Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and welcome back to another breakdown of Are You Afraid
of the Dark. Even though there were several seasons of this show, I feel like certain
episodes were re-ran more than others. I’d like to think I have a pretty decent memory,
but when I was trying to come up with some darker episodes to talk about I was drawing
a bit of a blank. When I asked my viewers on Twitter what they thought, I saw a recurring
response: “The Tale of the Chameleons.” I do remember this episode because it starred
Tia and Tamera Mowry, who were starring in Sister, Sister at the time. I only remembered
the premise and thought it was pretty corny; a girl gets bit by a lizard, turning her into
one, while the lizard turns into a carbon copy of her. Sounds pretty meh, but when I
rewatched it I remembered how dark it was.
The writers of Are you Afraid of the Dark were pretty cautious when it came to deciding
how scary to make their episodes, and what kind of content would be appropriate. There’s
an unspoken rule about the permanence of death, and how to portray a character who either
dies, or might die, and most of the time horror for young adults keeps things vague - a viewer
could see the worst in the situation, or they could imagine a more pleasant ending. I’m
going to go ahead and show you an example from Goosebumps because R.L. Stine was known
to use these parameters in his writing - In “An Old Story”, one of the lead characters
de-ages into a baby, and all he has to do is eat a magic cookie to turn back; the episode
ends with a “maybe he’ll eat it, or maybe he won’t” situation. These vague conclusions
are just scary enough to have some impact, especially to a young adult. The Tale of the
Chameleons kind of throws those unspoken rules out the window and offers the viewers something
a little more disturbing. It’s one of those episodes that sticks with you and when it
comes up again you can’t help but think: “Wow. That was effed up.”
As we begin the episode, we are greeted by the midnight society who are ready to listen
to the next story. It’s Betty Ann’s turn, who generally has an affinity towards the
macabre, and often writes weird stories with ambiguous endings. She decides to bring her
new pet to the meeting; not sure why she’s keeping it in a huge burlap sack, and she
refuses to let anyone see it. His name is Spike, and we’ll get the great pet reveal
later. Betty Ann: “There are thousands of different animals on the earth, most we know.
But a lot are still a mystery.” Like CHAMELEONS. Betty Ann: “No.”
Our story begins in a pet shop, where Janice and her friend Sharon are looking at the animals
during a trip to pick up some fish food. There’s also a bratty child harassing the pets. Uhh,
he really put that gum in the tank. I hope the crew fished it out afterwards. Janice
tells the boy to stop bothering the animals, and notices a very cute lizard. Janice: “What
is that?” Kid: “It’s a chameleon.” What? No it’s not! What the hell is wrong
with this episode? It’s teaching kids what NOT a chameleon is!
I was so distressed by this that I had to Google “Are Chameleons Iguanas.” That’s
in my search history now. I wanted to give this episode the benefit of the doubt - perhaps
iguanas, which is what you see here, are a type of chameleon. Nope! Turns out chameleons
are in the iguana family. All chameleons are iguanas, but iguanas are NOT chameleons. I’m
disappointed in you Are You Afraid of the Dark. You’re willing to scare the crap out
of little kids but you can’t get your lizard facts straight? Janice: “It changes colors
and stuff, right?” Bratty Boy: “And stuff.” ...What?
Janice feels compelled to pet the lizard, deciding it’s cute. It does a om nom nom
and to her surprise, it hurts quite a bit. She’s so shocked that she knocks over the
tank and the lizard escapes. CUTELY. There is nothing more adorable than a lizard running,
look at this shit. (cartoony running noises) Oh my god.
Kid: “Bites you once, bites you twice, a little water pay the price.” This kid is
the worst.
The lizard follows Janice and Sharon where they meet up with Janice’s mom. The lizard
sees the grocery bag and is like “Hey you got nutty bars in there?” and dives in.
They get home, and Janice’s mom starts unpacking the groceries. The suspense while watching
her reach in and out of the bag is palpable. Sting, then: Mom: “How did this happen…”
Instead of helping her parents put away groceries or clean up the broken eggs, Janice makes
a fuss about wanting to dye her hair blue and buying a short dress for a school dance.
“Janice: “It’s never going to be problem free unless you let me grow UP.” Lemme dye
my hair mom uuuUUNGNGH
Meanwhile the lizard is like “HERE I AM!”
Janice: “I’m going to take all my savings to buy the dress myself.” Yeah there’s
maybe a dollar in there. The lizard makes another attempt to bite Janice but the girls
are sent to bed before it has the chance. Sharon: “Goodnight Mrs. Robinson.” Here’s
to you!
The insatiable lizard strikes again while Janice is sleeping then makes a run for it.
Janice follows it, but finds it has turned into...her. At least aesthetically; the lizard
is still itself, and it’s apparently evil. She recites the same weird poem that the bratty
kid from the store said. “Bite you once, bite you twice, a little water, pay the price.”
What price though? I feel like Janice didn’t do anything wrong, in fact she’s the one
who told the kid in the store to stop bugging the animals, so what price is she paying?
This is a WEIRD fairy tale.
She wakes up Sharon to tell her what happened. “It was the chameleon from the store, it
bit me again. “Sharon… I think the chameleon wants to BE me.” Sharon: “Jan…” that’s
not a chameleon.
Janice: “It bit me twice and now it’s coming after me with water.” Oh no. Oh no,
not water. What’s next, FOOD? Sharon is a REALLY good friend and reassures her it
was just a bad dream - she even sleeps next to her despite the whole “a chameleon is
trying to kill me with water” story.
Janice wakes up with a terrible rash, convinced she’s turning into a chameleon.
Sharon reassures her once again and goes downstairs for breakfast. Janice stays upstairs and gets
ready for the day. Janice: “Don’t be an idiot.” Words to live by.
She hears someone turn on the shower, but no one is actually in it. When she turns around
she sees the lizard, now able to turn itself from a reptile to a human at will. She shoves
Janice into the shower and she promptly shrinks down into a lizard. Awww, it’s SO CUTE!!
I just love this lil friend. (clip of running lizard)
Now the lizard has a chance at human life, which is apparently what she wanted. But before
she can go about that, she grabs a scissors in an attempt to MURDER Janice. She’s stopped
when Janice’s mom drags her down to breakfast. To everyone’s surprise, she talks acting
like the perfect daughter. Suddenly she doesn’t want to dye her hair and tells her parents
the dress was too old for her, and Sharon is like “the hell is wrong with her?”
And what the hell happened to her rash? Janice sneaks in and the Lizard Girl tries to spray
her with… what is that, non stick cooking spray? Yeah that’ll show her, she’s gonna
be SO SLIPPERY.
In mid conversation, Fake Janice grabs a pan and tries to wack Real Janice; Sharon doesn’t
see her scaly friend and asks what the hell she’s doing. Lizard Girl tells her it was
a mouse, and that they should set traps. Man, remember all those fun times you had staying
at your friends house, eating breakfast and setting up totally inhumane mouse traps? The
lizard collects a package that was delivered to the house and quickly goes upstairs with
it, leaving Sharon baffled at her erratic behavior. Sharon spies her eating a goldfish.
Nice creepiness factor; A well timed cut makes it seem like she did eat it, which is an illusion
that will definitely work on kids, but chameleons would likely have NO inclination to eat a
fish. They live in tree branches and don’t exactly have the swift movements to catch
one, so LizardGirl would likely not even know what one is. I’m not letting this episode
mislead anyone else, dammit. I am going to give you all the chameleon facts! Even though
this is not a chameleon… this is so confusing.
Because fake Janice has been so nice, her parents decide to buy her a dress for the
dance, which she hardly looks at. While she’s feigning excitement, Sharon finds the box
that was delivered earlier, which is holding a cute little family of Iguanas. Err… chameleons.
Sure.
Dad: “Why don’t you go try on the dress, we’re gonna go make some power drinks.”
What…? Did he just say power drugs? “We’re going to go make some power drinks.” ...power
drugs? That can’t be right. “Power drinks.” Nope, still getting power drugs.
Carrots? Carrots are power drugs? I mean they’re pretty good for you, I hear they can turn
you orange. Wait. Is that a secret reference to how chameleon’s can camouflage - that’s
VERY clever if true. ...Oh, they’re just making a drink. Power drinks. Power carrots
sounded a lot more interesting.
Koo Koo Kachoo! Sharon: “Mrs. Robinson?” heaven holds a place for those who pray…
Anyway, Fake Janice tries on the dress. Janice: “What do you think Sharon?” It’s a lil
ugly.
Janice is now suspicious of Sharon, who now seems anxious. Sharon: “No, I’m fine.”
I just need some of these powerdrugs.
Real Janice finally gets a chance to strike and bites the phony on the leg. She tries
to escape but Fake Janice snatches her up and wow that’s a toy lizard. Look at that
thing, it’s so blatantly fake; definitely didn’t notice that as a kid.
At this point they get into a fight, and Fake Janice throws the real one into the garbage
disposal, which has been used a few times earlier in the episode to foreshadow this
exact scene. I remember having a visceral reaction to seeing this as a kid; seeing animals
in such severe danger hits you right in the stomach; I felt it even as I rewatched it,
because even though nothing happened, the thought of this reptile being chopped to pieces
is disturbing. On top of that, fake Janice picks up a fucking cleaver - were the writers
okay? This is intense. Fake Janice: “Bite you once, bite you twice, a little water…”
MIGHT BE NICE!
Fake Janice is once again, AMAZINGLY, interrupted by her parents. Sharon grabs the box of lizards
and heads to a well near the house. Sharon: “Fuck you rock!”
Sharon tricks Fake Janice into looking into her box o’ lizards; she hid Janice in there
earlier, and she lands her second bite. She turns back into a human, and Sharon is about
ready to spray the imposter with a garden hose, but Fake Janice starts twirling them
around. Really, though? Come on. You can keep track. They are barely moving. One of the
Janices says she knows her parents, and the other says yes, your parents that are in Hawaii.
I don’t know why Sharon doesn’t ask more personal questions, ones that only her friend
would know. It’s not like she doesn’t have time to grill them, neither of them are
going anywhere. One of the Janices tosses the lizards into the well, saying that the
fake one wouldn’t do such a thing. Sharon agrees, and hoses the other one. Sharon: “A
little water…” adds some spice!
Sharon picks up the lizard and tosses it into the well. Later we see the fake Janice, saving
her lizard family which had crawled into the bucket. The real Janice, however, is still
floundering in the well, pretty much left for dead. Holy hell. This is extra disturbing
because it was Sharon who threw her in there, and she pretty much has no way to climb out,
so it’s very clear this is a death situation, where the ending is permanent. There are a
handful of Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes that don’t end on a happy note, but in general
the characters stay alive; a lot of the time they are trapped somewhere, or in a weird
predicament where danger is imminent , but outright death is rarely implied. Betty Ann,
who revealed her pet to be a smol snake, really knows how to tell a freaky tale.
Final thoughts: Yep, this one certainly is memorable and dark. It’s interesting because
even though a lot of what happens is on the creepy side, I wouldn’t say it’s very
scary, at least not visually. A lot of children’s horror shows do some light body horror because
kids like to be grossed out and as long as it’s not gratuitous, it can be an effective
and easy way to get some frights, but beyond the garbage disposal scene, there’s not
a lot going on. This is honestly one of the more maturely written episodes because it
relies on suspense as opposed to weird looking characters. We don’t even really get to
see a human lizard hybrid; the most we see is Janice turning back right at the end and
it’s nothing to write home about. The Mowry sisters do a really good job in their roles,
especially Tamera who played the lizard, er… chameleon. Iguana. Whatever - she did a fine
job at acting perfectly deranged and murderous. Obviously it’s kind of hard to ignore the
fact that this isn’t a chameleon, even though they keep referring to it as one over and
over. I understand not going with an actual chameleon because they aren’t very agile,
but if that was the case, you could still call it an iguana. Yes, the gimmick is they
can camouflage themselves into the world as humans, which is typically a chameleon thing,
but iguanas can also color change to adapt to their environments, so I don’t think
keeping it accurate would have been a problem. Maybe as a young kid I wouldn’t have noticed,
but it’s kind of frustrating as an adult, and I also thought there were a few plot holes.
We never see the bratty kid again, who originally spewed the little rhyme to Janice and Sharon
in the store. Why did he know it? Was he originally a chameleon? Maybe another animal? I also
don’t think Janice really deserved to be antagonized. In a LOT of horror, not just
children’s, characters who get their comeuppance tend to REALLY deserve it. In Are You Afraid
of the Dark it’s usually because the kid gets entitled or isn’t listening to warnings,
but all Janice seemed to be was a teenage girl wanting to rebel by putting some blue
dye in her hair. She initially wanted to protect the lizard, so I don’t think she really
deserved the fate she got. Not that there always has to be a comeuppance, sometimes
things can just be dark, but it’s clear that’s what the writers were going for.
Her flaws were just a little too weak; I need a character to be a little more problematic
than just “why can’t I dye my hair?” It looks pretty bad, but all’s well that
ends well!
Again, this was a very memorable episode and I enjoyed rewatching it and discussing its
place within the horror genre. If you have an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark you’d
like me to analyze, then please leave a comment, and until then… stay spooky.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my episode on The Tale of the Chameleons. If you are
interested in more children’s horror reviews I have several more, but first! Patreon! Yes
Patreon, where you can tip me small amounts of money in exchange for knowing you’ve
made me and my parrot very happy. I bought her a giant novelty pencil last month and
she’s very appreciative. If you can’t afford to become a patron, no worries; likes
and shares mean a lot to me.
If you want to watch more of my work before deciding to subscribe, no worries. I recommend
giving these a shot; the video on the right is about Goosebumps, and the video on the
left is on Haunting Hour. There’s also a few Are You Afraid of the Dark breakdowns
on this channel - easily located with the search bar. Thanks again and I’ll see you
in the next one!