Image Credit: Nickelodeon
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society… the Tale of the Wimpy Keith. I was always a little wary of the kids from Are You Afraid of the Dark? who would meet up in the woods in the middle of the night, presumably without homework, or Friday night plans, or parents who cared where they went. I think I may have half-expected for the series finale to reveal, in one of their trademark spooooky twists, that they were all just the Canadian ghosts of an ill-fated camping trip forced to tell each other scary stories forever, and ever, and ever. Except for Eric, who disappeared abruptly after the first season. Maybe his spirit found a way to move on.
And I will admit, some of those stories were genuinely scary. Like, ruin-any-chance-of-sleeping-scary. Alvin Schwartz-scary. Often you’d be safe with some cutesy retelling of The Monkey’s Paw or something about time travel and learning not to be mean to your parents. But every once in awhile the doomed souls of the Midnight Society would unspool a yarn so insidious and so shivery that it would stay with you for days.
For me, it was the “Tale of the Midnight Madness,” in which the recurring Dr. Vink (with a va-va-va) shows the silent classic Nosferatu, and the etiolated bloodsucker steps right out of the screen like a horrible Purple Rose of Cairo. My young mind couldn’t handle it. I mean, if he could step out of the movie screen, what would stop him from stepping out of my TV screen? It was meta-terrifying. Also getting a nomination for scariest episode was the “Tale of Laughing in the Dark,” featuring Zeebo, the freakiest clown since Pennywise or whatever they have at the Cirque de Soleil. And the scene in the “Tale of the Lonely Ghost” in which the dead girl in the mirror writes “HELP ME” backwards on the wall — to be fair Empleh isn’t exactly as clever a Redrum — removed any remaining bejeezus from my person.
Are You Afraid of the Dark? hasn’t hit the new 90s programming block on TeenNick yet, but I’d be curious to see whether the scares hold up well, or whether my fear of those episodes will go the way of my childhood fears of earwigs — thanks Night Gallery — and taking off my shirt at the pool. I feel like each person who watched the show has their own pick for the episode that most haunted them. What are yours?
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The one where the mask trun you evil and the living Doll
I think you’re thinking goosebumps…on both of those
I’m almost 30 and I still think about that show sometimes. Now the shows aimed at kids on nickelodeon are bordering rediculous and a tad inapropriat.if only Nick still produced shows like that; innocent, funny and classic.
The Tale of the Super Specs, put on the specs see figures in black…creeped the hell out of me as a child
Totally this one. Plus, the ending!! It still scares me
THIS. THIS THIS THIS. It scared the crap out of me. They were so menacing.
My favorite too. The last line when the women says ‘i don’t think you have to worry about that anymore’ in the crazy voice. Awesome
Same here! I loved this show as a kid, but “Super Specs” is the only episode I thought was genuinely freaky.
The Tale of the Dark Music- Kid hears weird music in the basement, where these red eyes come out of the dark. Would get through about 5 minutes of this episode then had to turn it off, have never watched it all the way through.
YES! I am 30 freaking years old and I still think about that every time I go into the basement. Especially when visiting my parents because there’s a room in their basement that they never use, so the door is always closed. Scared me to death.
Bingo. I could not listen to the radio at night for years after this. Terrifying.
zeebo was the scariest clown ever!
I think one of the scariest episodes for sure is the tale of the dark music. Something about “living” porcelain dolls is not cool.
“The Tale of the Crimson Clown.” Sickness.
After the Tale of the Lonely Ghost I didn’t sleep for days!!! The fact that I has a full body mirror in my room didn’t help things lol!
the watchers woods. i think thats what it was called. scared the hell out of me
YES.
Ditto!
Laughing in the dark is what has perpetuated my disliking of clowns to this very day. I wasn’t allowed to see scary stuff as a kid, so AYAOTD was as intense as it got. That first episode was great. It was done so well for a kids show, and they didn’t fall into the trap of showing a clown running around doing all of these things. It left it up to your imagination a little bit, which is what the best in horror used to do.
Wikipedia tells me that Laughing in the Dark wasn’t the first episode…oh well. It was the first one I saw anyway…
For me there were two episodes that scared me silly. The one where the kid has to spend the night in an old scary house/cabin because he loses a bet or something, and a freaky girl appears in the mirror (think that’s the one described above). The other is the one with the two friends who ride their bikes above a dam and one falls in and dies (!), then haunts his buddy at school and tries to warn him about some coming danger. My descriptions are pretty vague since I haven’t seen these episode in over a decade, but the images are so clear to me still! I actually did an episode of a TV series a few years back and the actor I was playing with was the boy who is haunted by his dead friend. I told him that he had single-handedly given me nightmares for most of my childhood!! Great show, takes me back.
The Tale of the Shiny Red Bicycle.
The Tale of the Night Shift… that was the one with the deformed shape-shifting vampire running amuck in the hospital.
Oh god, yes, I totally remember that one. Scared me to death. Hard to believe this was a show for children but I loved it!
The one where the little boy froze to death outside and kept repeated “I’m cold”, and the Quick Silver episode.
The “I’m Cold!” Ghost! I think that episode also had Melissa Joan Hart in it! I never thought that one was scary because that ghost was more annoying that creepy. I kept wanting to say “PUT ON YOUR D@MN SWEATER AND STFU ALREADY!!!” ha ha
I thought that one wasted Clarissa’s guest start appearance because that kid was so annoying.
It’s the most fun in the park, when you’re laughing in the dark……
The Lonely Ghost definitely was one of the scariest by far. But to me the creepiest one was the Doll House one where the next door neighbor turns to porcelain inside the Doll House and the heroine must save her and the now porcelain girl’s hand BREAKS OFF!
Also any episode that ended in ambiguity as to whether the bad guy was dead at the end per the Pinball Machine in the Mall episode.
Also was terrified of that one with Tatiana Ali where the ghost would come out of the wall out night and was only repelled by Quiksilver. I think it was called Quiksilver or something.
That ghost was really creepy! They had good makeup artists.
The Tale of the Quicksilver.
The Doll House one ALWAYS creeped me out. The other that did it was where the brother and sister are sent to a boarding school where they all have to eat the same meal, some grits looking concoction and it makes them all act like zombies. There was something that was going on underneath the school too, but I can’t be sure. Could be confusing it with another.
Right, with all the eggs! The doll house episode is one of my all time favorites too. Of course it taught me you can fall out of a second story window and you aren’t harmed.
The Tale of the Doll Maker.
and, The Tale of The Hatching.