Abstract: From its commercial inception, American television has been subject to careful regulation by the federal government, regulation that has shaped the content of television as well as its economic and technical infrastructures. This essay explores the shifting discourse of television regulation in the 1980s in relation to Tales from the Crypt, HBO’s first successful venture into scripted programming. As a show that infused the prestigious anthology format with graphic violence, explicit sexuality, and profane language, Tales from the Crypt both emulated and transgressed the aesthetic conventions of older regulatory paradigms, offering a model for content production that would be taken up by numerous subsequent HBO series, especially shows of the “quality” tradition, helping to cultivate niche address as a feature of post-network television.