Have you ever had a dream that felt real but didn’t at the same time? Like, you’re experiencing something supernatural, trippy, or uncanny, all while drifting in and out of sleep. If you have, you might have been experiencing a fever dream. Fever dreams, vivid, often bizarre or unpleasant dreams sleepers can experience when they have a fever, can be unpleasant and enjoyable.

This phenomenon is often related to that feeling you get when you think about a TV show you remember watching as a kid that you enjoyed for the most part but also felt slightly unfamiliar or weird . . . you know, like a fever dream. Most likely you’ve thought about those moments later in your life and wondered why that happened and how it pertains to children. 

Here are four examples of those fever-dream kids shows:

“Crashbox”

“Crashbox” was very special to me as a kid. It was a stop-motion “Edutainment” kids cartoon, first airing in 1999. Each half-hour episode consisted of seven or eight 1-5 minute educational games covering topics like history, math, spelling, and science. However, the most uncanny and eerie segments of the show were Eddie Bull, Distraction News, and Revolting slob

The clay body but human mouth of Eddie Bull, the stuffed animal-looking revolting slob, and the paper puppet news lady (Dora Smarmy), were so creepy to most kids because they looked like they were made of real materials. Just the overall way these three characters acted freaked me out when I was a kid. If you showed these characters to someone who has never watched Crashbox before, I doubt they’d think they are from a kid’s show. 

This show and its bizarre segments was one of my favorite shows because of how gross the characters looked. My mom-mom and I would always joke about how funny the revolting slob looked and the jokes Dora Smarmy would crack at the end of her segment. Also, these three segments covered some of my favorite topics. (ELA – Revolting slob, science – Distraction News, and animal facts – Eddie bull and I definitely paid attention and learned a few things while watching. So I think it’s safe to say that Crashbox was a staple in my house as a kid.

“Spongebob”

It’s not all the time, but every now and then there’s a really weird and creepy episode of SpongeBob. “I Had an Accident” has an infamous ending in which a creepy, live-action man in a gorilla costume suddenly comes out of a Patrick costume and beats up the characters. Spongebob, questioning the logic of the situation, asks “What’s a gorilla doing underwater in the first place?” The gorilla stamers for a bit before yelling “George, they’re onto us!,” to two other live-action people operating a horse costume. The gorilla proceeds to jump on the horse’s back and rides off into the sunset. 

This ending takes what has to be the most well-known fact ever – humans can’t breathe underwater – and throws it right out the window. Sure we’ve seen humans underwater in Spongebob but never in this context. And not to mention how disturbing the costumes looked too. The lumpy, unnatural-looking body of the horse and the gorilla mask that you can see bits of the man through the eyes and mouth reminded me of the Chuck – E Cheese mascot. (AKA my biggest enemy as a kid)

There’s so much more that can be said about this ending but overall I think we can all agree that this has to be the most head-scratching ending in SpongeBob history.

“Regular show”

The intro is what did it for me. The clock ticking sound, the unofficial-looking text, and the weird background made my skin crawl. As for the show itself, it felt like I was watching Adult Swim. I think adult shows seem to always have a weird resemblance to humans and this can definitely be seen in Regular Show, the animation style and content heavily resembles an adult cartoon.

 However, the characters themselves and the facial expressions reel back in that kid’s cartoon feeling. A perfect example of this is Benson, I mean he’s literally a gumball machine that turns flaming red when he gets angry. 

And not to mention the antics these characters would get up to. Here’s a direct quote from an episode, “That horse right there fell out of the sky and has to pass a U.S. history test or the whole Earth’s gonna explode.”  -Mordecai. If that doesn’t sum up how fever dreamish this show is, I don’t know what does.

“Adventure Time”

I feel like many people consider Adventure Time to be a pretty harmless fantasy kids cartoon but for me as a kid, I never really had the best experiences with the show. Some of the imagery freaked me out like when Marceline the vampire would turn into a huge grotesque bat creature. And also the times when the show went deeper into emotions and hardships. Like when Finn fell in love with the Flame princess. 

When Finn meets Flame Princess for the first time, he is infatuated with her, even though she’s literally made of flames. That infatuation persists even when Flame Princess was avoiding Finn, but he sees right through her. Finn realized that the Flame princess was having a hard time controlling her emotions which was expressed with her fire powers. Although it was harmful to him, Finn got up close and personal with the Flame princess to not only communicate his love for her but to convince the people around them that she isn’t just some heartless monster, just someone who is just misunderstood. 

Although their love story was very profound thinking about it now, imagine interpreting that as a kid. The kind of love Finn had for the Flame Princess was a lot to unpack for my kid brain, so I quickly discarded their relationship in favor of Finn and Princess Bubblegum’s relationship – or rather situationship – which we are definitely more exposed to during the show.

With all of the shows I’ve named, this begs the question: “Why do so many kids cartoons use the uncanny?”  I feel like it’s totally not on purpose. I mean, most of the shows I listed are several years old at this point, so imagery or content that seem creepy or jarring now most likely wasn’t when the shows first came out. And not a lot of them are still being played as much on cartoon channels anyway. 

Honestly, the more uncanny or confusing the show is, the more of an effect it had on us as kids. Let’s not forget, cartoons don’t just exist to educate children but to entertain as well. The uncanny nature of certain cartoons is what makes the cartoon.

Take my “Regular Show” and “Crashbox” examples: both represent the epitome of a fever dream show. The iconic nature of both cartoons’ animation styles, plots, and characters is what keeps us coming back for more. 

On the other hand, sometimes shows will tap into the more confusing nature of the uncanny. Again, I don’t believe this is on purpose. I feel like every now and then, a confusing moment comes up in a kids’ show, leaves us baffled and then isn’t really mentioned later on.

My “SpongeBob” and “Adventure Time” examples tie in with this as well. Both of the situations I discussed were so confusing to witness as a child but are still some of the most iconic parts of each show. They can both be described as fever dream shows in a more fear-of-the-unknown way rather than an in-your-face, over-the-top way.

The culmination of imagery, plot, confusion, and enjoyment all come into play to create a unique experience that goes beyond learning lessons or morals. 

So yes, some parts of our favorite kids’ shows felt like an uncanny, creepy, and  confusing fever dream at times, but at the same time, everything we are exposed to at a young age is what molded us into who we are today, and that fever dreamish