Goosebumps is a children's horror anthology television series based on R. L. Stine's best-selling book series of the same name. It is an anthology of stories involving children and young adults in otherworldly situations. The series is centered around the same supernatural or occult elements featured in the novels, with most episodes being direct adaptions of the books.

Production

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 also provided a more affordable filming location and an aesthetic that could double as American while maintaining ambiguity in terms of location and setting. 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.

Episodes

Broadcast 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. Since 2022, Family and WildBrainTV started airing reruns. In other countries, Fox Kids both in Australia in 1995 and in the United States starting on 27 October 1995 and ending on 16 November 1998, with reruns 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, The Hub broadcast the series. From 2013 onwards, Netflix has streamed all 74 episodes of the TV series on its online streaming service. In the United Kingdom, it aired on Children's BBC from 1997 to 1999, with repeats aired until 2001.

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 products like 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

VHS releases

United Kingdom

United States

DVD releases

Beginning in 2004, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment began 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.

Original releases

(With two episodes per disc, except for Chillogy):

Double features

On 16 September 2008, twelve of the above sixteen discs were re-released in new double-feature sets, containing the same episodes as before.

Revival releases

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.

Season sets

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 UK 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

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 reboot 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.