Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

"You are welcomed to Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, a series of cautionary tales for lovers of squeam!"

- Opening Narration

Based on a children's book series of the same name by Jamie Rix, Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids is a British Nightmare Fuelled Space Whale Aesop animated series, narrated by the host Nigel Planer (best known for starring in The Young Ones). The series began in 2000 and ended in 2006 but has since briefly been revived the 2010s, finishing for good in 2012. Think Tales from the Crypt for CITV.

Planer stars as Uncle Grizzly, the caretaker of a rundown cinema which serves insects for refreshments. He screens short movies into the theatre of stories about children that are punished for their behaviour. The kids in question are usually greedy, naughty, rude, obnoxious, and selfish, and are usually taught a "grizzly" lesson by the end of the tale - often ending with them being killed, mutilated, shape-shifting or, if they're lucky, learning the error of their ways and changing for the better. In between these stories, Uncle Grizzly will talk to the children watching about the lessons that they'll learn from the movie he's about to broadcast, often with a pet spider called Spindleshanks, that he often enjoys pranking or abusing as the spider acts confused or acts accordingly. These segments later disappeared as the show progressed, most likely because the Art Shift from the stop-motion intros to the 2D animated movies were expensive and time-consuming to deal with.

When the series returned after a three-year hiatus, the introductions were relocated to the HotHell, a 3D CGI hotel that implied links to the underworld. Although Planer remained as the host, the storyteller was now Uncle Grizzly's half-brother, The Night Night Porter, and the stories were still 2D animated but in an updated art style. For some long-time viewers, this new update wasn't received well, which might have contributed to the show's abrupt end.


 * Adaptation Name Change:
 * The P. E. kit in "Tag" belonged to A. Phantom in the original story, instead of the cartoon's phantom judge Jim Spectre.
 * Adaptational Attractiveness:
 * Ginger in "Knock Down Ginger" was described as a large, overweight boy with Charlie Brown Baldness red hair as pale as his skin; Eliza even says he looks like a ghost. The character model in the cartoon has none of these problems, showing that he's pretty athletic with thick, curly hair.
 * Downplayed with Johnny Bullneck, who was a Fat Bastard that bullied other kids in "Fat Boy with a Trumpet", but in the cartoon, he looks more like an early bloomer, albeit an unfortunate-looking early bloomer.
 * In "The Giant Who Grew Too Big For His Boots", Huge Hugh was originally written with a face covered in warts, but the cartoon changes this to remove his facial warts, only keeping the warts on his tongue.


 * Adapted Out:
 * We are told in "It's Only a Game, Sport!" that Bruce and Kitty's parents were once an athletic power couple in the Australian sporting world and hoped that their children could carry on their legacy, so if you only saw the cartoon version where this backstory isn't included, Bruce's arrogant, sore loser behaviour is actually vindicated!
 * "Goblin Mountain"'s twist ending was completely removed to use this trope.
 * The TV series version of "Doctor Moribundus" leaves Loralilee's treatment out of the story. This is most likely because her fate in the book would be too graphic and frightening for the cartoon's target audience.
 * Timothy in "The Spaghetti Man" avenged his mother by turning on the bathwater to make the house flood. In the book, he did this too, as well as break lightbulbs and throw all the food in the house into a bin bag to stuff behind his parents' bed. Also, he tried to get rid of his toast by throwing it in the bin in trying to get it mailed away.
 * The story of "The Cat Burglar" in the original story went further into Fedora's greediness, including her antics at school, such as forcing girls to pay to use the toilets and using mirrors to cheat in exams. The episode in the animated series cuts out schooltime (most likely taking place during school break) and only gives an example of her making money from people licking mints (the price differs from the original story, however).
 * In the original "Knock Down Ginger", Ginger's friend Milo had a younger sister called Eliza, who had a conspicuous lisp, giving her the nickname "Lizzy the Lizard".
 * All There in the Manual: Since the episodes are based on short stories from books, many stories are compressed or characters are pushed aside. Some unnamed characters that have bigger parts in the books are occasionally seen interacting with the main characters with no introduction.
 * Big Brother Bully:
 * Monty in "Monty's Python", who buys a snake that he makes eat his sister's pets.
 * Serena in "The Chocolate Fly", especially when she blackmails her sister.
 * Dorothy May in "The Piranha Sisters", when it comes to her pranking.
 * Bruce in "It's Only a Game, Sport!" becomes this when he knows that his sister isn't powerful enough to beat him at sports.
 * Black Comedy: Although it gave kids nightmares, the presentation of the show is clearly to make the audience laugh at the ludicrous stories. Sometimes Nigel Planer's Large Ham delivery is so exaggerated, you can't help but be amused.
 * The Butcher: "The Butcher Boy"
 * Canon Foreigner: Uncle Grizzly, who was created for the CITV cartoon. Ironically, the Night-Night Porter existed in the books created after the first cartoon series began (most likely to emulate the format of the show so that it wouldn't alienate fans).
 * Couch Gag: Not necessarily a gag, though. The boy in the opening titles that goes to the Squeam Screen is given a popcorn bag, but each season changes the contents, usually filled with insects that the boy unsuspectingly bites into in a Gory Discretion Shot of his eyes widening in alarm at the wiggly creature he'd put in his mouth.
 * Death by Gluttony: "Death By Chocolate" is technically true: Serena, a greedy chocaholic, blackmails her sister into being her slave. Serena decides to eat the chocolate that was gifted to her sister, and even eats one with a maggot in it, ignoring her sister's squirms of disgust. Days later, Serena turns into a chocolate fly and tries to intimidate her sister, but her sister kills her with a slap of the fly-swatter.
 * Death by Irony: A few of the horrible children meet their fate like this.
 * "Well'ard Willard" acted as a bully to save his skin.
 * The Australian story "It's Only a Game, Sport!" is about Bruce, a sore loser that throws tantrums when he doesn't get his own way. When his sister is beating him at Snakes and Ladders, he decides to change the rules: instead of climbing up ladders and sliding down snakes, they would now fall down ladders and crawl up snakes. When he eventually decides to cheat and storms off in a huff, he falls down the ladder of their house and is gobbled up by a snake.
 * Some of the fates are warned in an unintentional Cassandra Truth.
 * In an attempt to scare him into not being lazy anymore, Trueman's desperate parents in "The Clothes Pigs" tell him that hungry piglets will come after him. It doesn't work, and Trueman even debunks it, pointing out that pigs would be immediately spotted.
 * The best example is the fate of Dorothy May from "The Piranha Sisters", whose three pranks backfire horribly. Her first is pretending to be a statue, her second is scaring a retirement home dressed as The Grim Reaper , and the third is pretending a swimming pool is full of piranhas.
 * "The Watermelon Babies" is about two sisters that enjoy wasting water during a nationwide drought. They tease their class during Show and Tell by showing off their freshly-grown watermelon and eat them gleefully in front of the crying children. The next day, they discovered that they'd turned into watermelons and are consequently sliced up and eaten by their thirsty classmates.
 * Depraved Kids' Show Host: Uncle Grizzly.
 * Disproportionate Retribution
 * Establishing Character Moment:
 * Dorothy May in "The Piranha Sisters" is visited by a skeleton spirit who warns her to stop her pranking. She doesn't believe it for a second, insults it, and throws a pillow at it. She's soon spooked out when the pillow goes straight through, but still doesn't believe its omen.
 * Gilbert in "The Butcher Boy" is first seen in the story pretending to be kidnapped so that his parents would pay him a large ransom. He did this because they refused to pay him more pocket money.
 * Eye Scream
 * Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling:
 * Sort of interchangeable with Dorothy May to Petey in "The Piranha Sisters". Although Petey is gullible, she is the nicest and sensible one, whereas Dorothy May knows how to trick her sister but is too conceited to listen to anyone else. Not even ghostly skeleton spirits.
 * Monty to his little sister in "Monty's Python", once Monty spends too much time bullying his sister with his pet instead of feeding it.
 * Funny Background Event: There are a few moments (not included in the original stories) that either establish characters or make the audience laugh.
 * Alice in "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping" stops to say Grace at the picnic, but everyone ignores her and starts eating; there's nothing left when she's done and even Stinker has taken the bone.
 * In "The Butcher Boy", Gilbert pushes the butcher's son out of the way as he rides down the street on a skateboard.
 * Ghibli Hills: One bit of Stock Footage is a pan through many hills, before a dissolve cut to the Establishing Shot or the main character.
 * Infant Immortality: Not always the case, since the stories mostly starred kids that would get their vile comeuppance, but with supporting characters, they usually were this trope, such as Ginger's friend Milo in "Knock Down Ginger".
 * Lemony Narrator: Uncle Grizzly.
 * Living Shadow: The Spaghetti Man, who goes after children that refuse to eat their dinners.
 * Nightmare Fuel: Intentional.
 * The Prankster: Many children are this, particularly prank callers.
 * Dorothy May is a darker version of this, a borderline gaslighter towards her little sister, ruining Petey's life so much, a spirit has to warn her about her behaviour.
 * Scare'Em Straight: The point of the show. Viewers were known to have nightmares after watching the series.
 * Shout-Out: There is a considerable amount of Parental Bonus references.
 * The story about a barber that knows how to deal with rude children is called "The Barber of Civil".
 * "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping" is a Whole Plot Reference of this, especially if one's familiar with Enid Blyton's work.
 * Stinker the dog = Scamper from The Secret Seven.
 * Sam is introduced as "the girl with a boy's name", which is a reference to George from The Famous Five, who was also a tomboy (Georgina) "with a boy's name". The two of them also hate whenever their gender is brought up as a negative.
 * There is something telling about the names of two other characters mentioned: Coral's aunt Fanny and Sam's bully Dick Stick. Dick and Fanny were two notorious characters from The Faraway Tree whose names had to later be bowdlerised for later editions because of the modern sexual connotations. Only one of them appears (although mentioned in passing): Dick Stick, who Sam beats up for viciously teasing her.
 * The group dynamic of four children and a dog, which is subverted when Ginger's sister Alice wants to join them. Her insistence may also be a reference to The Secret Seven, which was a group of six children and a dog but one of the boys' little sister wanted to join in, much to her brother's embarrassment.
 * A boy named Monty buys a snake to bully his sister. The name of the story? "Monty's Python".
 * A Stage Dad hopes to make his daughter the most famous person in the world, but "The Childhood Snatcher" delivers harsh consequences.
 * Space Whale Aesop: All of the stories are this. Apparently, if you're mouthy in school, a hairdresser will cut your tongue; if you don't eat fruit, you'll turn into a bat; and if you pressure your child into the adult world prematurely, they'll turn into a pensioner.
 * Too Dumb to Live: Elizabeth in "The History Lesson" is a notable one, especially if she asked a ghost to help her with her exam. She's first seen trying to answer a classmate's question which was to the effect of "Which monarch has the same name as you?"
 * Took a Level In Kindness: The adaptation of "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping" removes any implication of the Chums' prejudice. Like most Enid Blyton children's stories, there is an aura of a conservative, British middle-class fantasy where the world is a Sugar Bowl and no one is suffering -- specifically, Ginger and Alice's father was a navy captain who was out of the country arresting pirates, so they were most likely the wealthiest kids in the group.
 * Sam was implied to be the biggest offender. Amusingly, she looked past Farmer Tregowan's shotgun and threats, and thinks to herself that he looked like the "typical" thuggish criminal that the police were always arresting, as she eyed his working-class clothing, unattractive features and unshaven chin.
 * It's also pointed out at the very beginning that The Chums were not interested in the fact that Dick Stick came from a struggling family that sold rat-skin, as long as "the ginger beer flowed like wine". Although he was deservedly beaten up by Sam for cruel name-calling, one wonders whether she and her friends would've invited him into their gang if he had been a little nicer...
 * Unfortunate Names: Some names of the characters skirt this. Trueman Snuffle only got this when the starving piglets heard his nickname "Truffle" (a portmanteau of his first and last name) and they assumed that he was a truffle (most likely, truffle chocolate).
 * Universal Adaptor Cast: Every episode is guaranteed to have the same character models from another episode. Since the stories are set in different places, these recognisable faces in the background aren't playing the same people, but viewers have fun pointing out what other stories they've seen certain extras star in.
 * Workaholic: Many of the parents are. Often, when their children go missing or die, they don't notice. The pilot episode lampshades this by calling the parents Mr and Mrs Frightfully-Busy.