Imagine you're headed into the dentist's office.
Your old dentist has retired and this is your first time seeing this new one.
You never cared much for the dentist's but at least they're playing Cartoon Network in
the waiting room.
Your name is called.
The nurse leads you to the chair and tells you to wait for him, leaving the room.
A few minutes later, a tall man opens the door, eyes locked on you.
His hair is stringy and he smells funny.
He greets you with a cold, deep and steady voice.
Something about him makes you uncomfortable.
He's smiling, but something's not right.
He hasn't broken eye contact a single time since he's entered.
You never did like yellow eyes.
In that deep, unnerving voice, he tells you that he'll be putting you to sleep now.
You realize with horror that his mouth wasn't moving.
The gas mask is pulled over your face.
The subject of creepy characters is a rather interesting topic in pop culture.
Cartoon Network has been home to some of the most memorable and nostalgic shows on television.
One of the things that made these shows so memorable, was their tendency to feature at
least one character that could be seen as a creepy villain of sorts.
When we think of creepy, these characters tend to have a few traits in common.
The way they speak is strange and unnatural.
The way they behave, with a perpetual stare or an unending smile, is unnerving.
In today's Darkology, we'll be exploring 5 characters from 5 different and beloved Cartoon
Network originals- some glaringly obvious- others more obscure, and just what makes them
so creepy.
Kicking off this list is a character from
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
The very cartoon itself had many creepy undertones.
It was notorious for being a wacky hybrid of Spongebob Squarepants, Courage The Cowardly
Dog, and Ren and Stimpy.
Frequent use of hyper-realistic close ups blended with an overall macabre tone that
could well be described as... unsettling.
How this scene got approved as kid-friendly is beyond me...
"Hey there cutie! Aren't you beautiful?"
"I think I know what you waaaaant..."
"STRING!"
The show was packed full of some of the creepiest characters to ever grace the network.
"I see you're not yellow, fellow"
"But I don't wanna make ya blue, so get a clue..."
"You need to grow up!"
"Grow up? I'm 38-years old!"
Take Peppermint Larry for example.
His obsession with his Candy Wife raised some serious questions: was this inanimate object
made of candy really moving and telling him to do things when we weren't looking, or was
Peppermint Larry suffering from some serious delusions?
We'll return to this idea with a similar character from another cartoon later, but
for me, when it comes to Flapjack, no character captured creepy quite as best as Dr. Barber.
"Ah... customers... What can I do for you?"
As his name suggests, his occupation was that of a barber and a doctor, with an obsessive
proclivity for surgery.
He could also be considered a mad scientist of sorts.
His unusual tendency to say "yes" and "hmmm" between sentences was rather discomforting.
He also collected fish heads and the hair of his customers, feeding them through a hole
in the floor to the creatures living in his basement.
And then there was surgery.
"Do you have any stories?"
"Surgery?"
"Nope, just stories."
"Ah! So there's these two guys, and they think they want... a story- but what they really want... is surgery."
"They drink some of Dr. Barber's tea, and fall asleep, and when they wake up... SURGERY."
"Would you like some tea?"
He may have been inspired by real life instances of barber-surgeons during medieval Europe.
Barber-surgeons were an especially common profession during wartimes, though since most
of them lacked any medical knowledge- the surgeries often resulted in death.
So it's pretty obvious why we would find his obsession with subduing patrons for surgery
creepy, but what else is there?
Dr. Barber shares a certain facial feature that is common with the characters in Flapjack:
a wide, gummy smile.
Why are too many gums and teeth creepy?
According to Laura Murcko, spokesperson for the Academy of General Dentistry,
"A smile serves as an individual's most powerful tool.
A great smile can make a great lasting impression, boost a person's self-esteem and confidence,
as well as improve their overall health."
A gummy smile can be caused by a range of factors including small teeth, excess gum
tissue, and a short upper lip, all of which are genetic.
Studies that assess smiles have surveyed dentists, plastic surgeons, dermatologists, and the
general public.
In general, people find that a smile with two millimeters of exposed gum is largely
deemed as a "normal smile", whereas four millimeters is "noticeable", with anything
more than that being considered "too much".
The presence of too many gums in a smile may indicate to some that a person is smiling
"too much", which is usually an unsettling sign to most.
There are some who have even gone so far as to have <surgery> on their smile to reduce
this effect.
A surgical procedure known as a gingivectomy works to remove extra gum tissue.
Recently, some have taken a step away from surgery, opting for a lighter, more temporary
procedure in the form of botox.
Injections of botox into the upper lip effectively paralyze it and keep it from rising when the
patient smiles, leaving the gums covered.
However, some people might go overboard with botox and end up with a crooked smile.
How about teeth?
A study from the University of Minnesota found that smiles that were too wide, to highly
angled, and that showed a lot of teeth were not the best at creating a positive impression,
falling more on the scale of creepy and fake.
The survey of 802 people revealed that pleasant and genuine smiles are perceived more when
a mouth's angles are between 13 and 17 degrees, and have a width between 55% and 62% of the
distance between the pupils of the eyes.
Also, we're generally able to discern between a genuine smile and a fake one, especially
by looking at the eyes.
Hyperdontia is the condition of having additional teeth to the regular amount.
But perhaps simply exposing too many teeth alone, creates an unsettling effect.
Perhaps the true psychology behind what makes a smile creepy stems from the context and
situation it's presented in.
Take for example a surgeon smiling after the death of a patient.
Or a politician smiling in response to being called a liar.
Francis McAndrew and Sara Koehnke, authors of "On the nature of creepiness" an empirical
study in "New Ideas in Psychology" from 2016, say that creepiness is
"what we feel when we think someone might be a threat, but we're not sure - the ambiguity
leaves us "frozen in place, wallowing in unease"
Remind you of anyone?
Dr. Barber is often shown smiling, even when there isn't an apparent reason to be doing
so.
This is one of the biggest reasons why he is seen as so creepy.
Especially since we assume that he's secretly thinking about performing nonconsensual surgery
or collecting hair and feeding it to the strange creatures living in his basement.
Dr. Barber's monotonous speech pattern is also a trait that is rather unsettling, one
that he shares with the next feature on our list:
____________________________________________________________________________
4.
The Delightful Children From Down The Lane - KND
Typically, when someone is speaking calmly and clearly, and doesn't change their tone
too much, we find it very reassuring.
However, this isn't exactly the case if the speaker is talking too monotonously.
But what is it about talking monotonously that's so creepy?
Perfectly monotone speakers who lack any variation and don't stress any words or syllables
sound unnatural.
It could indicate that the speaker is either crazy, being mind-controlled, is an impostor,
or is being threatened against their will.
The cartoon Kids Next Door featured a villain that talked exactly like this: The Delightful
Children From Down The Lane.
...even the name sounds creepy.
Like Dr. Barber, the Delightful Children From Down The Lane spoke in a very monotonous tone,
as if they were dead inside or masking an insidious agenda.
And what's worse, they all spoke as one being- like a hivemind.
They were the antithesis of the Kids Next Door, succumbing to the pressures of their
perceived society and striving to grow up as fast as possible to become "boring adults".
Indeed, it wasn't just the monotonous way they spoke, but the idea that they were being
controlled by something far more sinister.
What most people find haunting about a hivemind is the idea of the loss of individuality and
freedom for control.
Independence and individuality are highly valued concepts in our culture- especially
in western culture.
We strive to live our own lives and be in control of ourselves.
There's something both sad and concerning about seeing a person you know change into
a shell of their former selves in pursuit of becoming part of "the hive".
And in the case of The Delightful Children From Down The Lane, this unified mentality
was the result of *SPOILER ALERT* delightfulization- or brainwashing.
In the KND film Operation Z.E.R.O, it's revealed that they were the former members
of the missing "Sector Z".
They were so irreversibly mentally damaged, that even being "cured" of their brainwashing
only had a temporary effect.
But perhaps it isn't so much the mind-controlling influence of their evil boss, known in the
show as "Father", that torments The Delightful Children From Down The Lane.
Perhaps it's a much deeper condition of mental illness connected to a fragmented perception
of reality, as with our next case.
____________________________________________________________________________
3.
Plank - Ed, Edd, and Eddy
Ed, Edd, and Eddy was one of Cartoon Network's original Cartoon Cartoon lineups that featured
a slice-of-life format.
It followed a group of kids living in a cul de sac and their wild adventures in pursuit
of typical childlike desires like candy and quarters.
And for the most part, this show didn't have too much in the realm of creepy.
However there was one character who I thought had a strange attachment to a certain piece
of wood.
A certain 2x4 with a happy face drawn on its surface.
That's right.
I'm talking about Plank (insert title card at this sentence).
<cut to Snuffbomb commenting something along the lines of: "Oh c'mon.
PLANK?!
That's ridiculous.
We all know it was just a piece of wood."
*proceeds to talk to his inanimate object buddy*>
I know.
It sounds ridiculous.
This one doesn't exactly scream creepy on the surface.
But hear me out:
Jonny often talked about Plank like he was a real person.
He would get upset whenever Plank wasn't acknowledged by the rest of the cul de sac kids and they
would usually roll with it, leaving skeptics like Eddy in bewilderment.
He'd even claim that Plank told him things and often talked to the 2x4 as if it were
a loved one.
Plank is implied by Jonny to be a bit of a prankster and a wiseguy.
Jonny's so immersed in the world of his best friend, that he even created parents
and a friend for Plank out of other pieces of wood that were lying around.
What's rather chilling about this are the questions it poses:
Was Jonny suffering from serious delusions?
Or was "Plank" really speaking to him?
I think it was both.
But to better understand where this goes, we'll first need to take a look at hypnotherapy.
The mind is like an iceberg: most of it is below the surface.
We each have many experiences after we're born, and over time, a lot of them become
buried out of sight.
Memories that we ourselves can't remember because they're buried so far deep down
in our unconscious mind.
Hypnosis is looked at by some as a method for unlocking the subconscious mind, and in
some cases, the unconscious mind.
This'll be relevant in a second I promise.
So back to Plank:
Like dolls and mannequins, inanimate objects with faces have a tendency to make us think,
"am I being watched?"
Danny Antonucci, creator of Ed, Edd, and Eddy, has confirmed that Plank is nothing more than
an inanimate block of wood, though in the episode "All Eds Are Off", Plank is seen
moving throughout the school campus without Jonny's assistance.
In the same episode, Jonny is shown to have a hard time making decisions without Plank
nearby, and couldn't even last a day separated from him.
This indicates that Plank may have some direct influence over Jonny.
One rather peculiar and telling instance from the show was an episode where Eddy acquired
a hypnotizing wheel from one of Double D's psychology books and went around the neighborhood
hypnotizing the kids of the cul de sac.
Almost everyone fell victim to Eddy's scam, but when they got to Jonny, he wasn't affected.
More interestingly, Jonny ran away in horror exclaiming that they'd turned Plank into
a mindless zombie.
Why would Jonny perceive that Plank was hypnotized while Jonny wasn't?
Well what if Jonny and Plank are both parts of the same person?
What if they're two very distinguished personalities living in the same body?
Could it possibly be that Jonny suffers from a form of dissociative identity disorder,
a condition formerly known as multiple personality disorder?
Perhaps the "Plank" personality was the one watching the hypnosis ring during the
encounter with Eddy?
While we've all seen the theatrical stage version of hypnosis performed on an audience
member, hypnotherapy in real life is more like a state of heightened suggestibility.
The most frequent clinical uses of hypnotherapy include: breaking bad habits, overcoming insomnia,
recalling forgotten experiences, and as an anesthetic for managing pain.
Some even believe that hypnosis can be used to help those who suffer from dissociative
identity disorder or DID, though this has become a controversial subject.
Some have argued that hypnosis might actually trigger situations similar to clinical DID
in a healthy individual rather than "cure" DID in those who have it.
What I found creepy in this revelation was the mystery surrounding this unseen "Plank"
personality.
Just who is Plank?
We've seen similar mysteries in other places throughout pop culture.
Minor spoilers ahead: Teddy Daniels from Shutter Island, Malcolm rivers from Identity, Mort
Rainey from Secret Window, Gollum from Lord of the Rings, Tyler Durden from Fight Club,
Norman Bates from Psycho, and most recently, Kevin from Split.
These "other" personalities are often portrayed as mischievous and looking to cause
trouble.
In real life, DID has been used as a controversial reasoning for a handful of criminals in court.
These include the likes of Billy Milligan who under another personality, kidnapped,
robbed, and raped three women in 1977, and Juanita Maxwell who also under another personality,
murdered a 72-year old woman in 1979, and later robbed two banks in 1988.
Psychiatrists believe that DID might be a sign and the result of childhood abuse.
A splintering in personality might be a way of coping with a severe trauma and a way to
protect the "main personality".
And what's most concerning about Plank is that since he isn't ever seen taking full
control of Jonny's body, we don't really get to hear what mischief he might be whispering
to the "Jonny personality".
"Plank" and other real life situations like him, continue to remain an enigma.
____________________________________________________________________________
2.
HIM - Powerpuff Girls
From subtly creepy with Plank, to the profoundly creepy with our next character, we continue
on with our list this time delving into the world of The Powerpuff Girls.
Some of us will remember the distinct feeling of dread that washed over us as children,
watching the debut of this villain, as the announcer himself cowered in fear at the very
sight
of him.
<insert clip>
According to creator Craig McCracken's scale of The Powerpuff Girls villains, HIM is at
the top simply because he's the most evil.
And that's pretty apparent from his appearance alone.
The guy looks like The Devil himself- and while this wasn't the first time a devil-like
character appeared on Cartoon Network <insert the red guy from cow and chicken>, he was
memorable for being especially creepy and sinister.
With HIM it wasn't necessarily his evil deeds that made him creepy.
The powerpuff girls had tons of villains that were up to no good- and I wouldn't necessarily
call Mojo Jojo or Fuzzy Lumpkins "creepy".
What made HIM particularly unnerving, was the way in which he talked and behaved.
He spoke in a very polite, falsetto voice that echoed- and depending on what he'd
be saying, would abruptly switch back and forth between that and an enraged masculine
voice.
Another thing was his seemingly perpetual smile.
Even in the face of defeat or being wailed on, he often eerily smiled back, maintaining
that freaky falsetto pitch.
And what really brought it home was despite this overly false positive demeanor, the content
of his speech was often dark and violent.
It was the complete opposite of his cheery facial expression, twisting the whole message
being conveyed to the viewer.
As we've learned before, an out-of-place smile raises a couple of eyebrows.
Just like an evil clown masking its true agenda behind a misplaced smile, HIM was unpredictable-
and it's that uncertainty with him that made him creepy.
You never really knew when he was gonna pop, and so his presence on and off screen was
felt with utmost dread.
His method of attack was often psychological, preying on weaknesses like fear and trying
to get the Powerpuff Girls to fight amongst themselves.
And what's more, unlike the other villains who all wanted something in return for their
evil deeds- be it fortune, fame, or power, HIM didn't have an apparent reason for why
he did bad things.
He just seemed to enjoy chaos.
But it doesn't stop there.
One of the prime characteristics for HIM is a trait that he shares with our final feature...
____________________________________________________________________________
1.
Freaky Fred - Courage The Cowardly Dog
There was no way I was going to make a video about creepy cartoon characters on Cartoon
Network and NOT talk about it's creepiest show.
Creepy happenings are integral to the premise of Courage the Cowardly Dog.
The intro literally phrases the words, "Creepy stuff happens in nowhere", and boy did they
ever.
Our unlikely hero had to encounter some of the most nightmare-fuel villains the likes
of which many horror movie villains wish they compared to.
And to be fair, there were too many great choices to choose from.
So here are some honorable mentions:
Kitty (The Mask) - "All dogs are evil." and watching Muriel from the window.
King Ramses - "Return the slab."
The Blue Thing - "You're not perfect."
and a helluvah way to end the show guys.
Katz - "I wish you hadn't done that."
The Violin Girl - "AAAAAAAH."
<INSERT> "Hello new friend.
My name is Fred."
That's right.
Muriel's estranged nephew and perhaps a relative of Dr. Barber too, Freaky Fred.
From a creepy and perpetual smile, to that chillingly deep voice, to those terrible yellows
eyes and questionable sanity, Freaky Fred encapsulates the creepy elements of all the
other characters in this list.
What fascinated me most about this episode was how endearing Fred's character was,
despite his eerie narration throughout.
The way he rhymed every sentence made his story even more interesting.
It was like listening to a serial killer talk about his past and how he began killing.
There's even a subtle hint of remorse as he reflects on his most recent victim, that
is until he turns towards his current one.
Not longer after his arrival, we learn that he's not just visiting, but has actually
escaped from the mental hospital.
Seeing Courage notice that tag on Fred's wrist gave me a surge of goosebumps.
So what can we learn about Freaky Fred's appearance?
What trait does he have in common with HIM?
Well a perpetual smile for one- but what can we gather from looking at his eyes?
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul after all.
In Darkology #14, we learned about the psychological properties of the colors blue and red.
That is to say, how certain types of the electromagnetic radiation of light can affect our mood and
behavior.
Where red is physical and blue is intellectual, yellow is emotional.
The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating.
And since this stimulus is emotional, it's the strongest color, psychologically.
Yellow in a positive light can be seen as representative of optimism, confidence, self-esteem,
extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, and even creativity.
But Fred's eyes aren't quite yellow- they're more of a sickly off-yellow-green.
And his whole color pallet seems to be tinged with this color.
The wrong tone of yellow or too much of it, can symbolize irrationality, emotional fragility,
and depression.
Most of all, it can give rise to fear and anxiety.
And what about green?
The psychological property of this color is balance.
Green is supposed to represent harmony, equilibrium, and peace.
So perhaps, an off-coloration of green might represent unbalance.
If we look at fiction <insert screenshot of TV tropes>, a yellow sclera usually hints
that a character might have a rather unscrupulous nature, that is to say- they aren't very
honest and probably shouldn't be trusted.
It gives us a sense of uncertainty- uncertainty itself being a prime contributor to the "creepy"
attribute.
But what else is it about yellow eyes?
This thought may have been inspired historically by canines, felines, reptiles and birds of
prey, which often have very large irises in shades of amber, yellow and orange- irises
so large, they're sometimes mistaken for scleras.
These species are known for being conniving, clever, and wise.
And when we look at reptiles especially, they are often seen as villainous.
Perhaps there's some biblical influence?
<insert serpent from Adam & Eve>
In real life, a yellow or brown sclerae in humans is unhealthy and usually a symptom
of allergies or jaundice, and could also be a sign of alcoholism.
So what's my point here?
How does Freaky Fred having yellow eyes have any different of an effect than say, Katz
having yellow eyes?
Well- the truth is, it doesn't.
This uncertainty around characters with yellow eyes isn't unique to Freaky Fred.
The effect is the same.
He just creeped me out the most.
It's a trait prevalent in many villains scattered throughout cartoon network as well
as in other facets of pop culture.
And it isn't just unnatural eyes.
Certain details can go a long way in changing how we perceive a character.
From a smile, to a voice, to a splintered perception of reality.
So now viewers, I ask you:
Who's a cartoon character you found creepy?
And why did you find them so?
Let me know in the comments below.
If you'd like more nostalgic cartoon content, be sure to checkout 11 Banned or Forgotten
Cartoon Characters over on Blameitonjorge's channel.
I'll be presenting some of them over there.
Oh and special thanks to my friend Snuffbomb for agreeing to make a short cameo here.
Both of their channels are in the description- it would mean a lot to me if you showed them
some love!
And as always, thanks for watching.
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