Scary moments for kids in the original series!

[Drob]

Earliest memory has to be from Devil in the Dark, mostly because of the aliens POV hunting down & melting the redshits into acidic smoking slag! Followed by Kirk & Spock exploring the tunnels & caves. The alien was the weirdest design I'd seen on screen + I thought its magma crust would burn Spock or at least have his eyebrows singed off! but it kinda looks like pizza now


Second one are vague memorys of the parasites from Operation Annihilate, mostly due to the buzzing sound design & their stingers, the deflating sound effects are a bit funny & the flying by strings took a bit of the scare factor away though. Its good that Trek helped to introduce the idea that alien life isnt all warm & fuzzy and could be a nasty parasite! A scary theme brought up later in the Alien movies.

McCoy screaming like a madman on cordrazine - Murderers! Assassins!

Lastly the Balok puppet head, scary & still very freaky looking still to this day.

 

[FreddyE]

I always found the salt vampire very scary.
Rewatched it yesterday and as it turns out this has now changed...I feel pity for the poor creature when I see it in its "natural" form.

 

[Mytran]

That's thanks in no small part to Wah Chang who designed the costume; a real artist.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah the Salt Vampire was scarier than many think it is.

 

[Steve67]

The beginning of Naked Time with the frozen people on the planet was super scary for me as a kiddo.

What frightened me as a kid and creeped me out for years was when the virus moved onto Lt. Tormolen's hand. I was always scared of people losing control and being controlled by another entity.

 

[Jeri]

I was 13 already when Trek started on NBC, so nothing on it scared me. However, a few years earlier, I had the habit of standing around the door and peaking into the room with my hands over my eyes during my dad's favorite show, "The Twilight Zone."

There was one episode where a man who is the leader of an Earth colony spends decades lauding Earth to the colony members -- but when the return ship finally arrives to take them home, he finds he doesn't want to go anymore.

I think it's because he doesn't want to be a small fish in a big pond; he'd rather be a big fish in a small pond. So, he refuses to go back on the ship and is left alone on the planet.

As the camera pulls away, he's standing there wondering what he has done; but it's too late. He'll die alone there out of a fit of pride. I must have been about 10 when I saw this, but the psychological horror of it wasn't lost on me at all. It still kind of horrifies me.

 

[The Castellan]

In no particular order:

1: Balok puppet: I Was never 'scared', but that guy always creeped me out. Plus he reminds me of the greys.

2: Fersarius, when that ship was coming, I first went, "Hmmm, another ship, a round one." But as it got closer, I was, "Wait a minute....oh.....crap." Plus the smaller ship pulling the much larger Enterprise in tow was pretty intimidating.

3: Salt Vampire, the fact it could look like anyone it wants, plus that it can paralyze you and you would still see it kill you was creppy. Kirk's scream when the creature tried to get him said it all.

4: The world the Guardian of Forever was on. All that mist, fog and that howling was not a friendly place to be. And those ancient ruins where are hundreds of thousands of years old.

5: The Animear people simply walking into the dinstingrator machines to die without question. And the fact that the war went so neatly that it lasted 500+ years.

6: Kirk's sister in law's scream as she died.

7: That Orion girl that got blown up.....she'd either die from blowing up, or exphixiation. She was totally skrewed.

8: Kirk's 'evil' part from Enemy within. When he was so frightened and going, "I WANNA LIVE!" and that being esentually Kirk, I was like

9: Doomsday Machine....imagine being on a planet and that monster is carving the planet like a thanksgiving day turkey and you can do nothing about it, except maybe use a phaser on yourself for a much less nasty death.

10: Spock's breakdown in "The Naked Time".

11: The M-5 making havoc, and the remaining Enterprise crew not being able to stop it. And seeing the Constitutions slowly coming in for the kill, with the Doomsday Machine music playing. And Daystrum, a man of learning, turning into a bowl of mush at the end. I compare him to Tessleh, an out of the ordinary scientist I always admired.

12: The giant space amoeba.

13: The crew member who was crushed as a cube in "Any other name". And the fact the killer pretty much got away with that.

14: The disease that hit the Exeter.

15: "Balance of Terror".

16: Spock's anger in "Amok Time".

17: The poison the Klingons used on the grain in "Trouble with Tribbles". The fact the poor Tribbles starved to death was scary and sad.

18: Pike's accident.

19: The Mirror Universe.

20: Spock's brain being removed.

 

[Jeri]

Wow, nice list!

 

[Tan Ru]

The Evil-Kirk was quite creepy to me as a teenager.....

Actually, he still is creepy.

I don't care what some people say, The Shat is a good actor.

 

[The Castellan]

I forgot #21:

Wolf in the Fold: Poor Scotty, be made to kill people and not being able to control, nor remember anything. He could have been hanged, or whatever they use for execution on that planet. And imagine having "Jack the Ripper" haunting a Starship's computers....woe to anyone using the bathrooms, transporters or phaser rooms.
And dunno if the normal "Jack" was creepier, or when he was laughing from that stuff McCoy shot him up with.

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

Yeah the Jack the Ripper entity was scary as a kid in a Halloween sort of way!
I forgot that as a kid I took Spock's brain being removed seriously, but of course I was 9.

 

[Cakes488]

I think that TOS had a few powerful moments that were just scary as for many if us as kids and would like to read what impressions and memories everyone has as a kid watching the show.

One particularly scary episode which smacked of a little sci-fi horror was the man trap, the salt sucking monster was terrifying as a kid watching it try and stalk the crew members one by one. Remember the moment when it tried to make its move on Uhura! Wow! This left a powerful impression on me as a kid.

So what moments do you have that left a fearful impression on you as a child?

I can't remember anything that really disturbed me. I knew that my crew was safe and that they wouldn't be messed with so anything else that went on I dealt with.

 

[The Castellan]

Yeah the Jack the Ripper entity was scary as a kid in a Halloween sort of way!
I forgot that as a kid I took Spock's brain being removed seriously, but of course I was 9.

Well, having one's brain removed would be scary.

 

[bbailey861]

For me, the episode that I recall right off the bat is The Doomsday Machine. William Windom's decent into madness, the unrelenting planet killer, and the heart pounding music all put together made it unforgettable. I can hear the music in my mind even now.

Byron

 

[GhostFaceSaint]

There is an episode that I have been trying to remember where in order to safely communicate with this alien who was in a container you had to wear special eyeglasses or you would go insane. One of my first impressions of any Trek was watching Spock just lose it after seeing this alien without the red glasses, wow that scared me! Does anyone remember the episode title I am thinking of because I have been trying to track it down? I think this was one of the first episodes of any Trek I saw and I was only six or seven at the time.

 

[T'Bonz]

"Is There In Truth No Beauty"

 

[The Castellan]

"Is There In Truth No Beauty"

Same chick who was Palaski was in this one, yes?

 

[T'Bonz]

Yes.

 

[shadowedgalaxy]

The salt vampire. Scared the crap out of me. So much, that I threw away the "Reflections of the Future" card. (anyone have these?)