The Best Saturday Nights Ever!

As a kid, on Saturday nights my parents used to make my older brother babysit me while they went on their date night. I looked forward to these nights for one reason only- I got to watch Snick (Saturday night nickelodeon shows). Snick at night had all the “big kid shows” that my parents would never let me watch, but they were the only shows my brother watched; thus, I got to watch them too.              

“Are You Afraid of the Dark?” I wasn’t until this show scared the hell out of me; yet, weirdly enough, I loved every minute of it. The scariest part was the intro; the haunted background music, the eerie attic-creaking noises, smoke hovering over dark waters, and the camera panning over a creepy toy clown. My favorite part was when a match was lit and the flame illuminated the words “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” The show always started with a bunch of kids sitting around a campfire telling scary stories, they were known as the “Midnight Society,” and I wanted to a part of it. Anyways, most of the scary stories involved evil clowns, monsters under the bed, ghosts, goblins, etc., which gave me some pretty serious nightmares. Many years later, my friend bought the show’s DVD collection set, and we watched every episode. Turns out, the show isn’t so scary when your older and realize just how bad the scary “special effects” were. We actually couldn’t help but laugh at just how everything about this show was just so lame. Regardless, I still want to be a member of the “Midnight Society.”

What do you get when you put a psychotic Chihuahua in need of some severe anger management, a good-natured and unintelligent cat, a pinch of violence, a dab of sexual innuendo (my young mind didn’t quite comprehend those references then), and throw in a whole load of toilet humor jokes involving farts, boogers, hairy legs, smelly armpits, etc.? Well, you get “Ren and Stimpy,” of course! Sure it was a controversial show, it was absolutely inappropriate for kids, and my parents definitely wouldn’t let me watch it; however, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t find a way to watch it anyways. Thanks to my responsible and dependable older brother/babysitter, I got to watch the hilariously perverted and inappropriate “Ren and Stimpy” every Saturday night. I memorized the infamous “Log Song,” and by age 8, I could do a mean Ren impression- “You EEE-DEE-IT!” … Yup, still got it.

Some other favorite Snick shows were “All That,” a Saturday Night Live-type of show, but for kids; “Clarissa Explains it All,” Clarissa (a young Melissa Joan Hart) deals with typical kid problems, which included dealing with her nerdy brother, Ferguson, and she also had a slow-evolving romance with her neighbor/ friend, who frequently climbed through her window, and apparently was unfamiliar with the meaning of privacy; “The Secret World of Alex Mac;” “Kenan and Kel;” and “The Adventures of Pete and Pete.” Boy, do I miss Snick!