8 Family Movies That Were Horror Films Behind The Scenes

So, perhaps we should all re-evaluate Michael Jordan's thespianic abilities. After all, how well would you do trying to stay in character while dealing with this bullshit? These actors also seemed to get surprisingly handsy with Jordan -- either because the scene called for it, or they were hoping to one day tell their grandkids about the time they groped a sports legend while dressed in an off-brand Ninja Turtles costume.

For some mysterious reason, there doesn't appear to be any footage of Jordan and these green people from another dimension beyond this tiny, 1996-internet-sized clip, but perhaps that's all our fragile reality can handle.

If the resolution was higher, this would count as a snuff film.

Unfortunately, Hagrid's actor Robbie Coltrane isn't an actual giant. This means that shots of him towering above his co-stars were mainly accomplished by forced perspective, or green screen effects -- but for some scenes, such as crowd shots, they simply found the tallest guy they could, put him in a giant suit, and shoved a dead-eyed animatronic puppet head on top.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.Hagrid has seen some shit, man.

With the puppet head removed, Hagrid transforms into David Byrne at a Renaissance Faire.

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And speaking of Talking Heads ... Now that the series has wrapped, Hagrid's disembodied, chattering cranium is on display at the Harry Potter studio tour, primed to traumatize a new generation of children. If Disneyland ever decides that Alan Moore should be a character in the Haunted Mansion, it would probably look something like this:

Warner Bros.Note: This is not a GIF. If it starts moving, burn your computer and salt its ashes.

Even the CGI characters, such as the house elves, had real-life stand-ins. For the last few films they used real actors in leotards ... but back in the second movie, Dobby had a puppet stand-in, who was uncomfortably naked and sculpted with lidless eyes for some unknown reason.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.Sadly, "no-nudity" clauses weren't one of the elf rights Hermione fought for.

That fun-loving singing bear looks suspiciously like a teamster in a leotard. And apparently, when they weren't just slapping some googly eyes on the knuckles of extras, they made the poor kid playing Mowgli pretend he was having the goddamn time of his life while running around with disembodied animal heads.

Walt Disney Pictures "The booze helps."

Other times, he had to crowd-surf among a sea of faceless ghouls -- which, to be fair, is more or less the norm for crowd-surfing.

Walt Disney Pictures We can only hope there was less inappropriate groping.

And then there's this scene where ... well, it's not clear what's going on, but it's probably how every Jim Henson Company Christmas party ended.

Walt Disney PicturesCountless Fraggles were euthanized for less than this.

So how did they accomplish having animated characters mingle with human beings? Well, for the shots where the Toons were required to hold objects, they would use small robots as stand-ins and then animate over them -- making the behind-the-scenes footage look like a movie about robots learning how to drink whiskey and commit murder.

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures"Couldn't we just give it, like, a piece of wood?" "No. It has to be a real gun. And loaded."

But tiny miscreant robots weren't the strangest thing happening on the set of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. You see, Charles Fleischer, the actor who provided the voice for Roger Rabbit, delivered his lines live, off-camera. This is a fairly common thing to do, but Fleischer took the additional, thoroughly unnecessary step of dressing up like Roger Rabbit. You may recognize this as benefiting no one, and being completely insane.

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Walt Disney Pictures"Take as many pictures as you can, I'm sure this won't look like a kaleidoscope of horror in years to come."

And to make sure the male actors were failing to meet Jessica Rabbit's eyeline in all the (in)correct ways, a scantily clad stand-in was used, somehow wearing even less clothing than Jessica herself. Man, a David Lynch set would be a less of a balls-out crazy place to bring your kids for a visit.

Walt Disney PicturesWe've always suspected it, but now we are certain this movie was never intended for children.

In the recent live-action Paddington film, the titular character is computer generated and voiced by Ben Whishaw, after Colin Firth left the production (presumably because no kid wants to see a movie where their mom is attracted to a talking bear). To help guide the human actors on set, they had a stand-in for Paddington -- an understandably irritated-looking adult woman in a Paddington costume, complete with bear hands for absolutely no fucking reason.

StudioCanal "We're paying you for now, but don't forget we could just put that jacket on a shopping cart at any time."

They also had an animatronic Paddington ... but since animatronics aren't cheap, they just made a head on a stick, looking for all the world like a ghoulish trophy designed to warn other storybook mascots of the dangers of overreaching.

StudioCanal Due to a weird glitch, it kept shouting "HELL IS HERE" while disconnected.

There is a scene in the film where Paddington affectionately licks one of the kids in his adopted family, presumably in the way that bears do when they're trying to moisten flesh enough to rip it straight off of the bone. To accomplish this, the filmmakers had some guy lean in with a paintbrush and drag it across the child's face:

StudioCanal Wh.. why is Paddington naked?

Finally, just in case there was any lingering doubt that the making of Paddington was a Russian nesting doll of escalating disquiet, the process of motion-capturing actor Ben Whishaw's face to create Paddington looks like a supernatural ransom note:

StudioCanal But if anyone wants to remake The Lawnmower Man with a duffel coat-clad bear, at least they're all set.

For other shots, they utilized an oversized inflatable dinosaur, which is honestly more delightful than the dragon that appears in the finished film.

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures Serious question -- does anyone know where we can buy this thing?

Then again, all of this is still more tasteful than the original Pete's Dragon, which created the illusion of Pete riding the dragon by attaching the kid to a long stick held by a grip running around in circles.

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Walt Disney Pictures "Don't worry -- if the child gets hurt, we'll buy a new one."

Anyone who walked past the film set probably assumed it was a new Tron movie inexplicably featuring giant beetles.

Paramount Pictures That might have actually been a better film.

The dignity went from "slim" to "nonexistent" when the crew had to toss raincoats on the performers to protect the delicate equipment they're being forced to wear to face the universal derision of grown men who liked a cartoon that came out thirty years ago.

Paramount Pictures The change people threw at them actually doubled the film's gross.

But that's just the beginning of the insanity that was this movie shoot. On some shots, they apparently used a little person wearing a dog costume on wheels. Out of context, this looks like the world's shittiest attempt to sneak your friend onto an airplane without a ticket.

Warner Bros. Alternatively, it's ALF after an unfortunate sexual maneuver with a fellow Melmacian.

Then there's the scene where Scooby dresses like a human woman (we haven't seen the movie in a while, but we assume it was so he could get closer to his kids after a bitter divorce). This scene is insane enough in the finished film, but the making-of looks like a serial killer's diary entry:

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.Green monsters have a thing for Freddie Prinze Jr.

JM co-hosts the podcast Rewatchability which can also be found on iTunes.

It's Spring Break! You know what that means: hot coeds getting loose on the beaches of Cancun and becoming imperiled in all classic beach slasher ways: man-eating shark, school of piranhas, James Franco with dreadlocks. There are so many films about vacations gone wrong, it's a chore to wonder if there's even such a thing as a movie vacation gone right. Amity Island and Camp Crystal Lake are out. So what does that leave? The ship from Wall-E? Hawaii with the Brady Bunch? A road trip with famous curmudgeon Chevy Chase? On this month's live podcast Jack O'Brien and the Cracked staff are joined by some special guest comedians to figure out what would be the best vacation to take in a fictional universe. Tickets are $7 and can be purchased here!

Also check out 6 Beloved TV Shows (That Traumatized Cast Members For Life) and 5 Cruel Movie Moments That Were Adorable Behind The Scenes.

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