Do your System Preferences display oddly? GUI looks wrong?

Check your 3rd party preference options first.  Remove any that you may have installed.  If you have not installed any then delete this file.  Thanks Carolyn! “Try this… go to ~/Library/Preferences and move the com.apple.systempreferences.plist file to the Trash.”  Ralph mentioned that iChat 2 used to do this in some circumstances as well.