Tales from the Crypt

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An American horror anthology TV series that ran from 1989 to 1996 on the premium cable channel HBO. It was based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name and was produced by The Geffen Film Company in association with Warner Bros. Television.

It was one of the few anthology series to be allowed to have full freedom from censorship by the FCC, due to the fact that it was on HBO, a premium cable television station. Given that HBO often allows its shows to have more graphic material than most shows on American television, the station allowed the series to contain graphic violence as well as other content that had not appeared in most television series up to that time, such as profanity, nudity, and sexual situations.

The series began as an American series, filmed in California. In the final season, filming continued in England and many episodes filmed during that time revolved around British characters.

It is currently being shown on Zone Horror in the UK, and in the U.S. on NBC Universal's horror-themed cable channel Chiller, which launched on March 1st 2007.

The Peter Jackson film The Frighteners was originally written as a Tales From the Crypt movie, but was produced and released on its own merit after director Robert Zemeckis read the script.

In 1993, a Saturday morning cartoon called Tales from the Cryptkeeper was based on the series, with none of the violence or other questionable content that was in the original series, but kept John Kassir as the voice of the Cryptkeeper.

A kid's game show called Secrets of the Cryptkeeper's Haunted House was also spun off from the series in 1996, there the cryptkeeper plays the announcer during the game show.