If you’re a child of the ’90s who loves horror movies and television shows as an adult, no doubt your love for the creepy and freaky started back in those childhood days. The ’90s definitely embraced the eerie and mysterious genre for children, with the shows below serving as prime examples. They were just the right mix of spooky without being too scary.
So today we’re going to rank the five best of these creepy live action shows made for children in the 1990s. Did your favorite make it to the top? Check out our ranking below…
5. Ghostwriter (1992-1995)
While Ghostwriter is technically more of a mystery show than a scary one, we’re counting it here because it still has a creepy element in the basic premise — a ghost helps a group of kids in Brooklyn solve mysteries. How does the ghost do this? By manipulating text and letters in the real world to send messages to the group, often through a computer. The series aired on PBS, and was unique in that each case lasted multiple episodes, so kids watching were able to follow along and try to solve the cases alongside the team in the show. To be honest, we never really saw this show back when it was on, and when we tried watching it now, it was a bit, shall we say, hokey. Still, it was highly rated back in its day, and did a good job at featuring a diverse group of kids that represented real life in ’90s Brooklyn.
4. Goosebumps (1995-1998)
As you probably read in our article Goosebumps: The Creepiest ’90s Book Series That Enthralled Young Readers, the Goosebumps books by RL Stine were turned into an anthology television series in the mid-90s. An anthology series is a show that doesn’t have the same characters in each episode, so basically each episode of the Goosebumps show told the story of one of the books in the series. In the end, 43 of the original 62 books in the Goosebumps series were adapted for the television show, along with nine stories from the Tales to Give You Goosebumps series, and two books from Goosebumps Series 2000. Some of the most memorable episodes were obviously “Night of the Living Dummy II” featuring Slappy, and “The Haunted Mask” with its super creepy mask.
3. So Weird (1999-2001)
We’ve seen mystery, we’ve seen horror, but what about the supernatural? That’s where So Weird comes in! So Weird was about Fiona “Fi” Phillips, who just happens to have an affinity for things that are, like, so weird. She and her brother travel with their rocker mom around the country on her tour bus, and each episode is about some strange new encounter. The show was basically a version of The X-Files for kids, and one of the darker shows to ever be produced by The Disney Channel. Sadly, the show only lasted three seasons due to some drama behind the scenes — in season three, Cara DeLizia, the actress who played Fi, left the show, and her character was replaced by this girl Annie. It was never the same, and the show was soon canceled.
Loved Erik von Detten in So Weird? Check out our article — ‘90s Teen Dreamboat: Erik von Detten Edition
2. Eerie, Indiana (1991-1992)
Eerie, Indiana featured a boy named Marshall Teller (played by Omri Katz, who you might also remember from Hocus Pocus) who, along with his friend Simon, would investigate all of the odd happenings that would take place in the small town his family just moved to. Though many kids remember this show, it sadly only had nineteen episodes produced before it was canceled. The show had an interesting broadcast life — it started out on NBC for its original run, then was bought by The Disney Channel to show in reruns from 1993 to 1996, and finally aired on Fox in 1997 as part of its Fox Kids programming that aired on Saturdays that helped it gain the cult following it still has to this day.
1. Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1991-1996)
Did you really doubt that Are You Afraid of the Dark? would be in the number one spot here? Another anthology series, this show revolved around a group of teenagers who dubbed themselves The Midnight Society getting together to tell scary stories in the woods. And, of course, we the viewers would get to see these stories played out. The stories had a wide range of different paranormal topics such as demons, ghosts, magic, haunted houses, magical curses, aliens, witches, vampires, werewolves, etc. Some of the stories were based on urban legends or famous tales, but others were just made up for the series. The show had the longest life out of all of the ones on this list, and has garnered multiple revivals over the years, but none of them can quite compare to the original.
Want more Are You Afraid of the Dark? Check out our article — The Best of ‘90s Live Action Nickelodeon – Ranked
Did your love of scary things start in the ‘90s because of these TV shows? Did we miss your favorite? Let us know in the comments!
- In an interview in 2010, Ghostwriter writer/producer Kermit Frazier revealed that the Ghostwriter character was the ghost of a runaway slave during the American Civil War who taught other slaves how to read and write, and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs.
- RL Stine hosted 12 of the episodes of the Goosebumps TV series as the narrator. Stine also owns a ventriloquist dummy that was made to look like him, which makes an appearance in the episode “Night of the Living Dummy III.”
- So Weird went pretty dark for its season two arc for Fi, and Disney demanded that they make things lighter for season three. Is that what prompted Cara DeLizia to leave the show? Hmm. The writers had a whole plan for what should have happened in season three, and honestly it would have been pretty epic if they had been allowed to do it — check out this interview with the show’s creator if you want to know more.
- When Eerie, Indiana began to gain a new following after airing on Fox in 1997, Fox decided to try a spin-off of the show called Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension, which aired on the Fox Kids Network in 1998 and lasted just one season.
- The original name for Are You Afraid of the Dark? was meant to be Scary Tales, a take on fairy tales, but Nickelodeon didn’t like it. Creator DJ MacHale came up with the new title by asking himself, “What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of… the dark?” and thus a classic was born.
- In an interview in 2010, Ghostwriter writer/producer Kermit Frazier revealed that the Ghostwriter character was the ghost of a runaway slave during the American Civil War who taught other slaves how to read and write, and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs.
- RL Stine hosted 12 of the episodes of the Goosebumps TV series as the narrator. Stine also owns a ventriloquist dummy that was made to look like him, which makes an appearance in the episode “Night of the Living Dummy III.”
- So Weird went pretty dark for its season two arc for Fi, and Disney demanded that they make things lighter for season three. Is that what prompted Cara DeLizia to leave the show? Hmm. The writers had a whole plan for what should have happened in season three, and honestly it would have been pretty epic if they had been allowed to do it — check out this interview with the show’s creator if you want to know more.
- When Eerie, Indiana began to gain a new following after airing on Fox in 1997, Fox decided to try a spin-off of the show called Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension, which aired on the Fox Kids Network in 1998 and lasted just one season.
- The original name for Are You Afraid of the Dark? was meant to be Scary Tales, a take on fairy tales, but Nickelodeon didn’t like it. Creator DJ MacHale came up with the new title by asking himself, “What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of… the dark?” and thus a classic was born.
