Submitted for your approval: Nickelodeon's
Are You Afraid of the Dark (1992-1996), an anthology of ghost and horror stories told by -- and evaluated by -- a group of teenagers called the Midnight Society.
It aired at 5:30 pm on weeknights and 9:30 pm on Saturday night, so I didn't watch often, but I recall a few episodes.
"The Tale of the Water Demon": Tony Sampson steals a gold watch, which draws the wrath of the water demon and threatens his gay-subtext buddy, Charlie Hofheimer
"The Tale of the Zombie Dice": Jay Baruchel (top photo) fights a video arcade owner who is shrinking teens and selling them as pets.
"The Tale of the Phantom Cab": While lost in the woods, Jacob Tremblay (no relation to Jason Tremblay) and his brother stumble upon a monstrous being who keeps teenagers captive unless they can solve a riddle.
And I recall three of the teen actors who appeared in the frame sections, squabbling, flirting, forming alliances:
Bookish intellectual Gary (Ross Hull, left), the leader.
Frank (Jason Alisharan) the leather-jacket bad boy
Prank-loving, irreverent Tucker (Daniel DeSanto, right), Frank's younger brother, who joins the Midnight Society in Season 3, and stays through the series finale. He becomes the leader of the Midnight Society in the revival series (1999-2000).
You're probably expecting a profile of Ross Hull, who is gay in real life, and rather built; but Gary turned me off by crushing on Sam (a girl) and eventually dating her.
Frank competed for Sam's affections, too.
But Tucker never expressed any heterosexual interest; indeed, he seemed to have a "he's arrogant!" love-hate attraction to Frank.
He pushes to get his friend Stig (Codie Wilbie) to be admitted to the group in Season 6. In the revival series, he and his friend Quinn (Kareem Blackwell) found the new Midnight Society together.
Plus his stories are about friendships that are threatened, or grow stronger, through paranormal peril. A lot of gay coding for Nickelodeon in the 1990s.
I didn't follow any of Daniel's post-
Dark works. Somehow I had the impression that he played Elaine's boyfriend Jake on
Seinfeld (a recovering alcohol, he goes off the wagon due to Jerry's negligence, and seeks revenge,) But the episode aired in 1991, when Daniel was 11 years old. Jake was actually played by David Naughton.
When I was reviewing an episode of
100 Things to Do Before High School for my profile of Max Ehrich, I thought I saw him playing Mr. Roberts, the guidance counselor, but that's Jack De Sena
Our Daniel, a Toronto native, was a busy child and teen actor, specializing in horror for obvious reasons:
Gabe, who visits Egypt with his uncle and uncovers a mummy's curse in two episodes of Goosebumps (1995).
Theo in two episodes of The New Ghostwriter Mysteries (1997): he helps the gang and the ghost foil a corrupt cop, and later, thieves who target seemingly worthless items.
Zeke, a teenage theater employee who helps Taylor Handley foil The Phantom of the Megaplex (2000).
More after the break. Caution: Explicit.