[Blubatt]

To quoth the mask of apple: 'Everybody has one. There's a whole internet subculture dedicated to it. Television Idents and logos that scared the crap out of you as a kid'.

Undoubtedly, there are television idents, and pieces of presentation that likely unsettled you as a child. As a 3-5 year old with Autism, there were two pieces of presentation that scared me to tears every time I saw them. Firstly were the Powergen Weathergens, which sponsored ITV Weather throughout the 90's and early 2000's. While undoubtedly creative, and I appreciate them for what they are, they brought me to tears when I saw them. Especially Frice.
www.youtube.com 

Then there was the Sky One christmas idents from about 2000-2001? Not entirely sure, but that also had a Jack Frost-like theme, that I cannot find on YouTube. However, this begs the question. What ident or piece of pres scared you as a child? Were you afraid to watch Emmerdale Farm, for the booming Yorkshire Television fanfare? Were you unsettled by the DIC production logo? Are you scared of the Channel 4 blocks?

[Steve in Pudsey]

The clown on the testcard was scary for many.

[soulfulscotsman]

I used to be terrified of the Stephen J Cannell production credit, as seen at the end of The A-Team. Partially because of the horn fanfare, also the dodgy guitar like, the ferocity of the paper being thrown into the air, and the reality-into-animation transition of the sheet of paper. Still doesn't sit well with me and I'm a 40 year old man!

www.youtube.com 

Parodied to perfection by Family Guy here

youtu.be 

[jlmiller]

To quoth the mask of apple: 'Everybody has one. There's a whole internet subculture dedicated to it. Television Idents and logos that scared the crap out of you as a kid'.

Undoubtedly, there are television idents, and pieces of presentation that likely unsettled you as a child. As a 3-5 year old with Autism, there were two pieces of presentation that scared me to tears every time I saw them. Firstly were the Powergen Weathergens, which sponsored ITV Weather throughout the 90's and early 2000's. While undoubtedly creative, and I appreciate them for what they are, they brought me to tears when I saw them. Especially Frice.
www.youtube.com 

Same thing with me, but I never saw Frice once while the Weathergens were being used to introduce the weather on ITV. Mirka, on the other hand, scared the wits out of me as a child. Something about the fog trails from her hairpiece, the beams of light from her eyes that I once felt like could have been used to freeze me in place - don’t even get me started about her turn away from the camera at the end, or the terrifying music that could have come straight out of a horror film…

I had nightmares about that for many years before I could finally let it go - it got so bad that I tried not to watch ITV weather forecasts if I could help it. Nowadays though, I recognise the Weathergens for being excellent examples of sequences for introducing the forecasts, something that is sorely lacking these days.

[Humphrey Hacker]

I don't know about presentation per se but I was really scared of channel 4 in its early days for all the PSA's they had. Even at 4/5 years old I called it "The Danger Channel"

[LouBlu08]

I used to be incredibly scared of the green "Night Night" closedown screen on CBeebies back in the day. It's just very... ominous, that it kinda ruins the atmosphere set by the goodnight song. Hey, thank the stars I didn't grow up with the pink version that was used before this one. 

Also, my opinion but I belive the current closedown screen on CBeebies is actually really beautiful. How did they start with something that made me wee myself as a kid but then nowadays have a screen that has spawned my new screensaver?

Oh and on another note I used to be scared silly of the EastEnders theme because of the "doofs". My mum recalled that I would scratch my back whenever I'd hear it.

[all new phil]

Surely Bravo’s original devil horn look gets a mention. Hated it. Even sadder when you think what they had originally.

[fanoftv]

Surely Bravo’s original devil horn look gets a mention. Hated it. Even sadder when you think what they had originally.

Not having Sky at that time I didn’t know what you meant, I’ve just searched and seen a girl with a tongue piercing about to lick a cheese grater… I now know what you mean!

[Kunst]

In a way, Sky Atlantic (what somehow replaced it) is more of the original Bravo than the later installations were

[IanJRedman]

The only thing that jumps to mind is BBC Two's Zapper ident. For a while, as a young child, I had a genuine phobia of fly zappers because of this. I thought they really exploded on contact!

Seems stupid now...

youtu.be