Are You Afraid of the Dark?


Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a Canadian horror anthology television series that was on YTV and Nickelodeon. It aired from 1990 to 1996, and for a second run from 1999 to 2000. The original series was created by D.J. MacHale and Ned Kandel and was picked up by Nickelodeon in 1991. MacHale, Kandel, and Nickelodeon teamed up with the Canadian company Cinar, and as a part of the deal the show was filmed in Richmond, British Columbia and in the Greater Montreal area of Quebec.
The series premiered with the episode "The Tale of the Twisted Claw" as a pilot on Halloween 1990 on the Canadian television network YTV and aired until June 11, 2000. The pilot aired on Nickelodeon on October 25, 1991 as part of a Halloween special. The following year, the series premiered on Nickelodeon's SNICK on August 15, 1992, and aired until April 20, 1996. The show was both a critical and commercial success, garnering numerous awards as the series progressed.
A revival series with new directors, writers, and a cast was produced by Nickelodeon from 1999 to 2000 and also aired on SNICK. The sole member from the original lineup to return for the sixth and seventh seasons was Tucker, although Gary returned for the concluding show, which notably broke from the show's established format by blurring the line between story and "reality".
On November 13, 2017, it was announced that Paramount Players would make a live-action feature film adaptation. However, the film was removed from Paramount's schedule. On February 14, 2019, it was announced that the series itself would be revived for a miniseries, which premiered on October 11, 2019.
In October 1997 a publication was put on sale in the UK, based on this Spine Chilling TV Series, published by Devere Publishing Ltd. Although it was set to be a monthly publication only the Launch Issue was ever produced.
Its contents include Cartoon Strips, true ghost stories, stories from two episodes of the series, a competition, a photo poster of The Midnight Society plus free glow in the dark stickers.
On February 19, 2020, the revival was renewed for a second season, featuring a different cast.

Background

Both series of Are You Afraid of the Dark? revolved around a group of teenagers who referred to themselves as "The Midnight Society". Every episode, at a secret location in the woods at night, one member would tell a scary story to the group. The actual story, rather than the telling, was displayed to the television viewer. The story was shown between the group's arrival at the site and their departure. Each storyteller would begin their story by saying "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story, ", at which point he or she would toss a handful of "midnight dust" from a leather pouch into a campfire to heighten the flames and produce an eerie white smoke.
MacHale wrote the line "submitted for the approval of" as a nod to The Twilight Zone, in which creator Rod Serling would, after introducing the episode, say "submitted for your approval." The storyteller would continue by announcing its title. The themes of the stories usually revolve around a variety of paranormal phenomena, such as demons, ghosts, magic, haunted houses, magical curses, aliens, witches, vampires, werewolves, and the like coming into contact with average youths. Usually, the episodes were either filmed in the woods, in abandoned houses, or in public places like schools or libraries. Sources of these tales vary in different ways; many were adaptations of public domain fairy tales and short stories or urban legends. For example, the episode "The Tale of the Twisted Claw" is an adaptation of W. W. Jacobs' short story, The Monkey's Paw.
Sometimes, the stories were inspired by a certain event in the life of the storyteller. In the episode "The Tale of the Crimson Clown," for instance, Tucker blackmailed his brother Gary with a poem he had found, which Gary had written for Samantha. Gary then told a story in which a naughty younger brother was punished cruelly for his evil deeds. At the end of the episode, Tucker gave the poem back to his brother. The majority of the horror stories on Are You Afraid of the Dark? had happy endings, but some of them had either bad endings or twist endings like "The Tale of the Lonely Ghost," "The Tale of the Dark Music," "The Tale of the Chameleons," "The Tale of Vampire Town," and "The Tale of the Pinball Wizard."
At the end of most episodes, one character would throw a red bucket of water onto the fire, stating "I declare this meeting of the Midnight Society closed", and the group would leave the campsite, thus ending the storytelling. Sometimes, the story would be related to an event. This would cause either Gary or Tucker to hurriedly dump the water on the fire, and the Midnight Society would run off to wherever they go after meetings.

Episodes

Characters and cast

Each member of the Midnight Society from 1991-96 has a distinct personality, and a notable trend in their storytelling. Though not all of their stories have similar styles and plots, in many of the stories, each character carries a unique aspect that reflects the nature of the storyteller, and what they find to be the most important to themselves. In the second generation, the characters derive their stories more from events that happen during the days leading up to the society meetings instead of from their personal interests and views. Many of the later episodes were simply given to a random society member to tell.

Original

Several years after the last meeting of The Midnight Society, Tucker returns to reinitialize the meetings, inviting his own circle of friends to reform The Midnight Society.
One of the more significant recurring characters was Sardo, owner of "Sardo's Magic Mansion". He would often attempt to sell a character a "prized" item, succeeding almost every single time. He often had items in his shop that contained real properties of magic, yet did not know until it was revealed in the story. One of the most memorable recurring jokes in the series occurred when someone would address him as "Mr. Sardo." He would then get irritated and exclaim: "That's SarDO! No mister; accent on the doh!"
Additionally, when selling someone an item, he would often ask a rather high price. The main character would mention how much money they had, and Sardo would grab the money saying, "But I'm losing on the deal." Although he rarely got what he wanted, he would often end up helping the characters, often unintentionally. He appeared in Gary's stories, although in the later seasons, he appeared in two of Tucker's and one of David's in the episode "The Tale of The Dark Dragon."
Another recurring character was Dr. Vink. He was a physically imposing man who would often appear as a mad scientist, sorcerer, and the like. When he enters, he introduces himself by saying, "Vink's the name. Dr. Vink." He would also get his name mispronounced, usually something like "Dr. Fink?" When this happened, he would respond "Vink. With a va-va-va!" Often, the protagonist would call him a "nutbag" behind his back, assuming he could not hear him, only to have him reply later, "...and I am not a nutbag".
Unlike Sardo, whose character was set in a magic shop, Dr. Vink had many 'unique endeavors' as he called them, for his stories. These ranged from living deep in the woods conducting strange nature experiments, being a retired filmmaker, owning his own restaurant as head chef and lastly a barbershop. His activities were usually villainous, designed to put the characters in peril and allow him the last laugh. However, in his last appearance, "The Tale of Cutter's Treasure", he allied himself with Sardo and the main characters without his usual maliciousness. He appeared in Frank's stories. Aron Tager also played the carnival worker who stands in front of the Funhouse and invites people to go inside in the episode "The Tale of the Laughing in the Dark".
The character of Zeebo the Clown, also played by Tager, who appeared in "The Tale of the Laughing in the Dark" is referenced in several other stories, for example, in the episode "The Tale of the Whispering Walls", two children mention seeing him at a fun park, in the episode "The Tale of the Mystical Mirror", a girl says she will look like Zeebo if she wears too much lipstick, and in the episode "The Tale of the Crimson Clown" in the boys' room a video game called Zeebo's Big House can be seen on the desk with a picture of Zeebo on it as the title character. The video game was also mentioned in the episode "The Tale of Train Magic." Finally, in the episode "The Tale of the Night Shift," the teenage janitor is called Zeebo by his supervisor a few times at the beginning of the episode.
The villain, the "Ghastly Grinner", like Zeebo the Clown, appears in a comic book that "Dark" characters read. In "Tale of the Ghastly Grinner", The Grinner is shown as being the star of a comic book. Christian Tessier who appeared in "Laughing in The Dark" also appeared in "The Curious Camera".

Home media

VHS releases

Three VHS tapes were released by Sony Wonder. Ghostly Tales, which included the episodes "The Tale of the Shiny Red Bicycle" and "The Tale of the Frozen Ghost" plus a bonus "Feel the Fear" music video, was released on March 22, 1994; Nightmare Tales, which included the episodes "The Tale of the Final Wish" and "The Tale of the Dream Machine", was released on May 31, 1994; and The Tale of Cutter's Treasure was released on June 13, 1995.
In addition, episodes of the series were included on two compilation tapes of SNICK programming, both of which were released on August 31, 1993; "The Tale of the Lonely Ghost" was included on Nick Snicks Friendship, and "The Tale of the Hungry Hounds" was included on Nick Snicks the Family.

DVD releases

Direct Source released all seven seasons of Are You Afraid of the Dark? on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time between 2006 and 2008. The first five seasons were released in Canada and the US while season 6 & 7 were released in Canada only. The company also released a joint collection of Season 1 & Season 2/Season 3 & Season 4 as a box set. These releases have been discontinued and are now out-of-print.
On April 8, 2013, it was announced that Berkshire Axis Media had acquired the rights to the series and would be re-releasing it. Season 1 was re-released on May 28, 2013. Season 2 was re-released on October 15, 2013.
In Region 2, Revelation Films released the first four seasons on DVD in the UK in 2007/2008.
Nickelodeon also re-released the series on DVD in the US through Amazon.com's CreateSpace service beginning with two random-episode "volumes" released in 2013. However, those releases were canceled and were followed by proper season set releases beginning in 2014.
On December 1, 2014, it was announced that Madman Films had acquired the rights to the series in Australia, and would be releasing the series through Via Vision Entertainment. In 2015 Via Vision released season 1-3 individually. It was announced on September 22, 2017 that Via Vision Entertainment have no plans to release the remaining seasons of Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Release nameEp #Region 1 Region 1 Region 2 Region 4
Freaky Favorites6December 8, 1999N/AN/AN/A
The Complete 1st Season13June 23, 2014April 18, 2006
May 28, 2013 		N/AFebruary 4, 2015
The Complete 2nd Season13June 26, 2014November 28, 2006
October 15, 2013 		N/AMarch 11, 2015
The Complete 3rd Season13September 24, 2014April 24, 2007N/AApril 10, 2015
The Complete 4th Season13October 2, 2014November 13, 2007N/AN/A
The Complete 5th Season13October 15, 2014February 26, 2008N/AN/A
The Complete 6th Season13N/AApril 29, 2008April 29, 2008N/A
The Complete 7th Season13N/AAugust 19, 2008August 19, 2008N/A
The Limited Series Event6August 11, 2020N/AN/AN/A
The Complete Series 1 & 226N/AN/AMarch 5, 2007N/A
The Complete Series 3 & 426N/AN/AApril 7, 2008N/A

Online distribution

The first five complete seasons of the series have been released across ten volumes in digital format on iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu:
Release nameEp #Release date
Volume 17October 17, 2011
Volume 27January 30, 2012
Volume 37April 30, 2012
Volume 46August 6, 2012
Volume 56August 20, 2012
Volume 67October 1, 2012
Volume 74September 30, 2013
Volume 88March 24, 2014
Volume 98March 24, 2014
Volume 105March 24, 2014

In September 2016, all seven seasons of the series were made available for free on YouTube for non-US viewers.
On November 6, 2017, Season one was released for free on Canada Media Fund's Encore+ YouTube channel.

Second revival

On February 14, 2019, it was announced that the series itself would be revived for a miniseries to air in October 2019. On June 10, 2019, the cast for the miniseries was announced with Sam Ashe Arnold as Gavin, Miya Cech as Akiko, Tamara Smart as Louise, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Graham and Lyliana Wray as Rachel as the New Midnight Society and Rafael Casal as The Carnival of Doom's ringmaster, Mr. Tophat. The miniseries aired on Friday, October 11, 18, and 25, 2019 and was a ratings success. Brandon Routh guest starred in part two. On February 19, 2020, it was renewed for a second season.

Other media

The television series spawned multiple licensed products. A PC game based on the show titled Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Tale of Orpheo's Curse was released in 1994. A board game titled Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Game was also released. Perhaps the most prominent of products from the franchise's merchandising was a series of books written by various authors between 1995 and 1998.
On November 13, 2017, it was announced that a film adaptation of the series was in the works at Paramount Players. It writer Gary Dauberman was set to write the screenplay with Matt Kaplan producing and D.J. Caruso directing. The film was scheduled to be released on October 4, 2019. However, on February 27, 2019, Paramount removed the film from their schedule.