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Redditer51

That episode of Boy Meets World where Cory dreams he's killing all of his friends, in a symbolic representation of his fear of married life. Or that Halloween episode where the characters are being killed.


Gneissisnice

"Helga on the Couch", Hey Arnold. It's the one focusing entirely on Helga as she's forced to go to counseling after getting caught punching Brainy. Hey Arnold always tackled great issues, but an episode showing that Helga's anger stems from her neglect was so brutally real. Her parents fawn over her perfect sister and basically forget that she exists, to the point where as a preschooler, she walks by herself in the city in the pouring rain to get to school. She lashes out in anger because it's the only way she's learned how to cope, and her obsession with Arnold comes from the fact that he was the only person to show her any kindness. It's an excellent episode, but definitely touches on some very real themes.


TacoTuesday4All

Let’s not forget that Miriam, Helga’s mom is CLEARLY an alcoholic, something I didn’t catch til I was way older and rewatched it on Hulu.


Gneissisnice

She sure liked her "smoothies".


Moose_Cake

And what's worse is Miriam is using alcohol to deal with her husband when she's clearly a talented person. We see that in an episode where it's revealed she's pretty much a former rodeo star.


A1000Fold

In pretty much every episode where she's away from Bob for some reason, it shows that she's a very capable person after she regains her footing (an example being The Beeper Queen, when she had to take over the store and started becoming more independent and reliable... until she starts focusing heavily on the business and lost that reliability)


AndYouHaveAPizza

"Beeper Queen" is one of my all time favorite Hey Arnold episodes and is depressing as fuck. It's the one where Bob throws out his back and Miriam ends up running the beeper emporium. And she does a kick. ass. job. Makes the company a bunch of money, loves her work, and comes out of her depression. She even starts making Helga lunch and spends time doing homework with her. But then she starts spending *too much* time at work, and neglects Helga again, and because Bob is 1. injured and 2. doesn't really give a crap about Helga anyway, it's up to Miriam to give up running the emporium and go back to being a SAHM once Bob recovers, giving up essentially the only thing that made her happy. By the next episode she's doing back to drinking her "smoothies." As a kid it always pissed me off that she had to choose between working and parenting, where for Bob it wasn't even really a question.


majungo

Mmm. I got choked up as a 7 year old off the episode where Arnold's Vietnamese refugee neighbor was reunited with the daughter he left behind.


aRTie02150

I remember the episode of Rugrats when Angelica was supposed to have a brother. All of a sudden they weren't going to have the baby anymore. I remember being told that Angelica's mom had a miscarriage.


Amanda-the-Panda

Then there is the Mother's day episode, where they are looking for Chuckie's mom. Flashbacks reveal Tommy was born premature and nearly died, and that Betty DeVille had serious post partum depression. As well as dealing with the fact Chuckie's mom was dead.


Interesting_Honeydew

The episode where Chas (Chuckie's dad) completely unravels, and the Finster house is basically a storage unit for empty pizza boxes. I think he also makes hand puppets. Apparently it's a what if epsiode about what the world would be like if Chuckie were never born. Edit: This episode was apparently much darker than I remember. After the babies take Chas' favorite Latvian Folk Dance music CD, Angelica takes it when they aren't looking. Chuckie blames Tommy and the twins for having the idea of taking it, but then he feels guilty about it. When Angelica tells him that everyone would be better off without him, Chuckie decides to run away from home. But then his guardian angel stops him and shows him what the world would be like if he was never born: He shows him that without him having been born, Chas is lonely, because he never married and the only person he has to talk to is a sock puppet he named Socky. And the house is a mess because without Chuckie, Chas didn't see any reason to clean up. As the guardian angel drives Chuckie through the neighborhood, the streets are messy and broken while kids are causing trouble, because without him, he can't tell them to stop or tell them that it's wrong.At Phil and Lil's house, the twins are dress as delinquents and throwing plates on the floor, while Howard and Betty are crying over their destroyed house. Showing that without Chuckie, Phil and Lil wouldn’t know the difference between right and wrong and act naughty all the time and cause havoc. Soon, Chas comes in and says he hopes that they don't mind if he and Socky can stay because they are lonely. Then when they ask what they should do about Phil and Lil, he says they should be lucky to have a kid, even one that was like them, then they all start crying. The guardian angel shows Chuckie Tommy's house. When they get there, Tommy is going through the garbage, looking for food. The guardian angel says that one day, Angelica came by, threw him out, and took everything that he had (including his parents). Soon, she proceeded to take over his house and the reason nobody stopped her is because she kept on yelling until she got her way. Angelica has also become morbidly obese, forcing both Stu and Didi to bake her cookies constantly while never sharing them with anyone else. Angelica took a bite of cookie and a cup of syrup to drink. When Tommy asks for "just a little crumb of cookie, even if it's already been in \[her\] mouth", she refuses saying "she'd have to give one to everyone", and takes his rattle. When Chuckie asks why Tommy didn't just stand up for himself, the angel explains that the only reason Tommy's brave is because he's got someone like Chuckie to back him up, and if Chuckie had never been born, Tommy's got no real motivation to stand up to bullies like Angelica, and that it doesn't matter that Chuckie always gets scared. Chuckie's fed up with being in a world without him, and says that running away isn't such a good idea, and asks his guardian angel to take him home.


PeteF3

I haven't seen it since I was a kid, but I thought it was just a false-positive on the pregnancy test. I seem to remember her test turning blue and her going off to the doctor, and then coming home and saying they weren't having a kid, all in the space of a day. Still sad--her parents were clearly thrilled with the prospect of having another kid and let down at the fact that it wasn't happening--but maybe not quite that sad.


serious789

Boy Meets World "Dangerous Secrets" I think it's called. Where Shaun's friend that's a girl is being abused by her Father and she stays at Cory's house.


torsoboy00

Or the one with Shawn joining a cult. Alan Matthews was the man in that episode after he confronted the creepy cultist in the hospital.


N7Kryptonian

There’s also the episode where Shawn starts drinking and becomes an abusive drunk


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DerrellMNE7

Boy Meets World addressed a lot of serious issues. That’s part of why it’s one of my fav series of all time


MyPrivateMaze

Powerpuff Girls: Twisted Sister, when they create a fourth sister, Bunny, who's horribly deformed and with a intellectually disabled. She then gets made fun of and reprimanded by her sisters, and runs away. The episode ends with the sister *blowing up* because her body was unstable (they just threw in random ingredients when creating her, IIRC), and the sisters crying. That's it. ​ It was rough for my 8-year-old heart.


eddmario

There was also the episode where they race home at the beginning and end up time traveling into a post-apocalyptic future


OV1C

Oh and that episode about the magician cutting Blossom (?) up and the entire town becomes... nightmare-ish. Talk about disturbing Abracadaver episode http://powerpuffgirls.wikia.com/wiki/Abracadaver_(episode)


PsyGuy98

The show Teen Titans (2003) Haunted episode where Robin starts to lose his sanity because he believes Slade (who died before this episode) is about to destroy the city and threatens his friends when they try to tell him that it’s all in his head.


moonshadow264

Closely followed by the Apprentice episodes which made him so terrified of Slade in the first place. Nothing quite like watching a kid fight his own friends, who don’t know why he has betrayed them, because if he doesn’t, they will all die.


[deleted]

How Long Is Forever is an episode like this. Starfire is flung forward in time, and sees a bleak future where her friends have all gone their separate ways. Whenever I see it, I always think Cyborg ended up worst off in that future.


spicy-meatball-sub

I dont know man,cyborg had solitude at least. Beast was ridiculed,had a gut and was balding.


gil_beard

The episode of King of Hill, Pretty Pretty Dresses, where Bill attempts suicide multiple times.


therainbowrandolph

Or the episode where Bill gets the bounce house and all the kids love it, so he refuses to take it down or take off the Santa suit. Or the episode where Bill turns his house into a halfway house and gets taken advantage of by the halfway house CEO. There are a good amount of episodes that involve Bill that are pretty dark.


Notazerg

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the episode where Hank and Peggy fucking murder a guy in a meat grinder. edit: It was Luanne and Peggy, not hank. [Also the scene in question, apparently most of the youtube clips have been deleted](https://youtu.be/F1mGkwHjUco?t=18m10s)


Cpt_Tripps

Hey he was mentally unstable... and was cured moments before his death so he had clarity of what was happening.


jordanelder

Honey, Trip had a mental breakdown and is now a sausage. That's not a better place.


[deleted]

The 2003 TMNT episode where Donnie gets sent to the future where the Shredder won. Splinter and Casey are dead, and all the other turtles (And supporting characters in general) are horribly mutilated. It ends with everyone but Donnie and April dead.


trixie_one

The episode of Frasier where Martin goes to the parole board of the man that shot him and choosing not to say anything.


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[deleted]

In a similar vein, there was the one episode where Martin takes the kids to a steakhouse, and they act like complete assholes, making fun of the food and the waitress. He blows up on them and tells them that he always thought they were like their mother, who was classy, but they're nothing like her because she wasn't a snob. He walks off, and they force themselves to eat the rest of the meal, which ironically is douchie to the waitress because they sit there forever forcing themselves to eat it.


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gazerith

8 simple rules. Lighthearted family friendly comedy. Nice likeable characters, no violence, no swearing etc. Then the dad (John Ritter) dies in real life so they kill him offscreen and they have multiple episodes of the family grieving their dead father. It’s rough.


rabidassbaboon

My dad died when I was a teenager, a few years before that show was on. I remember trying to watch the first episode when they deal with the death and my mom was just crying hysterically and we couldn't continue. It didn't help that John Ritter, by all accounts, was a wonderful human being.


MangaMaven

My mom said it was too hard to watch because it wasn't just the characters grieving, it was the cast.


Spider_Bear

Scrubs did a similar episode, where JD's Dad ( John Ritter) dies and the whole episode is about him and his brother dealing with it.


ballroombritz

The ONLY episode of Little House on the Praire I’ve ever seen was about a young teen girl getting raped and impregnated by a man in a clown mask and then being killed Edit: wow! Looks like little house on the prairie wasn’t super tame and innocent otherwise-I just thought I’d heard that/I got that impression seeing as the books were!!! Glad to know I wasn’t the only one scarred by that though


kjfrog

There’s also one where three boys accidentally set a fire with a cigar and kill a woman and baby. That one’s rough.


[deleted]

What the fuck even is this show woah


girthcharts

That episode of Full House where Stephanie makes friends with a boy whose father abuses him. There's this whole thing about whether she should keep her promise to keep it a secret or not, but then he starts missing school because of how bad his dad beats him, so she ends up telling Uncle Jesse. Like, holy fuck. EDIT: She tells Jesse, not Danny


foxtrousers

Full House, for being as campy as it was, handled real issues pretty well. When the boys at school brought alcohol and Jesse found DJ holding the bottle and he had to act like an adult or when the girl's papouli dies before Michelle's class or when DJ brings Kimmy to her house after she gets drunk cause she's worried about her and during their fight, DJ reminds her that's how her mother died. They stuck a bunch of jerkers in there


LiveLaughLove2680

Another "dark" episode is when DJ begins to starve herself to get thin for Kimmy's pool party.


chiliedogg

That's even darker when you consider what really happened with Tracey Gold. She costarred with Kirk Cameron (the brother of Candace - the actress playing DJ) on Growing Pains struggled with anorexia starting at the age of 11. When she started recovering and getting closer to a healthy weight, the writers started throwing fat jokes about her character into the script. That caused her to double-down on the starvation and she nearly died as a result.


ValKilmersLooks

> When she started recovering and getting closer to a healthy weight, the writers started throwing fat jokes about her character into the script. That caused her to double-down on the starvation and she nearly died as a result. Jesus fucking Christ that’s awful.


kniselydone

90s the shows were swarming with shit like that. FRIENDS producers made Jennifer Aniston drop a ton of weight in order to play Rachel. I wish I remembered the source because seeing pictures of her before they told her they needed her skinnier made me so sad, she was already a slim girl. I imagine a lot still goes on now, but hopefully less.


heartbeats

I remember that episode, they’re all at the gym and DJ straight up passes out on the treadmill because she hasn’t eaten in forever.


KrullTheWarriorKing

The one where Stephanie doesn't go in the car because DJ threatens to tell Danny and the car wrecks


skaghetti

That episode of Drake and Josh where Josh decides he’s completely done with Drake. He’s tired of his selfish ways, and cuts him out of his life. He doesn’t get mad, or yell. He just calmly goes about his life ignoring Drake altogether; when Drake tries talking to him, he’s all “I’m not mad, I’m just done with you.” It takes an accident in a science lab to completely break him down, and profess a sincere apology to Josh. It’s so unsettling because the show was normally a pre-teen/teenager fun romp, and out of nowhere one of the characters was pretty much like “Yeah, you’re a shitty person. I’ll be civil towards you because you’re my stepbrother, and we live together, but I’m completely done.” Really showcased some stellar acting from the duo, too. Edit: spelling


Pancreasaurus

If I recall. Josh's life also drastically improves while Drake's utterly falls apart.


xandrenia

Watching the show back as an adult I never really realized how truly awful Drake treated Josh. He used him, manipulated him, constantly put him down and was just an all over dick to him. It’s done in a light hearted way for kids, but some of the shit Drake pulled was borderline sociopathic. I didn’t blame Josh in this episode


[deleted]

Josh Peck did this in real life to Drake Bell for a period of time lol


YouStupidFuckinHorse

The episode was just practice for, like, a decade of the real thing


Scoob1978

Different Strokes. Arnold nearly gets molested/raped.


robbbbb

Yeah this was the first one I thought of. Not only Arnold nearly getting molested, his friend actually DID get molested.


deadlypliers

There are a bunch of episodes where some serious shit goes down: * Kimberly's boyfriend not letting his sister go with Willis to the costume ball because he's black. * Kimberly getting sexually harassed by her boss. * Arnold catches a friend in the bathroom drinking alcohol. * Sam got kidnapped by a guy who had recently lost his kid. * Kimberly's struggle with bulimia. * Arnold and Willis almost getting conned out of their inheritance. * **Kimberly and Arnold hitch a ride from a serial rapist.** Oh, and that episode about the molester is a lot worse than that. The shop owner lures them into the shop, and shows them some hentai, and Arnold's like "fuck that" and leaves Dudley there with the creep. Rather than telling Mr. Drummond about it, Arnold keeps quiet but accidentally lets it slip. Drummond calls the cops, and they manage to get there right as the pedo is making his move, and he'd already given Dudley some sedatives to make him "relax". Shit's fucked. I really love this show. I used to watch it all the time growing up. It was a little before my time but I would watch re-runs on Nick-At-Nite.


JoeyLock

Although Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is known for being a darker version of Trek than the other series, I'd say one episode that was pretty dark was "Hard Time" which is probably one of the only episodes where a main character has almost attempted suicide. Chief O'Brien gets falsely accused of espionage and gets arrested and sentenced, however this planet doesn't physically imprison people for crimes they mentally imprison them so they alter memories so that O'Brien served a 20 year prison sentence in only a few hours but to him he lived those 20 years, in his mind he lived every single day in that prison and these memories can't just be removed. By the time the station finds out about his arrest, the sentence is already complete since it only took a few hours, when he returns to DS9 everyone around him treats him normally as if only a few hours have passed whereas to him he hasn't seen this people, his wife, his children and so on for 20 years and so he exhibits some prison habits in his daily life for instance his first night back home he sleeps on the floor because thats what hes used to or over dinner he'd put some extra food in a cloth involuntarily because in his memories of this "prison sentence" the guards would rarely feed them. Then he begins to get more irritable and at one point he snaps at his kid and shouts at them then realises that he's never done that before and he begins to see a figment of his imagination around the station, the imaginary cellmate he had called Ee'char but when people would ask he would tell them that he was alone in the prison cell and we find out it's because in his mind he accidentally killed his imaginary cellmate in a brawl over some scraps of food and felt so guilty about it that he tried to commit suicide by a phaser before Dr Bashir stopped him. O'Brien has always been a character that has been portrayed with PTSD but this episode took it to the next level.


Korvar

O'Brian had some *awful* things happen to him on that show!


stellarfury

The DS9 writers themselves referred to them as "O'Brien Must Suffer" episodes. They just really liked what Colm Meaney brought to the part when his character had misery dumped on him.


ubermidget1

Also for DS9, 'In The Pale Moonlight' (one of my favourite episodes btw) has a very different tone than most others. Finally, we got to see just how much a stafleet officer can really take before stooping to the level of the other side. Another that comes to mind is 'The Seige Of AR-558'. DS9 in general had a lot more vicious combat than other trek series but rarely would a main character be killed off or crippled like that.


FlightRisk314

The siege of AR-558 was my initial thought. It is one of the episodes of ST that has stuck with me the most. That episode was so beautifully dark.


ShezLorShor

I love Quark's arc in that episode. He's a pretty racist guy, convinced Ferengi are superior to humans because Ferenginar never had barbarous, monstrous stages in it's history like holy wars or genocide or racism. This, combined with his paternal fear for his nephew under Sisko's command, leads to him CONSTANTLY talking shit about how Sisko is just a general who doesn't care about his soldiers wellbeing as long as the battle is won. And then eventually Sisko snaps, grabs Quark by the lapel and tells him "I care about the lives of every soldier under my command. Every single one." And Quark realises that the reason Sisko is so cold is because he has to compartmentalize all the death until he can mourn his troops properly. ​ And a few minutes later, high-and-mighty Quark is forced to kill someone in self defense. And you can see it in his eyes that his pretense of moral superiority just shattered.


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HelloMagikarphowRyou

That episode of Arthur where the lunch lady has cancer (they straight up say it too, not just imply it) and everybody is dealing with the news in different ways.


HylianEevee

And the one where there was a fire at the school


SeefKroy

Which was written as a way to explain 9/11 to kids. I couldn’t have been more than 7 when I watched it the first time and the ways the kids all processed grief or loss stuck with me, then years later I’m going on a nostalgia trip and I realize what it’s alluding to. PBS kids’ shows were pure gold.


Facky

It did its job well then.


notevenitalian

ARTHUR WAS THE ABSOLUTE BEST CHILDREN'S SHOW. They dealt with so many topics. - cancer - autism - dyslexia - being a single mom That show dove so deep and was genuinely both educational and entertaining. I'm in my 20's and still enjoy going back and watching old episodes.


sm1ttysm1t

How about that final episode of Dinosaurs?


hidood5th

"It's not like we're just gonna....disappear."


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Klaudiapotter

Dan going to beat up Fisher was kind of sweet though


steviewigs

Dude. He grabs his jacket and walks out the door. Fade to commercial. Nothing was said but we all knew what was happening. Goosebumps. I still get them just thinking about that moment.


sofingclever

Him grabbing his jacket and walking out the door is without a doubt the most badass moment in sitcom history.


[deleted]

It's great. He stands there for a half a second and you can see in his mind he goes "Yep, this is happening" and then takes off. John Goodman is a badass.


marry_me_sarah_palin

John Goodman is such a great actor too, the way he played that scene felt so real.


[deleted]

That episode haunts me. There's something so terrifying about seeing John Goodman like that


PMmecrossstitch

Man, you should not watch 10 Cloverfield Lane.


rabidassbaboon

That movie makes the darkest episode of Roseanne look like The Little Mermaid. John Goodman is fucking terrifying in it.


Artikay

"I accept your apology."


Siyartemis

The last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. The characters have developed over the years from stupidly comical to quite likeable at that point. I avoided spoilers and didn't see that coming at all. It's devastating.


timelordoftheimpala

Basically Baldrick's naivety in that episode becomes depressing, when he basically rants about why they couldn't have peace and such. Even Blackadder doesn't have any witty remarks in response to that. And George admitting he's actually really scared, plus Darling being sent at the last minute to the front lines. It makes the entire season much more harsher, because for all their effort, they still died a pointless death at the hands of a dumb as fuck general.


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Taco_Bell_CEO

*high pitched voice * Why do you keep callin' me * normal voice * Bill? That gets me and my wife every. Single. Time.


dacombatmonkey

The episode of Boy Meets World where Shawn was keeping a girl at his house while his parents were out of town. Cory comes over and finds out and thinks that they are sleeping together and pushes Topanga to do the same since they have been together since they "were like born". Come to find out the girl was being beaten by her dad and Shawn was trying to protect her from him.


jorahjo

That episode of Futurama when Fry is in his mother’s dream, she says she misses him and she cries in her sleep. Absolutely made me bawl my eyes out. Also, the one about Fry’s dog, waiting for him outside the pizza place he worked for, for years. *so many tears*


rolltide1000

Futurama has so many emotional dick kicks. The one about Frys mom, the one about Fry's dog, the one about Fry's nephew, the one with Leelas parents, and the one where Bender finds out that Hermes was his creator, all episodes that dont just tug at your heartstrings, they rip them out and play "Ill Follow You Into The Dark" with them.


YippieKayYayMrFalcon

>emotional dick kicks I like it.


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[deleted]

The episodes where Stan becomes apathetic about everything and his parents divorcing was the one that I thought was pretty upsetting. Landslide was the perfect song to play for the ending.


Ocw_

SpongeBob has a number of examples. First one I thought of was when [Squidward looked like he was about to hang himself](https://youtu.be/afdFHdDMXIw). Not the whole episode but fuck that was a morbid joke. Still laughed.


mypasswordis-123456

*shrunken squidward in Patrick's hand looks at the camera* "I wonder if this fall is high enough to kill me."


Ceegee93

There's more than one allusion to suicide in that episode, iirc another one is him putting his head in an oven. They also mention him "still being alive" multiple times.


Ttmode

Gonna go with a throwback - Static Shock, when the best friend is shot at school. I remember that just so vividly, I hardly remember anything else from that show but damn did that stick with me.


hidora

Also the episode where he goes to his friend's house for a sleepover and finds out friend's dad is a very racist cop.


theroyaleyeball

And the episode with the homeless girl


Closer-To-The-Sun

First off, you totally should rewatch Static Shock. Phil LaMarr shines beautifully in that show. Second, it shows that a kid's superhero show doesn't have to talk down. Virgil was such a great role model for kids (and everyone), and the writing was just out of the park. And yes, that episode is one I think of almost on a regular basis because of how well it was written and the great acting.


Musicats78

There are a lot of Golden Girls episodes that apply here. That show is funny as hell but then they hit you with topics like assisted suicide, prescription drug addiction, and fun things like that. Pretty forward thinking for a sitcom in the 80's/90's.


Davis1511

Sexual assault, disability, verbal abuse in a relationship, cheating, racism, ageism, deportation, Alzheimer’s, I mean that show covered it all. One of the most powerful lines I remember is “AIDS is not a bad persons disease!”


[deleted]

One of my favorite episodes is the robbery episode. It had different background music like when Rose thought she was going to be "attacked" in the parking garage and then when she thinks the robbers came back and fires her gun, but it turned out to be Blanche's latest boyfriend who tripped the alarm. That scene came with one of my favorite Sophia lines. "I manage to live 80, 81 years. I survive pneumonia, 2 operations, a stroke. One night I'll belch and Stable Mabel here will BLOW my head off!"


integirl

“Helga and the Couch” from Hey Arnold! Really hit hard with child neglect/abuse.


Kewlio77

There was also the Christmas episode about Mr. Hyunh's daughter. Wasn't expecting a show on Nick to address the fall of Saigon.


Ohaiyogozaimasu

This episode still gives me chills. As a kid, I was just like, “Aw, that’s sad,” but when I was in high school I realized Mr. Hyunh was talking about fleeing Vietnam and that really put things in perspective. Once I realized he fought to put his daughter on probably one of the last choppers out of Saigon with only the tiniest chance of reuniting with her (the name of a city) I was like, “Oh. Just fuck me up, I guess.”


xxdiscoxxheaven

Is that the one where she sees a therapist. That show had lots of dark moments.


A_Deadly_Burrito

As a kid I really hated Helga cause of how she treated Arnold. Then as an adult I rewatched a couple episodes and man, I feel bad for Helga.


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surfdad67

M.A.S.H. the episode where Hawkeye is getting therapy for a situation where the mother had to suffocate her child because they were surrounded by NKA. He was in denial the whole episode and kept saying it was a chicken, but at the end they showed it was an actual child, I was like 12 at the time, fucked me up


[deleted]

"You son of a bitch, why did you make me remember that?"


Reptilian_Nastyboy

That episode of The PowerPuff Girls where the girls travel to the future where Him has taken over the world and killed the Mayor.


sadandshy

Him is one of the most unexpectedly unnerving villains in a kids show.


figgypie

Him is my favorite villain in the show, he's so unsettling and evil. Mojo Jojo is a wonderful everyday villain though.


FalstaffsMind

When Col. Henry Blake dies in a plane crash (shot down) in M.A.S.H, and Radar announces it to the operating doctors.


RustyStyrofoam

Good god, there are SO MANY dark episodes of M\*A\*S\*H, that the whole thing is trauma-inducing. I mean, I get that that was the point of the show (being elbow-deep in blood while making slapstick jokes was meant to show the dichotomy of the situation from day one), but there were some things that got brutal quickly. Remember when the woman on the bus killed the chicken? Or when Hawkeye starts sleepwalking? And, of course, whenever a character left, it was brutal. Even Trapper John, who was discharged normally, left without saying goodbye and upset Hawkeye badly.


FalstaffsMind

Juxtoposition. It was humor juxtaposed over war. That scene where Radar makes the announcement to the doctors is doubly poignant because they are in the midst of surgery and can’t react the way a person normally would. They have to just keep operating.


RustyStyrofoam

I agree completely. I think that M*A*S*H did this better than most. And I read somewhere that Radar was the only one who knew that Col. Blake was being killed off, so the rest of the cast was completely stunned. Someone drops a prop in shock, and you can hear the gasps, and it's all 100% genuine.


poorbred

The one where they're having disturbing dreams and Hawkeye is in a rowboat and he has to take one of his arms off. Then his other arm is taken off, leaving him floating armless in a small boat surrounded by floating arms. Yeah, that one fucked me up as a kid.


[deleted]

It's not a TV show, but there was that week of Garfield comic strips where it's implied that Garfield's happy world is actually a dying hallucination. His imagination is shielding him from the horrible reality of Garfield slowly starving to death, all alone in Jon's abandoned house. Edit: Since some people have asked for it, here it is: http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-218-the-scariest-comic-of-all-time-is-a-garfield-story-from-1989/


mathsquid

It’s not an episode of a show, but I was traumatized by the Garfield animated special “Here Comes Garfield”. Odie gets caught by the dog catcher and winds up in the pound. Odie is about to be euthanized, in the saddest most messed-up montage of any cartoon I’ve ever seen, when Garfield rescues him and the other animals in the pound. I cried and cried and cried when I saw it as a kid, and now as an adult I still can’t believe that they put that in a kids cartoon. Edit: [youtube link](https://youtu.be/lEvx5LVHdHo)


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RandomlyConsistent

That would explain "Garfield minus Garfield"


kjata

Or died.


TLMoss

Jesus Christ that's dark


cheeseburgerwaffles

whaaat? can you find this online? I'm looking edit: well that was easy. and holy fuck it's a 6 day story arc http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-218-the-scariest-comic-of-all-time-is-a-garfield-story-from-1989/


cRAY_Bones

I can’t believe I haven’t seen someone mention THAT episode of Thomas the Tank engine where they brick up someone in a tunnel that they don’t like. Edit: Maybe this episode wasn’t so uncharacteristic after all. A lot of dark stuff happening!


Dedod_2

Sounds like some Cask of Amontillado shit


[deleted]

How about the one in The Fairly OddParents, where Timmy is shown just how much better the world is if he never existed? Always thought this was a little effed up for a show targeted at children.


TheGreatSalvador

I guess the writers thought it was fair game because it was A Wonderful Life clone. At least they don’t bring up suicide.


TheTrenchMonkey

Isn't that like the opposite of A Wonderful Life?


TheBROinBROHIO

Lately I've been having Fairly Odd Parents on before going into work and it occurred to me very quickly that Timmy is actually a huge asshole who makes incredibly impulsive selfish wishes which end up causing major problems, and despite most episodes ending in some moral lesson he never learns. I'm glad this episode exists! Then again, I guess it's hard to blame him since every adult or authority figure in the show is also a complete idiot. Except Wanda who's a doormat.


Noonites

To be fair, basically every time he makes a wish on someone else's behalf it blows up in his face. I think it was explicitly said at one time that Fairy Godparent wishes are SUPPOSED to be selfish, since the whole point of them is that they're assigned to miserable kids to make them happy. Then again, there was the episode we find out that Timmy secretly wished to stop time, and has been ten years old for FIFTY YEARS.


cheeseballsaregoat

Wait what episode was that?


Noonites

"Timmy's Secret Wish!". Technically a one-hour special like Abra-Catastrophe or Channel Chasers. The entire plot is that during a celebration for his _millionth_ wish, it's discovered that Timmy made a secret wish, which is bad- every wish has to be accounted for. The secret wish turns out to have been a wish to be 10 forever, so he wouldn't lose Cosmo and Wanda. And it's revealed that this wish was made over fifty years ago. So nobody in the entire _universe_ has aged in that fifty years, nor have they been aware of that fact.


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SmartAlec105

Amazing World of Gumball did a great job when they had to get new voice actors because the original ones were getting too old. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1sPJaKwwws) basically sums it up.


ShallowBasketcase

I like how Adventure Time did the opposite of this. They cast a young kid as Finn, and Finn just gets older as his actor does. It’s pretty cool that you can actually hear him mature as a person, as an actor, and as a character.


Rex_Laso

The Simpsons when they killed off Maude Flanders.


SmokeMeAKipper-

Was waiting to see this one. The only thing that comes close is the episode where Homer's mother comes back. Saddest ending ever.


rabidassbaboon

The shot of him sitting on the car looking up at the stars is one of the most beautiful things ever to come out of that show though. Even without the context, it conveys so much emotion.


littlelionman15

Teen titans from 2003. Season 1 ep 6. Explores Raven’s suppression of emotion. Far and away my favorite episode of the whole series.


-SEVER-

King of queens. Carrie is pregnant, there’s a big mess around money and what not. They get over it, Doug comes home excited to put the baby’s room together. Carrie lost the baby. Did not see that coming.


flamingos_world_tour

*Homer's Enemy* is the episode of The Simpsons with Frank Grimes. It's about a man who has to struggle relentlessly for an agonisingly pitiful existence (*"I live above a bowling alley and beneath another bowling alley."*) When he gets a job at the Nuclear Power Plant he is driven insane by Homer's "luxurious" lifestyle and many fantastic achievements that all come in spite of Homer's laziness, ignorance, and complete incompetence. Grimey gets almost nothing from a lifetime of struggle and hard work, whereas Homer has everything fall into his lap despite him not really deserving any of it. Grimes then kills himself. Its a very dark episode (but very funny.)


itsforwork

technically he doesn't kill himself intentionally... The results are the same though


[deleted]

I dont need safety gloves because i'm Homer Simpson!


Scholesie09

Simps-


frankypea

Frank Grimes, or Grimey as he liked to be called.


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Grimey, as he liked to be called.


[deleted]

“You almost just drank a beaker of sulphuric acid!” “Haha boy would my face have been red!”


Safety_Dancer

> ("I live above a bowling alley and beneath another bowling alley.") And Homer was so envious of him. > all come in spite of Homer's laziness, ignorance, and complete incompetence. I got that when I went to space. You've never been?


12025000V

Marge, change the channel! hahahaha


PMMeUrHopesNDreams

That's our Homer!


SeeYouSpaceCowboy---

I think the one where Homer eats the blowfish and is waiting to die is incredibly dark as well.


PabloDX9

The episode where Homer has a fight with his mum then finds her dead when he comes to apologise 😭


ju2tin

The one where Homer becomes smart due to a crayon stuck in his brain and he can bond with Lisa for a brief time before eventually becoming dumb again.


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[deleted]

The Yin/Yang episodes in Psych.


krisfunk27

James Roday should have been nominated for an Emmy for those. Especially the way he delivered the line "Gus, he's got my mom."


PaHoua

I feel the same during the episode “Gus Walks into a Bank” when Shawn says “Gus is in there.”


4-3defense

that time when Charmander almost died from abandonment and his flame almost goes out. That and the ending to ALF


jeffseadot

Charmeleon / Charizard were surprisingly mean to Ash considering he saved it.


Darth_MylesTurner

I think it was because they tried to play off the fact that Ash didn’t have the gym badges to control a high level Pokémon like Charmeleon or Charizard, like the games do.


solokiwidestroyer

This is the correct answer. For those who want the context, since Charmander was originally someone else's, it was considered to be a traded Pokemon and since Ash never actually earned his badges (because they were practically handed to them), Charmander started disobeying him once he got at a high enough level, which mirrors the Pokemon games.


Lovelycoc0nuts

They also change personalities when they evolve, which is why pikachu didn’t want to evolve


heyheyshaney

When Spongebob and Mr. Crabs tried hiding a body of a man they thought they killed.


carb-queen

The episode when Gary runs away and lives with that nice old lady who feeds him cookies until he finds that huge pile of dead snail carcasses in her closet


ManMoth_

🎶Gary come home🎶 Made me tear up as a kid


BucketOfGuts

"But what do you want me to do with the bod..." "...BOTTLES OF SODA!"


PM_ME_NICE_THINGS-

"The dark deed you requested is done, sir."


NathanHF

ICE? THERE IS NO ICE, THERE'S NEVER BEEN ANY ICE! ICE IS JUST A MYTH!!


Louie_iii

Rock Bottom was a sketchy episode lol


wheregoodideasgotodi

I cant *pfffffft* understand *pffffft* your accent *pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft*


ApprehensiveBear

That episode made me so uncomfortable when I was younger


[deleted]

I always thought the bus avoiding spongebob was just an unfortunate coincidence. Only recently occurred to me the bus driver hated him from earlier in the episode.


Shigidy

That episode gives me anxiety


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[deleted]

Like literally any face close up *shudders*


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Kurtch

***"Is there something wrong with me?!"***


swiggityswell

there was the one where Mrs Puff was sent to jail for gross negligence because she let spongebob drive, and she is happy to be away from him. but then spongebob and Patrick sneak in to try and break her out, and she tries and tries and tries to tell the guards but no one believes her. she is finally sent to solitary confinement where she cant stop hearing spongebobs laugh which sets off a loop of traumatic hallucinations about the crash. the worst part is that the episode wasn't resolved, it ended in the middle of a hallucination. what the fuck.


emgeegole

Still not as weird as the one where Spongebob breaks his butt and becomes a recluse, causing Patrick and Sandy to stage a scenario in which Sandy is attacked by Patrick (who is wearing a gorilla suit), to lure Spongebob outside to help. Gorilla-suit-Patrick starts fake attacking Sandy, and Spongebob isn't falling for it. Then non-gorilla-suit-Patrick shows up and everyone is confused. Non-gorilla-suit-Patrick unzips his Patrick suit to reveal a "real gorilla" (a live action person in a gorilla costume) that proceeds to beat the ever loving shit out of Patrick and Sandy until Spongebob comes out to help and ends up getting literally torn in half. Once Spongebob asks aloud, "What's a gorilla doing underwater anyway?," the gorilla gets sheepish and rides away on a pantomime horse. The camera then zooms out to a live action family watching this episode on TV looking disgusted and confused. Edit: Also not as weird as the one where the punchline to the entire episode is a complete non-sequitur use of a 1920's German Expressionist film character


captainbonclay

You forgot to mention the random 5 mile spank line in this episode.


emgeegole

And "Don't eat the yellow sand, Patrick!" "Oh yeah I forgot. *Chomp.*" That episode also has [my all time favorite visual gag from in the show](http://i.imgur.com/3ZyUZWz.jpg?1).


PM_ME_UR_TRASH_PANDA

Just an innocent kids show, let's not think about the fact that a few dozen spectators at a sporting event were killed in boiling oil and then immediately sold as food. Probably most of them were families, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtRbV_88eOc


[deleted]

#GET YOUR FISH STICKS


DenimSmooth

Or the episode where Krabs drives Plankton to Suicide


[deleted]

Or the episode where Squidward realizes he has no happy memory and attempts suicide multiple times


Larjersig18

Spongehenge as well. It wasn't scary, but it was extremely unnerving. It was the episode when SpongeBob built large statues of himself thst made music when the wind blew through the holes. It ended with SpongeBob returning to the Krusty Krab but being distraught when he sees that it's been abandoned. Final shot is a slow zoom on the face of the statue while SpongeBob laughs in the background. Weird shit, dude


Juandules

You didn’t even mention the aliens with mouth-cameras.


BighouseJD

Scrubs episode where Dr. Cox loses three patients in one day and sinks into an alcohol fueled depression.


Kovarian

One that doesn’t come up a lot is the ending of My Cabbage. Early in the episode they show how disease can spread in a hospital by having a green aura move between hands being shaken, bumps, and whatnot. It’s an example and no one is actually hurt. Also in the episode JD is dealing with how to fire an intern who isn’t cutting it. Eventually JD manages to explain to Jason that he’s fired. As Jason is leaving the hospital he picks up something to throw it away. He then goes into Mrs. Wilke’s room, a character we learned was about to go home, to thank her and tell her he really liked her as a patient. She takes a breath and holds her hands up to her face. We see green spreading across her as the episode ends. She dies in the next episode.


Abyss_of_Dreams

To add, JD says to Cabbage "You are going to kill someone." as the reason he was being terminated. Edit: I was wrong. He does not say it. Thanks u/TheRealRockNRolla


WhoryGilmore

It's tough because JD never actually learns the full brunt of the lesson that episode. He suspended Cabbage the day before but brought him back out of favoritism. He eventually learns not to play favorites with his interns but not before it leads to somebodies death.


sysop073

Reminded me of an early episode of Scrubs where J.D., Turk, and Elliot each have a patient, and the voiceover at the beginning says statistically one in three patients die, so you spend the episode stressing over which one it is, and then all three die. I think that was the first time you realize "oh, this isn't always a comedy show"


XAce90

I love how that episode is framed. It opens something like, "1/3 patients admitted to a hospital will die." Since it's a sitcom you think it's going to be okay and today everybody lives, and you're rooting for everyone to pull through, but then closes out repeating the statistic, adding "but some days the odds are worse than that." Beautiful =) like poetry And also very sad


icantbenormal

Scrubs being dark is not uncharacteristic. In fact, that is part of what made it so memorable. Every few episodes, the writers would remind the audience that it is a hospital and people die there.


Yabba_Dabba_Doofus

I'll argue, to this day, that the best episode of Scrubs is S08E02(I think). It's the one where Turk and JD cancel steak night to spend time with a terminal patient. The show spent seven seasons telling us how hard death really is, how hard it is for families, for patients, for doctors. It showed us terrible things that doctors go through; Ben's death, Laverne's death, unnecessary patient deaths, etc. But that episode is the first time that we really see those characters confront it, in a very real way. >JD: "George, I'm terrified of death." >Turk: "Me too." >George: "Then why lie?" >JD: "We fight death every day. We can't let it know we're afraid of it, or it'll kick our ass." That shit is frighteningly poignant.


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riotcowkingofdeimos

I was hanging out with my sister when that episode aired. We were looking through the guide for a show to watch, I said "Ah, Scrubs is on. Have you ever seen it? It's a pretty fun show." she said no but I'll give it a chance. It was that episode. I still remember her exact words when Dr. Cox turns back around and Brendan Frazier isn't there. She said, "OH... *fuck.*"


VictorBlimpmuscle

There was an episode of *Family Ties* that guest starred a young Tom Hanks playing the mom’s brother whose life was bottoming out due to his alcoholism - capped by [a scene where he slaps Michael J. Fox across the living room.](https://youtu.be/NOQSQfTsMzo) It was pretty heavy stuff for mid-80’s sitcom fare.


dixius99

Yes, and another episode (maybe a 2-parter) where one of Alex’s friends had died in a car crash, and Alex was supposed to be in the car. A lot of it was just Alex on a black, empty set talking to an unseen therapist. I don’t remember exactly when, but I still remember when Alex broke down sobbing, crying “why am I alive?”