History NightmareFuel / PublicServiceAnnouncement

[[caption-width-right:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zoXgPjYwIQ "Please give us a pound, or we'll have to pull the trigger."]] [[note]] [[WebVideo/NostalgiaCritic OH, OF COURSE! When you're doing crumpets, you're all]] [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppets and dancing]], [[WebVideo/NostalgiaCritic but when you're doing a PSA, YOU'RE KILLING DOGS!, NEW CANADA!"]][[/note]] ]]

* This ad for Kementerian Negara Pemberdayaan Perempuan (The Ministry of Women Empowerment in English) nailed its message on how domestic abuse does not only affect mothers but also the kids. It starts with a group of students given a task by a teacher to draw his/her mother. One student with sad expression drawing his mom crying before showing the drawing to the teacher. The next day, the teacher instructed the students to draw his/her father. The same boy angrily drawn his dad, even crumpled the paper used for drawing. The PSA ends with a shot of the drawing of his father with haunting, angry face. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vzjhMx6i4 See here]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui0R668zc9U&t=1s This ad]] from John Grooms features a woman, revealed to have Down syndrome at the end of the ad, performing gymnastics while a disembodied voice claims that [[BuryYourDisabled disabled people are worthless and "pieces of meat" that don't belong in society]]. Already unsettling as it is, but the ending makes it worse when the ad asks you if you think it's from the Third Reich, only for the text to say that it's from the [[WhamLine "The thoughts of a Mensa]] UsefulNotes/LosAngeles [[WhamLine member published in 1995."]] It definitely does not sugarcoat the ableism that people with disabilities have to deal with.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mthaiNJIcY&ab_channel=rocketraccoon19 "Stairs".]] A little kid watches his father berate his mother for ordering a pizza instead of having dinner ready. The situation quickly escalates into violence ("''DO YOU WANNA SEE WHAT HURTS?! '''''THAT’S''''' WHAT HURTS!!''"). Their child does nothing but flinch and look at the commotion. It fades to black with the message "Children have to sit by and watch. What’s your excuse?" It doesn’t help that a creepy ambient sound plays as soon as the husband starts to scream.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zoXgPjYwIQ "Please give us a pound, or we'll have to pull the trigger."]]]]

* A [[https://youtu.be/5mR7aky1AqE cinema ad from the late 80s (rated 18)]] started off with a dark, slow zoom in on a dog with an instrumental "How Much is That Doggy in the Window?" song being played over it. After a while though, the dog looks to his right and sees ''a gun pointed at his face'' with a voice over telling us to give them (the RSPCA) a pound, or otherwise, they'll have to pull the trigger, either giving us the message that if they don't get enough funds, they might as well stop what they're doing or have to kill off animals they can no longer take care of (due to overbreeding). It could possibly be sad as well, particularly due to the [[TheWoobie sad look]] in the dog's eyes... [[note]] [[NightmareRetardant or it could come off as funny]], if you live in the US and remember this [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c1/Natlamp73.jpg/220px-Natlamp73.jpg strangely similar magazine cover]] from Film/NationalLampoon.[[/note]]

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-qZrYyhXo This ad]] criticizes the UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}n government's human rights violations and their cover-ups of such things from the public by comparing it to someone assembling Russian dolls. All of this is juxtaposed with distorted sound effects and creepy lighting to create a truly disturbing advert.

* This ad for Kementerian Negara Pemberdayaan Perempuan (The Ministry of Women Empowerment in English) nailed its message on how domestic abuse does not only affect mothers but also the kids. It starts with a group of students given a task by a teacher to draw his/her mother. One student with sad expression drawn his mom crying before showing the drawing to the teacher. The next day, the teacher instructed the students to draw his/her father. The same boy now angrily drawn his dad, even crumpled the paper used for drawing. The PSA ends with a shot of the drawing of his father with haunting, angry face. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vzjhMx6i4 See here]]

* This ad for Kementerian Negara Pemberdayaan Perempuan (The Ministry of Women Empowerment in English) nailed its message on how domestic abuse does not only affect mothers but also the kids. It starts with a group of students given a task by a teacher to draw his/her mother. One student with sad expression drawn her mom crying before showing the drawing to the teacher. The next day, the teacher instructed the students to draw his/her father. The same boy now angrily drawn his dad, even crumpled the paper used for drawing. The PSA ends with a shot of the drawing of his father with haunting, angry face. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vzjhMx6i4 See here]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}}'s [[https://youtu.be/yJpUU-1vjqI?t=743 "Stop Nursery Crimes"]] campaign will leave you feeling sick to your stomach -- It consists of pedophiles getting some one-on-one time with the apples of their eyes, singing a ''very thinly-vieled'' IronicNurseryRhyme about their feelings for them, who remain none-the-wiser to intent behind them -- the message being that if you don't teach them about sexual abuse, '''someone else will.'''

* An UsefulNotes/{{India}}n [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO4j67vszD0 PSA for the Prayas Foundation]] is very simple and unsettling. A cursor slowly moves over a still image of a smiling girl. It starts off innocent enough, but [[PaedoHunt the cursor]] moves down to the girl's chest and crotch areas. This goes on for a while before it fades to black with the tagline "Thankfully, she did not feel a thing. ''But millions of children are not as fortunate''."\\\

* In 2001, the NSPCC released this advert called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRdlpexhHH4 Kids Learn Fast]], and it is every bit as horrifying as you'd imagine it to be; it opens in 1971, with a young boy playing in his bedroom before his abusive father locks him in his closet. We then skip to the present, where the now grown-up boy is screaming verbal abuse at his young daughter; the haunting music playing over the scene does NOT help matters in the SLIGHTEST, and the message is as clear as day: [[TurnOutLikeHisFather children who grow up with abusive parents may one day repeat the same toxic patterns as adults]].

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuALdNgELY Fred Wolf's contribution]] shows a young boy with a plush dog '''''seeing a man get shot in his front yard.''''' When he goes to sleep, he and his dog cower under the covers as his toys scatter out of his toy box and a robot kills them all before making a manic grin. Fortunately, it was AllJustADream and the young boy goes outside without fear... but not before a final shot of his plush dog falling to the ground with gunshot noises. [[note]]However, knowing Fred's involvement in ''WesternAnimation/TheSnowman'' and ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', it isn't that off the studio's limits.[[/note]]

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=850ZNEkrpCI The entry from German animation studio Hahn Film AG]][[note]]The studio behind ''WesternAnimation/AsterixConquersAmerica'' and ''WesternAnimation/SimsalaGrimm''[[/note]] starts off with a young girl in her pajamas sitting near a man (presumably her father) reading a newspaper in an armchair as she's putting ribbons on her teddy bear. Her mother gives them both goodbye kisses and pretty much immediately, things get unsettling. She tries to walk off, [[EmpathyDollShot only for the man to slowly trod on her teddy bear]], and the last shot is [[PaedoHunt his shadow looming over the poor girl as she looks up at him in horror]].
** Creator/WangFilmProductions [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYjqtXCYid8 contributed with a short]] that starts off with a framed picture of two parents and their son, but a bullet passes through it, it droops down, and the parents [[ShadowDiscretionShot in silhouettes]] start yelling at each other with various weapons appearing to represent the tension, as a green helmet below the picture walks away, before opening a door, showing us the child in the image was hiding in it. Obviously unhappy with his parents' [[ParentalNeglect neglect]], he looks at us as a NightmareFace slowly emerges on him and a ScareChord starts playing, implying that the circumstances [[StartOfDarkness are going to make him just as violent]].

** '''''[[Creator/CookieJarEntertainment Cinar]]'''''[[note]]the company behind ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Caillou}}'', and ''Series/{{Zoboomafoo}}'', for those who don't know[[/note]], '''''of all companies''''', created what was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSPnXY2p0lM arguably the worst one of the bunch]]. We see a girl and her dog jumping around in the hills and catching butterflies. Then they jump into a land mine. Even worse is that although you can't see them when the mine blows up, the lullaby-esque music switches to a DroneOfDread, and the PSA cuts to a realistic drawing of children who are either bandaged or have prosthetic parts (obviously injured by landmines), and all look fearful. Needless to say, if you replace this PSA's NightmareFuel with a more CrossesTheLineTwice tone, it would '''absolutely''' work as a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' parody.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WlClCnCpgo This one from Big Star]][[note]]The studio behind ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches''[[/note]] focuses on child abduction, where a little girl plays with her ball while her mother is watching her. When she goes farther from her mother, the music changes and a pair of 2 dark hands are trying to grab her. It reveals that the hands belong to an old, creepy man. His face becomes bigger, but a cage locks him up with a hard sound.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEmaZ6f4UkM In this video]] about children in warzones, a little girl is trying to make a sandcastle but doesn't succeed because of the tanks. After that, it shows 2 soldiers playing chess with tanks, while the little girl (on the chessboard) is looking around her. The dramatic piano music doesn't help.

* [[https://youtu.be/bdy32yOF_XA?feature=shared One French PSA]] gets to the point very quickly, as a woman by the name of Anne Leroy talks about how horribly her husband abused her... until "two weeks ago when [[HopeSpot it finally ended!]]" The scene then pans down to ''her grave''.

Between AnimalTesting, {{evil poacher}}s, and other such threats, it's clear that domestic animals are definitely not the only victims of mankind's bastardry.

* A series of 2018 PSA by the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN3BJLd08_A Busan Metropolitan Police Agency]] are as creative as they are insidious. They were disguised as voyeur pornography and uploaded to file-sharing sites. They feature hidden camera shots of a woman changing, using the toilet, etc... Before the footage is interrupted by the woman's [[StringyHairedGhostGirl vengeful ghost]] accompanied by the tagline: "You may be the one driving her to suicide", followed by "This site is being monitored by the police". This campaign proved so effective that [[https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/34561682/stop-downloadkill/busan-metropolitan-police-agency voyeur video distribution declined by 21%]] afterward.

* [[https://youtu.be/LpYbJOMEqsI This genuinely disturbing (and [=NSFW=]) PIF from Finland]] features a young woman who leaves her family, including her beloved kid sister, to go off to what she thinks is modeling, but in reality, she has been trafficked. Through increasingly graphic visuals (including physical and sexual assault), we see the girl eventually come to realize the danger that she's in. At one point it appears that she is running towards her sister, but she's really trying to escape her captors, who catch up to her, and [[DownerEnding the last shot is of her once again being assaulted]].

->''"I was scared of death before I saw that. Now I'm scared of life!"''
-->-- '''Creator/RussellBrand''', on old British government [=PIFs=]

* There was a child sexual abuse PSA in UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}} that showed a little girl in a blue room playing with makeup, expressionlessly. A man appeared out of nowhere, the girl looked up at him, and [[NothingIsScarier he took her to somewhere else]]. To make matters worse, it was always played before ''Series/BarneyAndFriends''.

* More mild than most examples here, but the [=EnergyRight=].com commercial "Wasted Kilowatts" has creepy men in black body suits crawling around your basement, your attic, [[ParanoiaFuel your fridge]]...

* The Humane Society collaborated with Creator/TaikaWaititi to make a 3-minute stop-motion short titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G393z8s8nFY "Save Ralph"]] that was uploaded to their Youtube and Vimeo accounts on April 6, 2021, to help ban animal testing for cosmetics. The short [[AllStarCast features an all-star multinational cast]] (such as Taika Waititi, Creator/RickyGervais, Creator/ZacEfron, Creator/OliviaMunn, Creator/PomKlementieff, Creator/RodrigoSantoro, Creator/TriciaHelfer and other actors) voicing characters in the short. The short is focused on Ralph the rabbit (voiced by Taika Waititi) talking to an off-screen documentary crew talking about his daily life in a testing facility inside his house. At first, it appears mundane, but the rabbit is clearly in terrible shape (blind in his right eye, his right ear can only hear ringing, and he mentions "chemical burns on his back") but tries to shrug it off. Eventually, a live-action human hand grabs Ralph and prepares him for another day at the testing facility. Before it begins, Ralph encounters four rabbits that just arrived and asks Ralph to get them out of there. Ralph then tells them that he's filming a documentary, and the four rabbits ask Ralph to tell the viewers to help save them. Suddenly, a human hand appears and begins squirting a chemical substance into his eye with Ralph trying to act calm, only to start yelling [[ClusterBleepBomb profanity that gets bleeped out]] as the four rabbits start panicking and screaming. Also doubles as a TearJerker since Ralph reveals that his family has been living their lives in an animal testing facility.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgWJtsgqdCI This horrifying PSA from 2002]] features an actual 911 call of a child explaining that her mother is getting abused by her ex-boyfriend. We even get to hear her mother in the background shouting for her child to call the police. Once the police officer asks if the man has any weapons, the child responds with a yes. Suddenly, we hear a '''violent knocking noise (possibly a GUNSHOT)''' as the child screams. The disturbing imagery ''does not'' help.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbuW91_z7HE&ab_channel=womensaid This one from Women's Aid in 2018]] shows a brutal domestic violence incident, accept with it [[AbuseDiscretionShot cutting to black during the worst moments.]] The ad concludes with the message "To watch the PSA unedited, you have to be over 18... [[WhamShot or one of over 160,000 children living with domestic violence]]", as it reveals the couple's son who's had a front-row seat to the whole sordid affair.

* UsefulNotes/KansasCity Star's "Lessons From My Neighborhood" videos. There's one about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpTKdu3s_Fs two boys watching their mother shoot heroin]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ffTMZSosE a girl who is starving since her mother can't afford food]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0EMZ6JYEaY what to do in a shootout]].\\

[[caption-width-right:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zoXgPjYwIQ "Please give us a pound, or we'll have to pull the trigger.]]]]

[[caption-width-right:330:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zoXgPjYwIQ "Please give us a pound, or we'll have to pull the trigger.]]]]

%%Just a reminder that even if a commercial is as poignant as it is scary, you shouldn't sinkhole it to Tear Jerker and Gut Punch. Let's not tell people what emotion they "should" be feeling.
%%Before adding an example, make sure that the PSA in question doesn't already have an example on this page.
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