diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 1d78ca95..281d3c40 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+  - fix escapement of special chars for key vals in debug
+    console (Monte)
   - fixed debug timing logic for config_load (Tom Sommer, Monte)
   - all in-code doc comments converted to phpDocumentor format (Greg)
   - moved strip from smarty core to plugin (Monte)
diff --git a/libs/plugins/modifier.debug_print_var.php b/libs/plugins/modifier.debug_print_var.php
index b5fdad42..c5e2f521 100644
--- a/libs/plugins/modifier.debug_print_var.php
+++ b/libs/plugins/modifier.debug_print_var.php
@@ -21,11 +21,13 @@
  */
 function smarty_modifier_debug_print_var($var, $depth = 0, $length = 40)
 {
+	$_search = array("!\n!", "!\r!", "!\t!");
+	$_replace = array('<i>&#92;n</i>', '<i>&#92;r</i>', '<i>&#92;t</i>');
     if (is_array($var)) {
         $results = "<b>Array (".count($var).")</b>";
         foreach ($var as $curr_key => $curr_val) {
             $return = smarty_modifier_debug_print_var($curr_val, $depth+1, $length);
-            $results .= '<br>\r'.str_repeat('&nbsp;', $depth*2)."<b>$curr_key</b> =&gt; $return";
+            $results .= '<br>\r'.str_repeat('&nbsp;', $depth*2)."<b>".preg_replace($_search, $_replace, $curr_key)."</b> =&gt; $return";
         }
         return $results;
     } else if (is_object($var)) {
@@ -45,7 +47,7 @@ function smarty_modifier_debug_print_var($var, $depth = 0, $length = 40)
         } else {
             $results = $var;
         }
-        $results = preg_replace("![\r\t\n]!", " ", $results);
+        $results = preg_replace($_search, $_replace, $results);
         $results = htmlspecialchars($results);
         return $results;
     }