Nightmare Fuel / The Muppet Show

The Muppet show, while being primarily family friendly, had an affinity for the strange and bizarre which could often lead to some rather frightening sketches for younger viewers.

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• The infamous "Hugga Wugga" skit, involving a Lyrical Dissonance from a stalked eyed creature singing "You Are my Sunshine", the aforementioned creature who's violently abusive to anyone who doesn't sing the same lyrics as he does and the poor beaked sap that's abused by the former. It starts off creepy enough with the steam nose abuse, but takes a darker turn when the beaked monster starts singing the same song as the stalk eyed creature; and finally when the Hugga Wugga shoots off the stalk eyed creature's head he is legitimately confused and terrified when it continues to sing without a head. The creature then turns the tables on Hugga and blasts him with steam when he goes to look and knocks him out.
  • In another example, when the performers from the sketch are seen backstage, George the Janitor is shown carrying Hugga Wugga on his shoulder, implying that he’s going to be out of commission for quite a while. Of course, since he was a bully, you're probably not supposed to sympathize with him.
• "The Glow-Worm". Not to be confused with the beautiful Frank Loesser song "Inch-worm" that Charles Aznavour and Danny Kaye sang with the Muppets on the show on two separate occasions, but instead a terrifying sketch with Lenny the Lizard, who tries to eat numerous worms, the last of which turns out to be the nose of Gorgon Heap, who eats him.
  • What's worse was that previous versions of the sketch seen on various variety shows throughout the 60s and 70s had Kermit as part of the sketch rather than Lenny.
• The whole Alice Cooper episode, with the exception of Robin's rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (which itself can be kind of eerie, in the sense that, since the rest of the episode has been full of creepy and bizarre twists, you're somewhat nervous about whether or not this sketch will share the same fate), and especially "Welcome to My Nightmare"! Lessened when you realize he’s a pretty chill guy in real life, and his look is supposed to be creepy.
  • The "Toothache" sketch. Especially since Cooper has said that hell is like "a toothache all over your body".
• The Vincent Price episode has several standouts.
  • "I've Got You Under My Skin" is a musical skit featuring a rather unsettling looking creature called Behemoth (more recently called Gene) cheerfully seasoning and then devouring Shakey Sanchez.
    • Made all the more creepy by the lines Behemoth sings to Shakey as he tries to escape: "Don't you know, little fool, you never can win? Use your mentality. Wake up to reality!"
    • It's somewhat mitigated by the episode showing Shakey backstage with Kermit after the number, in perfect physical health. On the other hand, he's terrified out of his mind and unable to speak clearly.
  • From the same episode, we have the "House of Horror" sketch.
  • “I’m Looking Through You”. We get that they’re ghosts, but puppets should never be transparent. The effect is unsettling.
  • The Muppet News Flash skit involves the News Reporter talking about how furniture all over the city is turning into Muppet Eating Monsters, with one mention of a table set for a dinner of eight people eating them all. Worst, most of the skit takes place in the house of a humanoid Muppet who is then chased out of his living room by a footstool, a cabinet and a lamp, only to evade them and barricade them out in his living room... where he is then eaten by his television. The skit ends with the News Reporter complaining about how silly that story was before he is eaten by his own table.
    • That's the thing about the franchise's thing for eating people alive: with puppets, it feels so frighteningly real!
  • The finale: Vincent Price's rendition of "You've Got a Friend", starring the creepy Uncle Deadly.
• Speaking of Uncle Deadly, well...Uncle Deadly himself. With his demon-esque head; tiny, pea-like eyes in pitch black sockets; and a torn cape, the guy looks more like an animatronic dragon you'd find at a dark ride from Universal Studios than a Muppet. His only saving grace is probably his refined, British accent, provided by the ever-versatile Jerry Nelson.
• From the Brooke Shields episode we have the Jabberwocky segment, quite possibly one of the scariest skits on this show. The poem itself is rather creepy in and of itself, but the execution of it here makes it all the more scary. The segment starts with some rather ominous Harpsichord music as the various residents of the forest recite the poem. After Scooter receives his task and goes off to slay the Jabberwock, we see the titular creature in all its frightening glory. The way it drifts out of the woods is also unbelievably uncanny. If that weren’t bad enough Scooter then decapitates the Jabberwock, and its head is still alive!
• Two gloomy men singing "I'm So Happy" in a room filled with cobwebs. Mild nightmare fuel!
• The Mummenschanz episode, especially the clay faces.
• Piggy's initially heart-wrenching rendition of "What Now My Love" gradually turns creepy and menacing. Just keep watching the chorus members as the number progresses. Good night.
• The Zero Mostel episode has a sketch where Mostel recites a creepy poem about literally banishing his fears (as in making various creepy-looking Muppets gathering around him vanish into thin air after saying, "Once they are counted and compelled, they can quickly be dispelled"). It ends with him coming to the unsettling realization that he might be the embodiment of someone else's fears, and that they will make him disappear... which is exactly what happens. It gets worse when you realize that Mostel died before his episode aired.
• "You're Always Welcome at Our House" (sings Marisa Berenson with a demented smile....)
  • For deeper explanation: This song, which deliberately plays up Lyrical Dissonance, sees Berenson dancing and singing while dressed like a little girl. She explains that various people have come to visit her family—a man selling brooms, a truant officer, and a little boy who was just looking for his ball—and each of them has been captured, bound and sealed somewhere in the house, being tortured for days on end (the broomseller is locked the closet, the truant officer was force-fed poisoned lemonade and stuffed into the freezer, and the little boy imprisoned in the basement). The song ends with Berenson suddenly spouting a mouth full of fangs and telling the viewer that THEY are welcome at her house, too..."and we know you will stay..."
• The episode in which Alan Arkin was the guest involved him accidentally drinking Bunson Honeydew's Ultra-Powerful Jekyll-and-Hyde potion. While a lot of it's Played for Laughs (his "transformation" involves him growing a unibrow and fangs and lurching around like Frankenstein's Monster) it's still pretty creepy, especially considering how unpredictable it is. And later, Kermit drinks the same potion and terrorizes a cute bunny that had just asked for his protection.
• Gonzo’s teeth being blown out through his trumpet, although it was somewhat funny.
  • In a later episode, this intro was reused, but the "My teeth!" line was re-dubbed as "Popcorn!", thus mitigating the Nightmare Fuel.
• Gonzo telling the guy on the phone, “He’s not home.” You should never do this in real life if you want to avoid being kidnapped or hurt. The fifth season version has a typical cartoony sped up voice emanating from the phone as Gonzo answers and says "He's not home".
• The Don Knotts episode features a neurotic Muppet singing a frantic, increasingly-fast version of "Windmills of Your Mind". It turns a melancholy song about lost love and nostalgia into a darkly-humorous Sanity Slippage Song.
  • The performance eerily captures the feeling of an anxiety attack, making for a very unsettling watch for anyone who's experienced such a thing.
• The "Stayin' Alive" musical number, set at the palace of Versailles during the French Revolution with Piggy portraying Marie Antoinette leading her subjects in the song, ends with a guillotine outside scaring Piggy and the other pigs away.
• "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Disappearing Clues".
• Crystal Gayle's performance of "We Must Believe in Magic", where she stands onboard a ghost ship during a storm as numerous little spirits dance and fly around her.
• The Glenda Jackson episode can be unsettling for kids as Kermit becomes the Only Sane Man with everyone else acting like pirates, until reality actually seems to bend around them and the theater becomes a ship. What really sends it over the edge is that there's never the slightest explanation for why it's happening; typically on this show, no matter how weird things get you can always point to something as the reason why, no matter how flimsy, but this time we don't even get that.
• The "traditional Japanese ghost story" that Bruce Schwartz performs with bunraku puppets on the Señor Wences episode, in which a young woman apparently becomes possessed.
• Beaker's screams of terror. Now, the whole point of the Muppet Labs segments is Beaker suffering, but sometimes those screams can be downright unsettling. Especially when he just. Doesn't. Stop.
• What first seems to be a regular-looking female Muppet sings "I Feel Pretty", which goes off the rails as she casually plucks off her facial features and replaces them with others to become a horrific monster, a level of Body Horror that foreshadows the Fire Gang.
• Timmy Monster's orginal design◊ from Season 1 is... quite off-putting. mainly due to his beady lifeless little eyes and Thousand-Yard Stare.
• "I Know an Old Lady" from the Judy Collins show. Something about the silhouetted woman cackling joyously about her future death while devouring animals in one gulp is just creepy.