Fans of the 50’s comic book, Tales From the Crypt were delighted years later when HBO decided to air a television series based on the decrepit old Cryptkeeper and his decidedly creepy tales that usually involved a very bad person mercilessly getting what they deserved for their deeds. Realizing that kids have their own affinity for creepy things, ABC decided to run a toned-down animated series on Saturday mornings, called Tales From the Cryptkeeper, which debuted in 1993.  

Everyone’s favorite skeletal host was back, with his eerie, cackling laugh, wisecracking sense of gallows humor, and some brand-new stories about some rotten people getting the tables turned on them. One such episode featured a rather despicable fisherman getting caught by a family of sadistic fish, who end up canning him…literally. Another involved a couple of young boys tormenting a bunch of ants at a picnic, only to be shrunk down in size and forced to live in the treacherous insect world. While it might all seem a little over the edge for a kid’s animated series, ABC kept a child’s psychologist on the payroll to try and ensure that kids weren’t subjected to anything too disturbing. And anything that was deemed a little risqué generally received a parental warning that they might want to take a look before deciding to let their kids watch.

Kids, resilient as they are, didn’t seem all that phased. They delighted in the Cryptkeeper, and his trademark one-liners and puns (such as referring to the segments as car-tombs) and from having a cartoon to watch that wasn’t quite as saccharine as the typical Saturday morning fare. The series managed to survive for two seasons on ABC, then was resurrected, five years later on CBS and re-titled, The New Adventures of the Cryptkeeper. And for fans that want to relive some of these terrifically twisted memories, the first two seasons are now available on DVD.