What anthology series was this?

Cafe Society
#1

I think all of these were episodes of the same 80s or 90s horror anthology. I don’t think it was Tales From The Crypt:

  • a cartoonist with a domineering wife draws her as a cartoon beast, which makes things worse for him…until he destroys the cartoon (I think this inspired a scene in one of Snoop Dogg’s horror movies)

  • a young newspaper reporter starts having dreams of disasters, all of which come true. One of the disasters was Krackatoa erupting.

  • a child psychologist is called in to deal with a woman’s “little monster” after no one else can help make the kid behave. The kid tries to hurt him several times, all while staying out of sight. I think there was something with traps set up with a record player and a toy train set. Eventually he finds out that the child is literally a monster, who has killed a lot of doctors previously - they show the mummified doctors in the attic.

Any idea what show this was?

#2

Sounds like Tales from the Darkside

#3

I read through the list of episodes, and it doesn’t seem to be this show. Thanks, though.

#4

It’s Tales from the Crypt. This one specifically is this episode, starring Harry Anderson.

#5

I think #3 is The New Arrival from TFTC.

#6

Thanks! I’m a little confused, though: did Tales From The Crypt air in syndication during the early 90s, when it still would have be in production? We didn’t have HBO when I was a kid, and I thought it was an HBO show so I’m no sure how I ended up seeing two episodes of it.

I think I’ve figured out what the middle one was - one of those Fact or Fiction/Beyond Belief shows they used to run on the scifi channel, where you had to figure out which one was based on a “true” story.

#7

Yes, Tales from the Crypt was originally aired on HBO starting in 1989. I know it was later syndicated (edited, of course, because many of the episodes had nudity) but I can’t remember when or where.

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction did have an episode where a reporter dreamed about the Krakatoa explosion before it happened and wrote it up as fiction, only to have it accidentally printed in his paper as a news story before anyone else in the US had heard about it.

#8

Yup. I didn’t have cable until around 2000 but I watched tons of Tales From the Crypt episodes during the 1990s. I think it was shown on FOX late night at like 11pm.

I always liked the episodes “And All Through the House” about an escaped mental patient in a Santa Claus suit, and “Revenge is the Nuts” for a memorable scene involving a corridor of razor blades…

#9

Both stories also were used in the 1970’s Amicus movie TALES FROM THE CRYPT.