Sometimes children's shows are made based on horror properties that are less appropriate for kids, like Beetlejuice or Tales From the Crypt, the latter of which they turned into a show called “Tales From the Cryptkeeper” a much less scarier anthology series for children, similar to british anthology shows like Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids. GTfGK had an intro that was much scarier than the show itself, as it was this very creepy stop motion style and the host was always doing something gross or unsettling. These shows tend to have a “Horror Host”, which is a gimmick originating from radio shows and further developed in the 1950s as ways of introducing the television watchers to low budget horror films and plays.
As a kid, the only anthologies that I really saw was GTfGK until I started looking into older horror movies. It makes sense that I didn’t see many, because this type of content was only really big in the 50s and 60s with a revival in the 80s. It was also much more popular in America than in the UK. My first exposure to the “genre” of host(s) introducing the audience to B movies with interspersed segments from the hosts themselves was actually MST3K, which was set out to actively make fun of the content that was being shown. I liked the commentary aspect of it and it developed a love of schlocky movies in me- I also really liked it because of the use of puppets, which I’m very fond of. It makes me wish there were more examples in the past of animated/non-human hosts, as there is such great potential in this- look at how much people love The Cryptkeeper!
Other iconic hosts of note from my own upbringing that are somewhat similar include Rod Serling, host of The Twilight Zone- a show which explored existential themes in a sci-fi, horror, or fantasy setting. The show often tackled subjects that are hard for children to properly take in, but is not necessarily inappropriate for them.
There was also the Caretaker from Trapped, a show which I thought was very much real and that the kids who lost the game were trapped in the tower forever. He scared me and many other kids- to me the scariest part wasn't even his look, but the fact that he watches over all the kids and is responsible for trapping them in the tower.
Roald Dahl wrote for many anthology series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and was the host of his own anthology series twice with Way Out and Tales of the Unexpected. The one story he wrote for Way Out was called William and Mary, and was adapted many times after. It was featured in both Way Out and Tales of the Unexpected, it was adapted for radio in Vincent Price’s The Price of Fear, as well as being presented in the BBC show Late Night Horror, a series of which the majority of it’s episodes are completely lost. The title sequence can be found online and is quite unsettling.
I find it interesting that I have, in my research, discovered Roald Dahl was involved in horror writing, as a lot of his children’s books and subsequent film adaptations scared me as a child. The obvious choice for many people my age would be The Witches, but I actually liked that book and never saw the movie until I was older, so I wasn’t as frightened. What scared me were things like George’s Marvellous Medicine, in which a boy essentially kills his grandmother by making her shrink so small she disappears, and then her whole family decide they don’t care because she was annoying. There was also the 1989 BFG Animated adaptation, where the character of the Fleshlumpeater greatly scared me, and the strange and unfamiliar world filled me with dread instead of wonder. The James and the Giant Peach adaptation, which mixed live-action and stop motion puppetry also freaked me out, as it tapped into the uncanny valley in some regards.
