The Final Episode #87: Are You Afraid of the Dark (#1 revival series) (1999 - 2000)

 

I had a hell of a time figuring out if I should have done the Final Episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? because there was a break of 3 years between the original series and what I guess I'll call the revival time. I was like is 3 years enough for it to be called a revival? I then realized that they even got a new cast so I figured it was a good idea to do both versions. Plus the Final Episode of this "revival" sounded really bad and I wanted to at least celebrate this silly little show. So I figured that I would do both. Plus the internet agrees with me that this is a revival series and I'm gonna go with them. I do plan to discuss the newest episodes put out in 2019 and 2021 because why not. We might as well talk about the remakes and see which ones are dumb and which ones aren't.

Another reason I wanted to do this as two posts is the fact that I do not at all remember this version of the series. I was like "Yeah I think that was one of the later episodes... the one with the computer Gremlin" Nope. That was in Season Four of the original series. We can argue if 3 years is a lot of time for an adult but 3 years IS a lot of time for a kid. When the first series stopped I was in the 5th grade going into the 6th. by the time we got to this series I was in grade 8 (I had failed the seventh grade. Yep here's some new information about your old pal claw!) I was into Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon and the shows on One Saturday Morning, that was the stuff for kids I was still into. I didn't really need Are You Afraid of the Dark? anymore because I was allowed to go wild on horror films. I'm also not completely sure this revival series WAS on YTV. At this time the channels I mostly watched where like FOX (for Jerry Springer in the afternoon!), Teletoon, TBS, and The Family Channel. I'm going to say that it had to be on one of those channels because I remember one single episode from this revival and well that happens to be the Final Episode.

So seeing as I don't remember a single episode from this iteration of the show means I'm going to watch some episodes from this series and discuss them. Because that sounds like a whole hell of a lot of fun to do. The first episode I watched was called "The Tale of the Zombie Dice" and holy hell it was weird. I find a lot of the stories on Are You Afraid of the Dark? were weird. They kinda felt like a story a kid would come up with. This one involves a kid played by that Jay guy whos friends with Seth Rogan (a person who is ten times funnier than Tim and Eric will ever ever be) who is scared of gambling or playing games of chance. However he's friends with a kid named Tate who has no fear of gambling or any game of chance. You challenge him and he's gonna do it. So they go to a place called Click's and Tate gets challenged by Click the owner of the place. Mr. Click is clearly without a doubt the best part of this episode. The man is so clearly over the top evil but Tate still ends up taking the bet, even after first saying no. The man's gotta do what he's gotta do. Mr. Click shows him the Zombie Dice and well he loses. After he loses he has to give him his thumbprint which turns him into a eeny teeny Tate that is going to be sold. Jay ends up having to play the game to win Tate back and even has to double down after losing. However he wins by well kinda cheating but the evil Zombie man working for Mr. Click doesn't think so and well Mr. Click is never seen again.

The next episode I decided to watch was clearly intended to be the first episode shown of the revival series. It shows Tucker (Gary's brother from the original series) showing the new kids the place the old Midnight Society would tell their stories. He even calls them the New Midnight Society and says "We're back!" This is clearly a revival series and I get to talk about Are You Afraid of the Dark? twice in one October. Now that's cool! This also answers my question as to what channel showed this, it was apparently the Family Channel. For those not in the know that was pretty much the Canadian version of the Disney Channel. I don't even know if it exists anymore because we get some Disney related channels now. I would watch it but it was always my last choice. I do know that I would watch reruns of Darkwing Duck and that British art show Art Attack on that channel. This episode was "The Tale of the Forever Game".  Also about games and stuff, yet vastly different than "The Tale of the Zombie Dice". This one involves some kids getting lost in the woods and finding a dead tree which one of them falls through and ends up playing a game with another lost kid named Nathanial (who is wearing old timey clothes showing that this dude has been here for a long time.) and whenever they hit a place on the game board it happens in the forest, like bringing a monster to terrorize the two kids stuck in the forest. They end up stopping the Forever game by blowing up the dead tree.

You know how I said I saw The Final Episode, nope I was incorrect and I seriously am wondering if I ever saw any of the Family Channel/Cinar Are You Afraid of the Dark? stuff. Like I was sure this was an entirely different episode so I got some catching up to do with Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Also I don't even see Nickelodeon helping out for this version of the show. It just says Cinar presents? Did Are You Afraid of the Dark? first revival even show up on Nick? I probably should have checked that out first before getting silly and reviewing said episode. Anyway this one is without a doubt my least favorite of the three and I'll get into that in a bit.

The Final Episode of the first revival of Are You Afraid of the Dark? came to us in the year of our lord 2000 and was entitled "The Tale of the Night Nurse" and it's a bit of a wild ride. So we start out with two girls, the usual age of your Are You Afraid of the Dark? protagonists get left by their parents at their grandpas house. They call him "Gramps". If I ever get to be a Grandpa I want people to call me Gramps. It feels very chill. Gramps is chill. Anyway one of the girls, Nikki tells the other AJ that she can handle Gramps... and in the next scene we see AJ clearing the snow path. Man Nikki is a asshole. She also starts hitting AJ with snowballs and they start a snow ball fight. They see a woman go by and they think they hit her with a snowball so they go inside to apologize just for Gramps to be like "Yo dudes there aren't any ghosts here" wait no I got that confused with my Rappin' Grandpa movie script. 

Anyway AJ wakes up in the middle of the night and sees A bunch of of people at a birthday party for someone named Emily! Then we get a few more scares until Gramps confesses that they have Ghosts in his house! He didn't want to scare them. Personally the Grandpa in my Rappin' Grandpa script will give you the low down period, he's an honest dude! He then brings them upstairs to tell them the story of Emily and her Night Nurse who gave her medicine that killed her! Oh shit! Anyway Emily died and The Night Nurse seemed to have gone mad or something. They try to get Emily to talk to them by offering cake but all they get is THE NIGHT NURSE. Whos actress is the best part of the episode. They end up going back up in the attic and finding out about a silly ass time travel dress. Yes, the dress makes AJ time travel and take over the body of Emily. Seeing as she saw what happened to Emily so she decides to try to help her. 

However the Night Nurse is now going insane and going after Nikki, until Emily actually DOES fall down the stairs (like a dumbass) and the Nurse disappears. Then she's after AJ. What finally saves AJ is the fact that Emily had lost her medicine alert bracelet and that she shows him that. Emily was allergic to penicillin. AJ finally gets back to her Grampa's house and saves Emily, showing that in this new world she got to be a big job in college or something else. Honestly I probably would have liked this episode if it wasn't for the two twins playing Nikki and AJ. Holy hell I hated these two characters so much. One of them was so mean and the other was a spineless toad. I also didn't like their acting either. Yeah yeah their kids blah blah, the kids in the OTHER episodes did a fine enough job! Not a fan of this one.

FINAL VERDICT: I may not have liked the Final Episode of this version of Are You Afraid of the Dark? but I'm still kinda excited to be able to see new (to me) episodes of this show. I'm sure I will have an article where I talk about those episodes to you fine people.