Traumatized is a weekly podcast in which your hosts Erin Ridgeway and Jason Apple bravely re-watch the terrifying children’s media that frightened them as kids, and ask themselves, “what were our parents thinking?”
If only there were a film that captured all the violence, political intrigue, and horror of Game of Thrones , but made for children. Good news: there is. It’s our most-requested film, Watership Down, a timeless tale about adorable, fluffy bunny rabbits rebuilding their civilization on the rotting corpses of their enemies. It’s a blood-soaked, G-rated spectacle for the terrified child in all of us.
Remember that time when we all got obsessed with Snood and almost failed out of college? This is a lot like that, but with orgasms. In this minisode, your hosts explore their strange and confusing feelings about this season five episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Game.”
Murderous revenge! Troubling racial stereotypes! Dead pets! It’s everything a children’s movie needs to leave lasting psychic damage. Join Erin and Jason as they descend into doggie hell and ask the tough questions about canine theology and the cathartic appeal of film-induced cryarrhea, as they discuss the Don Bluthiest of Don Bluth movies, All Dogs Go to Heaven.
Unicorns! Tom Cruise in a minidress! Sexy Satan in LEATHER PANTS. Thank you, Ridley Scott. Thank you a million, million times for the glitter-permeated, tonally inappropriate, cuckoo-bananas fantasy extravaganza that is the 1985 cult classic Legend. Pour yourself an acorn of elf wine and join us as Erin and Jason compare and contrast the Director’s Cut and the Theatrical Cut, because if you think we don’t have both versions, you don’t know us at all.
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society: our very first minisode, in which Erin takes Jason on a journey into the greatest creepy tween anthology series of the ‘90s, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” Short answer: yes. Especially when confronted by a Nosferatu, freed from his celluloid prison and slowly rampaging through an antique theater seeking vengeance. Huddle with us under the covers as we discuss “The Tale of the Midnight Madness.”
This week, Erin and Jason discuss the children’s movie that taught them about deforestation, animal testing, and Tim Curry’s villainous sex appeal. That’s right, they’re talking about the millennial “Silent Spring”, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.
On our latest episode, Erin and Jason find out what happens when you make a He-Man movie that takes everything you love about He-Man, removes it, and replaces it with Courteney Cox. That’s right, it’s Masters of the Universe, the terrible, terrible film that not even the power of Greyskull can save.
For the first time, Jason and Erin have totally different perspectives on the same modern cinematic masterpiece/viscerally upsetting horrorshow. Join them as they unpack the toon noir that is definitely not a film for children. Ppppplease listen.
In the closest thing yet to a joint therapy session, Erin and Jason try to make sense of My First Horror Movie™ The Watcher in the Woods. Listen in as they try to wrap their broken brains around the off-the-rails madness of an apparent haunted house tale that takes a hard left turn into a different dimension populated by 8-foot-tall winged Predator wasp monsters.
Erin and Jason plunge headfirst into Disney’s beautiful, ill-fated disaster, The Black Cauldron, Join them as they discuss spooky real estate, grave-robbing, suicide, and piles and piles of corpses. (Again, this is an ANIMATED DISNEY FILM FOR CHILDREN.) Let’s gather to mourn what might have been.
On a special festive winter holiday edition of Traumatized, Erin and Jason revisit Joe Dante’s insane Christmas horror comedy classic, Gremlins. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.
Bust out your blacklight and put on your dad’s America records, because this week, Erin and Jason are follow a dangerously stoned butterfly into the nightmare world of The Last Unicorn, where they confront anthropomorphized sex trees, alcoholic reanimated skeletons, and their own mortality.
This week, Erin and Jason dive deep into Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy romp featuring store-brand hobbits, two-headed penis dragons, and being violently turned into a pig. Jason has a lot of thoughts about Sorsha; Erin continues her brave struggle with face blindness.
A little midweek (ok late week) housekeeping from Erin to say thanks for all the responses on our pilot and clue you in on what's coming in future episodes.
In our pilot episode, hosts Erin Ridgeway and Jason Apple revisit the childhood nightmare fuel that is “The Secret of NIMH.” Join them as they explore comic relief crows, Don Bluth’s baffling fondness for warts and goo, and Erin’s disconcerting pants feelings for an animated rat.
