The Final Episode #82: Are You Afraid of the Dark? (Original Series) (1992 - 1996)

 

I'm here fighting off a shitty little cold. You know one of those colds you have for like two maybe three days and then they go away. Yeah, one of them. It's the first time in like two years that I've had a cold. I am not a fan of being sick but I don't think anyone is (although who really knows in this weird-o world we live in) but nothing can stop me from continuing the Really Great Totally Tubular Super Cool Awesome as Fuck Spooky as HELL Halloween Super Spectacular here at my blog with the really dumb name. I really don't know why I named it that. Anyway if you are somehow here for the first time The Final Episode is a ongoing blog post here where I discuss The Final Episode of any given television show. Seeing as it's Halloween I've decided that I can finally cover Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a television show that I could not miss as a child!

Are You Afraid of the Dark was a joint production from two countries I'm sure you know very well. They are America. the land of burgers and guns, and Canada, the land of moose and igloos. It was produced by Cinar, YTV, and Nickelodeon. It got it's first special peak for an episode in 1990. They filmed it in Richmond, British Columbia and Quebec. The Greater Montreal area to be precise. The show was created by D.J. McHale (that's a cool name) and Ned Kandel (not as cool, sorry) and involved a group of kids who call themselves The Midnight Society. They tell SPOOKY stories around a campfire. It's awesome.

I could not miss this show as a kid. I fucking loved this show. I'm pretty sure I ended up watching the same episode about 4 times in a very short amount of time and it really didn't matter to me. It wasn't even one of the better episodes but damn if I didn't watch it. (The best episode was the one about the pinball machine). I thought most of these episodes were actually really creative. Yeah, the budget could have been better for most episodes and ideas, but it was still an incredible amount of fun. This show had monsters and some of the greatest reoccurring characters. Dr. Vink and Sardo are the greatest and the actors that played them should have gotten nothing but kisses. I also liked how the show wasn't afraid to end on a dark note, with the evil horror of the week actually taking over and winning over the kids. You were always on the edge of your seat because you didn't know if this week the kids were gonna be safe or if they were gonna get stuck in an evil pinball machine.

I usually go by Wikipedia for the dates for Final Episodes, but I found a fan wikia for this show and well you KNOW those crazy nerds have found out every single thing you could find out about the show. They even know the dick size of The Ghastly Grinner (which is probably the second best episode) I'm glad I found the wikia because the episode that was listed last on Wikipedia sounded terrible. Something about Irish people. You know some Leprechaun was probably going to show up. The only horror Leprechaun that is worthy in my eyes is Mister Warwick Davis. I'm sorry, Are You Afraid of the Dark but you know it to be true. Anyway, let us discuss "The Tale of the Night Shift" 

"The Tale of the Night Shift" opens up just like every other episode of the show does (I'm sure some nerd if they ever find this will scream AHEM IN EPISODE 32 THEY OPENED UP SOMEWHERE ELSE THANK YOU VERY MUCH) with the Midnight Society in a forested area with a fire going on. It's Gary and Sam and some girl whos name I forgot, I'm gonna call her Liz. Gary tries to talk to Sam to Sam just says she going for some firewood Liz asks him if he talked to Sam and he said he did. OH SHIT GIRL TROUBLE! He says Sam said she likes him that way but has no time for a relationship. Jesus. You guys can't be any older than 17. What the hell does she do that she can't find time for a relationship at 17?  Anyway the other characters show up and Sam starts talking about illusions which will have a big part within her story.

So now we begin the story within a story, We start with a kid named Felix Zeebo (Zeebo is a name that was used for this weirdo clown. Are You Afraid of the Dark? loved creepy clowns.) who is a janitor. He's being told to go down stairs to fix something that he swears he already fixed. We then go to Amanda and Nurse Laurette (what the fuck kinda name is that) and Amanda talks about how she has a lot of work to do. She has school and home work and house work and then even night shift volunteering at the hospital. She goes to the head nurse to meet a girl named Margo. A new volunteer.

We then go back to Felix who is trying to find what he needs to fix when a girl pops up and Felix being a teenager he goes over to her and BLAMMO IT'S A FUCKIN MONSTER USING ILLUSIONS. Damn son! So Nurse Laurette then tells Amanda that someone in room 53 is looking for her and when she goes in there! It's Colin! The big weirdo in her class that won't stop asking her out on a date. He's even like "Yeah I aint gonna stop until you date me!" It's amazing how this was seen as a positive thing decades ago but now I'm like Jesus fuck kid leave her alone. Anyway he's in there for tonsillitis or some shit. Tonsils are stupid. Fuck Tonsils. Man I'm really bad at ending paragraphs.

So people are being attacked by the illusion monster and you see bite marks on their necks. HOLY SHIT IT'S AN ILLUSION VAMPIRE. I know vampires can turn into bats and wolves and stuff but can they ever turn into people? I don't think I've ever seen that. While trying to look for a kid in a wheelchair who really wanted to see the morgue because he's a little freak, Amanda and the fuckhead who should leave her alone run into Felix who they believe is dead. They walk around and are freaked out by everyone in the hospital acting freaky. They are REALLY freaked out when they find Felix up and running. Oh shit!

Felix tries to attack them but can hold himself back. He tells them all about the ILLUSION VAMPIRE and how he hasn't turned yet. They all go downstairs to show them the coffin and thats when Margo the new volunteer nurse shows up and BLAM IT TURNS OUT SHES THE ILLUSION VAMPIRE! This kid is a lot of fun to watch be evil. She's the best part of this episode. She then attacks Felix to turn him fully and the other two run like FUCK. They then decide that Amanda will be bait while Fuckhead the Useless will destroy the coffin which is apparently how you destroy ILLUSION VAMPIRES. Have I run that not even funny joke into the ground yet? Yes? Well I'll keep at it anyway because I CAN!

So Amanda gets to the roof while being chased by Margo/Illusion Vampire and Fuckhead the Useless gets attacked by Felix who he is able to get to help him. I guess even after two attacks, Felix wasn't turned fully yet. I uh, shouldn't really get to nitpicky about a fun little horror show for children that most people my age no longer care about. So Fuckhead and Felix get the coffin into the incinerator just at the right moment. Amanda is safe and the ILLUSION VAMPIRE explodes and falls off the roof. You can totally tell it's a dummy. It's great. I love it. Amanda finally decides to go out on a date with Fuckhead and we all sigh years later because that kinda stuff is weird and not exactly how you should start a relationship.

We then go back to the Midnight Society. Gary gets up to leave first and Sam tells him to stay. Tucker, some dickhead kid I don't remember and the black girl make fun of him while Liz makes them go out there. It would be easy if I remember to look up the  characters names but at this point I'm almost done and I don't care enough. My fingers hurt from so much typing. Sam tells him that they can try a relationship or something and they watch the fire. It's actually kinda sweet. Did you know that Gary's actor became a weatherman up here in Canada? I didn't know where else to put that fact but I think it's neat.

FINAL VERDICT: I don't know if we will talk about the First Revival Show this HALLOWEEN SUPER FUN COOL TIME SUPER SPECTACULAR SPOOKFEST #1 but I'm sure I will get to it. I'm glad that I checked this wikia because this was an incredibly fun episode to end the series on. It even has a little wink and nod with the last thing you see being a door with the number 65 on it (as this was the 65th and last episode of the original series). I like neat things like that.