Now that dvds are rarely used as streaming services have become so popular I realized kids now won’t experience the rush to find the remote to skip Disney fast play, or watching the trailers of movies before hand. The biggest one, they will never experience the terror felt when the THX screen came up.
The deep scream that seemed to vibrate the entire room and even your very soul, it being on late at night was even worse. No matter how low you put the volume it still was deafing. The first time I heard it in surround sound it was pitch black, I was by my self at my grandparents house. I braced for the impact of the noise but it was nothing I had experienced before. That was the first panic attack I ever had, and it wouldn’t be the last. In old Pixar movies and kids movies a fat round robot would usually float onto the screen to repair the logo. I only remembered this robot recently as it seems my child brain blocked him out due to the fear he put in me.
If anyone else remembers this robot, and it seems not a lot of people do, (I looked up if it actually existed just to make sure my brain didn’t make him up.) With nostalgia being a popular tool for horror stories nowadays I thought somebody would bring up the trauma that logo caused, or even how weird the robot was. For the most part the robot would come onto the screen and fix something on the logo and make the sound come one, one commercial even had him get trampled by cows and the moos were the loud noise. I think they were catching onto kids reactions to the sound. It was harmless, but he always freaked me out.
Now I can’t remember if this was a dream or not (it for sure was a dream), but it is vivid in my brain now that I have unblocked it. But once as I waited patiently for the movie to come on, there came the logo. I braced myself for the robot to come and fix it to make the noise boom through the speakers. He came onto the screen more slowly than usual, and instead of going to fix the logo he just turned to face me and stared. There was no noise and the logo floated next to him staring at me too, I went to find the remote to try and skip past it, but you usually couldn’t. When I looked up back at the tv the robots head was right up to the screen, staring directly at me. I let out a small scream and quickly turned the tv off and ejected the disc. I don’t remember what movie it was, I do know that I never watched it again.
Whenever I saw that robot after that I looked away from the screen, covered my ears from that horrendous noise that still haunts my brain. Looking back now it was a sensory overload for a kid, and the robot was a lame attempt at making it less of an overload. The cows were definitely a good choice, I remember laughing when I saw that one for the first time. I just hope I wasn’t the only freaked out by that round bastard as a kid.