Truly one of the best shows of the Snick line-up, this show was like our Twilight Zone. With everything from sadistic traveling magicians to literal chameleons turning into people, this was the ultimate don’t talk to strangers warning. Each week the same group of creepy teens opted to spend their Saturday night around a campfire in the woods totally freaking eachother out. Yeah that’s normal teen behavior. But I tuned in each Saturday without fail. Of course I was in elementary school so I didn’t have much else going on. Some of these episodes were creepy, some were scary and some were downright weird. They usually had a happy ending but every once in a while the main character would disappear or die, just to drive the lesson home.
Right now I could probably describe in detail the plots of at least ten episodes; that’s how memorable the show was. Quite a few of the episodes starred young actors big at the time or those that were on their way and are big now. Two of these stick out in my mind to this day. One had Melissa Joan Hart as a babysitter accompanying a whiny kid to visit his old fashioned aunts in the middle of nowhere. Promptly upon arriving they are haunted by a boy in a red coat trying to show them where some hidden money is that will save the aunts. It’s a pretty simple story but something about that weird little boy in his red coat was scary to me. I guess I just don’t like creepy child ghosts; definitely in the scary category. Another memorable episode starred the Mowry twins, Tia and Tamara. Either Tia or Tamara plays a normal girl bitten by a chameleon hiding in, of all things, the groceries. The chameleon bites her twice more until it turns into whichever twin wasn’t already playing the normal girl. Suddenly having an evil, bitchy doppleganger, twin one pleads with her friend to kill the chameleon version of herself. The friend uses the almighty garden hose to douse one of the twins, only to reveal at the last minute that she killed good twin one, leaving evil chameleon twin two. Definitely in the weird category. But these types of episodes didn’t teach the same lessons as those with Sardo.
The evil traveling magician, known for his saying, “That’s SarDO! No mister; accent on the doh!”, often conned characters into spending all their money on useless junk. After a scene or two the junk was revealed to be a powerful and dangerous object. Sardo always reluctantly helped thwart the evil magic in the end, but lived another day to sell another talisman. These were the episodes that taught me not to buy random items from sketchy people. I don’t know if these were lessons or warnings but I’ll take it. Thanks Nickelodeon.
