Hey all! It’s nighttime on Halloween! I hope you are having a SPOOKtacular time! I know I am . . . after all, I’m spending it with the Midnight Society.

Yes, I AM afraid of the dark!

For all you American and Canadian kids who never babysat in the mid 1990s, you might not have experienced the most amazing TV show of all time. No I am not talking about Going Places, though that was fabulous too. I’m talking about Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which was broadcast in the USA on Nickelodeon on Saturday nights as part of the SNICK lineup from 1992-1996, and featured a bunch of ghost story-telling geeks known as the aforementioned Midnight Society.

My all time favorite episode of Dark was “Tale of the Dream Girl,” which my brother Andrew Kelley Simons (very famous musician) and I were obsessed with very non-ironically back in 1994. It was about this guy Johnny, who had this sister Erica, and he was always all, Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite sister? And Erica would be all, I’m your only sister! And we thought the actor who played Johnny was so amazing that we stalked him in the pre-Internet days and found out his name was Fab Filippo and I’ve followed his career every since. But I digress.

Fab did have FABulous hair, am I right? 

Anyway, to make a long story short, turns out Johnny was DEAD. Oops, spoiler alert. And Andrew and I were so devastated and sad and pledged that we would never die. And you know who felt similar to me and Andrew? M. Night Shyamalan. Yes, the man who directed The Sixth Sense. Oh, and what do you know? “Tale of the Dream Girl” served as the inspiration of Sense. I guess M. Night was a babysitter too!

For those of you want to witness the birth of “I see dead people,” here you go! You’re welcome.