I wager that a good portion of people who are old like me (and even those who are not that ancient) watched Are You Afraid of the Dark? as young'uns. That show was pretty much the result of the question, "What if Goosebumps had a retarded incestual love child with The Twilight Zone?" (Also, in this scenario, Goosebumps has the ability to time travel, so there's an extra layer of yuck in there somewhere.) It's been years since I watched the show, but my brother, who watches episodes of it on YouTube from time to time, swears it is firmly in So Bad It's Good territory. I'll take his word on it, especially after he showed me these gems today (aka yesterday for everyone waking up right now):
EDIT: Somehow I completely overlooked that there is also an article for the seventh season of the series. Link is added in now.
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Four
Season Five
Season Six
Season Seven
This is a series of articles going through the first six seasons of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and examining them under the premise that the series was not so much a horror anthology as it was a device for adults to scare kids into not being assholes. You see, there is a lesson to learn from each episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?; the stories are carefully constructed to instill kids with rock solid morals that come as a result of peeing their pants in terror (or possibly laughter at how freaking goofy this show is).
For example, take "The Tale of Laughing in the Dark", the second episode of season one. The main character is mocked relentlessly by his friend and eventually falls into peer pressure by going to a haunted amusement park and stealing the nose of a clown who was a criminal and who died in a fire after running away from the dirty coppers who tried to catch him. The clown's spirit haunts the boy and probably stares at him through the bedroom window at night until he (the boy) has no choice but to give the nose back.
There are two lessons to glean from this episode, according to the article: 1) Don't steal or otherwise deface someone else's property. 2) Clowns are fucking creepy.
I feel more moral already! Reading these articles is a nice hit of nostalgia. I didn't recognize some of the episodes ("The Tale of the Hungry Hounds"? What the hell is that?), but others had me laughing my ass off at the memories. Like any episode with Sardo -- that guy is awesome, but at the same time he is the worst magician and also the worst businessman in history. How the hell is he even alive by the end of the series? Dr. Vink is also a fun reoccurring character, because you didn't always know if he would be good or evil in whatever episode he appeared in, although more than likely he would be an asshole and torment the kids. The best episode ever is "The Tale of Cutter's Treasure" because it has Sardo, Dr. Vink, pirates AND it's a multipart episode. That is about as epic is Are You Afraid of the Dark? gets.
There are some episodes that are more ridiculous than others. Some of my favorite absurd episodes include: "The Tale of the Thirteenth Floor" (Why the hell did these faceless aliens disguise one of their own as a human and drop her off with a family on Earth? And why can they come only once every 10 years??), "The Tale of the Full Moon" (Look, I don't care how nice the guy is -- I'm not joining a family with a fucking werewolf in it. No way.), "The Tale of the Bookish Babysitter" (Wouldn't this scare kids off reading? Books almost got that kid killed.), "The Tale of the Guardian's Curse" (just so many, many things wrong with the ending), "The Tale of the Chameleons" (you just need to look at who stars in it, and you can predict the entire course of the story, trust me), "The Tale of Badge" (even Pols Voice weren't punked out that hard by flutes) and "The Tale of the Misfortune Cookie" (almost every Asian stereotype crammed into one episode).
What also makes me laugh are the random motifs throughout the series. For instance, 90 percent (my unofficial calculation) of the episodes are about people who have just moved into new neighborhoods. That's an entire lesson unto itself -- never move anywhere new, or you will be miserable and clown ghosts will molest you in your sleep, or something. Every protagonist seems to be either an antisocial loser or a raging asshole, too. And I can't believe I forgot this, but there are a ton of minorities in this series. They don't even play the token characters -- a lot of them are the heroes. They're not even bigger losers than anyone else, because in Are You Afraid of the Dark? everyone is a freaking idiot. No matter what your race, culture or religion, if you are a character in Are You Afraid of the Dark? you will do something ridiculously stupid.
Anyway, I blathered on way longer than intended. Are You Afraid of the Dark? is good, goofy fun. The end.
