Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and today I am bringing you a mini review on a single
episode of a classic kids program; normally I would do a more comprehensive video on the
history of a show but to be quite frank, I’m tired and this shit takes too long, so I thought
I’d try this out to give you guys extra content.
As you can see by the spooky imagery I’ve inserted here, I will be discussing an episode
of Are You Afraid of the Dark; but not just any episode.
Ghastly Grinner?
Nope.
The Hatching?
Nope.
Whatever the fuck this is?
Nope!
I’ll be talking about… the leeeeeast scaaaaary episoooooOOooOOoooode…granted I am sure
there are quite a number of duds out there; they can’t all be of equal quality but this
one stood out to me as particularly bland.
I’ve appointed myself as an authority on Spook Levels and despite the title of this
story, “The Tale of the Frozen Ghost” is does not exactly inspire anything spine
chilling.
In fact it left me feeling kind of cold.
I know I shouldn’t get too pedantic but after watching this I just couldn’t Let
It Go.
Hah!
You like that?
I got more, I got millions of them!
I won’t be going too in depth on the Are You Afraid of the Dark series because I will
be covering it in a future History Of video, but if you’re not familiar with it then
here’s a few things of note: The pilot episode premiered in Canada on YTV in 1990, and was
later picked up on Nickelodeon where it aired from 1992-1996.
Every episode starts with this simple, but brilliant intro, and features a group of kids
that call themselves the Midnight Society.
They meet up in the woods, throw some shit into campfire and tell ghost stories.
A lot of people compare this series to Goosebumps as a lot of these young adult horror shows
seem to hold hands in terms of plots and structure, but there always seems to be an argument over
which series was better.
I have no comment.
I think it’s more comparable to the Twilight Zone, it’s just a little toned down for
the younger darklings of the world.
The line “submitted for the approval of the midnight society” is actually a direct
nod TO the Twilight Zone.
Kristen: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society I call this Tale: The Tale
of the Frozen Ghost.”
You can tell this was shot in the 90s based purely on these terrible outfits.
I see Kiki is sporting overalls, which is honestly the most horrifying thing in this
entire episode.
I always wanted to wear them when I was young because they were the hotness for awhile,
but then I thought, “What if I have to pee?
What if I have to pee BADLY and I can’t get my overalls off in time because a strap
gets stuck?”
And that’s my hot take on overalls, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
In this episode a girl named Kristen shows up to the meeting bundled up in a jacket,
even though the kids are sweaty from a heat wave.
She assures them that after they hear HER story they will be chilled to the bone.
She throws some sand into the fire and we’re presented with the title of the tale, which
looks like someone had a little too much fun with the Warp text tool in photoshop.
I remember this specific episode being a very big deal to me because it guest starred Melissa
Joan Hart, whose claim to fame at the time was her role on Clarissa Explains it all.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal now, but to a kid, this was huge; a child celebrity
guest starring on ANOTHER amazing show?
These are the things kids care about when they are young.
Now we’re all grumpy and yell at clouds on social media all day; oh if i could only
get excited about Melissa Joan Hart again, but she’s makin’ it kind of difficult.
In this story, MJH plays Daphne a babysitter for a young, spoiled little boy, and they
are both being sent to his aunt’s house so his parents can go on vacation.
“It all began when Charles Pemberton-Shilling III was sent with his babysitter to spend
a weekend with his aunts so his parents could go to a wedding out of town.”
Okay, already I am confused by this; why does he need to go to his aunt’s house?
Isn’t that the point of a babysitter, so you don’t have to send your kid to someone
else?
And why can’t he go alone if his aunts are there?
I do appreciate the tropey rich kid name Charles Pemberton-Shilling the 3rd.
I digress though, everyone is bundled up because it’s one of the coldest winters in years.
Upon arriving at the house it looks abandoned because it’s dark and quiet, the only movement
being this chair that rocks by itself...OoOOooOOooooo…
Fortunately, Charles’s aunts, Greta and Maylene, are home, the power had gone out
which is why they are carrying candles around.
The pair is thrilled to meet Charles as this is somehow, the first time they’ve seen
each other since he was a baby.I seriously thought this woman was about to light her
hair on fire.
While dragging this huge steamer trunk up the stairs, Maylene makes a quip about trying
to be good hosts, but Gretta mishears and scolds her for mentioning “ghosts.”
Maylene: Gretta dear I only said HOSTS, not GHOSTS.”
Charles: Ghosts?
Ghosts??”
Okay, did they not trust the audience?
How many times are they going to say the word ghost.
While getting ready to settle in for the night, Charles hears some strange wailing from outside,
but it’s hard to make out the exactly words.
“I’m mold?”
Later on, during his nightly bath AHHHH..
Oh sorry, it’s just the kid.
During his bath he hears more ghostly despairing and on top of this, the light bulb is moooooving.
After that, we finally get some exposition: we learn from Gretta and Maylene that their
stove, which they try to use for heat when the power goes out, never works correctly,
and they are also very low on money and don’t want to ask Charles’s parents for help.
According to their story, Charles’s great grandfather accidentally hired a bank robber
to work on the farm and that didn’t sit well with the rest of the family.
Gretta says the bank robber was caught, but Maylene says he escaped and was never found,
told in a very theatrically way, I might add.
Maylene: “He hired a common criminal to work on the FARM.”
Gretta: “Maylene, Uncle Charlie didn’t know was a criminal when he hired him.”
Maylene: “Yes, but father thought there was something odd about him from the start!”
This is a big mood.
We next see a very, very blatant Evil Dead inspired edit; l was quite amused when I saw
this.
Nothing really happens with it though; no evil has entered the house, but it does ruin
a perfectly good pie which is halfway to evil.
Gretta mentions that they would have the power fixed but their maintenance man left.
Maylene: “I thought it was because of the ghost.”
Charlie: “Ghost?”
Gretta: “Would you like some more macaroni and cheese?
There’s lots.”
Daphne: “You think there’s a ghost here?
Who is it, the bank robber?”
Charlie: “Ghost?”
Maylene: “I don’t think we should talk about such things.”
Daphne: “But I’m not afraid of ghosts and neither is Charles, are you Charles?”
Don’t say it.
Don’t Say it.
Don’t say it.
Charlie: “Ghosts??”
While sleeping, Charles has a nightmare that features a reject Al Borland grabbing someone’s
jacket away from them.
Finally, after a very dramatic re-enactment of a Celine Dion music video (window opening)
Celine Dion: “There were nights when the wind was so cold!”
Charlie finally sees the ghost, who is a glowing little boy.
He chants “I’m cold.”
Ghost: “I’m...cold…”
Charlie: “Ghosts??”
The next morning, Charlie tells everyone what he saw; Daphne is skeptical, but his Aunts
corroborate his story, explaining that the ghost of the little boy does live on the property,
but it’s okay because it never comes into the house.
They go on to save that authorities found him behind a toolshed, frozen to death.
They have a brief moment of grief before noticing the stove is out again, and they are out of
firewood.
Daphne volunteers to go chop more and drags Charles along with her.
Tina, bring me the ax.
This is probably a good time to mention that Daphne is needlessly mean to Charles for the
duration of this episode, with her reasoning being that she’s just really annoyed by
his wussiness.
Daphne: “If it weren’t for me you’d be a total couch potato, sitting at home playing
a nice safe video game in your nice clean clothes.”
Charles: “What’s wrong with clean clothes?”
That is definitely the hottest take about clean clothes that I’ve ever heard.
She takes her clearly misdirected anger out on him by smearing mud all over his shirt.
Charles: “That’s it I’m gonna tell my mom you did that..I’m gonna tell my mom
and dad…”
Oh god.
Daphne thinks she hears something and goes to check it out, leaving poor filthed up Charles
alone to despair about “ghosts”; suddenly, footprints in the mud!
I’m...slow…
The ghost chases him around until Charles finds himself stuck in a shallow puddle of
mudd.
(Laughing)
After Charles collapses as a result of a two second struggle, he realizes that the frozen
ghost is trying to tell him something; he finds an old jacket in a log and realizes
that this is the boy from his dream, and the one that his aunts told him about.
Awww, all he needed was his jacket back.
I’m WARM!
Charles finds a weird doohickey that fell out of the kid’s jacket; he brings it back
to his aunts and they identify it as the latch to the stove pipe.
Welp, guess the bank robber wanted the jacket because he his the key to his riches in it.
Ohhhh, of course; the kid wasn’t saying I’m cold, he was saying I’m GOLD.
My favorite part is that nobody is particularly excited about this: You’re rich, ladies!
Your financial woes are over, and the only reaction we get is Gretta’s facial expression
that says, “Well then, how about that.”
They were more excited about the stovepipe key!
The episode concludes in a similar fashion as the rest in the series, with the kids verbally
celebrating the awesome story and Gary putting out the fire.
As amusing as I find this tale, it really is one of the weaker ones from Are You Afraid
of the Dark; not necessarily when I was young, but as some of you may know, young me was
terrified of everything, so I probably thought this was the most horrifying thing in the
world, right next to that weird clock ride at Chuck E. Cheese.
It’s just...nothing really happens in this episode; it’s a lot of build up to a rather
disappointing ending, and the ghost story is not as frightening as some of the other
episodes; ghosts are kind of tiring, especially cold ones.
I wouldn’t say the story is convoluted or anything but it suffers from a lack of excitement;
I was kind of surprised at how few scary things actually happened.
There are some legitimately disturbing Are You Afraid of the Dark tales though, I definitely
recommend The Tale of the 13th Floor, The Tale of the Super Specs, and The Tale of Midnight
Madness - don’t get me wrong, they aren’t going to have me up all night with the lights
on but they are some of the more well crafted episodes.
Anyway, I still have fun rewatching Are You Afraid of the Dark - it’s a staple of my
childhood; the image of the self lighting match over the logo in the intro is forever
burned into my brain.
I hope you also enjoyed this look back at the Tale of the Frozen ghost, please do share
your favorite episodes with me so I can watch them and judge your tastes in children’s
horror.
For now….stay spooky.
Hey everyone thanks for watching this mini Retro TV review, I hope you enjoyed it; if
you did, OBLITERATE that like button because it gives me a false sense of security!
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As always, see you in the next one.