Are You Afraid of the Dark S01 E02 – Never leave your thermos behind.

Previously: Frank was voted into the Midnight Society for his story of following men around the wood and answering riddles.
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The Tale of Laughing In the Dark

Lorraine: Okay, I’m not going in chronological order on purpose. This happened to be on my list of episodes I wanted to cover and I didn’t realize it was number two. Apparently this Halloween on SS.com is sub-themed, “we do what we want,” though, so it’s all good.

We start the episode at a carnival, which immediately reminds me of Goosebumps, “One Day at Horrorland.” If you’ve got some real life stuff you are currently avoiding, spend a few extra minutes reading that recap. It’ll make you thankful for your parents, your cell phone and keychain mase.

Anyhow, the narrator tells us that the park is called “Playland” and she goes on to explain that you can play there, which is super helpful. There’s a “spook house” called “Laughing in the Dark.” WTF “spook house?” I’ve never heard a haunted house called a spook house before. Anyone, anyone?

Inside, two girls scream at their own bad acting. I MEAN, at the things that jump out and spook them. They get to a part of the house where several, brightly colored, numbered doors are before them. Now, I am reminded of the classic Nickelodeon game show What Would You Do?

In related news, and in an effort to make you feel ancient, Marc Summers is now 60 years old.

I yell, “door number three! door number three!” at the little kids but of course they never listen to me and go for door number six which has Zeebo the clown behind it. Now, I’m not scared of clowns, which is cool since I’m scared of 87% of everything ever, but Zeebo is one creepy looking mother fucker.

We cut to the Midnight Society, where a blonde girl is all NUH-UH about clowns and stands up to leave. She basically says, “homie don’t play that,” and insists that clowns give her nightmares. She’s trying to make a quick exit but stops and asks, “where is my thermos?” BECAUSE YOU NEVER LEAVE YOUR THERMOS BEHIND, YOU GUYS. Even if clowns are involved.

The other kids taunt and challenge Blondie, so she caves to peer pressure and decides to sit through the clown story.

Beth is our narrator this time, and she throws the potassium MAGIC onto the fire. “I call this story The Tale of Laughing in the Dark.” I think maybe I should watch this with a one rule drinking game: finish your drink whenever the title is mentioned in the episode. I’d be two drinks happy right now!

Back to the story: it’s a packed Friday night at Playland and we’re introduced to our dumb kids of the episode. One of them looks annoyingly familiar, but that is impossible since he has five credits to his name: this Goosebumps episode and voice over work on a TV mini-series. He’s got generic 90’s floppy hair, though, so maybe I feel like I know his hair.

Familiar Hair is at Playland with is friend the Incredulous One and his little sister, who has a jacket tied around her waist by the sleeves. I immediately love her.

The little sister says she’s heard the spook house is actually for real haunted, Familiar Hair confirms and Incredulous One is all, “I’m totally incredulous.” IO taunts Familiar and even says it smells a little “fowl” before making chicken clucking sounds. We make a big deal about the kids in the book series we cover being dumb and annoying, but I’ll tell you that it is something on another level to actually have to see and hear these annoying children of the story. Thanks, television!

Incredulous is making more chicken sounds when he bumps into a creepy older man in a striped, carnival worker outfit. An outfit that screams, “popcorn,” “circus,” “ring leader” and “murder.” Not necessarily in that order.

The older man tells us that he runs the spook house and that Zeebo is inside waiting for them if they pick the wrong door. Incredulous is all, “nah, I’m straight” and decides not to go into the Spook House. When he turns back to it like one second later, the creepy old man is gone and the big Zeebo at the entrance of the spook house WINKS at Incredulous. It’s kind of subtle and I had to rewind to make sure it happened and I wasn’t making it up. Nope. The sign winks all, “hey baby. I might kill you,” like.

Some undefined time later, the three kids are sitting around talking about Zeebo. Familiar Hair has done research and learned that there was a spook house built in Playland way back in the 1920’s. Around that time, a circus came to town. Zeebo the clown stole the circus payroll and the police chased him all the way into the spook house. Apparently, though, during the chase he was smoking a cigar? Because you never know which moment will be your last? And he managed to set the entire place on fire and was trapped inside. Playland rebuilt and thought, “hey someone died on our property which is totally something we should exploit!” and made the spook house Zeebo themed. Of course, the legend is that Zeebo now haunts it.

Incredulous thinks Familiar and his sister are redic for believing any of this but FH fairly points out that he wasn’t too hot abut going into the spook house either. FH dares him to go in and we transition back to Playland at night. Familiar wants proof that he actually goes all the way through the house, so IO promises to steal Zeebos nose.

The spook house is not very spooky. In the What Would You Do room, Incredulous finds the exit door on his second try but then remembers he has to grab Zeebo’s nose. He finds Zeebo behind door number six and after some hesitation, steals the nose.

Next we see Familiar Hair, he’s wearing Zeebo’s nose, as he lost the bet. Incredulous is being even! more! obnoxious! Before I can type out my wish for that damn clown to get over here ASAP and eat this little shit for dinner, Incredulous smells cigar smoke and goes to investigate. He doesn’t see anything, but as he leaves the shot, the camera pans back and we see some suspect cigar smoke being blown out by someone off camera.

Incredulous gets home and he yells for his mom and dad. I yell back, “they aren’t there because you are a AYAotD kid, duh!” He finds a note from his parents that’s all, “Dear Kid, we had tickets to a contrivance viewing so you could be conveniently all alone when a clown tries to eat you, or something. Don’t stay up too late playing video games.” What thoughtful parents.

IO puts his dinner to heat and is getting some chocolate pudding out of the fridge when he hears evil creaking in the house. He drop the whole bowl of pudding. THE WHOLE BOWL. Nuh-uh, boyfriend. We save the pudding around these parts. It’s fine though. I already knew I hated you.

After investigating the evil creaking, he gets a call from Familiar Hair who apologizes for being a baby about the lost bet. They laugh it off and make up. After he hangs up, another call comes in, but this time it’s a creepy voice saying, “give it back,” with carousel music playing in the background. Incredulous is, well, Incredulous and thinks someone is playing a joke on him.

He’s rattled, but tries to calmly eat his dinner. That all goes to shit when he sees that someone has replaced his spaghetti with a pile of burning cigars. IO decides to run up the stairs to his room, which is the stupidest thing ever to do if someone is in your house. “Let me isolate myself in a room with no easy exits, weeee!” said every horror movie victim ever.

Incredulous calls back Familiar Hair and asks if he’s playing tricks on him, but Zeebo picks up the other line, super rude like, and says again to “give it back.” Zeebo comes upstairs but IO locked his bedroom door. Zeebo then blows up a balloon underneath the door crack. I’d question the logistics of this if it weren’t being done by a possessed clown dummy thing. The balloon floats up and we see it says, “give it back,” and then it suddenly pops. Nicely done, ATAotD. Nicely done.

Out the window Incredulous goes, and next thing we see is him running into the spook house at Playland. He goes back to the What Would You Do set and drops a paper bag with the nose inside off, but the exit door is locked. Door number six opens and smoke comes out. Incredulous says he’s sorry and hands the nose back, and even brought back a box of cigars he got from… (?) for good measure. Door number six closes and the exit door opens.

We pan back and see that Zeebo is there, eyes glowing red, nose now on his face, laughing like some combination of a maniac and Rafiki fromThe Lion King. Probably No Longer Incredulous runs out of the spook house and we see the old man in the stripes again, who says, “it’s the most fun in the park, when you are laughing in the dark.”

That doesn’t mean much other than: FINISH ANOTHER DRINK!

The Midnight Society kids all speculate whether or not the old man actually did all those things to IO or whether the old man was actually Zeebo’s ghost.

All in all, I can see why this freaked out tons of kids, but it really doesn’t restore my faith in child me. Because it was anti-climatic and I should’ve really been more offended at all that wasted chocolate.

 

Next time: An anti-bullying lessons is buried somewhere in a story about a mom being reuinited with her dead daughter in Are You Afraid of the Dark S01 E03 – The Lonely Ghost.