The Smurfs/Nightmare Fuel
- Aside from the occasionally creepy "groupthink" vibe common in cartoons during The Eighties, The Smurfs had their share of creepy adventures. Like the episode where the Smurfs were being turned into evil purple versions of themselves that could say nothing but "G'nap!", and bit each other on the tail to spread the infection. Or the Christmas Special where they rescue 2 children and Gargamel from an evil wizard, who conjures a wall of fire around himself, the kids, and the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, only to fade away screaming in defeated despair under the Smurfs' repeated singing of a sappy holiday song.
- According to this site, in the original Belgian comic, the Smurfs turned black. No, really. Try wrapping your mind around all of that.
- The ending to the 'G'nap!' episode. Papa Smurf had been bitten. The only reason anyone was cured was cartoon physics, with the fire spreading the antidote as a gas rather than diluting and burning it on the ground. Otherwise they'd all still be that way.
- There's also the episode "All Work and No Smurf", in which overworked Smurfs begin to transform into various inanimate objects. Talk about And I Must Scream. They still had mouths and spoke, which makes it worse.
- And then the episode where Brainy Smurf gets turned into a monstrous Werewolf-Smurf creature from a scratch from a magical plant.
- Whatever you do, don't say "Kaplowey"! It'll make whatever you're pointing at vanish. People included. (At the end, using the word on the magic scroll that empowers it reverses the effect and things begin reappearing...but a) who knows what dangerous things it might have been used on? and b) sooner or later the scroll will reappear too!
- According to this site, in the original Belgian comic, the Smurfs turned black. No, really. Try wrapping your mind around all of that.
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