Child stars. The phrase sends bile spinning through each and every one of my organs. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with being a child, or being a star... but for some reason, the heady cocktail of creepiness, bad hair, lack of coordination and stage-mothering involved combines into a potent, visceral mash of glitter, tears and hatred. Some of the child stars below grew up to turn out just fine. Some grew into staggering, chubby misfts. None of them, however, can undo this idiocy.

Enjoy.

10.



I've always found Drew Barrymore painfully adorable (still do, in fact), but this clip of her on Carson when she was very, very young is like having marshmallows forced into your eyes. It's also incredible how she riffs with Carson. And by riffs, I mean "removes her front teeth".

9.



Britney might be a sticky, talentless maw right now, but there was a point where she... she... yeah, I got nothing. It's incredible to see her growth from sequined white trash to less-sequined white trash, and it just goes to show... something. I'm sorry. I appear to be having a small stroke on account of her singing.

8.



Jodie Sweetin, aka the adorable one with the lisp from Full House, can be seen here singing in an Oscar Meyer hotdog commercial. It's adorable, but it's somewhat stymied now that it's widely known that she became the quintessence of trailer trash later in life. Shall I be more specific? Stephanie Tanner became a meth addict. METH. You would think, at some point, the dealer selling it to her would be thinking "Hey! You played the embodiment of purity and whimsy for almost a decade. Maybe I shouldn't be SELLING YOU METH".

7.



Shirley Temple. Is she cute? IS SHE? OR IS THE THE SPAWN OF SATAN? Look at those stupid ringlets. I hope she drowns in that soup.

6.



Macaulay Culkin has been through the entire child star rigmarole. He also got caught up in the Jackson scandal, was in a Sonic Youth film clip (a gross one, in fact), and was in Richie Rich, a film I cannot, and will not, dump on. This is his best scene from Home Alone, but it's in Russian. So you're going to have to deal with that somehow.

5.



Noah Hathaway played Atreyu in The Neverending Story. What is he doing now? He's a tattooed muscled motorcyclist. His official site says 'under construction', but I strongly suspect he's currently also fighting against the sadness. FIGHT AGAINST THE SADNESS, NOAH!

4.



There aren't any video of this online that I could find, but this monstrous little bastard is Clint Howard. You know, Ron Howard's brother. AKA, the guy who gets small roles in everything even vaguely affiliated with Ron Howard. He played that creepy environmentalist in season one of Arrested Development? Anyway, here he is in the original series of Star Trek playing a creepy alien named Balok. I'd say this is where his career pretty much peaked.

3.



Peter Ostrum played Charlie in the 1971 Willy Wonka movie. He's now a vet with an upsettingly large and creepy moustache. Don't believe me? Google Peter Ostrum. You can, and will, regret it.

2.



Gary Coleman, child star and waddling denizen of Different Strokes, can be seen her attempting to make the transition from child star to musical prodigy. You'll probably notice that around the two minute mark, your hair starts to bleed. Apply pressure and lie down if this occurs.

1.



Ok, technically she's still a child star. But I guarantee you there will be a point sometime in the very near future where Bindi asks herself two very pertinent questions. The first will be "what the fuck kind of a name is Bindi?", and the second will be "what the fuck kind of a music video is this? Have every single one of the people involved in this debacle - especially those dancers - killed themselves on account of the crippling shame by now? They have? Oh, good". If you're in the mood for some serious cringe times, pick up a copy of her music DVD. It's an hour of this choreographed dirge. I guess the lesson here is this: if you insist on letting children act, sing, or dance, please - keep it simple.