Freaky Stories is a Canadian television series, which was originally broadcast by YTV in English and Canal Famille in French. It is an animated show about urban legends hosted by two animatronic puppets, Larry de Bug, a cockroach, and his gooey sidekick, Maurice the maggot in Ted's Diner - a 1940's era diner setting staffed by Rosie the waitress. The series, described as "a Twilight Zone for kids", centers on the kind of myths and legends that are told as scary campfire or bedtime stories. Every episode always starts with and finishes with the phrase: "This is a true story, and it happened to a friend of a friend of mine." and by the words of Larry, "Just because they never happened, doesn't mean they ain't true." Animation styles and musical scoring varied within each half-hour episode, incorporating 20 different looks in the first season alone. The short stories and changing styles were specifically designed to keep viewers' attention span.
Similiar movies
Bunnyman
Bunnyman is the story of a group of friends on their way back from a spontaneous weekend trip to Las Vegas, and while driving through the remote regions of southern California they suddenly find themselves in a sickening game of cat and mouse with a five ton dumptruck and, when looking for help, stumble upon a nightmarish family who takes pleasure in dismembering and eating as many of the kids as possible.
Twice-Told Tales
3 horror stories based on the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the 1st story titled "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment", Heidegger attempts to restore the youth of three elderly friends. In "Rappaccini's Daughter", a demented father is innoculating his daughter with poison so she may never leave her garden of poisonous plants. In the final story "The House of the Seven Gables", The Pyncheon family suffers from a hundred year old curse and while in the midst of arguing over inheritance, a stranger arrives.
Hollow
An old monastery in a small, remote village in Suffolk, England has been haunted by a local legend for centuries. Left in ruin and shrouded by the mystery of a dark spirit that wills young couples to suicide, the place has been avoided for years, marked only by a twisted, ancient tree with an ominous hollow said to be the home of great evil. When four friends on holiday explore the local folklore, they realize that belief in a myth can quickly materialize into reality, bringing horror to life for the town.
Is Everybody Happy?
It is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist. The music for the film was written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke, except for "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy and "Tiger Rag". The film's title comes from Lewis's catchphrase "Is everybody happy?" The film's soundtrack exists on Vitaphone discs preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but the film itself is considered a lost film, according to the Vitaphone Project website. A five minute clip from the film can be found on YouTube.
Mater and the Ghostlight
Mater, the rusty but trusty tow truck from Cars, spends a day in Radiator Springs playing scary pranks on his fellow townsfolk. That night at Flo's V8 Café, the Sheriff tells the story of the legend of the Ghostlight, and as everyone races home Mater is left alone primed for a good old-fashioned scare.
Twilight Zone: The Movie
An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the TV series—"Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"—and one original story, "Time Out."
Camp Twilight
After discovering they are at risk of failing to graduate, six students agree to a weekend camping trip for extra credit. Lead by their teachers, Ms. Bloom and Mr. Warner, the students arrive at Camp Twilight and discover its past. The park has a dangerous and notorious history and the students soon discover these stories are more than just urban legends. After a series of "accidents," the remaining group discovers they are being hunted and must stick together to survive.
Sunshine Girl and The Hunt For Black Eyed Kids
The star of the hit series, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, Sunshine embarks on a new adventure with her best pal, Nolan and a new sidekick Andrew. They head to Portland, Oregon in search of her favorite urban legend, Black Eyed Kids. Here they meet several witnesses who have seen BEK. This is a whole new adventure for the group and far from her normal ghostly adventures. Little does she know the BEK world is far more dangerous and evil than any of them could imagine. Will she make it out alive?
Hairspray Live!
A teenage girl living in Baltimore in the early 1960s dreams of appearing on a popular TV dance show.
Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics
James Earl Jones hosts this film based on two stories by the late Rod Serling, who wrote the stories of the original 'The Twilight Zone' (1959) series. In "The Theater," a young woman attends a movie theater only to find that her life story is being revealed on the screen. In "Where the Dead Are," a Boston surgeon in 1868 searches for a scientist who may have the answer to a medical mystery.
The World of Sholom Aleichem
This omnibus release consists of three playlets filmed and aired during television's Golden Age, and starring some of the legends of film and television. The collection originally ran as a two-hour segment on December 14, 1959, on the anthology series The Play of the Week, broadcast locally in New York City via the independent radio station WNTA. Each "tale" in the anthology was adapted from a single tale by the inimitable Sholom Aleichem, regarded by many as the "Yiddish Mark Twain". Included are: "A Tale of Chelm" starring Zero Mostel and Nancy Walker in the story of a bookseller attempting to buy a goat; "Bontche Schweig" about a poor man (Jack Gilford) whose recent arrival in Heaven makes the angels cry; and "The High School" about a Jewish merchant (Morris Carnovsky) persuaded by his wife (Gertrude Berg) to let their son attend a particular high school despite the enforcement of quotas for Jewish students.
Really Rosie
One summer day, Rosie and her friends, the Nutshell Kids, decide to star in their own movie and each take turns telling each other stories.
Similiar TV Shows
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder is an American animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show centers around a Batman-esque super hero, the Blue Falcon, and his assistant, bumbling yet generally effective robot dog Dynomutt, who can produce a seemingly infinite number of mechanical devices from his body. As with many other animated super-heroes of the era, no origins for the characters are ever provided. Dynomutt was originally broadcast as a half-hour segment of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour and its later expanded forms Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics and Scooby's All-Stars; it would later be rerun and syndicated on its own from 1978 on. The cast of The Scooby-Doo Show appeared as a recurring characters on Dynomutt, assisting the Daring Duo in cracking their crimes. Originally distributed by Hanna-Barbera's then-parent company Taft Broadcasting, Warner Bros. Television currently holds the television distribution to the series.
Monsters
Monsters is a syndicated horror anthology series which originally ran from 1988 to 1991 and reran on the Sci-Fi Channel during the 1990s. As of 2011, Monsters airs on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller in sporadic weekday marathons. In a similar vein to Tales from the Darkside, Monsters shared the same producer, and in some ways succeeded the show. It differed in some respects nonetheless. While Tales sometimes dabbled in stories of science fiction and fantasy, this series was more strictly horror. As the name implies, each episode of Monsters featured a different monster which the story concerned, from the animatronic puppet of a fictional children's television program to mutated, weapon-wielding lab rats. Similar to Tales, however, the stories in Monsters were rarely very straightforward action plots and often contained some ironic twist in which a character's conceit or greed would do him in, often with gruesome results. Adding to this was a sense of comedy often lost on horror productions which might in some instances lighten the audience's mood but in many cases added to the overall eeriness of the production.
Tales from the Cryptkeeper
Tales from the Cryptkeeper is an animated series aimed at children made by Nelvana Limited, PeaceArch Entertainment, kaBOOM! Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television Animation. It was shown on TVO and ABC, and is still shown near Halloween on Teletoon. It was based on the live-action television show, Tales from the Crypt, which aired concurrently on HBO. Being directed at children, Tales From the Cryptkeeper was significantly milder than the live-action HBO version. The series was cancelled on December 10, 1994. In 1999, the show returned to the air as New Tales from the Cryptkeeper. The animation was different from that of the previous episodes.
Tales of Tomorrow
Tales of Tomorrow is an American anthology science fiction series that was performed and broadcast live on ABC from 1951 to 1953. The series covered such stories as Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Thomas Mitchell as Captain Nemo, and many others featuring such performers as Boris Karloff, Brian Keith, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Bruce Cabot, Franchot Tone, Gene Lockhart, Walter Abel, Leslie Nielsen, and Paul Newman. The series had many similarities to the later Twilight Zone which also covered one of the same stories, "What You Need". In total it ran for eighty-five 30-minute episodes.
Thriller
Thriller is a British television series, originally broadcast in the UK from 1973 to 1976. It is an anthology series: each episode has a self-contained story and its own cast. As the title suggests, each story is a thriller of some variety, from tales of the supernatural to down-to-earth whodunits.
The Twilight Zone
This 1980s revival of the classic sci-fi series features a similar style to the original anthology series. Each episode tells a tale (sometimes two or three) rooted in horror or suspense, often with a surprising twist at the end. Episodes usually feature elements of drama and comedy.
The Trap Door
The Trap Door is a claymation-style animated television series, originally shown in the United Kingdom in 1984. The plot revolves around both the daily lives and the misadventures of a group of monsters living in a castle. Although the emphasis was on humour and the show was marketed as a children's programme but also for family entertainment, the show drew much from the genres of horror and dark fantasy. The show has since become a cult favourite and remains one of the most widely recognised kids' shows of the 1980s. Digital children's channel Pop started rerunning the show in 2010.
Rosie and Jim
Rosie and Jim was a British children's television programme produced by Ragdoll Productions which aired on CITV from 3 September 1990 to 11 December 2000.
Dick Spanner
Dick Spanner, P.I. is a 1986 British stop-motion animated comedy series which parodied Chandleresque detective shows. The title character and main protagonist was Dick Spanner, voiced by Shane Rimmer, a robotic private detective who works cases in a futuristic urban setting. The show made frequent use of puns and visual gags. The series consisted of 22 six-minute episodes, covering two story arcs of equal length: "The Case Of The Human Cannonball" and "The Case Of The Maltese Parrot". The programme was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom as a segment of the Sunday morning show Network 7 on Channel 4, and was later repeated on the same channel in a late night spot. Produced by Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, the series was created and written by Terry Adlam, who had previously worked on effects for Anderson's Terrahawks. It was also the basis for the Anderson-created Tennants Pilsner advertising campaign using the Lou Tennant character.
Old Bear Stories
Old Bear Stories was a BAFTA award winning stop frame animation television series for children based on the Old Bear and Friends books by Jane Hissey. Jane Hissey also created the television series, starting it on 24 September 1993, and creating 3 seasons, which ended on 24 December 1997 with a double-length Christmas special. In all, 41 episodes were made. The series was produced by Ealing Animation and was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV. Episodes have subsequently been repeated on Channel 5 in the UK, and are also broadcast in the United States and other countries worldwide. The show also aired for a short time on the CBC morning children's block in Canada. It also aired in the United States as part of Cartoon Network's Small World show. Episodes of the series were released on VHS by Carlton Video.
Urban Gothic
Urban Gothic was a horror based series of short stories shown on Channel 5 running for two series between May 2000 and December 2001. Filmed on a low budget and broadcast in a later time-slot, it nonetheless acquired a following. It has also since been repeated on the Horror Channel. Set around London there is an underlying story thread that only becomes clear in the last episodes of each series. Each episode was different in style from the others, running the gamut of documentary-style independent film to spoof, to slick dramas similar in style to The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone.
Hammer House of Horror
Anthology series, in which each self-contained episode featured a different kind of horror. These varied from witches, werewolves, ghosts, devil worship and voodoo, but also included non-supernatural horror themes such as cannibalism, confinement and serial killers.
Lights Out
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
Big Bugs Band
A spectacularly animated program in which a group of bugs puts on a unique musical performance for an audience of fellow animals in the woods. Each bug plays a different instrument – improvising, dancing and singing along while introducing viewers to a variety of musical styles including samba, jazz, hip-hop and more.
American Horror Stories
An anthology series of stand alone episodes delving into horror myths, legends and lore.
Wayne's World
The adventures of two amiably aimless metal-head friends, Wayne and Garth. From Wayne's basement, the pair broadcast a talk-show called "Wayne's World" on local public access television. The show comes to the attention of a sleazy network executive who wants to produce a big-budget version of "Wayne's World"—and he also wants Wayne's girlfriend, a rock singer named Cassandra. Wayne and Garth have to battle the executive not only to save their show, but also Cassandra.