Goosebumps is a Canadian-American children's horror anthology television series based on R. L. Stine's best-selling book series. It is an anthology of stories involving preteens and young teenagers in otherworldly scenarios. The series focuses on the same supernatural and occult themes as the novels, with most episodes directly adapting the original stories.
Contents
Production
In April 1995, it was reported that the Fox Children's Network was in the process of Scholastic to produce an anthology series based on the Goosebumps series of children's horror novels by R. L. Stine under the working title of Goosebumps Theatre to premiere on the 1995 Fall schedule. Fox was expected to premiere the series as the lead-out program for that year's The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween special.
Goosebumps was filmed largely in Ontario, Canada, with different houses and historic properties in Toronto, Markham, and other outlying rural areas serving often as the sets for each episode rather than constructing artificial houses and buildings. Ontario offered a cost-effective filming location with a versatile aesthetic that could convincingly resemble the U.S. while preserving a sense of geographical ambiguity. Props for the series were designed by Ron Stefaniuk and Alan Doucette, while Stefaniuk retained many of the animatronic props at his own studio after Goosebumps was cancelled.
Telecast history
Goosebumps originally began airing on YTV (in English) from 1995 to 2004, then again in 2016–2017 and Canal Famille (in French) in Canada.
In 2015, and from 13–18 August 2019, the series was aired on Teletoon and Télétoon (Quebec).
Since 2022, Family and WildBrainTV started airing reruns.
In other countries, Fox Kids both in Australia in 1995 and in the U.S. beginning on 27 October 1995 and ending on 16 November 1998, with repeats on Fox Family lasting until 6 September 1999 and 3 September 2001 respectively. Every October from 2007 to 2009, Cartoon Network aired the episodes. From 6 September 2011 until 5 October 2014, Hasbro's partially owned The Hub aired the series. From 2013 onwards, Netflix has streamed all 74 episodes of the TV series on its digital streaming service. In the United Kingdom, it aired on Children's BBC from 1997 to 1999, with repeats aired until 2001. CBBC airings subjected the episodes to heavy censoring, particularly to the twist endings, but the UK Fox Kids channel aired the episodes in mostly uncensored form (except for "A Shocker on Shock Street", which has Mr. Wright's death by electrocution omitted) In the United States, it is also available for streaming on Tubi, The Roku Channel, and Paramount+.
Marketing
To coincide with Fox's release of several tapes from the series, a Halloween 1998 tie-in marketing campaign with General Mills promoted the video series on 10 million packages, and included with each videocassette coupons for candy products such as Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers.
Reception
According to Billboard, some of the VHS releases were among the best-selling children's videos in November 1998.
Home media
DVD releases
Beginning in 2004, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment started releasing the series on DVD in individual volumes containing one two-part episode per disc, but later changed sometimes two separate episodes per disc. Later releases included either two discs or multiple episodes on one disc.
(With two episodes per disc, except for Chillogy):
On 16 September 2008, twelve of the above sixteen discs were re-released in new double-feature sets, containing the same episodes as before.
Starting in 2008, new DVD sets were released to coincide with the Goosebumps HorrorLand revival books. These DVDs were a big upgrade from the previous releases, with menus and enhanced audio and picture quality. Unlike the original releases, these sets include three to four 22-minute episodes, instead of two. They also feature new cover art, as opposed to previous releases which used the cover art for the corresponding series book. Many of the previously released titles have been re-released as well, but only new releases are included in this list. Out of all of these DVD releases, 69 out of the 74 episodes have been released on DVD in the United States, excluding "The Haunted Mask" Parts 1 and 2, "Werewolf Skin" Parts 1 and 2, and "The Cuckoo Clock of Doom". "The Haunted Mask" and "Werewolf Skin", however, were previously released on VHS.
On 26 November 2012, Revelation Films started to release season sets of the series in the United Kingdom (DVD region 2). These releases contained the episodes' mostly uncensored versions as presented on the defunct British Fox Kids channel (albeit still truncating the ending of "A Shocker on Shock Street"); a description on the back of the DVD cases mentions the heavy censoring the episodes were subjected to when they aired on CBBC. Unlike on Fox Kids, all six hour-long specials from across the first and second seasons are presented in their entirety, rather than being split into two-part episodes. Curiously, all the episodes of Season 4 have the Season 2 opening, though their end credits retain the Season 3–4 theme.
On 2 April 2014, Madman Entertainment released the entire series in four DVD sets as well as a "Most Wanted Collection" in Australia and New Zealand (DVD region 4).
Online
The complete series is now on iTunes.
The series was available for streaming on Netflix (North America and United Kingdom).
The full series is available for free on Tubi in the United States.
Goosebumps Presents
The books in the original Goosebumps series that were made into episodes of the Goosebumps television series were subsequently re-released in a series called Goosebumps Presents. The main difference between the books in this series and their original publications is that the Goosebumps Presents editions contained photos from the corresponding episodes. Eighteen books were released from 1996 to 1998.
Reboot
On 28 April 2020, it was announced that a rebooted live action TV series was in the works by Scholastic Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television Studios and Neal H. Moritz's production company Original Film, who produced both the 2015 film and its sequel. In March 2021, R.L. Stine stated that the series had found a producer and a director. In February 2022, it was announced that the series would be heading to Disney+. It was also revealed that the series would not follow the anthology format of the first Goosebumps series, but will instead be a 10-episode series with a storyline inspired by the films that follows a group of five high schoolers who unleash supernatural forces upon their town and must all work together –thanks to and in spite of their friendships, rivalries, and pasts with each other– in order to save it, learning much about their own parents' teenage secrets in the process.
