Background: In a series of posts on an internet forum, a person started a new thread by asking if anyone else watched a children’s show in the 1970s on a local West Virginia television station called Candle Cove. People started joining in on the conversation over the weeks, piecing together bits of information that they could recall, which told the tale of a girl named Janice on the show (portrayed by a real actress) befriending a group of pirates (which all the other characters on the show were portrayed by puppets).

The show had a dark nature to it (even though supposedly being aimed at children), especially with the catch phrase of “you have...to go...inside”, which was repeatedly said by the Laughingstock ship of the pirates to get its leader, Pirate Percy (who was not a fierce pirate), to enter a usually scary environment. Also, one of the show’s villains was known as the Skin-Taker (along with his sidekick of Horace Horrible), a skeleton that had a cape comprised of skins of dead children. One episode in particular caused Janice to ask the Skin-Taker why his jaw moved back and forth -- rather than up and down -- which he replied its function was “to grind your skin”.

At the climax of the forum posts, one poster said they had a recurring nightmare where an episode of the show had no coherent dialog at all, everyone just screamed the entire time. Another poster claimed the episode actually did exist, with the Skin-Taker screaming so violently it was shaking and Janice was crying, causing the poster to quit watching the show entirely, and it was canceled a bit afterwards.

Finally, the last post from someone explained that he had visited his mother in a rest home and he asked her if she remembered Candle Cove. She said she was surprised he asked, as he would tell her he was going to watch the show, then sat in front of their tv for half an hour, watching nothing but apparent static.

Status: False. The story was admittedly made up. However, an entire Candle Cove movement has spawned since, with people uploading supposed Candle Cove videos (many of which are composed entirely of static), created intros, music, fan art, etc., and even their own urban legend spin-offs of the tale, such as the reason behind why most people cannot see the show is due to an experimental project called SEBTAW encrypted the episodes so that mostly only children could view them.