Arthur (animation)/Nightmare Fuel

Being a slice-of-life cartoon (albeit using anthropomorphic animals) about the lives of young children, Arthur had a few moments that did a good job of depicting the dark sides of children's overactive imaginations.

"Arthur: Calling people names can be dangerous to their health."
 * "JEKYLL - JEKYLL - HYDE! JEKYLL - HYDE! HYDE! JEKYLL!"
 * In that same song, if you were to pause it after the Brain drinks the formula at the beginning at the right time, HIS HEAD LOOKS LIKE GIANT WORMS OR OCTOPUS TENTACLES OR SOMETHING!
 * For a kid's show, the series can be overripe with some pretty traumatizing examples, particularly "Night Fright", which deals with Binky confronting some of his long repressed nightmares. The monstrous hamburgers, attacking fries, and giant lips on a billboard are freaky enough, but probably the most terrifying moment in the episode was where Binky dreams he's trapped inside his nightlight, while his friends gather around to mock his nightmarish plight. The nightlight is shaped like a clown, by the way.
 * The giant purple orange, also a part of one of Binky's dreams from the episode "Rhyme For Your Life."
 * The Gainax Ending of The Boy Who Cried Comet would've probably caused nightmares with a few of the fans as well.
 * If you have Asperger's Syndrome, Carl's panic attack in "When Carl Met George" might bring back unpleasant memories...
 * A scene in Kate's debut episode where she is crying in the middle of the night, keeping D.W. up. The close-up on her face, combined with Kate's crying being reverberated is just disturbing.
 * The giant squid in Arthur's nightmare in the episode April 9th.
 * Heck, the school fire. Arthur was shooken up because his dad was in there and he was worried he'd get killed.
 * The episode "DW's Name Game" features Arthur melting after DW calls him "the ultimate insult" in a dream of hers.

"Arthur: I just relized something. Francine: What? Arthur: Today's Saturday, which means...the library will be closed until... Both: MONDAY!!! (echoes)"
 * The sudden appearance of the giant alien (which was really just a prank by Arthur and Buster) in DW's window in "Arthur's First Sleepover."
 * The episode "Arthur's Lost Library Book." Arthur loses a library book and has a series of disturbing nightmares as a result of his guilt, including one where a giant arm forcibly pries him out of his bed and drags him to the library to be punished for losing the book.
 * The episode "Locked In The Library" has plenty of disturbing imagery from Arthur's fear when he and Francine are trapped overnight in the library.
 * Hell, imagine being shut in without food or contact for possibly two days.


 * There is an episode where Arthur gets lost while taking the wrong bus across town. Because of a story his friends told him about the bus driver, he has a nightmare where the bus driver refuses to let him off the bus and randomly morphs into a disgusting-looking squid monster.


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