Saw It as a Kid, Didn't ID it 'til Adulthood

[Impie]

Man, that was a hard thread title to come up with.

 

So there have been many instances for myself, and probably for a lot of you, where I saw a movie on TV as a kid, and it stuck with me for some reason, lurking in the deepest, darkest recesses of my memory where it only resurfaced once in a while to make me think, "What the hell was that movie, anyway?" Then maybe 20 years later I'd finally find out what the movie was and watch it again for the sake of posterity and curiosity. Post examples of this if you have them.

 

TC-2000 is the first one I think of when this subject comes up. It's a weird post-apoc martial arts film starring Billy Blanks and Bolo Yeung. It's a fun watch if you don't mind martial arts fight scenes that go on forever, like they often do in these movies. I saw it on TV one boring saturday afternoon when I was young. The main reason I remembered it?

 

The Exploding Watermelon Fist technique.

 

Bolo uses this technique three times, first a subdued version of it in his intro scene, when his arena opponent uses the referee as a shield: Bolo punches the ref, and the force of the punch travels harmlessly through him and knocks the opponent on his ass. Silly martial arts fantasy stuff, but cool as hell nonetheless. Later he perfects the technique so that it's extremely lethal, and uses it on the iconic watermelon, sitting safely on the other side of a board.

 

 

At the end Bolo fights Matthias Hues, who blocks the door to the control room where Bolo needs to go to stop a missile launch countdown. He proceeds to use Matthias as a stand-in for the watermelon.

 

 

Also if you were wondering where the design for Eternal Champions' Blade came from, it was probably this movie.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

When I was very young, I had the misfortune of turning on the TV to Inhumanoids right when the infamous "scary scene" was happening.  It indeed scared the hell out of me so I shut the TV right back off and ran, and never found out what the hell that show was until a couple decades and an internet connection later.  I didn't even know sufficient words at the time to really explain what I'd seen so just told my parents it was "a scary monster" but that it was a cartoon so they probably just assumed I'd got my jimmies rustled by Scooby-Doo or something. 

 

Watching the show in retrospect, it was one of those cases where the mind fills in memories as even more horrible than they actually were because for years I had this mental image of people slowly and grotesquely zombifying over time with their flesh melting while locked in D. Compose's ribcage and trying feebly to escape.  And since I hadn't watched the rest of the episode I assumed that the transformation into a monster was permanent.  Actually seeing it again was a bit of an "...oh.  That's it?" moment.

[Chow Yun Thin]

@Impie I can't get over how damn square that guy's hair is. It looks like he scalped one of the Contra guys to wear as a hat. Good god, it's a $50 taxi ride from eyebrows to hairline!

 

When I was around 6, I was at someone's house and there was a movie playing in the VCR. I saw this really hideous mutated guy get splattered by a car. The next shot showed the windshield wipers trying to wipe off the blood. I straight up walked out of the room trying to forget that. I guess I was lucky not to develop a phobia of windshield wipers afterwards.

 

About 10 years later, I'm watching a TV edit of the first Robocop and see Clarence hit his henchman with the car. I sit up and flash back to a kid for a second, but then I take a closer look and have the same "...oh. That's it?" thought that ETTiNGRiNDER's talking about. I was already playing Doom and other violent games, so a splash of muddy water wasn't going to cut it, especially compared to this:

 

Edited December 6, 2019 by Chow Yun Thin

[Nekr0s1s]

Super Mario Star Invincibility theme

 

 

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

 

 

[Gez]

20 hours ago, Impie said:

So there have been many instances for myself, and probably for a lot of you, where I saw a movie on TV as a kid, and it stuck with me for some reason, lurking in the deepest, darkest recesses of my memory where it only resurfaced once in a while to make me think, "What the hell was that movie, anyway?" Then maybe 20 years later I'd finally find out what the movie was and watch it again for the sake of posterity and curiosity. Post examples of this if you have them.

One I've managed to identify was Skywhales.

 

Spoiler

 

Another was probably The Flight of the Dragons.

 

 

One that I didn't manage to identify was some completely stupid show I have no idea wtf it was. All I remember was that there was some sort of metafiction/mise en abyme thing going on, as there was a filmed part which was about some guy with a TV and a phone, and there was an animated? puppet? whatever part about some team of I-completely-forgot going on a mission and they were watched on the TV by the guy and when they had problems they called him on his phone and asked for help, and he'd glue some stickers on the TV screen, and that would make real objects corresponding to the stickers appear for the team, who could then use it to overcome their problems. The only other thing I remember about that was that the bad guys were worms. They even had a song that was like "worms worms worms we are worms worms worms" so yeah, I mostly remember being angry the TV would show something this dumb.

[Impie]

9 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

When I was very young, I had the misfortune of turning on the TV to Inhumanoids right when the infamous "scary scene" was happening.  It indeed scared the hell out of me so I shut the TV right back off and ran, and never found out what the hell that show was until a couple decades and an internet connection later.  I didn't even know sufficient words at the time to really explain what I'd seen so just told my parents it was "a scary monster" but that it was a cartoon so they probably just assumed I'd got my jimmies rustled by Scooby-Doo or something. 

 

Watching the show in retrospect, it was one of those cases where the mind fills in memories as even more horrible than they actually were because for years I had this mental image of people slowly and grotesquely zombifying over time with their flesh melting while locked in D. Compose's ribcage and trying feebly to escape.  And since I hadn't watched the rest of the episode I assumed that the transformation into a monster was permanent.  Actually seeing it again was a bit of an "...oh.  That's it?" moment.

The inhumanoids bit that stuck with me was the birth of the damn gagoyle. It's as grotesque as I remembered it. I half-wonder if they made a prototype toy of it and never got it off the ground, cos they clearly were planning on it based on its design: see-through stomach to watch devoured humans get digested.

 

The toys were pretty crap though. The humans were WAY too big.

[Impie]

1 hour ago, Chow Yun Thin said:

When I was around 6, I was at someone's house and there was a movie playing in the VCR. I saw this really hideous mutated guy get splattered by a car. The next shot showed the windshield wipers trying to wipe off the blood. I straight up walked out of the room trying to forget that. I guess I was lucky not to develop a phobia of windshield wipers afterwards.

 

About 10 years later, I'm watching a TV edit of the first Robocop and see Clarence hit his henchman with the car.

I busted up laughing when I finally realized what you were talking about. I'm lucky I didn't see that movie when I was too young, cos that bit still grosses me out.

[Mr. Freeze]

I remember the graphics, but I couldn't think of the title to save my life until I hit my mid 20s. The game is Vortex and it is one of the few games I remember playing in my parents' oldest house. It was probably one of the first games I ever played. 

 

 

[Rare Hatchiama]

Still trying to ID a movie I saw as a kid where there is a scene of a man trying to sleep who becomes infuriated because the man living in the adjacent apartment continuously keeps saying something to the effect of "I...am Wull..." which keep the aforementioned character awake.

[Impie]

On 12/6/2019 at 6:33 PM, Rare Hatchiama said:

Still trying to ID a movie I saw as a kid where there is a scene of a man trying to sleep who becomes infuriated because the man living in the adjacent apartment continuously keeps saying something to the effect of "I...am Wull..." which keep the aforementioned character awake.

Sounds like me and this weird movie that ends with the kid protagonists almost getting eaten by giant acid-drooling penguins smashing their way through the roof.

[Dark Pulse]

On 12/6/2019 at 5:31 PM, Chow Yun Thin said:

@Impie

 

When I was around 6, I was at someone's house and there was a movie playing in the VCR. I saw this really hideous mutated guy get splattered by a car. The next shot showed the windshield wipers trying to wipe off the blood. I straight up walked out of the room trying to forget that. I guess I was lucky not to develop a phobia of windshield wipers afterwards.

 

About 10 years later, I'm watching a TV edit of the first Robocop and see Clarence hit his henchman with the car. I sit up and flash back to a kid for a second, but then I take a closer look and have the same "...oh. That's it?" thought that ETTiNGRiNDER's talking about.

Fun fact: that actually wasn't muddy water, it was leftover food from the cast/crew lunches. At least, that's what IMDB says.

[Impie]

9 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

Fun fact: that actually wasn't muddy water, it was leftover food from the cast/crew lunches. At least, that's what IMDB says.

The robocop fan site confirms this. Leftover food from the caterer was put in a pot and left to liquefy into a hideous mess, then they put it in water balloons and threw it at the car as it drove past. I'm not sure which is nastier, honestly: the in-universe event, or how they created it.

[RichardDS90]

I remember seeing something mum had on her PC, I remember a bunch of evil looking faces spinning and scaling around, was freaky but still stayed on my mind for many years... Until 2014 where I discovered, it was Second Reality! The music also somehow stuck, though I once heard it in an Unreal Tournament custom map.

 

 

[Guest Unregistered account]

The Roland TB-303. I'd heard distorted 303 rises in various media as a kid in the early 2000's, but very rarely and I  never thought I'd know what it was called.

Ionly found out about it a year back thanks to FL Studio's "Transistor Bass" description on their site mentioning the original by name.

[Eurisko]

I still have one of these going on and I don't know what it is. 

 

Ok, saw a film as a kid about electrical appliances killing the residents of a house. Can't remember who was in it or what it was called or anything. I've never seen it again. It's bugged me for years.

If someone knows , you will be my hero.

 

Also there's another film about a bloke living within the walls of some poor woman's apartment. Again , don't know much other than that.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Eurisko

[luke11685]

When I was a kid I didn't play Duke Nukem 3D,Unreal,Half-Life 1,Quake 1.

[Impie]

4 hours ago, luke11685 said:

When I was a kid I didn't play Duke Nukem 3D,Unreal,Half-Life 1,Quake 1.

That's not what I'm asking for. Did you ever see a movie/show/game as a kid where you had no idea what it was, and didn't find out 'til years later?

[elend]

@Eurisko Check out a movie called "Pulse". Could that be it? 

 

Spoiler

 

 

As a kid I occasionally saw a TV sitcom, live action. I remember it had something to do with people running either a hotel or restaurant. One episode scared me shitless, because they reenacted the Alien Chestburster scene. It was comedy and obviously a parody, but I didn't know that back then. I tried to find out what that was ever since. I thought it must be "Fawlty Towers", but most people don't remember a Chestburster parody in that show. 

[Eurisko]

@elend Oh my God that's IT!!! It's the got the dad in it from 'Flight Of The Navigator'.

I remember the scene where that screw flies at his head , that really scared me as a kid.

 

THANK YOU!!!

[Impie]

@elend only chestburster gag i can think of is from spaceballs.

 

 

[Komenja]

Nanosaur! Happened to see my dad play it once, never found out what the name was until much, much later. Didn't help that my dad even forgot it's name, too! For years I just vaguely remembered it as "that dope ass game where you play as a jetpack raptor with a laser gun arm."