Lab Cabina was indeed scary, though I find it less scary than the thrall in which mobile phones now hold most children.

Television during the 1970s and 1980s in Britain had, particularly during the day, an atmosphere now long vanished. Films like La Cabina were shown without explanation, there were bulletins for those in the television trade which fascinated because not aimed at you the casual viewer, there was the psychedelic music of the test card, there were the programmes of the Open University. . .

My irrational fear, incidentally, is seaweed.