Shockingly Dark Finales Of Kids' Shows

Dinosaurs was Jim Henson's final gift to the world before he tragically passed away in the early '90s. The show focuses on a family of animatronic dinosaurs, and flaunts a goofy, playful attitude, right up until its infamously horrible series finale in 1994.

Earl — the Sinclair family's Megalosaurus patriarch — works for the Wesayso Corporation. While the company is well-intentioned, its work inadvertently messes with the laws of nature, and brings about an ice age that none of the dinosaurs can survive.

The show's harrowing final shots show the family sitting nervously in front of their TV — their house covered in snow — hoping desperately that the news will provide them with some reassurance. Instead, anchor Howard Handupme solemnly bids them, "Goodbye," at which point the screen fades to black. 

Up until the show's finale, the most disturbing thing about the lovable, alien fuzzball was his insatiable appetite for cats. That's pretty impressive, considering that ALF (Alien Life Form) ran for 102 episodes between 1986 and 1990.

While this is definitely a solid run, the series's dark final episode suggests that ALF was meant to continue even longer. "Consider Me Gone" ends when the friendly alien is captured by mysterious government agents who'd been keeping tabs on his every move. To make matters worse, it's implied that they plan to probe and dissect the poor guy in some underground lab. Fans had to wait six years to learn of ALF's true fate. .

Set in the 1870s in rural Minnesota, Little House On The Prairie tells the quiet, wholesome tale of a farming community, and focuses particularly on the daily lives of the Ingalls family. The show originally aired between 1974 and 1982, and appealed predominantly to young girls.

Well, those young fans must have been pretty depressed after they watched the show's finale, "The Last Farewell." When the townsfolk learn that the property mogul Nathan Lassiter has bought up a huge plot of "homesteading" land, they try their darndest to fight back. However, their resistance is futile, and when it becomes clear that they are fighting a losing battle, they are forced to take more drastic measures. When Lassiter arrives in town, he finds it totally destroyed and devoid of human life. 

Teen Titans (2003-2006) achieved a near-perfect balance of grit and levity during its five season run. Though the feature-length Trouble In Tokyo was later created to tie up loose ends, the show's original series finale was the half-hour special, "Things Change." At the start of the episode, the Titans return to their hometown, only to discover that all their favorite shops have closed down. 

The plot thickens when Terra — Beast Boy's sometimes girlfriend who turned into a statue in Season 2 — abruptly reappears. However, she has no memory of her past life with the Titans, or of her relationship with Beast Boy. Her apparent amnesia bothers Beast Boy to no end, and he goes to great lengths to try and jog her memory. Unfortunately, none of his efforts prove fruitful, and the new Terra actually begins avoiding him. 

Beast Boy loses his grip, and begins frequenting the places he and Terra used to visit on dates, hoping desperately that he'll run into her. Instead, he comes face to face with the robotic doppelgänger of the Titans' arch enemy, Slade. As Beast Boy and Slade duke it out in a hall of mirrors, the villain explains that he has nothing to do with Terra's reappearance, and that it's really Beast Boy who's hurting her by refusing to move on with his life. 

After taking down the robot, Beast Boy tries one final time to remind Terra of who she used to be. His ploy fails, and she tells him that "things change" and that the Terra he remembers is "just a memory." The two are then separated by a crowd of people, at which point the series ends. 

It's never too early to expose children to the harsh reality that everything they care about will one day melt away into nothing. 

Before horror director Sam Raimi took on Spider-Man, he championed the world's first live-action, African-American superhero in 1994. The delightfully weird M.A.N.T.I.S. follows the adventures of the titular hero, who fights crime in an exoskeleton after a stray bullet paralyzes him from the waist down. 

The show's ending, however, is not so delightful. In the episode "Ghost of the Ice," M.A.N.T.I.S. tussles with an invisible dinosaur that threatens to wreak havoc on humanity. While the premise sounds pretty ridiculous, all comedy is cast aside when M.A.N.T.I.S. is forced to blow himself and his love interest up to eliminate the creature. After he sacrifices himself, the only thing his grieving sidekick can do is bury him in an unmarked grave.

This Spanish cartoon first made its way onto American TV in 1986, and ran on several different networks in the '90s and '00s. Though its gentle, gnome-based content seemed harmless to parents, several generations of children were scarred by the series's surprisingly bleak ending. 

The show follows a married couple, David and Lisa, who look after the inhabitants of the forest in which they reside. They've been dutiful caretakers for centuries, as gnomes can live up to 400 years, but not a year longer. David and Lisa are both aware of their own mortality, and upon reaching 399, they decide to make one final trip to the Moutains of Beyond to cross over peacefully to the other side.