According to my calendar, it's finally Friday, and that can mean only one thing: it's time for part two of our look at classic TV shows that haven't been on the air in years. In part one, everything was straight out of the 2D world, so this time around, I'm going to be talking about the live-action stuff I remember watching all those years ago. It's funny, I've been waiting all week to write this article, and now that I'm writing it, I don't really feel like it anymore. Go figure. Anyway, I'm not going to let a little case of blog apathy stop me from delivering, especially on a "part 2" of something. I promised it, and you're going to get it. On that note...on with today's article.
Who can forget the Midnight Society of Are You Afraid of the Dark? I can still remember looking forward to Saturday night every week in anticipation of hearing another scary story from that goofy group of kids around the campfire. The theme song used to scare the crap outta me, more so than the actual show, and I absolutely refused to watch that part without a lamp on or something. The rest of the show didn't really bother me all that much aside from a few episodes which I think had better stories and acting than most of today's "horror" flicks. For anyone who doesn't know (or couldn't figure it out from what I just wrote), the show was about a group of kids who sat around a campfire and told ghost stories...well they didn't actually tell the stories per say. One of the kids (Garry, Kiki, Betty Ann, or someone else less-memorable) would announce the title of their "story" with the familiar catchphrase "submitted by the approval of the midnight society," while throwing some kind of magical dirt on the fire. Then we had some cool super-imposed lettering that spelled out the title that the "story-teller" just gave us. After that, the kids around the campfire sorta disappeared and we were subjected to a show-within-a-show, until the end when the campfire gang would return, put out the fire, and call it a night. The concept of the show was pretty simple, but at the same time, revolutionary. Kids no longer had to venture into the woods and tell ghost stories to each other - they could just watch other kids do it on TV and be entertained without all the mosquitos and other annoyances that a trip into the woods presented. Tack up another show on the "genius" list for Nickelodeon.
I was trying to see what all the old cast members have been up to since leaving the campfire for the last time back in 1996, and I gotta tell ya, some of these people have literally vanished from the face of the planet. For instance, I've spent a lot of time looking up Ross Hull, who played Gary on the show, and I haven't been able to find out much of anything aside from a few other roles he was in and a couple of recent, but blurry pictures. That crazy Canadian. Oh well. One former cast member, who I did stumble across when looking around, was Joanna Garcia, who played Sam on Are You Afraid of the Dark. And let me tell you, it's no wonder she didn't vanish from the face of the planet...
There's nothing scary about the show anymore, but for some reason I still want her to hold me.
Submitted by the approval of the Midnight Society...yeah, it doesn't really work without the campfire, the magic dirt, and the funky glowing logos superimposed over a TV screen. How about I just put it this way: the next show I'm going to be looking at is a classic from the early 90s with one of the most ridiculous titles I've ever heard to date: Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. Aside from the name of the show being so long and stupid, for one reason or another, the creators thought it would be okay to misspell "cyber" just so every word of their lengthy title would start with an "s." Well, I'm not all that impressed with their decision, but the show still rocked.
Basically, somebody in the TV biz got the wild idea to take a Japanese cartoon and turn it into a live-action American television show. To top it off, he stole some Japanese footage from Ultraman, and threw it all in a giant, TV-blender. Here's a rundown on this gem in the rough, because I'm sure that not many of you remember it:
Sam Collins (played by a young Matthew Lawrence), is your average teenager who just so happens to be pretty talented when it comes to programming his own video games (I wish I had friends like that). Oh yeah, he's also the leader of his own rock band. One day, Sam and his band are practicing, and an energy surge from out of nowhere transforms Sam into a character in one of his video games, named Servo. Another guy from his school, Malcolm Fricke stumbles across a weird military Artificial Intelligence program in his computer called Kilokahn (who uses Malcolm like a puppet to create virus monsters that Sam and his friends, Sydney, Tanker and Amp, secretly do battle with in cyberspace, as giant fighting robots).
Ring a bell yet? Eh, I didn't figure it would, but I don't think I'd be able to sleep if I didn't include Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad in an article about classic TV shows that I used to watch, and I'm not about to lose sleep over a low-budget 90s TV show with Japanese stock footage of giant monsters and robots. I hope you can understand that, but if not, here's another picture of Joanna Garcia:
You're welcome. Anyway, on to the last show we'll be looking at today (simply because I only did three shows in part 1 and I want to keep things kosher)...Knight Rider. You heard me right. Knight Rider. I am choosing to end this two-part article with a show that starred David Hasselhoff and a talking Trans Am, and technically it's still on the Sci-Fi channel from time to time, but c'mon! Don't tell me you never watched Knight Rider! Knight Rider symbolizes everything we are and everything we hope to become as a society. Knight Rider was an allegorical metaphor of man's relationship with machines. What show about a talking car that could jump over other regular cars and drive right through walls without a scratch defined the 1980s? Knight Rider. What was former President Ronald Reagan's favorite episodic adventure starring William Daniels (the voice of the car, and also Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World), Patricia McPherson (don't really know of anything else spectacular she was in), and Edward Mulhare (he didn't do much else either)? Knight Rider!
Okay, okay. I said all of that just to see how many times I could write "Knight Rider" in bold within a single paragraph. Seven. Since all of what I said above was pretty pointless, I'll start over. Knight Rider, which first showed up in 1982, was an action/adventure series about a former cop who, during a sting, was double-crossed, shot in the head, and left for dead (completely unintentional rhyme there). He was found by some people, who for reasons I still don't understand, took him to The Foundation of Law and Government, where doctors performed plastic surgery to repair his head, and alter his looks. They gave him a new identity as Michael Knight, teamed him up with a talking black Pontiac Trans Am named K.I.T.T. (an acronym for Knight Industries Two Thousand), and turned him into somewhat of a not-so-secret-agent crime-fighter. Basically, Hasselhof drove around in a fast car and busted people up, and it made for some good TV. On the show, the car was virtually indestructible (thanks to a "molecular bonded shell") and had an extensive variety of special abilities like auto-drive, a flame-thrower, a tear gas launcher, traction spikes, a bomb sniffer, a seat ejection system, ultramagnesium charges, and the commonly-used turbo boost that allowed KITT to jump over stuff (just to name a few). I've actually seen replicas of the car selling on eBay from time to time, but I wouldn't expect all the extra abilities to come standard if you're out to buy one.
Anyway, the show was great, and from what I hear, there's a new movie in the works based on it. As tired as I am of people taking classic shows and making them into movies (Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie's Angels, etc.), I think I'm game for this one. After all, it's a little hard to screw up the concept of a talking car and a vigilante, unless that is, the writers take themselves too seriously. If it's done tongue-in-cheek with David Hasselhoff reprising his role, and they decide to use the same car instead of updating it, it should turn out at least halfway decent.
Well, that about wraps things up (don't worry, there's not going to be a part 3). Before I go, I think I'll throw in just one more picture of Joanna Garcia for all my loyal readers out there, just because she looks good on my blog.
And you're welcome again.
