Just wanted to say, I adore your site. Anyway, my personal childhood trauma occurred in 1995 (I was 6-years-old then) during the Superbowl. I'm there with my family, eating some chips, enjoying the game and commercials, until I saw something that screwed me up but good—Pepsi's 1995 "Sucked In" commercial.
It's the one where the kid (wearing a sailor hat, no less) is slurping his Pepsi on the beach. He's slurping and slurping, and finally overdoes it and gets sucked into the bottle from his straw, leaving him trapped inside.
Alone.
I was scared to watch another commercial for the next two or three years, and although I'm a huge horror fan now, I refuse to give that commercial another viewing.
I heard that very thing happened to Mikey from the Life cereal commercials. To get out, he swallowed Pop Rocks and the bottle exploded. Then he was killed in Vietnam. Has to be true.
OK, that looks FREAKY! I totally don't remember this, but I bet I blocked it out!
My brother in law Phil's Party Joke the year this commercial came out:
What do PEPSI bottle and Michael Jackson have in common?
They both like to suck up little boys!
YouTube.
"Sun Fizz."
That is all.
I believe the joke now goes that Pepsi had to re-hire Michael Jackson to suck the boy back out of the bottle.
I never found this commercial scary, really. I think I was actually jealous that the little boy could suck himself into a bottle and I couldn't–even though I knew it was all just special effects in reality.
Oh , Honey, be careful what you wish for. I have been "sucked into the bottle" for the past 22 years. Ain't no fun.