Are You Afraid of the Dark was a favorite for anyone who was a kid aged between 5 or 6 to mid teens (maybe older even) when it was on starting in 1992. It served as a special point in the original SNICK Saturday night programming, as it was the last show to air before the channel reverted to TVLAND programming. Even when an episode didn't entirely work or was too goofy for its own good (and there were a few times, lets admit it fans), there was always a sense of excitement and anticipation to see where the next scary story would head next at that time of night before bed. Some of the essentials were the movie theater episode (Nosferatu, anyone? who hasn't wanted to go through the screen from this episode); the one that sticks quite prominently involving a clown in an amusement park (his nose!); ones with big doses of tongue-in-cheek (dark) humor like with the comic-book villain posed very much like the Joker; even a trippy one, like with the see-through glasses that featured figures of death ala Bergman.
There were many others, feeding directly into phobias and other ticks that held some kids in a panic, or at least interest, if presented right in the episode. And even the gimmick of the Midnight Society was not too old fashioned; having kids tell stories around a campfire, proving worth of the member based on how good the story could get, was essential to making this not only about how scary a story could get, but about the act of storytelling itself. Can a kid get rightfully engrossed and shaking in their shoes in half an hour? Would the cliffhangers give enough leverage to stay through the commercials? If memory serves me right, most of the episodes that were most effective stuck long after the episode ended, with little pieces of episodes still staying prevalent to this day nearly fifteen years later. And luckily, aside from a few glaring exceptions in fashion style (and a slightly different level of technology), the show is not dated either in seeing the same episodes again. For older audiences they aren't always spooky, which may make them all the better to hold onto for the next generation to scare the hell out of them.
At the least, it's worth seeing just for the opening titles; the first two shots look like they're out of a true horror movie, or a scary anti-drug ad.
