Children’sTVshows of the 1990s weren’t afraid to get quite scary and intense, with many standout episodes of beloved series leaving a lasting impression in the form of nightmares. The 90s were quite an interesting time for children’s media, with loosened restrictions on what networks could get away with leading to some very experimental episodes of TV. Whilemodern kids' shows can be quite scary, the childhoods of millennials are filled with particularly horrifying TV scenes that still cause bad dreams even today.
Interestingly enough,it wasn’t strictly the explicitly horror-themed series that got quite terrifying in the 90s.Horror anthology TV showsmade for kids likeGoosebumpsandAre You Afraid of the Dark?may have seen an increase in popularity this decade, but standard children’s fare like cartoons or tween dramas could get just as frightening. The 90s truly held nothing back when it came to the task of scaring young viewers witless.
10And Then There Was Shawn
Boy Meets World - Season 5, Episode 17
No single episode of TV better sums up the 90s' penchant for horror in even mundane settings likeBoy Meets World’sAnd Then There Was Shawn.The coming-of-age sitcom was typically a pretty mundane show, revolving around Shawn’s navigation of academics, romance, and friendship.
A24’s New Horror Is An R-Rated Version Of This Overlooked ’90s Kids Movie
While A24’s upcoming teen comedy/ post-apocalyptic horror Y2K is undeniably original, the movie does owe some inspiration to a cult ’90s hit.
But every now and then, the series would bust out an episode likeAnd Then There Was Shawn,in which the standard gang is stalked by a menacing killer during a round of detention after school.Granted, there is some comedy surrounding Shawn’s status as a horror movie guru being used as a desperate survival tool by the group.
But the murderer’s slow stalking spree and one-by-one killings of the gang is shockingly frightening, punctuated by some ominous shots of his eerily pale face. Even ifthe entire episode was just a dream,the final punchline implies that a killer could very well still be on the prowl in the series' actual story.
9Abracadaver
The Powerpuff Girls - Season 1, Episode 5B
One of the most iconic and recognizable shows under Cartoon Network’s banner,The Powerpuff Girlshas persisted as a franchise well into the modern day.Despite its bubbly, childish premise of three superpowered crime-fighting five-year-olds, the series' sense of humor, references, and themes could get surprisingly adult at times, as proven by episodes likeAbracadaver.
As far as Powerpuff Girls villains go, Abracadaver is quite scary, with the design of a rotting, blue carcass sporting jagged frayed hair.
Here,the titular villain is introduced as a resurrected zombie of a stage magician who died during his masterpiece performance, coming back to haunt the people of Townsville after his beloved theater is torn down.As far as Powerpuff Girls villains go, Abracadaver is quite scary, with the design of a rotting, blue carcass sporting jagged frayed hair.
The powers he uses against the hapless girls are also quite intense, subjecting Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup to illusions, drowning, hypnotism, restraints, and even being sawed in half.Even his defeat has some ominous implications, as Abracadaver is thrown back into the same wicked iron maiden that originally killed him.
8Changing Nature
Dinosaurs - Season 4, Episode 7
A series likeDinosaurshas no right to be introducing existential dread and calamity into the minds of 90s child audiences, but that’s exactly what the normally family-friendly sitcom did in its final moments.Dinosaurswas a clever series that used puppets to portray a family of humanoid dinosaurs set before human antiquity, living day-to-day lives in a version of the modern world.Normally a lighthearted show,Dinosaurswent in a shockingly macabre direction for its series finale that inspired a very dreadful, crisis-inducing sense of horror.
Thanks to environmental meddling, the world ofDinosaursbegins to undergo a rapid ice age, signaling an end to the dinosaurs' reign as the dominant species on Earth.The episode ends with the reptilian family huddled around each other for warmth, watching as a newscast signs off for the last time. It’s no surpriseDinosaurs' bleak series finale caused controversyfor its sudden shift in tone.
7Allnighter
The Adventures of Pete & Pete - Season 3, Episode 8
Even ifThe Adventures of Pete & Petewas usually quite easy viewing, there always seemed to be an unmistakable current of unease permeating the events of the series.Revolving around a pair of brothers who somehow have the same name, the titular siblings' lives are quite surreal, with the younger of them somehow sporting tattoos and their neighborhood having its own local superhero. Episodes likeAllnighterdove further into the weird forces at play in the background of the show to horrifying results.
The episode begins with Little Pete, Wayne, and Monica finding themselves locked in their school overnight.This puts them in peril of meeting the school’s urban legend, the night guard, who is said to be a depraved killer whose profane acts are described in nauseating detail throughout the episode.The episode even features a shot of the night guard committing some atrocity via shadow cast on a wall. Even if the night guard ultimately turns out to be friendly, the anticipation leading up to his appearance is quite petrifying to child audiences.
6Stevil
Family Matters - Season 8, Episode 7
It might be hard to believe that the lovable Steve Urkel could be responsible for as horrifying an episode of TV asStevil.But in this rare instance,Family Mattersproves it is capable of generating some nightmarishly unsettling content thanks to the help of a creepy ventriloquist dummy evocative ofSlappy ofGoosebumpsfame. The episode revolves around Steve finding a strange dummy that looks like himself, wishing that it could be alive. When his wish comes true, Steve’s new buddy soon proves to be more of a menace than a friend.
The puppet copy of Steve Urkel is creepy enough to look at, forming a gross caricature of the beloved TV icon.But Stevil’s rampage and ensuing reign of terror unleashed against the entire Urkel household sets the episode over the edge on creep factor.Steve is also hapless to explain he has nothing to do with the events that transpire as the dummy gaslights his family, making for an uncharacteristically terrifying installment ofFamily Matters.
5Ghost Story
Salute Your Shorts - Season 1, Episode 2
Ghost StoryofSalute Your Shortsframe presents a fascinating case of an early scary TV episode in a series that isn’t normally centered around horror.Salute Your Shortsis a kid-friendly show that takes place in a typical summer camp, using plots that result from the various activities one might encounter in such a seasonal getaway.A venerated tradition of any summer camp is the telling of scary stories around a campfire, and the series capitalized on this early on in the second episode,Ghost Story.
Ghost Story
Cast
Ghost Story (1981) is a horror film directed by John Irvin, featuring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The film follows four elderly men who gather to share ghost stories, inadvertently summoning a malevolent spirit from their past. Based on Peter Straub’s novel, the narrative blends mystery and supernatural elements to explore the consequences of hidden secrets and past misdeeds.
Here, campers tell the story of Zeke the Custodian, a Freddy Krueger-like character who lost his nose to a parrot attack, causing him to fail to notice a gas leak that ultimately killed him.Before long, Zeke seems to enter the real world, terrifying campers with an absolutely haunting mask and dizzying nightmare powers. Even if Zeke turns out to be a prankster in disguise, his horrific visage still haunts the bad dreams of many an innocent 90s kid.
4Hermit Ren
The Ren & Stimpy Show - Season 4, Episode 1
Unlike most cartoons,The Ren & Stimpy Showseemed to hold the fact that it was technically aimed at kids in utter contempt.In truth, the cartoon cat and chihuahua duo could fill out a list all their own of pure nightmare fuel episodes, with the entire series featuring unpleasant, disturbing, surreal, and even downright gory sequences that could terrify most adults, let alone children.
But one of the most terrifyingThe Ren & Stimpy Showepisodes has to beHermit Ren, which doubles down on both psychological horror and nauseating visuals. Here,Ren decides to leave Stimpy behind and ends up in a desolate mountain cave, utterly isolated from the outside world.
The episode even features Ren stumbling across a desiccated corpse of a fellow survivalist.
It isn’t long before Ren starts experiencing intense hallucinations, witnessing his own hands melt off and having panic attacks as his inability to survive the hostile wilderness seeps in.The episode even features Ren stumbling across a desiccated corpse of a fellow survivalist that seems to have hung himself in desperation, making for a particularly dark episode of thebeloved 90s Nicktoon.
3The Haunted Train
Hey Arnold! - Season 1, Episode 8B
The Ren & Stimpy Showwas far from the only Nicktoon to get incredibly bleak and genuinely spooky at times. WhileHey Arnold!is usually a fairly relatable coming-of-age cartoon from the perspective of the easygoing Arnold, it isn’t afraid to get shockingly adult with some of its themes, with episodes that even touch on addiction and abuse.
This dark realism was converted into spooky thrills in one standout episode,The Haunted Train,which ended up being near traumatizing for many unsuspecting millennial kids watching for the first time.After Arnold’s Grandpa tells him the story of a haunted train conducted by a long-dead engineer’s ghost, Arnold and his friends have no choice but to investigate.
Boarding a mysterious train they believe to be the legendary Track 25, Arnold and company soon find themselves in a horrific plane of darkness and fire.
While their destination ultimately turns out to be a mundane steel mill,the gradual buildup of tension and dreadful imagery make for a shocking episode anyway.That’s not even to mention the appearance of the actual ghost conductor just out of sight as a spooky chaser.
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Season 5, Episode 1
As scary as one-off episodes of non-horror shows could get, nothing can hold a candle to the actual dedicated horror series in the realm of 90s kids' show scariness.One of the best was the anthology seriesAre You Afraid of the Dark?, in which a group of kids called the Midnight Society gathers each installment to swap scary stories.One of the most shocking and memorable of these was the premiere episode of season 5, revolving around a mysterious invisible ghost.
In this tale, a group of kids goes head-to-head with a spectral presence terrorizing their school pool, which was apparently built on an ancient graveyard.The ghastly villain simply referred to as “The Corpse” is at first completely invisible, but when one of the kids has the grand idea to color it with dye, its horrific true form as a rotting, waterlogged cadaver is revealed. This particular episode is so scary that The Corpse’s invisibility and poolside encounter seem to have clearly inspired thetitular monster of the horror movieIt Follows.
1The Haunted Mask
Goosebumps - Season 1, Episode 1
Adapting the famous book series by R.L. Stine of the same name,Goosebumpsreigns supreme as the apex predator of 90s TV horror aimed at younger viewers.Telling a brand-new story every episode or two, the show started off strong with its debut installment,The Haunted Mask,which remains one of the series' scariest episodes even years later.The story follows Carly, a jumpy, easily-pranked kid that decides to get revenge on her bullies by buying a mysteriously terrifying green monster mask.
The mask is scary enough on its own, with rows of jagged teeth and demonic eyes. But when the haunted visage activates, sealing itself to Carly’s skin, real panic begins to set in, building a sense of despair as it becomes clear that Carly might never again wear her own face. Even more unsettling are the changes to Carly’s personality the mask makes, making this episode ofTVscary on both a surface and psychological level.
