At one point in the late ’80s, Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street series was so popular, his ugly burnt up mug was slapped on everything from dolls to bubble gum. Interestingly, all of this Freddy merch was specifically targeted at the preteen and teenaged demographic—an age group that was technically not allowed to see the R-rated films about the child-killing psychopath.

Of course that never stopped legions of kids (including yours truly here) from sneaking into the theaters at their local malls to see Freddy stalk the dreams of nubile teens. Regardless of the R-rating, New Line Cinema knew exactly who Freddy’s biggest fans were. And they weren’t adults.

One of the worse ways used to lure kids into spending their parents’ hard earned cash on all things Freddy Krueger was the 1-900 Freddy Hotline, which charged an arm and a leg to hear cheesy stories set in Freddy’s stomping grounds of Springwood. A big selling point: these stories were all introduced by Robert Englund himself. (You can see one of the commercials for the 1-900 hotline above).

One of those kids who got suckered into calling was a 14-year-old named Taylor Basinger, who recorded some 45 minutes’ worth of 1-900 Freddy hotline stories back in the day… on his Darth Vader speaker phone, no less. To make this even more adorable, you can actually hear Taylor intro the audio clip and, towards the end, you hear him talking to his mom. Awww.

Now thanks to Blumhouse.com, we’ve learned that a composer named Dwayne Cathey has recently uploaded all 45 minutes of Taylor Basinger’s recorded 1-900 Freddy hotline stories up on Soundcloud. This collection includes literally every story you’d get when you called in. These stories are super cheese-tastic, but if you were a horror obsessed kid back in the ’80s, you ate up anything Freddy related, even these. You can listen to the entire set of recordings down below:

Were you one of those kids who got suckered into calling 1-900 numbers back in the day, and got yelled at when the phone bill came in? Share your stories with us down below in the comments.

Speaking of horror favorites, listen to Neon Indian chat about why classics films from the genre are so “punk”…

Image: New Line Cinema