Main/Genre Anthology - Television Tropes & Idioms

A show which has no regular characters or actors, with the possible exception of a host or narrator who introduces/closes/comments on shows. Stories tend to limit themselves to a single genre but the earlier anthology shows were more likely to cover several genres than later ones.

Compare/contrast to Thematic Series.

Anime/Manga examples include:

Shounen Jump

Comic Book examples include:

Action Comics

Television examples include:

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Crime And Punishment)
Amazing Stories (Speculative Fiction)
American Horror Story (Horror). Could be considered a genre anthology as each season is a self contained story with a start, middle, and end, with no characters/settings in common (though actors sometimes stick around).
Are You Afraid of the Dark? (Horror)
Black Mirror (Speculative Fiction Drama)
Comedy Playhouse (Comedy) (spin offs include Steptoe And Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas And Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served?? and Last of the Summer Wine).
Doctor Terribles House Of Horrible (Horror Comedy, hosted by Steve Coogan)
The Dread Testaments (Horror), a webseries found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWp6fvR_zp0
Faerie Tale Theatre (Fantasy; followed by two spiritual successors)
- Tall Tales and Legends
- Nightmare Classics (Horror)
Fear Itself (Horror; a Spiritual Successor to the below-mentioned Masters Of Horror series)
the fifth estate (CBC)
Freddy's Nightmares, a horror anthology in "Crypt" style, hosted by Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The stories dealing with Freddy himself were actually rare, but canonical.
General Electric Theater (Drama) (Hosted by Ronald Reagan)
George Burns Comedy Week (Comedy)
Goosebumps the television series (Horror)
Hallmark Hall of Fame (All Genres)
The Haunting Hour (Horror)
The Hunger (Horror)
Kraft Suspense Theatre (Drama)
Masters Of Horror (Horror, with each entry made by an acclaimed horror director)
Murder Most Horrid (Parodying Crime and Punishment) (Hosted by and starring Dawn French)
Night Gallery (Horror/Speculative Fiction)
Night Visions (Horror)
The Nightmare Room (Horror)
One Step Beyond and its Revival, The Next Step Beyond (Speculative Fiction)
The Outer Limits (Speculative Fiction)
Paul Merton In Galton And Simpson's... (Comedy staring Paul Merton, updated scripts from Comedy Playhouse and Hancock's Half Hour).
Perversions of Science (Speculative Fiction; A Spiritual Successor to Tales from the Crypt which was also based off EC Comics)
Philco Television Playhouse/Goodyear Television Playhouse/Alcoa Hour (Drama) The name changed to reflect the sponsoring company. From 1948 to 1951, Philco was the sole sponsor. From 1951 to the spring of 1955, Philco and Goodyear alternated weeks as sponsor and the show was titled accordingly. At the end of the 1954-55 season, Philco dropped out as sponsor and Alcoa stepped in. Alcoa and Goodyear continued alternating sponsorship until 1957. The productions were otherwise the same.
Playhouse 90 (Drama)
Play For Today/The Wednesday Play (Drama).
Seven Of One (Comedy) (Staring Ronnie Barker, Porridge and Open All Hours were spun off from this series).
Science Fiction Theater (Speculative Fiction)
Tales from the Crypt (Horror)
Tales from the Darkside (Horror)
Tales Of Tomorrow (Speculative Fiction)
Tales of the Unexpected (Various, usually Black Comedy with a Twist Ending. Introduced by their author, Roald Dahl)
Thriller aka Boris Karloff's Thriller (Horror/Crime And Punishment)
Thriller is also the title of a British series of one-off feature-length dramas, created and either scripted or based on stories by Brian Clemens (The Avengers, The Professionals). Episodes were repackaged for US broadcast as separate TV movies. (Usually Crime And Punishment but with some Horror episodes)
The Twilight Zone (Speculative Fiction)
Walt Disney Presents (All Genres)
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (All Genres)

Literature examples include:

Too many to count. The genre anthology predated the horror and sci-fi genres. The first publication venues for either of them was genre magazines, and the first hardcovers those stories would grace were collected together as a series of unrelated short stories.