YMMV / Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

• Adaptation Displacement: Finding out the CITV cartoon was based on four published books frequently becomes a shock to many of the cartoon's old viewers. Now those books became out of print in the mid-2000s (just as the book series got revived, interestingly), they've essentially become invoked Vaporware, so the shock and discovery is now more common.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In the original story, Chico from "The Stick Men" calls the Hobgoblins "yobs", which is a derogatory term to describe Lower-Class Lout juvenile delinquents, but he is five-years-old and never goes outside, so did he overhear his snobbish, wealthy parents use the phrase and thought it fit in this context?
  • Pylon from "Superstitious Nonsense" could have PTSD, a mental disorder or illness (OCD, for example) that causes her extreme paranoia.
• Bizarro Episode: Several, usually most of the stories that weren't adapted for the cartoons. They are often not Nightmare Fuel.
  • "The Man with a Chip on his Shoulder", "Sock Shock" and "The Big Sleep" are if Big-Lipped Alligator Moment were stories, both sticking out because they are based on a single punchline and incredibly shorter than the rest in their books (the first being three sentences).
  • "The One-Tailed, Two-Footed, Three-Bellied, Four-Headed, Five-Fingered, Six-Chinned, Seven-Winged, Eight-Eyed, Nine-Nosed, Ten-Toothed Monster" is a heartwarming story about prejudice, whereas "Fast Food" is an animal road safety story.
• Common Knowledge: It's often joked the franchise exists as a thinly veiled Would Hurt a Child fantasy, but some actually believe this. Jamie Rix later revealed he was inspired by Shockheaded Peter and when making up The Spaghetti Man to scare his eldest son into eating foreign cuisine during their French vacation worked.
• Fridge Horror: The implication the lives of many of the parents of these children^note with a few obvious exceptions, like Gwendolyn's parents from "Crocodile Tears", who cry for a decade without stopping when their daughter is eaten by a crocodile are much better when their children are killed, kidnapped, or mutilated. The mother of tantrum-throwing, mouthy and embarrassing Thomas from "Sweets" doesn't even remember he exists after he disappeared (he was turned into a mannequin).
• Funny Moments: Death getting arrested after Dorothy Mae encounters him in "The Piranha Sisters".
• Gateway Series: The franchise using all the Horror tropes you can think of introduced millions of children to horror fiction.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Due to Parental Bonus of certain horror clichés and conventions, audiences might accurately predict outcomes the moment a new character/object enters the story.
  • "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping" is a parody of Enid Blyton's Kid Detective stories. Because of Blyton's dwindling popularity (and controversy), this flies over the heads of the majority of the audience.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "Guilt Ghost"'s plot of a man refusing to confess he accidentally killed someone after punching them in the face (making them fall and bash their head) is a lot more disturbing when British newspapers and TV documentaries have reported about the rising crime of "one-punch deaths" throughout the 2010s.
  • "Burgerskip"/"Burgers" is about a greedy fast-food chain CEO wanting to bulldoze the Amazon rainforest to build more restaurants, which later mirrors the 2019 Amazon rainforest fires which have been accused of being started from a variety of things, from lack of rainfall to illegal arson approved by fast food corporations.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Dolores, from Silence is Golden, is a girl who loves to shout. Years later, Disney would release a film with another Dolores who can hear a pin drop and for whom shouting would probably be painful.
• Inferred Holocaust:
  • Huge Hugh's neverending growth and spraying lisp would surely crush billions of people and/or drown them.
  • When "Well'ard Willard" steals the Sun, the book mentions that his school is shut because the pipes are frozen, but nothing else, apart from a few mentions of the sun setting earlier and earlier throughout the weekend as well as his parents' skin turning grey and clammy. No mention of a worldwide food shortage because crops cannot grow or people getting ill from the lack of Vitamin D, etc.
  • "Crocodile Tears" implies Earth is on the brink of one, where the book mentions a news report on television about a potential intergalactic war.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • The longer the book series went on, a lot of characters were learning similar lessons to the last (i.e. "The Spaghetti Man" and "The Fruit Bat" are about eating what your parents gave you, and too many spoiled children stories to list). Part of this made it seem like Jamie Rix was struggling for inspiration, but in his defense: many stories overlapped in how terribly the protagonists behaved, the CITV cartoon adaptation started out-living the books, and there was no harm in repeating morals to children. What didn't help was some of the appropriately lengthened stories didn't get adapted for the cartoons ("The Well", "Guilt Ghost") yet were unique, in comparison.
  • The villains throughout the franchise suffered from Suspiciously Similar Substitute. Notably, "Simon Sulk", "The Spaghetti Man" and "The Butcher Boy" are stories that end with the antagonistic characters revealing themselves as shape-shifters and turning the Villain Protagonist children into food as punishment.
• Karmic Overkill: The kids in this book/cartoon series will often be killed or suffer a Fate Worse than Death for very minor "crimes" that kids will often do, such as talk when they are told to be quiet, or eat nothing but sweets, or do nothing but watch TV... basically things that could be stopped by simply talking to the kids about it, and explaining why it's bad.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Huge Hugh's constant bellow: "I ... NEED ... MORE ... SPACE!!"
  • "Hey, it's X from Y!"^ExplanationBecause of the Universal-Adaptor Cast and a certain amount of character models in the original series, quite a lot of familiar faces return in different stories whether as another character or as an extra in the background of a crowd. The one that's picked up the most by commenters on social media is Dorothy May Piranha ("The Piranha Sisters"), who is also Savannah Slumberson ("The Grub A-Blub-Blub"), but you've also got Ginger ("Knock Down Ginger") and Ginger ("The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping"), and Mr. Clucks/Mr. Klutz and many trading background characters, such as the plumber from "The Watermelon Babies".
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Dorothy May, the sadistic prankster from The Piranha Sisters, who often gets her sister Petey into trouble with her practical jokes. Hours before the ultimate pranks (on Petey's birthday, no less!) a skeleton spirit vows revenge and warns that "all the jokes will turn on you". Unsurprisingly, Dorothy May ignores him.
  • In Fat Boy with a Trumpet sadistic Johnny Bullneck and his gang take Timothy's bullying to such torturous extremes (stripping him of his clothes, throwing him to the mud and planning to throw at him heavy balls that would seriously injure him) that it's actually a relief when he is fried.
  • Truffle in "The Clothes Pigs" reaches this when his injured mother begs for help and he walks away because he was hungry.
  • Monty's mother in Monty's Python only makes an appearance to stop her son from feeding his sister to the pet snake, but seems to be oblivious to her son constantly bullying her before and after this incident, as well as her son making the pet snake eat all the other pets.
  • Farmer Tregowan in The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping when he shoots Stinker the dog. It all goes downhill from there.
  • Serena in Death By Chocolate, when she ate her sister's food in front of her.
  • The Shop Owner in Sweets when he subjects 7 children to an And I Must Scream fate by turning them into shop dummies while they are still alive and aware of their surroundings.
  • Bart Thumper from “The Rise and Fall of the Evil Guff” might take the crown; he’s the only child in the show to outright commit murder, killing his own parents with a powerful fart before threatening to destroy the entire planet.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Spindleshanks, whenever he makes the odd sound, whether he's laughing or moaning with fear.
• Narm:
  • "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping" is full of this.
    • It's such a good parody of a typical children's novel by Enid Blyton, it's easy to see it as a victim of Poe's Law, from the Food Porn descriptions of the picnic Aunt Fanny packed the kids, to the Nostalgia Goggled, wholesome, post-Second World War Britain atmosphere. It would make The Hays Code vomit.
    • This also makes farmer Tregowan's violent, gunslinging appearance all the more hilarious, especially when he has to clash with the children that are still acting no different to the characters they're paying homage to.
    • The Chipper Chums themselves, as well as their family members. They all talk in 1950s Stock British Phrases — the sort that are parodied nowadays, like "I say!" or use words like "spiffing" and "chaps" — and are unnaturally polite and enthusiastic all the time. The narm is up to eleven when they keep their Stiff Upper Lip as Tregowan is threatening them with a shotgun; when Tregowan shoots Stinker, they chastise him like a misbehaving child.
  • Uncle Grizzly whenever he was Chewing the Scenery. The best example is at the end of "The History Lesson".
• Nightmare Retardant: The franchise is categorised as "horror comedy" for this reason.
• Paranoia Fuel: In spades, especially when there are no explanation of the supernatural elements' existence.
  • Mr Frankenstein in "Jack in a Box" invites himself to Rosie's birthday party.
  • As Steve Reviews noted, the ending of "A Tangled Web" may have caused children to panic the next time they had a tight chest when they had a cold.
• Periphery Demographic: Adults are the second-biggest fan demographic of the franchise. Some being parents, the others respect and claim the franchise could easily rival adult horror.
• Replacement Scrappy: The Night Night Porter, and the HotHell Darkness as well, especially for the audience that grew up with the Uncle Grizzly and his Squeam Screen cinema.
• Rooting for the Empire: Many of the obnoxious behaviours the characters have is enough to make the audience cheer when the supernatural event occurs.
• Shocking Moments: The outcome of "The Fruit Bat", in a meta context. Other stories had mentioned mutilations and violent injuries but never mentioned gushing blood like this story did.
• Squick:
  • Jack de Laurney de Havilland de Trow insists on showing his foot verruca to people instead of getting it treated.
  • Some of the kids' habits/trolling: nose-picking, farting, spitting, etc.
  • The Running Gag of "The Giant Who Grew Too Big For His Boots" is that a giant's spit is raining on the Earth.
  • Serena Slurp eating chocolate from anywhere she can find, even wrappers she finds in trash.
  • Donald's dummy is thrown away by his dad, so he inhales so hard, it flies out the bin and back into his mouth.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • While Chico's parents are certainly nowhere near ideal parents, do you honestly think even a decent parent would be okay with his or her child scribbling on their walls?
  • Greta in "The People Potter" supposedly refusing to take responsibility for her clumsiness, especially being a Huge Schoolgirl with a height society doesn't cater to.
  • Bill and Timothy in "Bunny Boy" and "The Spaghetti Man", respectively, both try to get rid of their food in ludicrous ways, but their no-nonsense mothers will find the food and return it to the kitchen table. After they both throw their food in the bin but their mothers fish it out to put back on their plates, you can't blame them for not wanting anything to do with it.
  • Father Tregowan shooting Stinker in "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping" might be a violent overreaction but he did order the children to control him as he "sprang for [Tregowan's] throat".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Nickelodeon's change from Claymation to 3D and setting the Bookends from the Scream Squeam cinema to the HotHell Darkness.
  • The revival of the book series copied heavily from the successful CITV cartoon by including an Uncle Grizzly-like narrator character. This could cause irritation if you preferred the (original) books to the cartoon.
• Ugly Cute: Spindleshanks the spider.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The story "The Dumb Clucks" ends with the two antagonists agreeing to visit Bombay. By the time Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids was published (1996), the Indian city had officially changed its name back to Mumbai^note Bombay was its name during the British Empire in November 1995.
  • "The Lobster's Scream" features an anecdote where one-year-old Shannon orders her parents to take her to Euro Disney for her birthday. With no specified time in history when this took place, the children reading in 2007 unlikely knew this was Disneyland Resort Paris' original name before the 1990s (and years before they were born), and puts into question whether it's a secret period piece or Jamie Rix didn't know/remember the name changed years ago.
• Values Resonance:
  • The cast of the cartoons are very multicultural, pointing out that anyone of any race can be an asshole and/or a Nice Guy.
  • Everyone has a story to represent them, whether it be the habits they have, the behaviours they exhibit or the situations they've been in.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: True to its title, the franchise can get really gruesome at times. Not only is the tone and the subjects pretty dark for a franchise aimed at children, but it features character deaths and doesn't shy away from showing blood. It's incredible the writers were able to get away with it, especially since this is a show aimed for kids.
• The Woobie:
  • Timothy from Fat Boy With a Trumpet is tormented continuously by Johnny Bullneck and his friends, stealing his glasses he needs to see, stripping him of his clothes to humiliate him and attempting to throw cricket balls at Timothy with his friends as a way of getting petty revenge. It makes it all the more satisfying when Johnny is killed by a lightning strike going through Timothy's trumpet that he stole from him and started playing to taunt him.
  • Kitty from "It's Only a Game, Sport!" has a bullying older brother with self-esteem issues and parents who encourage his behaviour. Like Bruce, she also isn't athletic at school so there could be parental resentment.
  • Chico, from "The Stick Men", is the only child of workaholic parents who care nothing about him. Constantly farmed out to nannies who never take him to meet kids of his own age, he creates friends through crayons. His parents and his nanny find it a nuisance and constantly insult him about it. Fortunately, he gets his happy ending when he lives with his friends, and his parents are killed in a helicopter accident.

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