB2aXN85A This sign-off bumper]] was created to prevent children, the main audience of Cartoon Network from watching [adult swim]... certainly ''not'' to [[HellIsThatNoise help them sleep better at night.]]]]

* NightmareFuel/{{Toonami}}

* So far, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSWCdywJv0E This obscure bumper]] has appeared very rarely aired on AS, [[OurMonstersAreWeird and]] [[UncannyValley for]] [[JumpScare good]] [[HellIsThatNoise reason]].

* There's also [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEnhfMRLXnc this bumper]] centered around the NightmareFace of a [[UncannyValley creepy Japanese robot.]]

* Some of the station IDS can be quite unsettling and can catch a lot of people off guard in the middle of the night, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8jWS6kWW_E like this one.]]

* ''[[https://www.adultswim.com/videos/infomercials/flayaway Flayaway]]'' is an infomercial about a new beauty procedure for women that removes unwanted body hair and blemishes by ''cutting off all their skin.'' What follows is 11 minutes of some of the grossest imagery Adult Swim has ever aired, including the hideous costume portraying someone who has just gone through the procedure (which, if you click on that link, is the image that appears as the video is loading).

* [[http://www.adultswim.com/videos/hot-package/blooper-overdose/ This clip]] from ''Hot Package'' (an Series/EntertainmentTonight spoof highlighting SoBadItsGood film and TV clips) ends with ''real footage of a birth by C-section.''

* ''World Peace'' features a sketch in which a couple are at a wine party where the husband's brother starts passive-aggressively insulting his brother's wife. As the wife reaches for some more wine, ''the brother trips her and breaks a bottle over her head as she falls face-first into a glass table.'' The husband calmly asks why his brother did that as the brother insists she fell, all while the scene keeps cutting back to the wife's horrified face, which is realistically covered in blood and glass shards.

** Adult Swim's April Fools prank for 2022 opens with a 'intro' for Learning with Pibby, and throughout the night shows Pibby unwillingly invading adult swim programming. This included the Rick and Morty episode "Total Rickall" which featured Morty [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOeAo58hp34 glitching out]]. For anyone who had seen the episode before this moment could really come across as a shock. To top it off, the adult swim broadcast ended with a theoretical Leaning with Pibby [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9KdalJG2dY&ab_channel=JUSXTREME96v2.0 ending theme]] over the 'sign off' bump.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39FB2aXN85A The one sign-off bumper]] that was made merely created to prevent children from watching the channel... and certainly ''not'' to [[NightmareFuel help them sleep better at night.]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39FB2aXN85A This sign-off bumper]] was created to prevent children, the main audience of Cartoon Network from watching [adult swim]... certainly ''not'' to [[HellIsThatNoise help them sleep better at night.]]]]

* Around 2013 they did teasers for ''Series/TheHeartSheHoller'' and the way they chose to do it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufvpRLSWSy0 was a series of jump scares]] that got louder as the month of August went on ending with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spSsfca3dNk this.]] They even put screamers in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BjKYYlnR1Y Cleveland Show]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITW1vMOQvRI Family Guy]] commercials to promote the show. A lot of people were, needless to say, not pleased.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j28y2S4IyA Their recent sign off bumper]] can be pretty unnerving, but [[SceneryPorn absolutely mesmerizing]].

** On May 2020, [as] unexpectedly brought the infamous bump back as "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq8OXZke644 The Dawn Is Your Frenemy]]" by making it less creepy by adding piano music, a red balloon, and making the sun wink (just like the creepypasta mentioned above). It is ''still'' creepy though. The piano music combined with the original sound effects make the environment much scarier, the red balloon will remind those of ''Literature/{{It}}'' and the sun's wink could catch those by surprise. Hell, this version might be scarier than the original (though not as scary as the the creepypasta).

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jplkppP_Icg "Nightmares" episode]] of WesternAnimation/OffTheAir. Notable highlights from the episode include the camera slowly zooming in towards a pale, unnaturally moving man with dead skin, bulging eyes and a bloodied physique, vaguely human arms grotesquely stretching through the ceiling of someone's house, a surreal sequence of a head with legs shooting down a bird, and most of the disturbingly surreal imagery that follows. The [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LastNoteNightmare jumpscare]] at the end didn't really help either.

* Around 2013 they did teasers for ''Series/TheHeartSheHoller'' and the way they chose to do it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufvpRLSWSy0 was a series of jump scares]] that got louder as the month of August went on ending with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spSsfca3dNk this.]] They even put screamers in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BjKYYlnR1Y Clevelend Show]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITW1vMOQvRI Family Guy]] commercials to promote the show. A lot of people were, needless to say, not pleased.

* There's also [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEnhfMRLXnc this bumper]] centered around the NightmareFace of a [[[[UncannyValley creepy Japanese robot.]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEnhfMRLXnc This bump]]. [[UncannyValley Yeesh.]] For those who are too scared to look, the bumper shows a Japanese robot making [[UncannyValley uncanny]] face expressions.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STRuMrfb2n4 Watch Harder]] has similar energy to The Dawn Is Your Enemy, with a still close-up shot of a CreepyDoll while a nursery rhyme plays, eventually transitioning to an increasingly louder scream of anguish... and then [[NothingIsScarier cutting abruptly]].

** On November 14th, 2021, the Adult Swim Twitter account posted an HD rendition of the creepypasta version, effectively rendering it AscendedFanon.

* NightmareFuel/{{Pibby}}

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39FB2aXN85A The Dawn Is Your Enemy]], a former [as] sign-off bump designed specifically to scare away children. It has gained infamy for its not being outwardly scary, but ''incredibly'' creepy. It contains a static composite image [[DeliberatelyMonochrome devoid of color]] that focuses on an uncomfortably large pair of fearful, nervous eyes and a glowering sun in the background. What makes the bump especially creepy is the quiet, ominous background noises they use -- resonating, rumbling, and scraping metal -- which is practically NothingIsScarier in audio form.

** On May 2020, [as] unexpectedly brought the infamous bump back as "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq8OXZke644 The Dawn Is Your Frenemy]]" by making it less creepy by adding piano music, a red balloon, and making the sun wink (just like the creepypasta mentioned above). It is ''still'' creepy though. The piano music combined with the original sound effects make the enviroment much scarier, the red balloon will remind those of ''Literature/{{It}}'' and the sun's wink could catch those by surprise. Hell, this version might be scarier than the original (though not as scary as the the creepypasta).

* The trailer for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btu0O47u3rY&t=8s Learning with Pibby]]:
** In no particular order, the main character's world is attacked by a TV static-like OminousObsidianOoze that absorbs her best friend, providing some extreme MoodWhiplash considering the show is supposed to be a preschool kids' show.
** Then she finds out [[ExistentialHorror she's a cartoon character]], followed be discovering that the same black goo has infected the Cartoon Network multiverse. Whatever the hell it is, it's an EldritchAbomination that seems intent on devouring all cartoons it can find!
** It turns many A-list CN heroes into creepy blank-eyed husks of their former selves, leaving Pibby to team up with a CListFodder KidSidekick and a Disney-esque SaturdayMorningCartoon villain to save everyone. Among the corrupted are [[Franchise/ScoobyDoo the Mystery Gang]], [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Fred Flintstone]], [[Franchise/LooneyTunes Bugs Bunny]], and so many more. '''No one is safe.'''
*** The Mystery Gang are shown to have [[VolumetricMouth elongated jaws]] as they reach for Pibby, adding to the scare factor and making it clear that the entity afflicting them is intentionally warping them into horrible creatures.
** One scene in particular helps highlight how badly the affected cartoons have been warped by this abominable entity. [[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime Finn and Jake]], a goofy and fun-loving duo, are subject to turning into murderous monsters, with Finn in particular [[FacialHorror drooling the glitchy ooze out of his mouth and his eyes looking distorted]], while Jake appears to have turned into a BlobMonster [[RubberMan with stretchable limbs]]. They don't notice the trio at first... but when Pibby advises her friends to stay quiet, [[SoMuchForStealth her source show's gimmick kicks in to blare the word "QUIET" loudly]], alerting Finn and Jake to their presence and making them attack.
** And before that, Pibby is shown to have [[EyeScream lost an eye from some unseen scuffle]]. Aside from the fact that it's a preschool show character actually get realistically injured, there's Pibby's line about how she sees the blood from her wound as "red water". This indicates that shows like hers may genuinely not know about things like bloodshed and violence...
** And in the final scene, as Pibby and other surviving cartoons band together for a massive war sequence, she pauses during the fighting to see Bunbun on the horizon... suffering the same fate as the other cartoons: blank-eyed, hollow, frozen faced. And all that's visible is his head.

* The trailer for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btu0O47u3rY&t=8s Learning with Pibby]]: In no particular order, the main characters world is attacked by a tv static like OminousObsidianOoze that absorbs his best friend, then he finds out [[ExistentialHorror he's a cartoon character]], then he finds out that the same black goo has infected the Cartoon Network multiverse turning many A list CN heroes into creepy blank eyed zombies leaving Pibby to team up with a CListFodder KidSidekick and a saturday morning cartoon villain to save everyone, not to mention the lovely scene of the trio being stalked by a zombified [[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime Finn and Jake]], then he loses an eye, finally during the battle between the surviving heroes and the zombies the ooze apparently turns the friend that got absorbed in the beginning into a GiantMook to kill him.

** As of September 2021, it's back as the sign-off bump, now in [[BlatantLies glorious]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMOoBu5tzKw HD.]]

As the DarkerAndEdgier counterpart to Creator/CartoonNetwork ([[NotSoDifferent itself a darker version of]] Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} and Creator/DisneyChannel), Creator/AdultSwim takes full advantage of its {{watershed}} format with a penchant for SurrealHumor ''and'' SurrealHorror. It's designed to scare kids away from watching... and the adults [[NightmareFuel can certainly vouch for its effectiveness]].

As the DarkerAndEdgier counterpart to Creator/CartoonNetwork (itself a darker version of Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} and Creator/DisneyChannel), Creator/AdultSwim takes full advantage of its {{watershed}} format with a penchant for SurrealHumor ''and'' SurrealHorror. It's designed to scare kids away from watching... and the adults [[NightmareFuel can certainly vouch for its effectiveness]].