< Vanity Plate

Vanity Plate/Nightmare Fuel

Sleep tight, Russian kids!
"So I start up Team Fortress 2 and then I see a creepy bald man."
—A GameFAQs user

You would think that the little logos at the end of TV shows and the start of movies and video games wouldn't have the potential to scare anyone. These examples prove otherwise. Here are a few of the ones that made young children brit shicks, if you know what I mean.

Note: To just give an overview of how many people were scared shitless by these over the years, the Closing Logo Group's wiki, which documents vanity plates, lists among other things the "Scare Factor" of each logo (as does the site's predecessor and model, the FortuneCity hosted "KRS Logos"). And now, the examples.

Note 2: In the UK, these are known as 'idents' or 'end boards'.

Examples of Scary Vanity Plates:
  • Dickhouse Productions has this disturbing ident before the Jackass movies. It actually wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the mouth and the creepy moan...
  • The first releases of Nickelodeon shows like Ren and Stimpy and Rugrats on VHS were preceded by THIS monstrosity; a rapid fire montage of Nickelodeon's various Station Idents from the 1980's that throws so much crazy and random stuff at you that it becomes a certified Mind Screw. The Medium Blending of epic proportions doesn't help... Then there was THAT SCARY ORANGE BLOB logo...!
    • To some people who aren't scared of this logo it's sort of a Ear Worm. It's such a memorable logo.
  • Oh, and speaking of Nickelodeon, they had this delightful bumper from 1993 to 1999. First, we have some creepy painted hands singing the Nick theme in a way that makes the VID music sound pleasant, among flashes that makes that Pokemon episode look like it's for a one-year-old. Then, a disembodied pair of eyes, a nose and dentures says "Nickelodeon". After that it creepily reads the channel name, and it flashes the Nickelodeon logo. Now, you're thinking, what could be scarier than that? Well, this other one featured an egg that turned into a monster as a spoon turned into a scared bird. Then, the monster devours up the screen, revealing his Nickelodeon uvula. Sleep tight, kiddos!
  • The Jerry Bruckheimer Films logo comes off as a horror movie clip if you aren't used to it.
  • PBS, having been around for decades, has accumulated a few Nightmare Fuel idents over the years. Some of them weren't so scary, but this one, from 1971, sure was.
    • Try this fan-edited one on for size. (And try not to shit yourself.)
    • Ironically, the less scary "split profile" logo was designed by the guy who did the Screen Gems "S from Hell".
      • That logo did have a scarier variant used on the first episode of Square One Television where background vocals sing "And on, and on, and on, and on..." as the logo multiplies after doing its normal animation and music.
    • On a similar note, the music for the 1989 Glass ident can be jarring.
    • Ditto the Annenberg CPB and EFC logos.
    • WGBH Boston. It's even worse in slow-mo. Somehow this isn't surprising.
      • Subverted with the versions that run on Arthur: they actually let the ending theme run into the ident.
    • Nobody thought of the 1993/95 PBS Kids logo? I used to seriously have nightmares about it!
  • Quite a few people were scared of the THX logo as a kid. Or more specifically, the "Deep Note" noise.
  • The Starry Night Productions logo that played at the end of Night Court. It's sometimes called "Why I Hate Night Court"
  • Let us not forget that the first string of Disney movies released on home video were preceded by a truly mind-scarring Vanity Plate where a demonic-looking laser Mickey spun around as hyperdramatic music blared in the background.
    • Ironically, the creepiness of laser Mickey fit perfectly with the dark tone (and similarly creepy Conspicuous CG opening credits) of The Black Hole.
    • The early to mid-90s vanity plate took Mickey Mouse from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and wrote the name of Walt Disney Home Video in dark red on a black background. No idea why that was chilling but it was probably the mix of the haunting music (Disney seemed to be good at putting chilling music before kids movies for whatever reason) and the dark background.
      • According to the Closing Logos wiki, a few early videotapes with that logo featured a distorted version of the jingle, due to a technical error. I can only imagine how that must have been for the poor kids who were already scared of the logo to begin with... (I personally found it quite comforting as a kid, but still!)
  • The 1989 logo for Genesis Entertainment probably emptied the bowels of a few people at one point (going by the negative reaction to the music). The 1994 version isn't considered as scary.
  • Frequently topping most charts is the Screen Gems logo from the '60s. It's known by the CLG as the "S from Hell."
  • The other big one is Viacom's "V of Doom".
  • Paramount's logo from 1969, aka "Closet Killer", whose accompaniment sounds like it would be more at home in a horror film.
    • Or, for that matter, a fade-to-commercial after James T. Kirk gets into a sticky situation, at least for me.
      • To soften things a little, I'll quote a comment posted on that video... try singing along:

"Let me check. Do, you, know, THE MUFFIN MAAAAAAAAAN... Yep."

    • A NBC News ident also from the 1960s could have been an inspiration for the "Closet Killer" years later.
    • Some people are also scared by its successor, the "Blue Mountain", which carries over the Lalo Schifrin score from the "Closet Killer" logo:
  • The VID mask, a sequence for one of the first private Russian TV companies formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
    • This is perhaps one of the few logos listed here that was intentionally made scary. With the collapse of the USSR in the early 90's, the executives over at the VID company figured that the network needed a "shocking" logo, so they cooked up a mask with a rather angry face (actually modified through CGI from a less menacing sculpture of a philosopher, which a museum denied them direct usage of) and a fanfare consisting of five scare chords. Considering Russians' accounts of seeing this logo growing up, they certainly did not disappoint!
    • A quick note: it had to be be changed because it was feared the sudden black/white cycling would trigger epileptic seizures, so the current VID ident is just the stone face with no animation.
      • Hey, you want epileptic seizures, try this baby on fer size. Just sayin'.
    • The talking is actually fan work, with the mask animated using Crazy Talk. Here's a scarier version using a different audio clip (you'll never, EVER find it Narmy again).
    • There is only one way to make it scarier.
    • This just proves how much scarier the mask is in its natural habitat.
    • Look out! It's learned how to Shoop da Whoop!
    • Apparently on April 1st, 1995, at the end of the show L-club, the VID mask appeared, already terrifying in it's own right, appeared as usual. Then this happened.
      • The VID logo fades into a face photoshopped over it, with his tongue sticking out and his eyes wide open.
        • Rumor has it that this was apparently used as an April Fools Prank, so they this pretty much means they were intentionally trying to scare people with this variant. Then if that wasn't enough, they then later aired this at random, so on any random day, this could replace the standard VID logo by surprise.
    • Oh, crap, just watch this YouTube poop and make sure you have some dry pants in handy! I covered my eyes with my hand and it still scared me!
  • The 'plate' used by Sega in the Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Mega Drive unsettled many gamers with its unskippable, loud, discordant SE-GA voice.
    • Seen here.
    • Try Chakan, Taz-Mania, or Ultimate Soccer on for size!
      • Chakan opens with a screeching pterodactyl. What about the others? Doesn't U.S. just open with very loud music?
    • If you tune it down an octave or so, it' about as poopy-pants as the THX Deep Note. Or hilarious. This has been demonstrated in at least one YouTube Poop.
    • Sega's custom "Deep Water" rating/brand had this little gem (skip to the 20-second mark to see it). Unsettling piano music, circling sharks, a scream and some strange, ominous whispering near the end make it abundantly clear that Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Darkside is NOT for children.
  • Fat Dog Productions, thanks to a combination of incessant howling and Lack Of Animation Is Scarier.
  • The Bedford Falls Company, due to the creepy, disembodied singing. ABC Productions's logo (which follows it) isn't much better.
  • Boje Buck, which proves that not Everythings Better With Bunnies; here, it's worse.
  • The first Klasky-Csupo logo was colorful, bouncy, memorable and fun, even if it were roughly animated. However, its successor (debuting on the tape The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald: Scared Silly) was scary as hell. An unfortunate side effect of Nickelodeon's Credits Pushback was that sometimes, this logo would appear after the credits on a show it wasn't supposed to: SpongeBob SquarePants. This doesn't happen anymore, thankfully.
    • For those don't want to look, it involves a very creepy looking face that looks like it just came out of a little kid's nightmare, with these huge, bulgy, and realistic looking eyes and a thick-lipped mouth on yellow construction paper. The personification of Uncanny Valley and Nightmare Fuel.
    • The troper Fromthe Wordsof BR got nightmares from watching this logo when he was little.
    • A variant on that logo on The Wild Thornberries Movie was even worse than that, not only is the cut to the cheaper logo jarring, the face constantly stares at you and then smiles in a horrifyingly disturbing way! HOLY CRAP!
  • The first MTE logo, which has the Universal globe fly out at you with no warning, and a loud, bombastic rendition of the theme from the Universal Television logo of the time.
  • the 'End Of Transmissions' logo used by Italian National Network RAI in its infancy has something disquieting and uncanny, which makes it truly creepy.
  • Intrepid Pictures, featuring a man almost getting struck by lightning. The red sky and the music certainly don't help.
  • Long before Neversoft managed to light the Nirvana Fan Dumb on fire, they had this little number.
  • The logo for Bad Robot is pretty scary. But the extended cg version used in their movies? This is one of the single most terrifying things in the world.
  • How can we forget about the MGM logo? A big lion on the screen roaring at you would send chills down a kid. Also, let's take time to mention the MGM/UA Home Video logo.
    • This may be why Tom replaces him on occasion, besides Rule of Funny.
    • If you can believe it, it gets creepier. That poor lion looks so disoriented being stuck in that frame!
    • In the opening for the US version of The Fearless Vampire Killers the lion sprouts animated vampire fangs with blood dripping on them after he does his usual roaring, in the UK version he turns into a green cartoon vampire.
  • The final logo for Reeves Entertainment, featuring two drama masks straight out of the Uncanny Valley, used to creep me out.
    • The laughing-voice version shown at the end of Nickelodeon's "Wild & Crazy Kids" was even worse.
  • Lynch/Frost Productions, David Lynch's logo for Twin Peaks. Deliberate, since this is Lynch we're talking about here.
    • You can't appreciate how scary it is unless you remember that the Twin Peaks end credits theme concludes with a slow, brooding fadeout... followed immediately by the Hell Is That Noise of the Lynch/Frost logo.
    • Another logo by Lynch is the one for Asymmetrical.
  • Guntzelman Sullivan Marshall Productions' vanity plate is particularly morbid. The vanity plate shows a man on the roof of his two-story house (at night) and he falls off the house into the bushes, screaming. Needless to say, it's pretty jarring when you find out that the sickos behind this ident was the production company who created Growing Pains.
  • The BBC spooks you beyond Doctor Who with 90's BBC Video. As once commenter put it, "It sounds like someone died."
  • The second Renaissance Pictures logo, best known for showing up at the end of Xena: Warrior Princess. It may be intentional, as this is Sam Raimi's company. You know what's weird? This is the first one (don't worry, it's not scary).
  • Similiar is Icon Entertainment, Mel Gibson's company.
  • Courage the Cowardly Dog was known for the many frightening things within. To some people, the Stretch Films logo is among them.
  • It took this long to get to Lorimar's Line of Doom, considered creepy by some due to the dark background and electric piano tune.
    • Ughh, this one has a low male's voice in the background.
      • Just so you know, that's a fake one made by fellow CLG Wiki member Shadeed.
  • The first View Askew logo that appeared at the beginning of Clerks. It is grungy, roughly animated, and involves a little boy and a cross-dressing clown. The music alone is enough to make me void my bowels, even today. It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Okay what is it about the TriStar pegasus? There's just something strangely imposing about him...
  • No love for Touchstone? It even has creepy music.
    • The creepy music is one of the things taken out of the shortened TV version, being replaced with a serene piano jingle ending with a bell where the horn stab would be in the movie logo.
  • Any of those logos that'll play at the end of a DVD. Picture yourself sitting on your reclining chair during the end of The Girl Next Door: Unrated Edition. You think it's all over and the credits have run their course, and then suddenly, BAM! Big green logo in your face.
  • M.
  • The second Mozark Productions logo, due to the creepy jingle (excuse the tape hiss).
  • Another creepy jingle comes to us from Vin Di Bona Productions (the same music is in the next three; the only changes are visual:
  • The 20th Century-Fox Fanfare composed by Alfred Newman is an awesomely patriotic ditty, but around the early 60's, 20th Century-Fox Television used a variation of the fanfare with muted trumpets and a string flourish. Kinda unintentionally unsettling with the dramatic string flourish, but then in 1965, the Television fanfare was sped up, making the instrumentation even more aggressive (Newman once laughed that having to record a short, three-second television fanfare would cause the musicians to play more frantically). No matter which variation of this fanfare was used, however, there was always one absolute visually. The logo would start off with the standard 20th CENTURY FOX structure, but when suddenly, out of nowhere, the word "TELEVISION" would fill out the screen before zooming out and taking the place of "CENTURY" in the structure; general consensus is that the logo was more traumatizing with the sped up jingle. Starting with the late 80's, however, the logo would use a short version of the classic TCF fanfare, but the zoom-out still made it creepy enough. Fortunately, some variants featured the C in "CENTURY" still being visible after "TELEVISION" seemingly took the word's place on the structure, providing Nightmare Retardant, unintentional laughter, and bewilderment at how this Special Effects Failure got past quality control.
    • The CGI logos for TCFTV and for 20th Television (which appears at the end of syndicated The Simpsons/Family Guy reruns and myriad courtroom shows), while not scary, are probably a reference/tribute to this logo with a zoom out of the structure.
    • Unfortunately, around 1997, the dreaded 1965 TV fanfare was rerecorded and became the standard jingle for the CGI 20th Century-Fox Television logo. Currently, the jingle varies between the 1965 TV fanfare and a snippet of the classic TCF fanfare (as well as--in the case of the FOX Network's primetime lineup--various remixes based on the final four notes of the TCF fanfare).
  • The One Ho Productions logo (Whoopi Goldberg's company), which appeared at the end of 1998-2002 Hollywood Squares episodes, is pretty creepy.
  • The opening vanity plate for the production team behind The Neverhood is rather frightening, mainly because it used a clip of the villain's ear-piercing evil laugh... right after the Dreamworks music lulls you into complacency.
  • Back in the '90s, the Syfy had an ID with a grandfather clock whose face turned into a monster, whose mouth would then be zoomed into and the channel's logo would be zoomed towards at breakneck speed.
    • That ID, if your wondering, is here.
      • OK, it's a dead link now. And thank god.
    • There was a later bumper that's creepy as well. It actually came in a series that played during subsequent commercial breaks during the same show. An alien seed descends upon the surface of a planet, then grows into a field of plants, innocently enough. Then in a later bumper it shows the plants' vines wrapping around a passing snake, while creepy music plays. Then in the next bumper one of the plants quickly grabs a butterfly and devours it instantly, but that's not the worst part, oh no. The next bumper after that throws off the kid gloves and has the same creepy music from earlier playing, while one of the plants is shown "chewing" a bird, while its wing (the only part of it we can see) struggles and flutters desperately. There's an even scarier one this troper never saw on TV where the plant is chewing on a human hand. All this horror and the nightmares to follow can be had at this link. (Ironically, the person who uploaded the video posted it because they found it to be Fetish Fuel)
    • Another one has a man putting out the garbage and then going back inside his house. After he leaves, the words "Dead...leaves?" appear onscreen.
  • An 1998 ident for Sky Premier in the UK features women high in the sky holding a golden sheet falling off of diamond-shaped platforms and dissolving into gold dust, as the a sheet becomes a movie screen (you can even hear screams in the background while they're falling). Even worse is that falling women are a recurring motif in the look. What the hell was Pittard Sullivan thinking?
    • The screams are brief, though, and they only happen when the first woman falls.
  • This contender puts many of the previous entries to shame.
  • The choice is 5!
  • This is more creepy if you don't recognize it from this song... uncanny, isn't it?
  • WEE-UM! Wee-um! Wee-um, wee-um, wee-um....
  • Uh-oh, I hear drums.
  • This measly, 2-second Claster Television Incorporated logo. It's just feels so industrial...
    • In 1997, they replaced it with a more relaxing electric piano ditty.
  • Yahhhg, it's coming right at me!!
  • Aaaughhh, what the hell is that thing?!
  • Maybe it's just the music, but even this very early logo was a little jarring...
  • Straight up Nightmare Fuel, because Nothing Can Go Wrong, apparently.
    • For those afraid to click, it's a car driving off a cliff.
      • Um, why is that there? It's actually pretty funny.
  • Perhaps it's understood that video game logos will have some intentionally creepy-ass idents. But at any rate, typing "creepy logo" into Youtube gets you this.
  • Televentures... another eerie one. Why do so many of them have to be silent?
  • This one qualifies as one of those "doom" logos.
    • "Not affiliated with World Vision International, a religious and charitable organization." ofc.
  • "This is NET, the public television network...
  • Here's one. Again, nearly silent...
  • A triple-threat!
  • Yipes! French-Canadian people had to survive this one during special presentations!
  • The CBC's "Kaleidoscope" ID Ever notice that some of the weirdest ones are rather off-key?
  • Jeez! Some of these foreign ones are just as bad as any US logos.
  • Brian Eno composed this for the intro/outro of Rai3's news, inducing terror and creeps in impressionable (and not-so-impressionable) people of the time.
  • Although this troper isn't bothered by them, apparently a number of people hated the NBC peacock during their childhoods.
    • Then here's this French-Canadian one- sort of their rendition of America's NBC Peacock.
      • That was merely the French version of the CBC ID of the time.
    • Back to NBC: In 1993, they introduced several network IDs from various artists. The scariest of them all is probably Peter Maxx's contribution, which is a psychedelic mess from which emerges the 1986 peacock logo. Notably, one of the 1993 introductions, which depicts several brightly colored "fireflies" swirling around and forming the peacock, lasted much longer than the others; almost ten years, in fact.
    • Incredible how a mere 3 seconds can strike fear into one's heart, isn't it?
    • To counter slightly the number of spookier NBC logos, here's this humorous one.
  • Cute or creepy? It's a toss-up. Then again, as it is Raggedy Ann...
  • For all intents and purposes, this French intro should be cute and friendly... However, it just... isn't. It has these card-board cutout, floating heads representing every figure of the family (mom, dad, son, etc.), all positively scowling at you! And for some reason, one of them is crying. Look, don't ask. Just watch it.
  • CBC Channel 6's ident from 1961-1962. "Anything Can Happen!" Your reaction is more likely to be "Wait, what? What?!?!"
  • I don't know why it is, but this troper gets creeped out by the moment before the movie plays on TCM when it shows the rating. I don't know why. It's just creepy.
    • Could it be the music?
      • That Drone of Dread they play over the ratings? Yes, this troper finds it pretty unnerving, too.
  • A youtube channel that goes by the name Machinery Noise (aptly enough) provides a plethora of scary vanity plates. Such ones include:
  • S from hell... Meet wiggly U from hell!
    • That's often called the "Turning UA". Its music is odd, in that it starts out sounding menacing but turns triumphant and celebratory.
    • I'm not going to lie...I'm usually very easily scared by these idents, but that was AWESOME.
      • S and Wiggly U from Hell, meet.... whatever the hell that is supposed to be!
        • I know what it is, it's something that just scared the crap out of me!
        • Wiggly reverse R, maybe?
  • Mandate Pictures and its unintentionally Creepy Child.
  • The defunct German music channel Viva Zwei was no stranger to weird scary idents.
  • No "love" for Valve's logos?
  • The Bryanston Pictures "Creepy Box" Logo is not exactly renowned for its scare power... but it should be.
    • And here's an Asian logo that borrowed the audio for Braynston Pictures- why they thought this was a good idea...
  • "If this doesn't scare at least one child... it's a Miracle!"
  • RANK. VIDEO.
  • Unfortunately, this video shows the legal warning for a few seconds before the Guild Home Video logo, but GOD is it creepy!!
  • The ONLY time Looney Toons ever verged on being creepy.
    • Especially when it's used on Now Hear This or some of the Rudy Larriva-directed Road Runner cartoons!
    • To this troper, it's less creepy and more "this cartoon will more than likely suck. HARD."
    • Then again, there is this one.
  • Spiderman- Spidermaaaaan!... Some people have found this sinister, recognizable though the superhero is.
    • Made worse here, IMHO, as the evil stinger to the Muppet Babies ending Ear Worm. Seriously, this troper would run out of the room every time, as she was convinced the evil ice-man thing would reach out of the television and steal her soul. The squawky trumpets going a bit wrong certainly don't help..
  • That guy on the Pre-Lego Adaptation Game Traveler's Tales logo scared me when I was little. Heck, he still kind of gives me the creeps.
  • Hong Kong FIlm Services.
  • MosFilm... I can't explain it, but it's eerie.
  • The special version of the "Gracie Films" logo, for the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror special. Here's the much nicer original: 1.
  • The Steven Bochco Productions logo (of Doogie Howser, M.D. and NYPD Blue fame) is a bit creepy, if only because the odd movement of the violin's bow bothers me (unsurprising, as this is a cut out animation).
  • The Universal Television 1963 "blinking negatives" logo.
  • This troper is surprised Hanna Barbera hasn't made the list. There were a lot of people who did not like that swirling star in their childhoods.
  • Those movie theater "enjoy the show" roller coasters make me about crap myself. Every time. Or want to throw up.
    • On the subject of movie theater bumpers, we have this one from the not-quite-defunct Century Theatres, which used to scare me. Seeing it on YouTube might make this puzzling, but it was much louder in the theater, and I hated that.
      • Seems that they took a lot of elements from Pacific Theatres "Death Ray", which I saw dozens of times as a child.
        • Feel sorry for anyone who had to witness this abomination in British movie theatres. It used to come before the commercials and trailers and was used constantly between 1996 and 2009. So if you were watching something like the movie Millions in British cinemass, you'd have to bring earplugs. It was even worse if you saw it in a UCI cinema, where it would be preceeded by the following.
  • How about the plate for Random House home video? Meh, it's a tad bit calm, but the text zooming out is a lot like the "V of Doom".
  • Iiiiinnnn.... and ouuuuuuuut....
      • At least it was better than Cinemark's horrible CG animations.
  • And now, our feature presentation... Yes, that deep voice has scared kids. Really.
  • Disney also put out strange title cards with the Feature Presentation font on certain backgrounds. Thank god Disney stopped using the "Coming On Videocassette this Summer" and "Coming This Fall to Home Video" cards before this troper was born.
    • The aforementioned cards made me so terrified of them that at age 4 or 5, if they ever entered my mind, I thought they would be in my bedroom hallway waiting for me if I got out of bed.
    • It also wouldn't have creeped me out more if I hadn't watched them at night just before going to bed.
  • FNM Films, if only for the random yell of pain in the background.
  • The 1983 Children's Television Workshop "Sparks" logo. The loud, descending electronic keyboard music doesn't help, either.
  • Paramount scores again with This harsh mistress. By contast, the logo that inspired it was much tamer.
    • AUUUUUUGH. MY EARS.
  • The logo for Jester Interactive, mainly due to the Creepy Circus Music and the fact that you don't know what the hell you just watched.
  • The Mohawk Productions logo. Ultrasounds aren't creepy enough, let's add a loud drum beat and catch people off guard!
    • That's the reason I change the channel as soon as George Lopez ends.
    • What's even worse is that the drum beat loops 3 times before finally ending.
  • Anyone from the UK ever get The Snowman on VHS? Nice sweet film about a boy and his snowman that had a Downer Ending but pretty much defines Christmas for Brits of a certain age...? Well, before you got to see the video you saw Palace Video's logo "Dad, fast forward the tape ...OR ELSE!"
  • You'd think that BBC One's "circles" idents would have no scare potential. But the Lawn Circles ident, what with the lawn-mowing women's robotic, stiff, unnatural movement and blank expressions, might prove one wrong.
  • In Brazil, Rede Globo's "Plantao" (which precedes breakthrough news, most of the times involving tragedy and/or death; it's usually said the scary vignette makes them even worse).
  • How come nobody mentionned the Mutant Enemy logo that would sneak up on us at the end of Buffy, no music, just the creepy little Nosferatu-like paper figure and its cute "Grr Aarrrgh !"? ...Well it used to scare the shit outta me ! And it's made even worse when it's going opera style after Season 6 "Once More With Feeling"...I have the soundtrack of that particular episode and I still do my best to skip the corresponding track every single time.
    • Ugh, I always hated that logo...
    • I personally love the little guy, especially at the end of the Musical episode. The musical version is actually the one that sticks in my head.
    • OK, I, From the Words of BR, like the Mutant Enemy logo. For one thing, you can clearly see the goblin's butt. Why I like that is because I'm basically Sir Mix-a-Lot because I like butts.
  • This troper doesn't find the new FUNimation logo ident scary, but the jumble of anime voices leading up to the logo name being spoken and the "you should be watching" whisper might sound creepy to someone.
    • I was always taken much more by surprise with the old vanity plate. For me, the voice of Christopher Sabat is usually an indicator of incoming awesome, but having him whisper "funimation" right after some loud swooshing sound effects... No!
    • The mid-90s ident, as seen on old Dragon Ball VHS tapes, is a tad unsettling. It comes complete with creepy synthesized music and Uncanny Valley-esque CG shapes, especially that star near the end.
  • One more, from Russia. ATV's first logo was a little creepy, but nothing too special. Then they've decided it was not enough...
  • Virgin Interactive, or the equally terrifying stepbrother of the Atraxi.
  • This Russian talk show logo also happens to be from VID... as if that's a surprise to anyone.
    • That. Was. SCARY!
  • This Troper vaguely remembers one where a stick figure runs across the logo and then jumps off and screams. If only he could remember the company.
  • This CBS logo scared me as a little kid. I can't remember exactly why; I think it was the music. But I refused to watch CBS for a while for fear of this station ident.
    • The music of this logo for CBS Special Presentations made this troper fast-forward like whoa on family tapes of Peanuts cartoons. She may be the only one, though...
    • This CBS-FOX logo looked mean to me. Maybe it's because it was metallic and looked sharp, like it could hurt...or kill...
    • The CBS Giant Eye of Doom click here ... if you dare is scary enough. Even scarier is the similar OECA logo.
    • What about this one? This troper used to dread watching Next Food Network Star till the end because of the eerie background music on this one...
  • This Troper's brother was startled by this F.H.E. (Family Home Entertainment) logo as a little kid. In his own words, it was a combination of the sound at the beginning and how it just...came up onto the screen.
    • That one always bugged me as a kid and it still weirds me out as an adult.
  • One of the most successful medical drama series of the 90s was St. Elsewhere. At the end of every episode, there was an adorable kitten who would meow in an obvious MGM parody. However, at the end of the very last episode, this is how the kitten appears... before flatlining. Just the ultimate icing on top of the episode's utterly convoluted theory that is Tommy Westphall's mind.
    • Just to make matters worse, in real life, the cat died on the same year that St. Elsewhere ended.
  • Murghan Enterprise. Fear the furiously flaming statue with sombre music.
    • That was one of the most horrifying things ever.
  • Oz Film, known by a YouTube user as "VID's Granny" for a good reason.
    • Now that is genuinely terrifying.
    • Pfft. This logo makes the VID mask look tame.
  • Mark VII Limited.
    • Now that you mention that, there's also the Williams Street logo that samples the aforementioned Mark VII logo.
    • There’s also the parody that appears in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Under the Counter Spy,” where the hammer-er smashes his own thumb!
    • Possibly the earliest reference to a logo being scary was a line in a TV Guide article where the writer mused about having nightmares that the MARK VII guy was stamping the logo into his forehead.
  • The Skyline is a Sneaky beast...
    • Try the night version on for size!... though the true terror comes not from the logo itself, but from what follows it... and it is horrifying.
  • The Belisarius Productions logo (as seen on NCIS) is pretty unsettling, mainly because of the sudden lightning flash and the stinging synth tone.
  • This Italian troper can't help himself, but yeah, another Italian example. "Canale 5" (that is, "Channel Five") usually uses bumpers such as these, and that's okay. However, starting with spring 2010, new ones have been introduced: have you seen the second one of this row? They changed the classic Channel Five jingle to an horrifying Scare Chord variant of it. The fact they first used that version for what basically is CSI's Italian Captain Ersatz, "RIS" (sort of: RIS is an actual department of our national gendarmerie, "Carabinieri") just adds to the fact that, yes, this was intentional.
  • Animal Planet had this number. Needless to say, it fricking sucks to be that rat.
  • The Mad Dog Productions logo. It'll make you wish your computer had a "hold me" key.
    • And it even ends with the dreaded Paramount logo! (Although that was an edit because the poster wondered what Family Ties would be like if it ended that wat - Mad Dog Productions was affiliated with Universal.)
      • Why does the the Mad Dog logo remind me of an album cover for the Distillers? Great. Now every time I want to listen to my iPod on shuffle, and a song from that album pops up, I'll think of that horrible Mad Dog logo. Great...
  • Deep Water Games. Let's just say that Everything's Even Worse with Sharks and leave it at that.
    • For a second, I thought Sonic was gonna get eaten by a shark...
  • SNEEE-OOOOOSH!
    • For some reason I was always fascinated by that logo. I think it had something to do with the bird, and I always liked dragons and Thunderbirds and griffins and such. Speaking of scary logos on Nick, there was this little gem that always played at the end of Cat Dog...
      • True story. I was in California for a wedding and the hotel I stayed at had a statue of an anthro-pig dressed as a mailman. And it look just. Like. That. Peter Hanna. Logo. I couldn't even look at the damn thing without shuddering.
      • I don't normally ask this, but what's so scary about the Peter Hannan logo? I'm not too keen on the way "PETER HANNAN PRODUCTIONS" is written, but other than that...
  • The Curiosity Company's logo (as seen on Futurama) definitely qualifies. Those bizarre sound effects and psychedelic waves...yeesh. Doesn't help that this troper first saw the logo at night.
  • The Disney-MGM Studios Logo.
  • The DiC logo from the 90s.
  • Ghost House Pictures terrifies this troper. Damn that skull!
  • PFFR's (of Xavier: Renegade Angel) TV ident. Seriously, what the hell is this thing? Just add rumbly moaning and flashing.
  • Weiss Global Enterprises
  • The three-eyed monkey for the DNA productions logo isn't so bad, but the version in reverse is the freakiest thing I've ever seen. DNA has all of the bumpers on their website.
  • Please tell me I wasn't the only child who used to be scared of the 90s Corporation for Public Broadcasting logo. The dark colors and strange circles are pretty unnverving.
    • You're not alone - this troper hated that one, too.
  • It's oriiiiginal! Great, now Ice Road Truckers is keeping me up at night.
    • As if 1000 Ways To Die wasn't scary enough already...GOSH DANG YOU, FREMANTLEMEDIA!!!! DANG YOU!!!!!!!
  • What about the Twisted Pictures logo??
    • All that was left was for the letters to start dripping blood afterwards. I was seriously expecting that.
  • This Columbia Pictures logo from the first Ghostbusters film. Twenty-six years later and it's still eerie.
  • The Windchill Films logo or as I like to call it "Why I am afraid of snowmen." DO NOT CLICK ON THAT LINK!!! IT WILL RUIN YOUR LOVE FOR SNOWMEN FOR LIVE!! SERIOUSLY, DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK!!! Don't say we didn't warn you.
  • This Troper's older brother used to scream and cry whenever the Ubu Productions logo would come up. It was only a dog w/ a frisbee and a voice saying "Sit Ubu Sit! Good dog." but it petrified him. Then again, the voice was kind of creepishly monotone.
  • The logo for Weird Al Yankovic's Ear Booker Productions, which co-produced The Weird Al Show with Dick Clark Productions, is an attempt to invoke this trope. The company name comes straight at the viewer, changing from black on white to white on black every other frame (in layman's terms: Seizures.), while Al screams in the background. (The audio is taken from "Bite Me", a Hidden Track from Al's Off the Deep End album.) As J. Rose wrote in an Amazon customer review, "You have to have respect for a man who purposely designed his Ear-Booker Productions company logo (which appears at the end of every episode) to be the most nerve-wracking thing ever made."
  • The logo for Australian animation studio Air Programs International (not API Television Productions, despite the vid) tries to pack as much scary into 8 seconds as humanly possible. A rapidly spinning black vortex, letters that seem to bounce back and forth at the viewer, a soundtrack of electronic noises and a tympani solo... it's so frightening that it's actually Crazy Awesome.
    • Speak for yourself - this troper HATED that logo (and as a result Arthur! And The Square Knights Of The Round Table from whence it came - later home releases of this cartoon have plastered over the eight seconds of terror and now declare it to be "A Five Arrows Film Production." I normally disapprove of logo-plastering, but not in this case). This version was so shit-scary that even the company itself dropped it - it doesn't appear on Animated Classics (Family Classics Theatre in America) or on Around The World In Eighty Days (the still image of its Atlantic Records-type logo, revealed when Phineas Fogg picks up his suitcase at the end of the latter, is still pretty ugly though... although for home release it's also been plastered over as indicated above).
  • British studio ITC Entertainment had two scary logos that featured a bombastic, brassy fanfare composed by Jack Parnell. The first version, known as "ITC Compass" because it features a map of the world, is only moderately frightening. But then came the second version, affectionately nicknamed "Spinning Diamonds of Doom". It featured the same music, this time accompanied by three diamond-shaped objects (colored red, blue and green, the primary hues of color broadcasting) whirling around In Space. ITC's Closing Logos entry describes this Vanity Plate as "probably about as scary as you can get without causing fatal injury... thanks to 'in-your-face' animation, a dark mood, and that evil MUSIC!"
  • The Dark Castle Entertainment logo shown at the beginning of the House on Haunted Hill remake was itself many times scarier than anything in that godawful movie. Sleep tight, suckers!!
  • The Matthew Carnahan Circus Products logo on Dirt and House of Lies with a creepy clown playing a screechy violin. Even the memory of Rosanna Arquette kissing Ashley Johnson in one episode of the former can't cancel that out (so the Kristen Bell Fan Service in the latter may not help).
    • AHHHH! It's the way the bumper just stops all of the sudden that really gets to this troper.
  • 1970s company Winters/Rosen Productions had an animated frog leaping through a garden, "ribbeting" out a red flag with "A Winters/Rosen Production" and the frog on it, all set to chirpy music. Not as cute as David (Winters) and Burt (Rosen) hoped. Fortunately it's not on YouTube.
  • Not 100% sure if it would be considered one, but since they refer to it as an ident, which is a UK Vanity Plate, I guess it would, but what the hell is he looking at?
  • THE DAWN IS YOUR ENEMY, the closing card of Adult Swim.
    • I'm pretty sure that one was intentionally creepy.
    • here's an updated version.
  • The opening logo for Seasons 6 & 7 of 3-2-1 Contact, aka the Triangle of Terror. "WHOOOOSH" and "Three, two, one, ZAP! Contact!"
  • Try this Teletoon first year late night screamer bumper on for size. This aired during it's first program aired, Caillou, so one can definitely know a baby cried during Caillou's commercial break.
    • Another Teletoon bumper that can be considered scary was one during it's launch. It starts off with a music parade which ends with a baby. The baby takes out his pacifier and cries, but in a opera voice. This troper is American, but made the mistake of going to that bumper on YouTube and had a hard time sleeping that night. He's still scared of it, and refuses to provide a link to this one and will delete it if one posts it.
  • The Finnish movie distributor Finnkino used to open their features with this clip in both cinemas and home video releases -- including childrens' cartoons, of course. Because howling burning space ballerinas is exactly what you want your kids to see.
  • This ending of Loony Tunes still gives me the chills.
  • Two rather frightening logos from Greece: Hellas Kosmos Video and Hi-Tech Video.
  • The 1993 Cyan logo that came with Myst certainly qualifies.
  • The Dolby Digital intro. You're welcome.
    • Remember this? This troper had to sit through this ungodly noisy abomination inside a theater, he was 8 at the time. May the Lord have mercy on your soul if this pops up in your local cinema.
  • Invoked with the VGV logo that plays after the credits in HotDiggedyDemon's webtoon series Wacky Game Jokez 4 Kidz. If you don't find the opening eye particularly scary, then wait until you see what comes right after...
  • All PlayStation One owners who have put in a damaged or dirty disc and has booted up their console knows the nightmare fuel that comes your way...
    • It's the SAME LOGO, just remade, in the PlayStation 2, on which even the opening animation is horrifying if you haven't seen it so many times before...
  • This 1997 Nickelodeon UK closing logo is creepy in it's own rights, with wolves howling on a solid white background with an eerie noise.
    • How's about this? . Is anyone creeped out by the fact that the boy isn't scared by the fact that the Nickelodeon logo keeps stalking him throughout the bumper? No?
  • The logo for A Rainbow Release. Which has a soundless zoom in of Orson Welles staring into your soul.
    • Orson Welles sees you in your dreams. Orson Welles sees you in your NIGHTMARES.
  • For some reason I've been disturbed and freaked out by this famous Walt Disney logo, it's just something about that music, even freakier is I wasn't really bothered by this when I was young, but recently when I've been rewatching movies that have it I just get frightened.
  • The opening sequence preceding the Monday evening movie on the first Italian national channel, is a song by Lucio Dalla that's meant to be reminiscent of Louis Armstrong, but comes out as a sequence of distorted sounds accompanied by visuals resembling afterimages and closed-eye hallucinations, concluded by a sequence of flashes seemingly designed to induce epileptic seizures.
  • Erry Vison. The ugly looking font and dark background, whith what sounds like a cross between The Joker's laugh and Tom's yell of pain in the background/
  • Sit Ubu sit, good dog! Woof! When I was a little kid, I enjoyed Family Ties, but I would have to turn the station before the end of the closing credits. For some reason, this ident freaked me out - maybe it was the still picture of the scary black dog with the weird voiceover. Or I was just a strange kid.
  • Many French kids had the absolutely rare opportunity of catching this wonderful intro for Gaumont Buena Vista International before the Disney movies their parents paid God knows how many francs/euros for admission to.
  • The old Buena Vista Television vanity plate used to scare me as a kid after watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Something about that loud (although pleasant) fanfare, those comets going past the planet, and that widely-spaced serifed font all on a black background was just creepy. No scare factor, CLG Wiki? Yeah right.
    • By the way, the short version (link provided above) was a bit creepier than the long version (here) due to its suddenness.
  • This Vanity Plate for Fox always scared me quite a bit. It often appeared at the end of Cops, and right after hearing the lovely guitar riff of the preceding logo, you are greeted by these horrible, ghost-like letter. Haunting over the rest of the show you just watched.
  • In Irish cinemas, the terrifying ident for Carlton Screen Advertising plays before every single movie. It features a huge, flaming branding iron shoving out of the screen at you, along with loud noises.
  • You want scary? Here's something scary that came from a game of a kids movie series! (It comes right after the TDK logo.)
  • The logos at the end of Allegra's Window are hard to watch for me. First of all, the Topstone logo is creepy enough, but what follows is even worse, because you get bombarded by a giant egg, a rooster crowing, and a loud fanfare.
    • I was also startled by the robot that drilled a rock to display "Frederator" on it at the end of Channel Frederator.
  • The Hoyts logo.
  • Ladies and gents, may we present you the loudest logo of all time.
    • Can you believe that released this on videos of Woody Woodpecker and Popeye?!?!?!
  • Nobody mentioned the Viva Films logo?
  • The logo for Germany's Top Pic Video.
Back to Vanity Plate
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    • "Well, I'm used to that, I think---OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!". Seriously, whatever you do, don't click on that FUCKING link above! It's like... it's like, like, like, WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THAT ONE?!? It's not a Shmuck Bait, it's just, DO! NOT! CLICK! ON! THAT! MOTHERFUCKING! LINK! That thing ruined my day week! -- Take it from this guy, even watching it MUTED was enough for him to shout out in fear. Why? It first starts out like another "V of Destruction" vid, but around the half way point... wait for it... A DEMENTED LOOKING VID MASK SLAMS INTO THE SCREEN, NEARLY BREAKING IT, THEN SLOWLY BACKING OFF.... I was too terrified to watch it unmuted. Seriously, don't watch it. ...j-just...don't... ...please. -- Oh great, now you know I have to look now, right? *clicks on it, and looks at the wall above her monitor so she can only see it out of the corner of her eye* Okay, giant V... FUCK!! -- WHY DIDN'T I READ THAT FIRST OH GOOOOD -- Yup, scariest thing on the internet allright... And yup, pulse is gone... Great. -- AAAAAAAAAAAUGH KILL IT WITH FIRE KILL IT WITH FIRE KILL IT WITH FIRE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! *turns up Aerosmith full blast and curls up in a corner, sucking her thumb* -- ... -- That was not fair. This troper clicked that link, and her laptop *very not-nicely* decided to reset the volume to MAXIMUM. I had YouTube muted, darnit! There's a hole in my ceiling now... -- Meh, just a V of Doom, nothing to be... MOTHERFUCK!!! (falls off his chair and barely avoids a heart attack.)
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