One of the earliest and most vivid memories I have from childhood is sitting on a plaid couch (maybe two years old?), staring into a television, screaming in full toddler freakout because a robot on Sesame Street was scaring me.

What's funny about this memory is that even though the robot terrified me, I could not look away from the screen.

I was trying to retell this tale to someone over IM today, then googled and found one clip in which the robot appears -- the very first time, in 1972. Turns out S.A.M. ("Super Automated Machine") also made a cameo appearance in a Spider Man comic book.

Funny how memory imprints work -- the Sesame Street Robot still kind of scares me when I watch the clip, all these years later. I can't quite bring myself to watch the clip all the way through.

Link to video, Link to scans from the comic book.

Reader comment: David Z. says,

I had the same experience with this clip from Sesame Street of a stop-motion orange singing "Carmen." As a child, it would send me running from the room when it came on. I finally found it on YouTube and felt the same rush of fear as I did thirty-odd years ago. When the orange hits that high note and her face flies off, I almost had to close the browser.

Link.

Greg Baker says:

It was the yip-yip martians that did it for me.

Like david z, I found a clip on YouTube and freaked myself out a little. When the phone rang and their lips flew up above their head, I thought about cowering behind my desk chair for a second.

Video Link.

Thanks for the memory. There's nothing I don't like about Boing Boing. Keep up the good work.

I was terrified by those same freaking aliens, which actually sort of look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

This is still scary. Bert and Ernie sarcophagi, an Egyptian Ernie doppelganger, creepy music... As a kid, I was terrified they would replay it as a re-run.

My mom says I used to shout from the living room, "It's Coming!" Video Link to "Ernie and Bert Explore a Pyramid."