Nightmare Fuel / Defunctland

• The death of Deborah Gail Stone as explained in the America Sings episode. It's so frightening that it remains one of the only times that Kevin has provided a "disturbing content" warning to allow the faint of heart to skip past.
  • It's made worse by its presentation. We're treated to footage of the attraction's grand opening, with happiness abound... and then it fades into static as it cuts to the disclaimer, with ominous music playing over the entire segment. It's quite the unnerving Mood Whiplash, and for viewers unfamiliar with such a gruesome incident, makes for one hell of a Wham Shot.
• Deliberately invoked in the opening montage of The History of Cedar Point's Disaster Transport. Set to the audio of the original radio advertisement, the opening shows idyllic footage of the park and its happy, smiling guests set to the classic "Get To The Point" song, only to interrupt it with darkened, grainy red-and-black footage of the ride. The low visibility as the ride speeds down the track, accompanied by a harsh distress alarm and glimpses of menacing figures looming out of the shadows, gives the unnerving impression of a spacecraft gone horribly out of control. Not to mention the frantic distress call from the ship's pilot, screaming for help as his ship is torn to pieces around him by some "unknown aggressor".
  "It'll take you out of this world... but it may not get you back."
• The "creepy, gross" (in Kevin's words), Unintentional Uncanny Valley manager puppet from Superstar Limo.
  • The reuse of all of the original animatronics from said ride in its successor, Monster's Inc.: Mike and Sulley to the Rescue. This time, they exist as various monsters and CDA personnel. For example, the Regis Philbin figure was redressed as Randall, the first film's main villain. Despite praising the ride as an improvement over Superstar Limo, Kevin still regards the reuse of the old figures as "unsettling".
• The utter lack of safety measures, the lack of qualified staff and the sheer ludicrousness of some rides that once made Action Park (in)famous. It caused countless injuries and six fatalities.
  • There's also how we lead into the fatalities section: each preceding part opened with a dramatic/serious musical cue. But when we get to "Part 5: Death", we get a funeral dirge.
• Kevin mentions how terrifying the Horned King's monologue is in Tokyo Disneyland's Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour, which is considered as the darkest Disney attraction ever created.
  Kevin: The Horned King addresses his victims by saying the most terrifying anything to ever appear in a Disney anything.
  Horned King: (paraphrased) Everyone, welcome. In this Black Cauldron, everything in the world is controlled. Don't be afraid, it will all be over shortly. No one can escape from here, and you'll be sacrificed to the Black Cauldron. Oh Satan's kiln, awaken and resurrect the soldiers of death. Rebuild an army without rivals. The army of death. Rise! The devil's servants, go and capture them and throw them into the cauldron. Don't leave anyone behind. The Black Cauldron wants more bodies, I swear to the death. (laughs maniacally) Nobody can destroy me.
  • To promote the ride, there was a walkaround character based off of the Magic Mirror. Which Kevin bluntly describes as being "absolutely terrifying".
    Kevin: My god, who approved this?
• Near the end of "The History of Nara Dreamland", it's shown that after the park closed in 2006, it was left abandoned for over a decade. It also shows the park was heavily vandalized, covered in graffiti and many of the parks props moved around to depict vicious scenes. There's also the footage of the park when it was still open, and it shows that by the 90s, the park had essentially become a ghost town, with the person filming being the only one on a large chunk of the rides.
  Kevin: Nara Dreamland was frozen in time. If anything, gaining visitors looking to explore the remains.
• Tales of the Okefenokee features animatronics that, while impressive for their time, border on Unintentional Uncanny Valley; commenters in particular point out a group of singing carrots that have very large lips. (Considering that the puppets were designed by Sid and Marty Krofft, this isn't that surprising.)
• The climax to the Coney Island episode sees Dreamland burn down in a massive fire. While no pictures exist of the fire, it's easy to imagine such a great park being engulfed in flames. Fortunately, aside from many of the animals at the park's menagerie, no one was killed.
  • The description of the animals' fate is rather frightening in itself. There was a moment where it seemed like most of them would be saved but then the power was cut. The animals all began attacking each other in their confusion and the two handlers who had been attempting to rescue them were forced to instead shoot them so as not to leave them to maul each other or burn to death.
• "The History of Disneyland's Adventure Thru Inner Space" has perhaps the darkest moment in series' history. After bringing up ride sponsor Monsanto's role in developing Agent Orange for The Vietnam War, as well as the backlash it would create, the video cuts to a montage of planes and gunboats dumping carcinogenic chemical defoliant into the forests and rivers of South Vietnam, set to an ironically upbeat military march version of The Sherman Brothers' cheerful anthem "Miracles from Molecules". As the montage goes on, the backing track fades out until only the sound of tramping boots and singing soldiers remains, accompanied by visuals of the end results of said defoliants on the environment.
  • For context on how dangerous this chemical is, it not only did its intended job of killing crops — destroying acres upon acres of jungle cover in the process — but was unfortunately inextricably contaminated with a carcinogen that caused horrible birth defects (which, as one commenter pointed out, ranged from stunted mental development and deafness to missing limbs and exposed spines). Many civilians as well as troops on both sides of the conflict were exposed to this horrible chemical, and Vietnam is still suffering from the effects of Agent Orange to this day.
• "The History of Worlds of Fun's Destroyed Classic: The Orient Express" features the accidents that took place on the ride. Although nobody was seriously injured, it's still horrifying to imagine all those people trapped on a ride that's gone horribly wrong.
• "The History of Son of Beast" goes into depth about the issues surrounding the ride's construction, as well as the incident on July 9, 2006, where twenty-seven people had to be evacuated and admitted to hospital. While nobody was seriously hurt, it could have been a lot worse, and is a prime example of what can happen when these kinds of rides are built on the cheap.
• The skeletal metal remains of one of the disused Stitch animatronics from Stitch's Great Escape! look pretty terrifying, especially the empty eye sockets.
• A Roundabout History of the Ferris Wheel mentions the Chicago press covering a quickly-constructed "World's Fair Hotel" in passing. At the end, the hotel is brought up again, but in order to drop a major, horrifying bombshell - the owner of the hotel was H. H. Holmes, arguably America's first Serial Killer. Without anyone even knowing it, Holmes had built the hotel specifically to murder people, especially those who had come to Chicago to view the 1893 Columbian Exposition and had no idea what was about to happen to them. The gruesome details would, naturally, horrify the country, and Holmes' actions would forever leave a blemish on Chicago's reputation, the success of the fair and on America's national identity as a whole.
• Walt Disney's original vision of E.P.C.O.T. was, in low-key fashion, disquieting. The project had its roots in optimistic futurism and was intended as an ever-evolving community and showcase of technological innovation and progress. In reality and at best, it most likely would have been a stifling hybrid of autonomous dictatorship, corporate town and public showroom, with its inhabitants lacking basic freedoms or the ability to vote, no retirement age and an autocratic level of micromanagement. And all because a dying Walt was desperate to leave behind a legacy in something other than entertainment. Its cancellation and subsequent reworking to a theme park after Walt's death was seen as a positive - had it gone through, it's very likely that Walt's legacy would have been that of an out-of-touch dictator.
  • The comments for the episode haven't missed out on this, with many comparing the original E.P.C.O.T. concept to Rapture from Bioshock. Just imagine something like Rapture, but in the middle of the Florida swamps and in real life, and you have a good idea of how E.P.C.O.T. might have turned out at its very worst.
• The last part of the Handwich episode portrays Kevin stuck in limbo for failing to make three Handwiches. It's like watching a fever dream or a really bad trip watching him frantically try to make one out of bread and fillings from Arby's.
• The History of the Worst SeaWorld Ride, Submarine Quest, while overall light-hearted and humorous, sets the scene by talking about the documentary film Blackfish and its influence on the decisions behind the ride's creation. Kevin wastes no time in showing some truly disturbing footage from the documentary (which has its own Nightmare Fuel page for a good reason), including Kasatka's attack on Ken Peter, wherin the orca dragged her trainer to the bottom of the tank by his foot. It's only shown for a brief moment, but it's still shocking to see.
• The "Disney Channel theme" episode has a short one, where Kevin learns that even the bumpers, supposed to mark the difference between advertising and programs were used to influence children to prepare them for Disney's upcoming Finding Nemo for a year and a half before the movie came out. What else was used for that? How many other times was it done before and after?
• Despite The Awful Wiggles Dark Ride being mostly silly, pointing out the absurdity of the ride and its poor maintenance, the event that lead to its closure is Mood Whiplash of the most horrific kind as Dreamworld had been poorly maintaining other rides at the park, leading to the tragic deaths of four riders on the Thunder River Rapids ride.

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