Nightmare Fuel / Regular Show

"I told you I was ripped...!"

It's just a Regular Show, right? Well, in actuality, it's anything but.

Spoilers abound below.

---

General

• The sheer amount of death present throughout each season can be unsettling, even if it's bloodless and played for comedy. Characters good, bad, or just innocent bystanders regularly get blown up, Eaten Alive, vaporized and even decapitated. The casual way the characters take it also doesn't help.

Season 1

• In "Free Cake" when Skips is sentenced by the Guardians of Youth to shrivel up into dust and disappear forever. Cue Skips rapidly aging, then collapsing to the ground slowly dying, his skin turning into dust while his skeleton stays intact. He even tries to speak, but can't, only groan in a whispery voice. But he gets better once Mordecai and Rigby make an Equivalent Exchange by sacrificing the cake.
• The climax in "Grilled Cheese Deluxe" when Mordecai and Rigby end up preventing the anti-matter from destroying the city by sacrificing the grilled cheese sandwich only to be zapped by the anti-matter and get distorted and stretched in freaky ways. At one point, Rigby gets turned inside out. Mordecai got stretched out to the point where he was barely visible. And let's not forget about Rigby being ripped in half and being put back together in a matter of seconds.
• The evil hot dogs in "Meat Your Maker". They trick Rigby into freeing them which leads to them attempting to marinate and eat all of the park guys as revenge for all of the hot dogs they had previously eaten. Worse is how Rigby defeats them, he sprays them all with mustard which leads to them eating each other alive. One of them even somehow eats themselves out of existence.
• In "But I Have A Receipt" when the clerk who sold Mordecai and Rigby the Realm of Darthon game finally gets fed up with them sabotaging his business for a refund:
  NO REFUNDS! [face returns to normal, but now with maniacal laughter]

Season 2

• The demonic taxi that haunted Rigby's nightmares in "Ello Gov'nor" was actually pretty frightening at times, especially during one of Rigby's dreams where it crashes through the window, baring its teeth and screeching, accompanied by the freakiest Scare Chord ever. You can't blame Rigby for getting so freaked out by that thing.
  • Let's not forget the second part of Rigby's dream where he sees the taxi and runs to Mordecai for comfort. Mordecai is then revealed to be the taxi. Oh, and it rips through Mordecai's head like it was paper. Yick.
• When Mordecai sends the microwave barreling toward the end of time with him and Rigby on it in "It's Time", during their argument Mordecai pushes Rigby off of the microwave and he disintegrates into nothing but a skeleton with eyes before shriveling into a bunch of dust.
• "Appreciation Day": The sheer existence of a magic book that can cause anything written in it to come true. When Mordecai and Rigby get their hands on it, it leads to a freak blizzard in the middle of summer, Skips having his leg broken by the two of them hitting him with the cart, and the emergence of a giant, fire-breathing snowball monster that burns down the park and eats Rigby alive all because they chose to write those things.
• Peeps is a giant eyeball that will always be watching you, everywhere you go, until you die. Mordecai challenges him to a staring contest and if he wins, Peeps must leave, but if Peeps wins, he gets their eyes... and he will do so using an ice pick and an ice cream scoop. Oh, and he has a rather creepy voice and can grow multiple tentacle-like eyeballs. Said eyeballs also spray... something on his main eye to stop him from blinking.
• In "Jinxed", there's the monster Rigby accidentally summoned from a mirror to get rid of his "jinx". It's a hulking, dark-tinted reflection of the raccoon in the form of a snarling, savage beast with bright purple eyes and huge claws and teeth. And if it scratches you, you become a monstrous negative-being like itself, which happens to everyone on the park but Mordecai and Rigby.
• "Skunked" is seemingly tame, except for Rigby's slow transformation into a were-skunk. This is first hinted at by his uncontrolled size shifts and aggressive behavior, not at all helped by him going "That wasn't me!" after one of these, implying it's against his will. Then the transformation begins taking effect as Rigby scrambles to get pineapple juice to cure himself, leaving dark and smelly destruction in his wake, only for the "cure" to fail. And even when the real cure (tomato paste) is within reach, the were-skunk repeatedly prevents Rigby from using it as the latter gets closer and closer to his fate, to the point that him finally getting the tomato paste on himself is a genuine relief. Slowly turning into a were-creature and being unable to stop it is already scary enough; another of said were-creature actively trying to stop you from using the cure if you do find it is even worse.

Season 3

• The Season 3 premiere episode "Stick Hockey" has a flashback where Benson and his student, who looks exactly like him but is orange, are in the stick hockey championships. Benson wins his round, but the student gets decapitated by the game sticks. Benson picks up the head of his student as he watches his student's final moments slip away. He then says, "Master, I thought you said that this was going to be so much fun!". Immediately afterwards, he dies.
• "Terror Tales of the Park":
  • Muscle Man being flayed alive, High Five Ghost being crushed into a phone, Skips being incinerated, Benson being flushed down a toilet, Pops being thrown into a wardrobe and vanishing and Mordecai getting decapitated. In The House gets surprisingly dark. Rigby has one messed up imagination.
    Muscle Man: I told you I was ripped.
  • There's also that scene from the end of "Death Metal Crash Pit" where the RV crushes the ghost band, causing an explosion that skins, burns, and melts the entire audience, even showing eyeballs hanging out of their skulls! It even kills Muscle Man and Hi-Five Ghost.
• Then there's the climax of "Think Positive". After bottling up his anger for the majority of the episode, Benson's gumballs catch fire and spin around inside of him, leading to him being absorbed in a white-hot ball of fire hovering in the sky, sucking in and obliterating everything around it (even Muscle Man in his trailer). When Pops finally decides to cut the wires and forces Benson to snap at Mordecai and Rigby, Benson's patience is terminated, and he screams at the top of his lungs at the two, bathing them in the flames coming from Benson's mouth as he tells them off. After his rant, Mordecai and Rigby are left deaf.
  Benson: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!!!!!!! YOU LAZY NO-GOOD SLACKERS DRIVE ME NUTS! CAN'T YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME ONCE IN YOUR WORTHLESS LIVES?! 'CAUSE IF YOU DID, YOU'D SEE I'M TRYING TO TEACH YOU SOME SIMPLE RESPONSIBILITY, SOME PRIDE IN DOING A JOB WELL DONE!! BUT YOU WOULDN'T KNOW A JOB WELL DONE IF YOU PAID SOMEONE TO DO IT FOR YOU, AND EVEN THEN YOU'D SCREW IT ALL UP ON THE ACCOUNT THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN FOLLOW THE SIMPLEST OF INSTRUCTIONS, WORRYING MORE ABOUT LOOKING COOL THAN DOING YOUR JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• "Diary" had Skips perform a ritual right out of Raiders of the Lost Ark with the groaning spirits, and when Rigby messes it up the spirits form into a giant close-up of Margaret's face, twisted into a look of pure hatred and giving a bone-chilling shriek.
• "Death Bear". An entire episode that revolves around the story of a bear who got the zoo it lived at shut down due to killing its trainer.
  • The episode has some pretty good tension building throughout. Notable examples being the giant footrprint left by Death Bear and the general creepy atmosphere of the depths of Death Bear's cage.
  • Death Bear himself. When he emerges, he's revealed to indeed be extremely aggressive and much more realistic compared to the other characters based on animals, and seems to make committing murder his primary purpose. He chases Mordecai and the others all the way back to the house, almost stabbing Mordecai through the door with the spear on his helmet. Even when animal control show up to stop him, Death Bear is seemingly resistant to tranquilizer darts, and even takes them out with martial arts. Then there's the third animal control member who straight up gets his arms ripped off by Death Bear.
  • In the end, it takes Mordecai shooting dozens upon dozens of tranquilizer darts at the bear, with it somehow shaking off at least twenty darts that hit it directly in the face before finally going down mere inches away from tearing Mordecai to shreds.
• "Sugar Rush" has a pretty chilling moment when Mordecai, Rigby, and Pops end up being sent to a higher plane of a sugar rush after they try to eat more sugar to crash. In that plane, the whole world is black and white, the bushes and trees are being buffeted by strong winds, and everyone is frozen in time as a black figure with a white outline, vaguely resembling them at all. They're so fast that the whole world looks like an Eldritch Location!
• "Bad Kiss" involves Mordecai travelling back in time to fix his bad breath in his first kiss with Margaret. His past self is tied up, while Rigby travels back to the present and destroys the time machine. This creates a time travel paradox and the past version of Mordecai is erased from existence. From his perspective, he went to the car to get his wallet, was tied up and killed by a stranger impersonating him. The surviving version of Mordecai realizes he still has bad breath and chickens out of the kiss.

Season 4

• "Terror Tales of the Park II". The commercial for it involves Mordecai's uncle meeting his demise inside of one of those things that return bowling balls to you. Somehow made worse by showing a clip of a tree in a woodchipper instead of the actual death.
  • Mordecai's story. In the story, he sees his Uncle Steve die by falling into the thing mentioned in the above paragraph. He has nightmares from the stress, and sees his uncle, (complete with spooky, ghostly eyes and a blank stare) around the house, in the paintings, in the mirrors. Eventually, Steve's ghost chases down Mordecai, finally cornering him near a grave. It turns out that Uncle Steve had "unfinished business," and simply wanted to return five dollars to Mordecai, before returning to his resting place.
  • Margaret has a pretty fucked-up sense of humor when it came to her ghost story; the story involves Mordecai, Rigby, Margaret, and Eileen needing a ride to a movie theater since Benson won't let them use the cart on account of pranksters TP'ing the park. Eileen calls a cab but a strange bus called "The Party Bus" pulls over in front of them before the cab showed up, they then board the bus and are greeted by a bus driver in mummy costume and join the other party-goers on board. While they were having a good time as they waited to arrived to the theaters, they soon found out the party-goers were aging to dust, and so were they. Mordecai and the others desperately tried to escape the bus before they die, but the driver, who turned out to be a skeleton, persistently prevented them from getting off the bus. Mordecai managed to reverse the bus' aging effect on them by shifting the bus in reverse, but it worked too well as the reversed aging effect made them so young they reverted to being children. They finally escaped through the bus' escape hatch, which at this point they've became mere infants, and jumped off the psycho bus. Unfortunately it was too little too late as they all de-age to children to the point that they disappear, and this horrifying tale ends with the bus driver laughing menacingly as the bus fades way to nothingness. And that was supposed to be funny? Even Rigby found that story pretty fucked-up.
  • Benson's story is also unsettling, especially if you're claustrophobic and/or arachnophobic It starts off unassuming, with Benson ordering Mordecai and Rigby to re-wallpaper the entire house because of their vandalism and the current wallpaper being discontinued. They complained about not wanting to do it, only for a television to appear in the hallway (which even Muscle Man is puzzled by) showing a man named "Jan, the Wallpaper Man" offering to wallpaper the home for them for free. Jan finally arrived to get started while Mordecai and Rigby run up stairs to play games; Jan was acting suspicious the whole time. After playing games for a few hours, Mordecai and Rigby were amazed by the wallpaper, which had a peculiar color. Just as they were about to go downstairs, they heard Pops screaming and found him bound to the wall. After freeing Pops, they hear Benson screaming and traverse a confusing maze of wallpaper and chase after Jan climbing on the ceiling until they get trapped in an enclosed space. Rigby panics and eventually tears down the wall. They tear down more wallpaper until they finally reach a cave where the other employees were tangled up. They find Jan, who turns into a giant spider. He eats Muscle Man alive, and when he tries to eat Mordecai and Rigby, he ends up eating a box of grenades instead. The explosion killed Mordecai, Rigby, Jan, and Muscle Man (if being eaten didn't kill him first), and one of their intestines lands on Pops' head.
    • What's also scary is them running through the wallpapered corridors, and they can hear Benson screaming for help but they don't know where he is.
  • The original ending to the episode. Not that the version that aired on TV (where the driver crashes into the tree and all of them come out as ghosts) was any better...this one cranks it up to the MAX. Rigby wants to see an accident that happened, so the driver who's towing them slows down. The gang sees their dead bodies being loaded onto ambulances, and the driver turns into a skeleton and detours onto an abandoned, eerie road. Mordecai repeatedly says "this can't be happening" while Rigby yells that he just wanted to go to the party. The driver laughs and says "there's plenty of parties where we're going!" Then a firey pit opens in the road and swallows them. Oh, and there's no ironic banter to take the edge off, only screaming. Now imagine being six years old and watching that. It's a shame they re-wrote it, don't you think?
• "Country Club" has the nasty club owner trying to turn the main duo into toilets via special machine, but ending up transformed into one himself and launched into space via shuttle. Ok, really goofy, but then Rigby speculates if he can survive up there. As if to answer that, the last shot of the episode shows the still living man-toilet floating in space with a terrified look on his face, indicating he's going to drift forever in the cold, infinite void, making death the kinder option if anything. His only hope is if he burns up in a planet's atmosphere or collides with debris, which could take years to happen. And judging by the guy's desperate screams as he left Earth's atmosphere, he knew exactly what was in store for him.
• Quilgin's demise in "The Christmas Special". Mordecai tackles him and his box into the Lava Pit, and after a brief struggle Mordecai is able to conjure hoverboards for him and Rigby to get to safety...while Quilgin plunges headfirst into boiling magma after his cursed present, à la Gollum, complete with a brief glimpse of his burning body sinking beneath the surface. Even if this guy might've killed thousands with his plot to destroy Christmas, it's still a brutal way to off a Christmas special villain.
• In "Guy's Night", Pops is send to the dimension of the Milk People and meets other guys who also drank an entire milk galloon as part of the Milk Challenge. There, they are attended by the Milk People, who serve them glasses with milk, but they soon realize that the Milk People are horrifying creatures who have no eyes but a mouth with vampire-like teeth who want for all the guys to remain there with them. While Pops and most of the guys manage to reach the elevator and get back to reality, one of the guys is bitten and transformed into a Milk Person and another is dragged by the Milk People to the same fate. That's when you realize that now as Milk People, these normal guys have lost their humanity and will now be forced to spend all eternity there.
• What of Promise Pie in "Pie Contest"? He starts out "normal" enough — he's a sentient talking pie — but quickly proves he's absolutely frightening. First off, his high-pitched voice isn't even his actual voice; his real voice is deep and outright demonic. And once he shows his true colors, it's revealed that he has a taste for people and is shown devouring everyone in sight. It's a good thing Mordecai and Rigby get rid of him in the end... by chucking him into the side of a garbage truck, which causes him to go SPLAT!
  • Special mention also goes to Margaret's pie in this episode. It looks like an alien breeding ground, and when Mordecai and Rigby taste it, they look like they're going to die just from putting it in their mouths. Mordecai later describes it as "somehow both burnt and raw".

Season 5

• In true "Terror Tales of the Park" tradition, "Terror Tales of the Park III" has lots of this:
  • Jebadiah Townhouse, oddly enough, is this a lot. Especially, in the hallways scene when he turned into this horrifying thing.◊
    • What's more scary is the buildup. You know he's going to strike, but you don't know when or how.
    • Even worse is the fact that Thomas being forced to wear his pizza costume till Thanksgiving just for telling a bad ghost story at the party is proof that the episode is canon and if it's canon then that means... JEBADIAH TOWNHOUSE IS REAL! AND CANON!
  • The pumpkin monster from Muscle Man's story as well. It turns him, Mordecai, Rigby, and Fives into pumpkins, smashes them in that state, uses their seeds to grow them as sentient pumpkins, and makes horrible autumn puns all the while.
    • Not to mention it's Mark Hamill getting to use his Joker voice!
  • The fact that the bed with the serial killer in it actually got manufactured.
• From "Take the Cake", we have the psychotic woman who nearly runs down Mordecai and Rigby. Note this is because she thinks they 'cut in line' (when in reality they were in a completely separate line). Her rampage kills several innocent people!

Regular Show: The Movie

• Randall Ross' fate after Rigby decapitates him. arguably deserved, but still. He's sent flying into the Timenado as a disembodied head, endlessly dying and reviving as his time-collar constantly resets, and all he can do is scream helplessly. Think a family friendly version of Diavolo's punishment. And given the Timenado is outside of conventional time, he'd potentially be experiencing this for all eternity. It's actually merciful that the timeline is undone, thus erasing future Ross before he can suffer any longer.

Season 8 (Regular Show In Space)

• The villain of this season, Anti-Pops. Feared all over the universe, has a massive fleet at his command, and he won't let anything get in his way. A door? He melts it. A cashier taking too long to give one of his minions change? With a wave of his arm, the cashier is erased, leaving only a white cowering-cashier-shaped void. He's all black with white outlines and a white glow around him, and he's made of pure evil (until his remorse). With this season being the last, who could ask for a better Final Boss than Pops' evil counterpart who is voiced by Freddy Krueger, no less?

---