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Nightmare Fuel / DuckTales (1987)

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Scrooge and Launchpad just seconds away from a surprisingly Cruel and Unusual Deathnote 

Moment pages are Spoilers Off per site policy. You Have Been Warned.


Armstrong

Nothing to Fear

  • The entire episode could count as this; it features everyone's worst fears coming to life and attacking them. For young minds watching this episode in the dark, it is one of the scariest things you can possibly ever watch. Just wait until you see the vacuum cleaner.
  • Realistic or not, the kids in the audience might relate to some of the boys' fears:
  • And then there is the nephews' teacher, Mrs. Quackenbush, an ugly (anthropomorphic) vulture with crazy eyes, talon-like fingernails, and a raspy voice.
  • Seeing Uncle Scrooge as an abusive guardian who wants nothing more than to get rid of the nephews and the nephews sneering at Uncle Scrooge is as scary as it is heartbreaking.

Magica's Shadow War

Home Sweet Homer

Merit-Time Adventure

  • The Sea Monster, a gargantuan green-skinned red-eyed horned sea serpent who is introduced attacking one of Scrooge's cargo vessels with a disturbing roar and eating Archibald Quackerbill alive. Shortly afterward, it appears out of nowhere to grab Scrooge himself and carry him off. Then it goes after Launchpad and the kids.

The Golden Fleecing

  • Scrooge's Gold Fever — not in a scream-out-loud fashion but in a subtler, quietly unsettling one. Scrooge's mania for anything valuable is often just accepted casually or Played for Laughs, but the events from the dragon's big entrance to the climactic Friend-or-Idol Decision ultimately play it deadly seriously and draw attention to what severe consequences it could have if he ever failed to control it.

Luck o' the Ducks

  • The leprechauns dragging the Ducks across the floor to throw them into a pit full of hissing serpents.
  • King Brian threatening to throw Far Darrig into the snake pit if he doesn't either convince Scrooge to leave the Golden Caverns alone or kill him.
  • The initial appearances of the banshee and the dullahan, especially the former's chilling wails.
  • Just how close Scrooge comes to being sealed inside of the Golden Caverns forever.

Sphinx for the Memories

  • The mummy. His moan is a call for "sweet dreams".
  • Donald while he's possessed by the pharaoh. Him coldly ordering Scrooge and his own nephews to be tied up and eaten alive by vultures circling overhead without a second thought is bad enough, but hearing the orders coming from a beloved animated character like Donald Duck manages to make the whole scene even more disturbing.

Hotel Strangeduck

  • The episode is creepy, no doubt, but there wasn't anything in it that sent it into complete nightmare territory... at least up until the point where the shadow of a skeleton comes out and starts strangling Uncle Scrooge. Then he goes limp. Granted, we knew he wasn't dead (he's the hero and this is a Disney story), but the visuals could have fooled the viewer.
  • The scene where Mrs. Beakley and Webby are making the bed and suddenly discover the outline of a person under the sheet is genuinely hair-raising since at first there is no sound or movement, or anything to indicate something like that is about to happen. It's just...there.

The Golden Goose

  • The Golden Death nearly overtakes the entire world before it's stopped. Scrooge ultimately has to throw the heavy goose just because he can't get there in time. That means that everyone (whom the viewer has been getting to know and love for the entire show) was effectively dead, even if it was only for a moment or two.

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