Horror Themed Kids Shows

We all watched them when we were young. They entertained, inspired, and scared us, yet we came back again for more. Regardless of it being Saturday, or weekdays after school, we saw and absorbed every second of these shows that gave us our first taste of horror.

I was browsing around the bottomless pit of time wasting we call the Internet, and came across a picture of a old TV guide spread for the new(back then) shows coming that fall on Saturday morning. I remember them, and it felt great. With each show, a flood of memories came back. I spent the next 2 hours just looking for old Saturday morning advertisements. I even looked at a few from way before I was born. I had a ball.
Then I though there is a huge number of horror themed shows from my childhood. Matter of fact, since the beginning of TV. So I though it would be great to compile a list of some of my personal favorites. So lets go down memory lane to our childhood.

Beetlejuice

All the way back in the “before time” around 1988, Tim Burton made a horror comedy about newly dead people who needed to get a dopey family out of their house and called on a “Bio-Exorcist” to do it. Only a short year later, Beetlejuice became a cartoon and forgot all about the newly dead couple. Instead, it focused on the (decidedly less pervy) Beetlejuice’s friendship with goth human Lydia Deetz, who lives with her parents. Most of the show’s episodes took place in the Neitherworld (the afterlife) and that’s where all the scary stuff came in. The look of the cartoon was especially macabre.

The Real Ghostbusters

While this program, based on the behemoth film from 1984, eventually became very kiddish and safe, the first couple seasons of The Real Ghostbusters were doing some weird and definitely horror-filled things. I think they fought every kind of monster imaginable through the run of the series.

Tales from the Cryptkeeper

Yes, of course let’s make a cartoon series based on a super-adult HBO show which in turn was based on hyper-gory comic books from the ’50s. That sounds like a great idea. And, actually, it was. What made the EC Comics and HBO show great was the anthology aspect of the stories, and the fact that they could always blend the violence and a strand of dark comedy. While the cartoon series didn’t have nearly the mean streak as the earlier material, it did maintain the level of scares by ensuring the animation style stay as true to the EC Comics origins as possible without showing anything graphic, since the stories also focused on kids.

Are You Afraid of the Dark

 
This new take on the campfire story(my favorite), this show revolved around a group of teenagers who referred to themselves as "The Midnight Society". Every episode, at a secret location in the woods at night, one member would tell a scary story to the group. The actual story, rather than the telling, was showed. Each storyteller would begin their story by saying "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story, (story name)", at which point he or she would toss a handful of "midnight dust" from a leather pouch into a campfire to heighten the flames and produce an eerie white smoke. Then the story began.

Goosebumps

 

Based on the book series. The opening starts with a man dressed in black carrying his briefcase up a hill. The name engraved on the briefcase reveals the mysterious man to be Goosebumps' author, R,L. Stine. A strong wind blows, opening Stine's case, and his papers fly out, one of which turns into a "G" seen on the Goosebumps logo, and glides through an unnamed town. It is an anthology of kids, pre-teens, and teenagers finding themselves in eerie and unusual situations, typically involving supernatural elements.

Eerie, Indiana

The series revolves around Marshall Teller, a teenager whose family moves to the desolate town of Eerie, Indiana, population of 16,661. While moving into his new home, he meets Simon Holmes, one of the few normal people in Eerie. Together, they are faced with bizarre scenarios. This show is like a kids version of the Twilight Zone, except they live in it, instead of visiting it.

Scooby-Doo

If you don’t know who Scooby is, then what deep cave do you live by, and what is the rent? Everyone knows who Scooby-Doo is. Here is the premise in a nutshell. A group (two boys, two girls, and a dog) travel in a van named the Mystery Machine, solving mysteries. For many of us, this was our earliest introduction to the genre.Their has been dozens of shows and movies staring all or a few of the gang, but the plot is still the same. They solve mysteries.

Gargoyles

This is a great show that goes beyond the boundaries of a mere kids’ cartoon. It’s an epic, sprawling series with tragic heroes who are incredibly vulnerable by day but powerful heroes at night. He was an awesome hero who always did what was right.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Why? Because I am a Tomato fan. This is one of oddest choices to get their own television series. This one is of course, based on the monster movie spoof series in the seventies and eighties. The series follows a pizza delivery boy and his friend, who is part tomato herself. They try to stop Dr. Putrid T. Gangreen from taking over the world with his army of tomatoes.

Looney Tunes

Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Sylvester, and the rest of them have represented almost all of the horror movies genre, and stories at one time or another. They even had famous horror stars doing voices. So we had to include them. How hasn’t anyone over the age of 30 not watched everything from a mad scientist to monsters going after our favorite toons. Unfortunately, now they are viewed as too violent and are hard if not impossible to find on tv(because apparently kids today are too stupid to understand they shouldn’t do these things at home).


Honorable mention

These are just some of the monster/horror themed shows through the years. Notice the movie/classic story influences. Groovie Goolies, Addams Family, Teen Wolf, Toonsylvania, Aaahh! Real Monsters, The Milton The Monster Show, The Drak Pack, Mutant League, Godzilla, Sigmon the Sea Monster, King Kong, Toxic Crusaders, The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy, Casper, Filmation's Ghostbusters, Frankenstein Jr., Dingbat, Buford and the Galloping Ghost, Clue Club, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Batfink, Bone Chillers, Danny Phantom, Monster Squad (1976), Fangface, Little Shop, Mummies Alive, Winsome Witch.

Did I miss a show? Comment below and tell us about it.