Nightmare Fuel in Batman (1966).
- Even in such a goofy and light-hearted series, we have the episode "Batman is Riled". There is actually a moment in it when Cesar Romero's Joker is genuinely scary for a few seconds. It is during a fight at a warehouse where the Joker jumps on Batman's back and holds on for a few seconds cackling like the homicidal maniac that the character would be known again in the The Bronze Age of Comic Books and beyond. With the camera shaking frantically in the fracas, the Joker seems less a colorful arch-criminal, and more like a demonic menace like Pennywise in It would be later until Batman throws him off.
- Joker's meltdowns could be scary, like when he found the "entrance" to the Batcave was only 12" tall in "The Joker's Last Laugh/The Joker's Epitaph".
- Molly's death in "Smack in the Middle". It was filmed and treated seriously. Imagine falling in a small nuclear reactor, like she did. She sure was scared when she was losing her footing.
- Commissioner Gordon alluded to it when he visited the Bat-Cave later on in the season. "There are those who entered the cave and never came back."
- Robin once said he heard strange noises coming from the atomic pile. WTF?
- Joker's death trap for Batman, Robin, and Venus in Part 2 of the three-parter Zodiac crimes: a giant clam that swallowed up Robin. Robin's whinier voice and delivery in the Spanish dub made it worse; he was crying!
- Catwoman's echo chamber death trap for the Dynamic Duo. It amplified any sounds made in it ten million times. So a faucet with dripping water is used in a variation of Chinese water torture. Each drop is made frighteningly loud when the switch is thrown, with the express intent of shattering their eardrums. Unpleasant to say the least.
- Mr. Freeze's freezing, and then knocking down, a man, causing him to fall and break to pieces in Season 1.
- For that matter, Season 1's depiction of characters that are shot directly by Mr. Freeze and his freeze gun, especially with a cliffhanger where Freeze opts to do that to Batman and Robin instead of leaving them in a death trap situation that they could escape from.
- His below-zero torture of the beauty queen in Season 2.
- How he freezes Commissioner Gordon's office at the beginning of "Deep Freeze", nearly killing both Cheif O' Hara and Gordon. Gordon even tries to call Batman for help but is too cold to get his words out over the phone. He manages to, but then he passes out from hypothermia. By the time Batman and Robin free them from their frozen office, he and O'Hara barely managed to survive! Imagine how scared both Batman and Robin were listening to that phone call, listening to their two best friends dying.
- Commissioner Gordon: [As Alfred picks up the Bat-Phone] Hu....Help!!!Alfred: Naturally, sir.[He summons Bruce and Dick to the Bat-Phone]Bruce Wayne: [Answering the Bat-Phone] Yes, commissioner?Commissioner Gordon: [Freezing] Bat....Help!!! Bat.....
- Batman's pink contaminated cowl. Then in Part II of the same episode, the "Skeletal Duo".
- Mrs. Cooper suspended over a tank full of hot oil!
- False Face's laughing "face" staring out of a vending machine just as the Dynamic Duo fell for Blaze's trap.
