The Nick Nostalgia Beast Strikes Back 5 & A Supper Custard

Continuing on strong with our fifth day of my Nickelodeon Nostalgia Beast series, I'm bringing up another program from their live action television series line up which ran from 1991 to 1996 originally (officially 1992 but it's pilot aired 1991) - Again, another Nick series to have run straight through the Twilight Zone year '93 which seems to pop up constantly in these articles and in relation to these shows. It's. Just. Creepy. Fucking creepy. The show in question was surprisingly enough a Canadian show (Canadians actually come up with a lot of good shows I'm finding) and was a show which fringed the line between being for kids and being for older kids/teens, the show? Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Are You Afraid of the Dark was centered around a group of kids who referred to themselves as "The Midnight Society", a group of like-minded individuals who gathered together around a campfire in some never revealed location within some woods somewhere who frequently told stories about the paranormal, demons, magic, ghosts, aliens and some times even average mundane shit. Every episode started the same way, there would be some narrative from one of the kids who would be the designated story-teller for the evening and they would end their narrative which gave you some idea of what the story was going to be about by reciting the phrase "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story.." at which point they tossed some shit into the fire, it caused the fire to erupt upward and the story began. Amazing Smokey never kicked their asses for the amount of fire-balls they created. Amazing none of them ever lost their fucking eye-brows doing that shit too.. Kind of disappointing as well..

You might be surprised to know if you didn't watch this show that in spite of what you'd expect, what that the costumes and monsters would be shite (I'd expect it too) they were frequently pretty goddamn awesome and some genuinely bordered in their own right as nature as true honest to all fuck nightmare fuel.

Yes, some of the costumes and makeup work were quite impressive and left you kind of wondering 'holy shit, why can't actual shows like Unsolved Mysteries spring for something like this? Why is it a semi kids show on Nickelodeon that has a bigger budget and more impressive costumes and makeup design?'

And of course as mentioned, some were straight fucking up nightmare fuel. Course you didn't always need a monster just for the scare or even a good costume or makeup job, some of the stories were simple mind-fuckery and they actually worked. I remember specifically being spooked badly by a few episodes and back in the day being unable to watch a few of them the whole way through because I pussed out. Interestingly for a show like this there were also a fair number of notable actors which appeared such as Bobcat Goldthwait, Frank Gorshin (The original 1960's Batman with Adam West Riddler), Gilbert Gottfried and Hayden Christensen.

 This show also won a fair number of awards;

Chicago International Film Festival
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1995	Won	Gold Hugo	Best Direction, Children's Television David Winning For episode "The Tale of The Long Ago Locket".
1994	Won	Gold Hugo	Best Direction, Children's Television David Winning For episodes "The Tale of The Dream Girl" and "The Tale of the Shiny Red Bicycle".
Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1994	Won	Bronze Plaque Award	Direction, Children's Television David Winning For the episode "The Tale of the Dream Girl".
Gemini Awards
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1997	Nominated	Gemini	Best Direction in a Dramatic or Comedy Series David Winning For episode "The Tale of C7".
			Best Writing in a Children's or Youth Program Scott Peters
			Best Youth Program or Series Micheline Charest D.J. MacHale Weinberg, Ronald
1996	Won	Gemini	Best Children's Program or Series Micheline Charest D.J. MacHale
1995	Nominated	Gemini	Best Direction in a Dramatic or Comedy Series D.J. MacHale
			Best Writing in a Children's or Youth Program or Series David Preston
1994	Nominated	Gemini	Best Youth Program or Series Weinberg, Ronald
Image Awards
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1996	Nominated	Image Award	Outstanding Animated/Live-Action/Dramatic Youth or Children's Series/Special
WorldFest Houston
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1995	Won	Gold Award	Television Series Direction David Winning For the episodes "The Tale of the Long Ago Locket", "The Tale of C7", and "The Tale of the Shiny Red Bicycle".
1994	Won	Bronze Award	Television Series Direction David Winning For the episodes "The Tale of Watcher's Woods", "The Tale of the Dollmaker" and "The Tale of the Dream Machine".
Young Artist Awards
Year	Result	Award	Category/Recipient(s)
1996	Nominated	Young Artist Award	Best Performance by a Young Ensemble - Television
1993	Nominated	Young Artist Award	Outstanding Performers in a Childrens Program Jason Alisharan Rachel Blanchard Ross Hull Nathaniel Moreau Raine Pare-Coull Jodie Resther Jacob Tierney

Sufficed to say, Are You Afraid of the Dark was a really good show. Like the other shows I've gone over here, it was definitely worth watching. During a time when books and shows like Goosebumps were popular, this was really a phenomenal series. Not all the stories are winners but most of them are worth seeing and it's always fun to see an actor or someone you know in an episode.. Hell, if you watch the right episode with the lights off and everything dark even these days you might manage a little creep-out factor for yourself.

Onto the next subject was dinner tonight and since James wasn't feeling well, I made him a 'get better' type of dinner. Niwatori Chawanmushi (Chicken steamed in a tea bowl);

The meal itself came out pretty beautifully. The Chawanmushi itself was so near perfectly cooked I was really pleased and impressed, it's a custard you see and that means that it's a liquified egg mix which can't be allowed to firm up for even a moment without ruining it's texture so it took a lot of work stirring constantly to ensure that it remained soupy. It didn't come out absolutely perfect still but I was happy enough with it to find it acceptable at least. The Anpan (Sweet Roll) this time was filled with Maple Syrup infused Anko (Sweet Red Bean Paste) and that came out nicely and of course there's the ever present Ume no raisu purin which I've never really screwed up and I think might be quite hard to screw up. You'd really seriously have to try to.

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