Show Name: Harvest of Fear
Creator: Naomi King,
Joe Hill and
Owen King
Country of Origin: United States/Canada/Britain
Genre: Children's Horror
Style: Animation with influences from Japanese anime, French animation and several contributing writers and artists
Years: 2000 to 2017
A dissident cartoon series spread online on file-sharing and deep-web sites between 2000 and 2017 to protest the propagation of various “morality laws”.
Harvest of Fear can trace its origins to the “Fifth
Great Awakening” and the election of Pat Robertson as president of the USA which saw a gradual culture shift away from gore-filled & action-pact entertainment of the 1980s as the US government enacted stricter restrictions and censorship of television, books, film games and (when it made its appearance) the internet in the name of “public safety” and “moral hygiene”. The restrictions, which were copied by other countries like UK, Canada, Australia and others had negative impact on Anglophone writers, artists and performers who worked in the horror & other “unsavoury” or “un-Christian” entertainment genres.
The advent of the internet however made it easier to spread ideas and intellectual property, thus allowing a group of horror creators (including the son of famed novelist Stephen King) to team up with free-lence animators to create the
Harvest of Fear cartoon horror anthology and distribute it online. The makers made little (of any) profits from their work and were motivated primarily by the desire to skirt the government restrictions. Lack of profits for this “passion project” did impact its quality as updates were infrequent and the animation quality varied drastically. Still, the show gained cult popularity and each (ultimately unsuccessful) government attempt to remove it from the world-wide web only made its infamy grow larger.
In the end though the program ended not with a bang but a whimper as the series was ended abruptly and with little fanfare in 2017. The primary reason for this was the loss of interest from the show’s “fans” as the most draconian of the entertainment restrictions were already lifted in the 2010s during the reign of USA’s first female leader — President Sarah Palin.
Name: Comrade Haetae is Always Vigilant!
Creator: The State Collective for Entertainment and Mental Hygiene Maintenance
Country of Origin: Soldiers and Workers Republic of Hamgyong (a.k.a.: “North-North Korea”; a partially-recognized break-away state that is
technically at war with both the Pyongyang AND Seoul-based Korean governments)
Genre: Children’s entertainment / state propaganda
Style: Claymation
Years: 1999 - 2002
