30 Childhood Movies People Were Convinced They Made Up Because No One Else Ever Seems To Have Heard Of Them
Hello world, I'm Allie, and for about two decades of my life, I had convinced myself that I'd completely imagined the film Return to Oz as part of my nightmare-ish childhood imagination gone awry.
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I couldn't remember the plot, or...literally anything about it. Just terrifying snippets I was sure I'd made up in my dumb baby brain.
It wasn't until, funnily enough, I stumbled upon a BuzzFeed dot com the website post about the movie (long before I even worked here) that I discovered I did not, in fact, imagine a terrifying headless witch with a room full of heads she'd collected! Imagine my relief!
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Years of therapy saved!
WELL, this week I learned I'm not the only one to experience this odd phenomenon when redditor u/Environmental-Fix-71 asked in a viral thread, "What's a movie you saw as a kid that only you seem to remember?" and people came through with all sorts of films-that-feel-like-fever-dreams!
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So, with that in mind, here are just a few of the childhood memories/movies/absolute nightmares shared:
1.Mac and Me (1988)
"I've had the pleasure of showing this movie to countless people. One of the strangest movies ever, and one of my favorites as a kid for some odd reason."
"I saw it when it played on television one night when I was eight years old and loved it. I saw it again about 10 years later, and it was so bad that I wanted to tear my eyes out."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
2.Wee Sing in Sillyville (1989)
"This is the first time I have ever heard of someone outside of my immediate family who has seen this movie. I loved it as a child!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
3.Gay Purr-ee (1962)
"It was about two cats — a white girl cat and a black male cat. The female cat got stolen by a villain cat and the black cat went after her to save her. I swear to god this movie exists, but I have only ever seen it once and it was back when I was like six or seven."
"It exists! The female cat (Mewsette) was voiced by Judy Garland, the male cat (Jaune-Tom) voiced by Robert Goulet, the villain cat (Meowrice) was voiced by Paul Frees, and one of the writers was Chuck Jones...if you couldn't tell, I adore this movie!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
4.Magic Island (1995)
"There was this movie that feels like a childhood fever dream to me now: this kid was walking around an island and found a pizza tree. He climbed up and tried to eat a slice of pizza, but a sand shark "swam" through the sand beneath the tree and trapped him up there. So, he put some bubblegum on the pizza and threw it down so the sand shark would eat it and get stuck in the gum!"
"This and other Moon Beam Entertainment films were surreal as hell and I'm pretty sure you had to either rent them at blockbuster or come across it organically."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
5.Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real (2004)
"It was a fake documentary on Animal Planet about dragons. It was about archaeologists finding a frozen dragon skeleton and talking about how dragons were able to fly, breathe fire, etc. Young me apparently missed the part where they clarified that it was all a dramatization because this movie had me CONVINCED that dragons were real, extinct animals for awhile."
"I have both the American and British versions on my computer. Ian Holm narrated the British version and Patrick Stewart narrated the American version!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
6.Rock-A-Doodle (1991)
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
7.Cats Don't Dance (1997)
"I remember watching it a lot back in the late '90s and early '00s. I think people just have forgotten about that movie?"
"That music was unreasonably good for such an unknown movie. I still listen to the soundtrack at work sometimes when writing code. 'Big and Loud' is awesome!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
8.Batteries Not Included (1987)
"Does anyone else remember this movie?!"
"I watched that and Short Circuit the first weekend of the Christmas holidays every year when I was a child."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
9.Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1975)
"I loved this movie! When Rikki does his little bun shaking back and forth and his eyes glow and he makes that sound before he attacks Nag and Nagina!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
10.How to Eat Fried Worms (2006)
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
11.The Halloween Tree (1993)
"Holy. Fucking. Shit. I’ve been trying to figure out what this movie was for the last 25 years. This is it. I didn't remember that it was a Ray Bradbury book, and I certainly didn’t remember that Leonard Nimoy voiced one of the characters! Goddamn, thank you. I thought I was crazy!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
12.The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
"Hell yes! This movie traumatized me as a kid. I had a bad fear of mirrors for a long time. This movie still creeps me out, but I can watch it for fun now."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
13.The Black Cauldron (1985)
"For years, none of my friends believed that this movie existed. I saw it in the theater and never saw it again until several years ago. Convincing my friends that it existed (before the internet) was no easy task!"
"That movie plays like a fever dream, I swear. As a kid, I remembered it being really confusing and disjointed. I decided to rewatch it as an adult, thinking kid me just wasn't paying attention. Nope, it's absolutely confusing and disjointed. The scenes themselves are solid, there's good stuff in there, but the way they connect together (or don't, really) is very strange at points."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
14.A Troll in Central Park (1994)
"Apparently it was Stanley's Magic Garden in the UK and A Troll in Central Park in North America?"
"I made my kids watch this with me during lockdown! Forgot how traumatizing it was, but it really holds up. It was my favorite movie when I was little."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
15.Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989)
"Yes! My older sister and I watched this on repeat. I don't think I've ever met someone else who knows this movie."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
16.The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
"That one's definitely an old cult favorite of mine. A weird little musical jaunt about one man's demonic transformation into a cartoon fish who fights Nazis? You gotta love it!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
17.Quest for Camelot (1998)
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
18.The Last Unicorn (1982)
"The music in this movie is amazing! Jimmy Webb wrote the music. The musical montage the butterfly sings is forever engrained in my head."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
19.Prancer (1989)
"It's a Christmas movie named for the reindeer. It made me cry like a baby."
"That movie gave my sister and I nightmares! Specifically, the scene when the little girl dreamt that Prancer fell off the decoration hung in the middle of town square."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
20.Monster Squad (1987)
"I watched it with my friends at a sleepover."
"That movie still holds up. I watch it every other October! It's even better now that I get to share it with my kids."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
21.Susie Q (1996)
"I think it was a Disney Channel original movie? No one ever knew what I'm talking about, but I finally found the whole movie on YouTube last year."
"I haven't been able to find anyone who knows about this movie until now! I loved it!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
22.Time Bandits (1981)
"It scared the hell out of me as a kid. The whole movie could be different childhood nightmares."
"We watched this in my english class my senior year of high school. The teacher, my best friend, and I were the only ones to laugh throughout the movie! I chalk it up to growing up watching various British comedies on PBS."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
23.Pippi Longstocking (1997)
"It was an animated movie that I loved as a kid, but I’ve never heard anyone ever mention it before!"
"I was obsessed with her, especially the scene where she put those scrubbing brushes on her feet and used them like skates to clean the floor! I still even remember the theme song!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
24.The Indian in the Cupboard (1995)
"I totally forgot about this movie. I remember having to read the book in like third grade, and then the movie came out later that year!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
25.Babes in Toyland (1961)
"I still remember watching that it I was like three years old."
"I LOVED the 'Forest of No Return' song!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
26.The Red Balloon (1956)
"They used to show us this in primary school on a very regular basis, and then when I had my own kids, we had this on VHS. I believe it was French!"
"I had this on VHS growing up and I watched it all the time! It still pops into my head every time I get stuck in that hallway dance where you can't figure out who should pass first."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
27.Flushed Away (2006)
"Every time we encounter it, my fiancé says, 'THAT WAS REAL??? I THOUGHT THAT WAS A FEVER DREAM I HAD OR SOMETHING!!!' And we've encountered it, like, six times now. Same wording every time, same facial expression."
"Oh shit, I forgot about that one! I saw that in theaters — pretty sure it was the made by the same people who made Chicken Run?!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
28.Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School (1988)
"I think it was a movie about Shaggy and Scooby watching over a bunch of monster kids at a school? I've never even talked to someone in person who recognized this movie; it was produced during the late '90s, which to me seemed like a golden age for Scooby-Doo movies!"
"Mirror Shaggy was legitimately creepy!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
29.The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin (1986)
"I TALK ABOUT THIS MOVIE ALL THE TIME. I had it on VHS and watched it daily, sometimes more than once a day. The only other person who remembered it or even heard of it was my mom. Other people assume I'm mistaking it for, like, Happy Feet or something, but no!!!! It's Scamper!!!"
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
30.And finally: Pagemaster (1994)
"Does anyone else remember that movie? Macaulay Culkin got sucked into different books in a library. Ioved it as a kid, but haven’t seen it since."
"At one point, the ceiling painting of Chris Lloyd as the Pagemaster starts melting and distorting and that was pretty scary! Moby Dick also gave me Monstro vibes and I was pretty freaked out by Monstro. Mr. Hyde’s reveal was a low-key jump scare. The beanstalk growing out of the dragon’s innards terrified me...lots of freaky moments in this one! All awesome in hindsight, though."
You can watch the evidence of its existence here:
All right, you've read theirs, but now it's YOUR turn! Do you remember any of these? What's a movie from your childhood that you feel like absolutely no one else has heard of? Share yours in the comments below!
Some responses were edited for length and/or clarity. H/T: Reddit.
