Editorials
5 ’90s Horror Cartoons That Should Really Be Brought Back
A major staple of childhood is cartoons, and growing up in the 90s meant a vast selection of quality cartoons available. It was a decade where anything and everything received an animated series, from boy bands to popular toy lines. There were numerous cartoons for any and every interest and fandom, but especially for the budding horror fan. Popular HBO horror anthology series Tales from the Crypt reeled in a younger demographic with Tales from the Cryptkeeper. Disney went gothic with beloved series Gargoyles. Toy lines My Pet Monster and Mighty Max cleverly crafted cartoons that amounted to 30-minute long commercials. But for all the well known and loved cartoons, there’s a lot more equally great horror cartoons that have since been forgotten. These 5 horror-themed cartoons were gone too soon and are worth reviving:
Toxic Crusaders
Following the environmental trend made popular by the likes of Captain Planet and the Planeteers, this kid cartoon came from one of the most unlikely sources: Troma’s Toxic Avenger films. Obviously, the R-rated content Troma is known for, was scrubbed for a more age appropriate cartoon, though that didn’t stop them from sneaking in some adult jokes. This version of Toxie was a big-hearted law-abiding citizen of Tromaville, who battled other mutants and their polluting ways. This cartoon only ran for 13 episodes, but it was popular enough to produce a line of merchandise that included action figures, trading cards, a board game, and more. I still have fond memories of my Toxic Crusaders coloring book.
Monster Force
Long before Universal sought to recreate Marvel’s cinematic universe with their own Dark Universe, there was Monster Force. The 13-episode series was created by Universal Cartoon Studios and Lacewood Productions, and saw a group of teens and college students facing off against Universal Monsters in the year 2020. Led by Dr. Reed Crawley, the group used high tech weapons to fight on behalf of humanity, but their own grudges against the monsters as well. Dracula, the Creature of the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, and more actually side with the good guys in their quest. It didn’t catch on with viewers though and ended too soon.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Based on the movies Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Return of the Killer Tomatoes, this Fox cartoon owes its creation to an episode of Muppet Babies cartoon, where poor Baby Fozzie imagined an attack of the silly tomatoes seeking revenge on comedians. The popularity of the episode prompted the sequel Return of the Killer Tomatoes, which in turn lead to the animated series. Airing for two seasons, it picks up years after the Great Tomato War and follows little boy Chad as he befriends the failed experiments of Dr. Putrid T. Gangreen as they team up to thwart Gangreen’s nefarious plans.
Freaky Stories
A Canadian anthology cartoon that was a lot like Twilight Zone but for kids. Each episode featured urban legends with different narrators and animation style, but they all began and ended with the line, “This is a true story, and it happened to a friend of a friend of mine.” The show was hosted by animatronic puppets of a cockroach and his maggot sidekick, who bookended each episode with their conversations in a diner where the storytelling takes place. The series ran for 3 seasons.
Gravedale High
Also known as Rick Moranis in Gravedale High, this 13-episode cartoon features, you guessed it, Rick Moranis. The series centered on the adventures of a human teacher in a school for monsters. As the only human in school (and voiced by Rick Moranis), he teaches a group of teen monsters that are versions of the classic Universal monsters. The teens are unruly, disruptive, and uninterested, and only the unassuming human Max Schneider would take the job. Being a kid cartoon, it was a light take on the monsters, and had an after-school special type slant with real world problems wrapped in a monster package. Mattel might have created a cartoon to sell their Monster High dolls over a decade later, but Gravedale High was the original.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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