Back when I was a youngster, somewhere around 1832, there was no access to scary media. (Relax, this isn't going to devolve into a "we had to trudge through the snow uphill both ways just to fight over a ticket to get into a nickelodeon to watch Dawn of the Dead" sort of thing...just trying to provide context.) If you were lucky, you could talk your parents into taking you the local independently owned video rental store and maybe they'd let you rent something--depending on the intensity of the cover art, of course. There were all of three television networks and they never showed anything that could offend. (People my age: take a moment and cast your mind back...try to imagine an episode of Walking Dead edited for the television of the late 70s. Now stop, you'll hurt yourself.)

No, normally the best you could do was either scary literature or scary records. And really, as you'll see--the records are so terribly kid-friendly they served as more a jumping off point for the imagination rather than something that actually terrified. Most kids didn't know about old-time radio shows that might have actually given them a jump or two. So in many cases, what you're about to hear was the best we could do. Pity our younger, more foolish selves.

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