It was the scariest shit I ever saw at age 5. Watched it several times as a kid. I would hide under the pillows during the clown scene. The AC blowing up at the beginning also freaked me out.
From the director Jerry Rees on an ama 14 years ago:
"The Kirby 500 series is very close to our Vacuum. Toaster was pretty much a simplified Sunbeam. Radio was like a distillation of lots of bakelite radios into one. I remember there was some discussion among the producers about putting eyes and a mouth on Radio. I pointed out that since he was a clock-radio, he already had a face. And his speaker, is his mouth. Glad they let go of the literal face idea. Blanky’s feel - not his model really - was like an insecurity blanket, because he was without his child to cuddle. Lampy was just a good ol’ bendy-neck. Thought he was bright, but he could be pretty dim sometimes.
Re the junkyard. It’s interesting that we were able to deal with mortality in a way that totally made sense (because cars really do get crushed there) but also went to extremes we could never have gotten away with if we’d used anything but inanimate objects."
No mention of the repair shop guy just ripping the motor out of a blender we saw moving around 5 minutes earlier.
