Growing up in the 1970s and early '80s, I was raised on old school Sesame Street. We didn't have Elmo... and Cookie Monster only had one food in his diet. We also had monsters-- Lots of 'em! When you look back at all the old episodes, there are a lot of sketches with unnamed monsters in them. There were Monster Discos and even Monster albums.

Most of those Sesame Street monsters scared the holy hell out of me when I was little. When a monster came on that I didn't like, I'd high-tail it into the kitchen where I would listen for the sketch to conclude. Then, I could resume my Sesame Street watching with friendly characters like Bert and Ernie and Big Bird.

Although, I was not an equal opportunity monster-hater. For instance, I adored Cookie Monster. He was and still is my favorite Muppet. I was also cool with Telly, Grover, and Oscar the Grouch. Here are the monsters that scared me the most when I was little:

1. The Yip Yips. These guys were, hands down, the scariest monsters on Sesame Street (although, this fan group probably disagrees). They came from Mars, you may remember, and always carried a guidebook with them to determine what creature or object they were observing on Earth. What frightened me about them? Oh, everything. They would float down at the beginning of every sketch with their wide eyes, their severe underbites and their big, dark, open mouths. They'd only speak in one-word sentences and, when they thought they knew what they were looking at, they'd say "Yip, yip, yip, yip" in a progressively faster manner. I included video of what I think is their most memorable sketch, where they're trying to figure out what a telephone is. Watching it truly made me shudder.

2. The Honkers. Looking back at the Honkers now, it's hard to understand why they frightened me so much. They're pretty goofy characters, really. They just hit their nose and honk to communicate. I think what made me nervous was that they didn't speak and they sort-of seemed like a weird cult that came up with its own form of communication. The clip below shows the Honkers sketch I remember most, when a baby Honker hatches from an egg and the adults try to teach him how to use his nose to communicate. Creepy.



3. Two-Headed Monster. I'm starting to detect a pattern here. I seemed to be most frightened by monsters that didn't speak or have names (these guys were named 'Frank' and 'Stein', but that was never said on the show). The Two-Headed Monster and others just made noises and grunts. I think I didn't feel affinity for these guys, the Honkers, or the Yip Yips because I didn't really know who they were. The Two-Headed Monster spoke gibberish in deep voices, and the two heads had dark eyebrows and horns. Very scary! Of course, they weren't mean. The video below shows that they were just trying to maneuver their way through life as two separate personalities stuck in one body. It could've been funny if they weren't so darn scary!



4. Herry Monster. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that Herry Monster frightened me. He was sort-of the anti-Monster, or self-loathing Monster who felt bad about being rough and scary-looking. But I know exactly what it was about Herry that frightened me: his eyebrows and his gruff voice. If you watch the clip below, you kind-of feel bad for him. Of course, this is probably the first time I've ever actually seen him sing about being a monster since I'm pretty sure I was hiding in another room whenever this sketch came on.



5. Miscellaneous Monsters. I lumped the rest of 'em into one category. Old school Sesame Street-ers may remember there were always a bunch of monsters. One of the most memorable/frightening generic monster sketches for me was at the Monster Disco. The clip below shows the In/Out Monster Disco sketch. A bunch of monsters are dancing around and there are flashing lights and it's kind-of dark, and I probably have some sort of deep-seeded fear of discos in my psyche because of stuff like this.