Syndication Files 10.28.09: Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 10.28.2009
There are rare children television shows that can totally freak and spook kids out. Are You Afraid of the Dark is one of those shows. Who could ever forget the pool creature that drowned teenagers or that creepy clown? Click to learn about this Nickelodeon classic as well as the topic on Goosebumps books and how Chris Jericho acted like a douche over the weekend.
Be truthful. You came here because you wanted to learn how Chris Jericho acted like a douche over the weekend, didn't you? Jerichoholics. Well, I guess I should start off the column right with this piece then.
Sacramento held their annual Sacramento Horror Film Fest over the weekend. My buddy Purple (not his real name, it's an internet message board thing) was the festival photographer and he told me that everything went great…except for the appearance of one Mr. Chris Jericho. He was at the festival on Friday to promote his latest film Albino Farm. My first thought: Jericho was in a film? News to me.
So Jericho showed up and well…I'll just copy/paste the response that Purple gave me.
Jericho showed up for the festival and within two minutes was requesting alcohol. He asked for three or four bottles of wine for him and one other guy, one other lady. The other ones drank some, but he hammered the wine all night. When he finally gets on stage, he's drooling all over our zombie chicks (we had a hot zombie contest), being rude to our host, being rude to fans, bashing Repo (our main feature for the event….while the producers of the movie are in the audience), basically making a complete ass of himself. The rest of the weekend, he was the running joke of the festival. The phrase "Don't be a Jericho" became festival lingo.
Purple went on to describe Jericho as "being a dick" and also proclaimed that "nothing funnier than a C List celebrity acting like he's DeNiro or Pacino up there." Silly drunk Jericho.
There you go. There's the Jericho you know and love. I know that this isn't the first time Jericho has been douchey in public. Perhaps he's just not a people person or maybe it's just this one instance where alcohol clouded his judgment. I wasn't there but learning this, I'd think twice before asking Jericho for an autograph. If any of you was at the festival on Friday or over the weekend, feel free to share your thoughts below in the comments field or through e-mail.
If you would like to learn more about the Sacramento Horror Film Festival, click the link there or here. I'm sorry I didn't go but from what I've heard, sounded like everyone had a great time.
I love the phrase, "Don't be a Jericho". It's the perfect conversation ender. Now onto the main feature.
Do you remember a time when Nickelodeon used to program good shows? Man, I loved Nickelodeon growing up as a youngster. For a program that was geared towards kids during the 1990s, they had some top notch quality grown-up programming for people of all ages to enjoy. Not only that, but they had some wickedly awesome game shows: Double Dare, Wild and Crazy Kids, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Nick Arcade...man those were some fun game shows to watch.
Now Nickelodeon has shows that are actually geared for kids and they're awful. Those poor easily hallucinogenic kids. Eat me iCarly!
It's Halloween week! So in digging up something to write about, I found this next entry to be quite appropriate. I just know that as a kid, this show freaks me out to no end.
Does anyone remember sitting around campfires and telling ghost stories as a kid? We would all sit around that circle of fire while Johnny Q. Storyteller tells horror stories about the man with a hook for his hand or that woman with mental problems (wait…story?).
Anyway, Are You Afraid of the Dark? is similar to that, only within the comfort of your own home…with the doors locked and a bathroom nearly.
No kids at the playground. A nightmare or an absolute dream?
Are You Afraid of the Dark? is an original series from Canada that was jointly produced between companies in non-US Canada (YTV and Cinar) and US America (Nickelodeon). The series was built to be a horror themed television series. The format is rivaled that of the Twilight Zone: each episode would revolve around a story about people experiencing paranormal phenomena. One of the differences is that Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a show geared more towards children and young adult. Are You Afraid of the Dark? premiered on Nickelodeon (US) and other various channel networks throughout the world on October 31, 1991.
Like I explained before, the format of the show revolves around a group of teenagers who gather around a campfire and tell spooky stories. That group refers to themselves as the "The Midnight Society". Every week a different member would be the one who would tell the ghost story. They must all be great storytellers since I would watch their stories come to life through the power of imagination (cue "The Imagination Song" song).
The Tale of Laughing In The Dark (Part 1) – Warning: scary clown ahead
Oh wait, that's just my television displaying the story. Once the group settles and throws the trademark "dust" (actually just potassium nitrate with its own urban legend – add to food, no erection for you), the stories begins and is displayed to the viewers.
Here's a simple equation to describe the show:
Twilight Zone + kids + (3/4) happy endings = Are You Afraid of the Dark?
The themes of the story in Are You Afraid of the Dark? are basically Twilight Zone for kids. The kids in the stories deal with the same paranormal activities, only featuring kid-friendly unfriendliness: ghosts, curses, and mystical creatures. The theme can range from teenagers coming into contact with mystical creatures (ghosts, clowns [always scary], pool creatures, aliens), somehow obtaining a haunted object (evil camera, evil chameleon, evil fortune cookie, evil typewriter), or getting trapped in a cursed place (woods, high school, pinball machine).
Yes, you read that last example right. Pinball machine. A boy gets trapped in a pinball machine and it should be the greatest day of his life. But the pinball machine is a real douche and causes all sort of mayhem for him. It's one of my favorite episodes of the series and is one of the few episodes to creep me out by having a not-so happy ending.
The Tale of the Pinball Wizard: Part 1 – Hey, what a coincidence!
Do you remember the ending? Has that Twilight Zone feel to it, doesn't it? That's usually not the case on this show. Many of the stories would end on an uplifting happy note. The main character would usually escape from whatever is haunting them (antagonist) and things go back to normal or may ever turn their lives around for the better. On stories that don't end with happy endings (or the other ¼ of the series), the main character's life is either no longer valid (not through death but through other means) or they don't escape from the antagonist. These kinds of endings are about on the same level as Goosebumps endings (another childhood favorite, I have a stack of those still lying around)…maybe scaled back 10% on the sadness.
Extended side note: I cannot say enough good things about those Goosebumps books. Before Harry Potter, this horror fiction children series was a hit with kids during the 1990s. I remember plowing through book after book and just letting my imagination run wild. The book seemed cheaply done but they came in these neat little covers. The series had that same scares and dark humor that Twilight Zone is known for but with more over the top content. Looking back at it now it's even more ridiculous in retrospect. I guess that's what made them so awesome. I still remember being spooked out of my gore while reading those very popular Give Yourself Goosebumps (Pick-Your-Own-Adventure) books. Choosing a bad ending and having to die, even in fiction, was too overwhelming for me to handle. Made my soul hurt. Of course it was easy for me to go back to the previous page and pick a different route…only to run into another bad ending. Bad endings mock me.
Hey, anything that encourages kids to read is always a good thing.
My childhood "paranormal activity"
Now back to our regular scheduled column.
Let's get something straight here: Are You Afraid of the Dark? may not seem like it but it absolutely terrified kids. Me, you, my roommate from college, everyone! How is this show scary? The show plays off of a child's fears. A ghost hiding in your mirror? He's in there. Living scarecrows in the fields? Ditto. Vampires coming to life from an old movie? Yup. Sure we know these things will never happen now but try explaining that to our younger more active selves back then.
The realistic nature of these things happening was all very frightening to our little minds. Take one of the episodes where a spirit haunts a swimming pool and plays on your fear of drowning. I know I had a fear of drowning before conquering that fear years later (yay me). So playing on that fear and not to mention the spooky spirit haunting the pool, this particular episode scared the living daylights out of me. It's no surprise that The Tale of the Dead Man's Float was ranked by fans as one of the scariest episodes in the series. This episode also shows how to build into any relationship. If any of you want to enter a relationship with someone, the best way to do so is to defeat a pool monster. She (or he) will be on you like butter.
The Tale of the Dead Man's Float: Part 1 – Teens getting imitate? Uh oh
So there's that and the fact that most creatures were of no comfort at all. The things that only come out of kid's nightmares were revealed on a 4:3 standard picture box. Just look at the picture below and tell me kids would not get scared by that.
Wait, are you sure you want to look?
Prepared to be scarred for life.
THAT'S THE SCARIEST EFFING THING EVER!
How about some more terrifying creatures!?
Show kids a bunch of creepy things and they will cry out in terror. The lesson here: clowns will always be freaking creepy.
For the show to be billed as a children series, it sure featured a lot of scary tactics and subject matter. But it was also a show that both kids and adults could be able to enjoy watching together. The series featured great writing (for a kids show), special guest stars (Melissa Joan Hart, Gilbert Gottfried, and a young Neve Campbell to name a few), and just enough hysterical horror to scare kids but not psychologically harm them…I think (need some test studies). There's rarely any violence shown and I'm pretty sure there was no blood or gore found either.
Are You Afraid of the Dark? lasted from 1991 to April 20, 1996, having a pretty good run on television. The show was also revived during 1999 with all new directors and cast members. The second revival didn't last as long, ending on June 11, 2000. Still the whole series was able to produce 91 episodes. That's a nice chunk of episodes right there I'll tell you what.
Of course the show is not as scary as it was back then. We know better now and kids today are a lot smarter (thanks, internet!). It was a much simpler time back then where we only had to worry about monsters and scary clowns instead of the economic and health care crisis we face today. Let's not forgot that this was a show that came out of Canada. See, even Canada can bring something good over to the U.S. once a while. I guess we can forgive them for Celine Dion after all.
Just kidding. No, no we cannot.
Commercial Break
BAM!
Percy Harvin returns a kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown. That's not the only story here. First of all, the kicker was scared of tackling Harvin and sort of just nudged him. That's funny.
This is not that much funny. The main story here: the blindside hit on the referee by one of the Vikings player. Not only that, but it was the same player that the ref penalize in the previous series for tripping. Yes, the same ref that got bulldozed over.
Accident or a revenge hit? It looked like the Vikings player could have easily avoided the referee instead of heading straight into him. Someone is going to get into a lot of trouble with the league.
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I'll like to see how this feature goes. Most of the time, I don't come up with a show topic until sometime towards the end of the weekend. I want to fix that line of thinking. So I've come up with this new listing section. This way not only will I know much earlier what I'm going to be writing next, but you can also see the list of upcoming show topics that I'll be talking about.
10/28/09 - Are You Afraid of the Dark?
11/4/09 – Super Mario Bros
11/11/09 - ???
11/18/09 - ???
11/25/09 – The Wonder Years
As you can see, it's still a work in progress. I welcome all ideas.
World Series: Yankees vs. Phillies. ZZzzzzzz. Everyone on the West Coast could care less. On the plus side, the NBA season started…except my team is the Kings.
Being a sports fan sometimes sucks. Things are coming down harder than the wine bottles Chris Jericho drank.
Everyone have a safe Halloween. Try not to steal too much candy. And remember, don't be a Jericho!
And with that, I'm out of time. Out like Jericho's horror film…to a Walmart clearance bin near you!
Are You Afraid Of The Dark? was the shit when I was younge. I need to get the DVD series.
Posted By: Drew (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 12:12 AM
Dude, power rangers.
Posted By: Guest#7959 (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 12:55 AM
Absolutely loved this show! A real highlight of my childhood was gathering with my dad and my brother, opening a bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms, and capping off SNICK (!!!) with a little kid-friendly horror. Even as I got older I still dug the show as it was still creepy (the Count Orlock episode) and didn't always end happily (the terrifying pinball ep - grab the magical tiara out of the mall deposit box!).
Posted By: neverAcquiesce (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 12:09 PM
I must admit, I loved this show as a kid.
Posted By: Erik Luers (Registered) on October 28, 2009 at 04:27 AM
My favorite one was The Hatching. The monster at the end (and the kids blowing it up) was badass.
There were actually quite a few dark endings on that show...seemingly, to me, more than Goosebumps, which I never really liked - it always seemed to be trying harder to be funny than scary. But Are You Afraid of the Dark felt less like it was insulting it's audience's intelligence. I appreciated that a lot.
Posted By: BJC (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 10:52 AM
I'm not saying this show didn't rock, but EVERY generation thinks Nickelodeon (and MTV) had better programming when they were kids. I guarantee you, in 10 years you will hear everyone saying "Hey, remember when Nick used to run iCarly and Bob the Builder and Spongebob? It was so much better then."
Or whatever shows they run now, I don't know.
Posted By: The REAL MP (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Man, Are You Afraid Of The Dark? and Goosebumps dominated my childhood.
Posted By: Rob (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 06:10 AM
Such a great show, I managed to get a hold of the complete series off ebay and me and my girl had a huge marathon session. Even at 24 some of that shit is still freeky especially Zeebo.
Posted By: Sanchez (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 06:24 AM
I loved AYAOTD, I would watch with the lights off for effect.
Posted By: Bill (Guest) on October 28, 2009 at 01:15 PM
