Though they share the same title, this series is not linked to the Friday the 13th movie series. The main characters search for magically-cursed objects that were sold through their uncle's store. Reportedly, the last item that was supposed to be retrieved by the characters in the series finale was to be a hockey mask which would undoubtedly have belonged to Jason Voorhees. While the show's crew did play with the idea of having a hockey mask in one of the episodes as an in-joke, there was never any serious intention to tie the film series with the television series.
Controversial when it first aired for the level of violence in the series, which pushed the envelope for the time and shocked some viewers. Crusaders campaigned against it, some mistakenly believing it was an extension of the movie series. Two other syndicated series of the period, "Freddy's Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street - Die Serie (1988)" and "Krieg der Welten (1988)" were also criticized for violence. In the long run, sex and violence on mainstream and cable TV caught up and outran them, and in retrospect these once-controversial shows now seem tame and restrained.
Every season had 26 episodes. However the third season was cut short due to the abrupt decision to cancel the show. The cast and crew were informed about the ending of the series while they were filming the 20th episode of the third season, which ended up being the series finale. The cancellation was so sudden that they were unable to film more episodes or more scenes that would provide some kind of closure.
Although the filming took place in Canada and the "Curious Goods" antique shop exterior was in Toronto, the events of the series are supposed to be located in Chicago.
Louise Robey (always credited as Robey) was the actress who appeared in most of the episodes of the series. There were totally 70 episodes produced and Micki Foster appears in almost all of them: she is absent from "Wax Magic (1988)" and from "The Butcher (1989)", both of which were in the second season.