Are You Afraid of The Dark? - I wanna celebrate and show love to one of the few good things Canada has ever given the world, and that is this cheesy ass 90s kids horror anthology series. Thanks Canada!

Watched all the way through it a few years ago and it was great, even the turn of the millienium revival. One of the best that doesn't get mentioned as much is The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner, which heavily draws on 90s comic culture from before its collapse. Also, the one with Neve Campbell was fantastic as well, The Tale of the Dangerous Soup.
 
The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner
That one seems to be zoomer Youtube's favorite because the horror is in your face and there's not much to think about. I've seen a couple of youtuber channels talk about that one and give it roses and I wonder if they just googled "Are you afraid of the dark creepy" and picked the whatever image popped up.
Ghastly Grinner didn't bother me so much as a kid, it was just to wonky. What did fuck me up was this guy
The Tale of the Renegade Virus.
MV5BNzY5YjZkNjktMGFmMi00MTQ2LThmMDgtODdjNzEwZGU2MjNmXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg
What a perfect episode for the time when more people were getting home computers than ever.
My house didn't even have a computer when this episode aired and it made me scared of computers.
 
I was scared of swimming for like a year because of that episode with the dead thing in the pool that smelled like gasoline and dragged kids underwater to drown them. I still went swimming but I was fucking terrified I was going to get pulled under and drown so I wouldn't go in water that was over my head.
i used to watch it all the time but in my memory is very blurred with goosebumps and mix up the stories from the two together.
Goosebumps wasn't as dark or scary as Are you Afraid of the Dark. That show got pretty dark sometimes.
 
I was scared of swimming for like a year because of that episode with the dead thing in the pool that smelled like gasoline and dragged kids underwater to drown them. I still went swimming but I was fucking terrified I was going to get pulled under and drown so I wouldn't go in water that was over my head.

Goosebumps wasn't as dark or scary as Are you Afraid of the Dark. That show got pretty dark sometimes.
The Tale of the Dream Girl fucked me up when I was a kid because there was really not much of a happy ending.
 
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The Tale of the Dream Girl fucked me up when I was a kid because there was really not much of a happy ending.
I don't remember that one but I remember finding the one about the radio station you can only hear if you die, or something like, that pretty disturbing. I remember it had Gilbert Gottfried in it playing the radio station announcer and it just made it more creepy that it was the dude that played Iago from Aladdin.

I remember a lot of them not really having happy endings. I don't think that radio station one did either if I remember right. It's been so long since I watched any of those.
 
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This show legit creeped me out as kid. I enjoyed and watched a lot of Goosebumps too but I always viewed Are you afraid of the Dark as one notch above Goosebumps in terms of scariness. My entire child horror experiences pretty much comprised of Are you afraid of the dark, Goosebumps, and Tales from the Cryptkeeper.

Hey, you gave us AYAOTD and Degrassi. Childhood and teenage me thank you. Also Trailer Park Boys was the shit before they sold it to Netflix.
I love my leafbros. You also gave us hockey! What Canada makes, the world takes, right? <3
Don't forget ReBoot!
 
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wow, this one got me too
The slow jazz at the end and during the tender parts makes me tear up. I can't explain it but I love it. I hear that M Night Shyamalan got the idea for The Sixth Sense directly from this episode.
I don't remember that one but I remember finding the one about the radio station you can only hear if you die, or something like, that pretty disturbing. I remember it had Gilbert Gottfried in it playing the radio station announcer and it just made it more creepy that it was the dude that played Iago from Aladdin.

I remember a lot of them not really having happy endings. I don't think that radio station one did either if I remember right. It's been so long since I watched any of those.
The Tale of Station 109.1, absolutely a beaut of an episode. Not only was Gilbert Gotfried in it, but the older brother was Ryan Gosling hahahahaha he's literally me!
It did have a happy ending, the boy and Ryan Gosling lived and the little brother stopped being such a sperg infatuated with death
This show legit creeped me out as kid. I enjoyed and watched a lot of Goosebumps too but I always viewed Are you afraid of the Dark as one notch above Goosebumps in terms of scariness. My entire horror experiences pretty much comprised of Are you afraid of the dark, Goosebumps, and Tales from the Cryptkeeper.


Don't forget ReBoot!
The show was meant to do jus that and it did it in spades while also being campy enough to enjoy even in a jokey setting. Goosebumps was basically Nick Jr of horror
 
The Tale of Station 109.1, absolutely a beaut of an episode. Not only was Gilbert Gotfried in it, but the older brother was Ryan Gosling hahahahaha he's literally me!
It did have a happy ending, the boy and Ryan Gosling lived and the little brother stopped being such a sperg infatuated with death
That's good at least then. Man this thread makes me want to watch some of these again.
 
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I was scared of swimming for like a year because of that episode with the dead thing in the pool that smelled like gasoline and dragged kids underwater to drown them.
had a similar experience but with one of the shorts from Creepshow were they are in a raft and there's blob floating on the lake that kills them when they touch the water. Its such a simple but effective premise.
 
I loved goosebumps and this show alot growing up and when I finally tried rewatching this it just didn't age well for me like goosebumps did but as a kid my favorite episode was the one where the guy turns into a Banshee after drinking out of the flask. It's called "The tale of Jake and the Leprechaun"
 
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That one seems to be zoomer Youtube's favorite because the horror is in your face and there's not much to think about. I've seen a couple of youtuber channels talk about that one and give it roses and I wonder if they just googled "Are you afraid of the dark creepy" and picked the whatever image popped up.
Yeah, they probably are just enjoying the surface level aspects, especially since they didn't get to experience comics back then. I liked the creepy atmosphere that was built up before the Grinner actually makes his appearances what with the way that people are changed by him. The comic shop was also nostalgia inducing but had an eeriness to it as well.

The Tale of the Renegade Virus.
MV5BNzY5YjZkNjktMGFmMi00MTQ2LThmMDgtODdjNzEwZGU2MjNmXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg
What a perfect episode for the time when more people were getting home computers than ever.
My house didn't even have a computer when this episode aired and it made me scared of computers.
That one was great! I don't know why I didn't immediately think of it.
 
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The thing for me which made me just mildly enjoy this show is that since age 4, I was watching real horror stuff.
I saw The Thing when I was 6.
Because of that, AYAotD wasn't scary at all to me but it had some good writing though.

As a thing to get kids into horror movies and such, I think this is solid.
You just need to put together 1 season worth of the best episodes, skip the bad and mediocre ones.
Then again, the really bad ones are fun too.
 
Dead man's float is great and creepy for a kids' show. I remember my cousin showed me this episode when I was a kid and it freaked me out. he was a weird guy who was obsessed with 90s/00s things, but mostly 90s/00s horror. the costume was well made for a show with a small budget.


 
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