Good news!
Over a period ranging from the next few weeks to whenever, I'll be flitting from show to show, like a butterfly who doesn't understand time management. Tonight, let's start with a group of Canadian teens who gathered in the woods after midnight - not to drink, not to make out, but to talk shit on each other, stare awkwardly at their crushes, and most importantly, tell scary stories.
That's right. I'm talking about the Midnight Society.
Join me, won't you?
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| This will allll be addressed. (Especially you, Kiki. Wow.) |
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Gary
The leader. The heartthrob.
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| The thirty-year-old virgin. |
During the early seasons, the poor guy was forced to rotate the same Day-Glo windbreaker and denim jacket as the rest of the cast.
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| Still warm from when Kiki wore it last week. |
But by the third?
(Insert makeover-montage set to ZZ Top here!):
+
Ralph Lauren gift cards
=
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| Middle school dance chaperone chic! |
Thanks to being one of three cast members to last long enough to benefit from a slightly bigger show budget, he developed a style all his very own. Armed with middle-to-upper-class parents and a steady subscription to LL Bean catalogs, Gary eclipsed his former best friend, David, as the biggest prepster of them all.
That shit never went out of style, either, unlike his cooler compatriots' flannel-and-denim ensembles, which are only more recently experiencing a hipster-fueled renaissance. Revenge of the nerds, indeed. American Apparel would hire him immediately and declare his look "Classy-Vintage-Chic-Late 80s-Early 90s-Ralph Lauren-Vogue-Nautical-High end brand".
Steal his look: Classy button-ups, classy loafers, classy khakis, classy discriminatory retail hiring policies.
Necessary accessories: Wire-rimmed glasses, wizard's cape for weekend LARP purposes (probably), condescending tone
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Eric
Eric lasted only a season, and it's not hard to see why. On a show that didn't skimp on asshole characters, he still reigned supreme. And he didn't just bust Frank's overly macho balls, or zero in on David, the obvious bullying choice. He went after Betty Ann. That's like punching a deer in the face. Rude.
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| A face that only Mother Teresa could love. (And I'll bet even she was like, "Damn, the lord is testing me.") |
As the resident jackass, Eric stuck out, but he dressed pretty blandly. He always sported inoffensive sweatshirts and denim in muted colors; stuff so dull that it never had the opportunity to go out of fashion.
(There was the time he wore that dorky leprechaun hat, but everyone probably gave him a free pass because his Grandpa just died.)
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| Milking that Dead Grandpa Card. |
Meanwhile, David - despite his soft-spoken personality and budding emo sensibility - dressed like a prep school douchebag direct from an '80s underdog sports movie.
Rather than a subversion of tropes, I think Eric and David's wardrobes were accidentally switched. Jacob Tierney and Nathaniel Moreau had a mishap on Day One of shooting and mistakenly wore one another's assigned costumes, and show-runner D.J. Machale was such a stickler for continuity that he forced them to keep up the farce indefinitely.
(This debacle will be included in my forthcoming novel: Hypothetical Behind-the-scenes Drama on the Set of 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?')
Steal his look: Walk into your nearest K-Mart and shoplift a bunch of grey crew-neck sweatshirts and straight-leg Wranglers. These clothes are, in fact, so boring that they won't be detected by security sensors and it won't count as shoplifting.
Necessary accessories: Colorful athletic shoes (for much-needed pizazz), shamrock-themed reminder to the rest of the world that you're Irish-American (or Irish-Canadian), punchable smirk
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David
David only lasted two seasons, and so his wardrobe wasn't really given the chance to blossom and explore later '90s fads the way that Gary, Kiki and Betty Ann's were. His unibrow was slightly more unkempt in Season Two, but I think this was because he was sort-of-dating Kristen by that point and she encouraged him to embrace the whole natural unplucked '90s runway model thing.
(See: Eric, for further fashion conjecture on David.)
Steal his look: Go on Ebay and get into an intense bidding war with another millennial for that '94 Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket. It's worth it! Your friends and your Instagram likes will thank you.
Necessary accessories: Converse low-tops, expensive watch, depressing story about home life
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Kristen
Despite being labeled by the other kids as a fashion-conscious diva, Kristen was pretty laid-back and casual, at least as far as her regular wardrobe went. It was only when it was her turn to toss the midnight dust into the campfire that her theatricality came into play.
Telling a story about a dead hippie? Got that covered.
A story about a dead horse enthusiast? That, too.
A dead prom queen?
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| Bitch, you know it! |
Kristen's enthusiasm and eccentricity made her a vital addition to the campfire, and the only reason those other kids were so hard on her is because they were secretly jealous of her creativity. (I'm looking at you and your stock-photo public-domain wardrobe, Eric.)
Steal her look: Start foraging inside your nearest Goodwill. Or haunted attic.
Necessary accessories: Prom corsage, hippie jewelery, air of (earned) superiority
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Frank
Along with Kiki, Frank was the "tough guy" of the group. The Canadian John Bender, if you will. Despite the show's objectionable stereotyping of two of its three people of color as the troublemakers, Frank's penchant for scowling and cutting the sleeves off of everything made him too cool for me to question this as a kid.
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| This = the equivalent of Fonzie punching a jukebox while riding a dinosaur to eight-year-old me. |
It didn't matter that Sam wanted to spend her Saturday nights playing 'Magic: The Gathering' with Gary instead of getting to third base with Frank behind the local Tim Horton's. He had a collection of Faith No More cassettes and his awesome style to fall back on.
Steal his look: Invest in flannel and denim stocks.
Necessary accessories: Bandana, garbage bag full of missing sleeves, willingness to drop "I'm gonna pound you" into any/all conversations in a non-sexual manner
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Betty Ann
The ensemble's dark horse, Betty Ann was the underrated Queen of the Midnight Society.
(It was published on the internet. Therefore, it's true.)
A part-hippie/part-goth enigma, she was the kindest and most gentle of all Canadian preteens. With a snake for a pet, fondness for gore, and her pacifist ways, she was basically Edgar Allen Poe and Snow White's lovechild.
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| She is so precious. |
She told the best stories, put up with everyone's bullshit, and is likely the sole Midnight Society member to do something constructive with her adult life. She's probably the only one who doesn't show up to their annual reunions because she's too busy saving the rainforest or whatever.
Initially, she suffered from the the same "help-we-have-a-budget-of-fifteen-'90s-Canadian-dollars" conflict that her fellow cast mates did.
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| The Day-Glo spares no one. |
But in later seasons, she developed a very Bohemian-lite sensibility. Florals, pastels, earth tones, and Victorian-themed accessories - the perfect uniform for a sensitive vegetarian who probably owned framed human anatomy charts.
Steal her look: Rummage in your Grandma's closet. Snag anything she's been meaning to donate since the late '80s.
Necessary accessories: Headband, work boots, scarily precise knowledge of Druid traditions
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Sam
Sam was introduced mid-series, as a love interest for Gary and a replacement for Kristen. The writers just kind of picked the "coolest" traits of Betty Ann, Kristen, and Kiki, and bestowed them all to this new character, without really giving her any distinct personality of her own. She was defined by the boys' interest in her. The closest thing to a flaw she was ascribed was a liking for anchovy pizza.
Since her defining trait was being the girl that everyone wanted, the supposed desirability of a fellow awkward tomboy had me foolishly convinced that I, too, would be pursued as ruthlessly (or, as five-minutes-per-episode-ly) by the opposite sex. (Because obviously her awkward tomboy ways were what made her attractive, and not, y'know, being a pretty blonde white girl.)
Thanks a lot, AYAOTD writers.
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| As irresistible as hockey-scented perfume. |
As her personality was a mash-up of the other three girls', so too was her wardrobe: bandanas and flannel, a la Kiki; pastels and understated jewelery, a la Betty Ann; with a dash of Kristen's blonde-ness. She was the Ax to their Cassie, Rachel, and Marco. (Again - as a kid, I was too in awe of these cool Canadian teens and their lack of a curfew to ponder why the only girls being chased by boys on this show looked a certain way.)
Steal her look: Head into your nearest Costco and buy an entire case of LA Looks.
Necessary accessories: Locket of sentimental value, never-ending supply of hair gel, dubious taste in pizza toppings
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Kiki
Poor Kiki.
As the male "badass", Frank got to live out the coolest parts of '90s fashion.
(Well, mostly.)
But somehow, my girl Kiki was stuck in coveralls and retina-searing orange from the show's conception until its very last episode. The hell? They would occasionally throw her a bone in the form of a letterman jacket, or maybe a cut-off vest that Frank had outgrown, but still.
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| And sometimes, they'd fuck with her for the amusement of the audience. |
What kind of bullshit inequality? It's hard to take someone threatening to beat you up seriously when they're wearing a backwards baseball cap the color of Gak.
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| #justice4kiki |
Poor Kiki.
Steal her look: Urban Outfitters clearance rank (alternately, hop into a time machine and ask it to take you to the worst clothing store in all of 1993).
Necessary accessories: Day-Glo backwards baseball cap, Day-Glo scrunchie, Day-Glo attitude
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Tucker
As the show progressed, Gary's rambunctious little brother dressed just as casually and flannel-y as any other '90s slacker stereotype. But oddly enough, one of Tucker's earlier defining fashion traits was that he always looked ready to go on some kind of fishing trip.
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| "I call this story... The Tale of the Elusive Striped Bass!" |
Therefore, I offer the hypothesis that Tucker was The Favored Son amongst Tucker and Gary's family. Whenever their Dad was hyped about some sort of Canadian wildlife expedition, Tucker was hyped right with him. Gary, meanwhile, was hunched over in the corner, keeping his complexion transparent and filling his notebook with stories about wizards and shit. This is probably the reason their parents forced Gary to let Tucker into the Midnight Society - they thought his influence could introduce the occasional ice-fishing trip or something into the rest of those introverted losers' lives. But this backfired, and the end result was Tucker becoming almost as dorky as his brother. Plan foiled, Tucker and Gary's Dad!
I know, I know, their parents own a magic store. Well, maybe their Dad's a magic-enthusiast-slash-hunting-enthusiast! Ever think of that, Narrow-Minded Nancy?
(More on this in my forthcoming novel, Nickelodeon Fan Fiction I Daydreamed During Third Grade Math Class.)
Steal his look: Your local hunting supply store.
Necessary accessories: Fisherman's vest, middle-parted mushroom haircut, unbroken voice
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Stig
As Tucker's best friend of dubious hygiene, his style was really just a recycled, unshowered version of Frank's, and thus unworthy of his own Polyvore collage.
How bad did he smell? So bad that those little cartoon wavy lines followed him wherever he went. So bad that he told one of the most terrifying stories in all of children's television, nay, in all of the world, and they still refused to let him in right away. To put things in perspective: Frank got in with a story about a haunted cab (that traveled at like two miles per hour), but this nightmare fuel is deemed "not good enough"?
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| A rubber hand in a jar guarantees Midnight Society membership, yet this doesn't. |
There obviously were other factors at play here.
I mean:
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| I MEAN |
Sorry, Stig.
At least you told one of the coolest stories ever. That's more than some people have. Including me.
Steal his look: Don't.
Necessary accessories: Ability to be so unpopular that his own best friend, Tucker, didn't even invite him to restart a newer, uncooler Midnight Society alongside Elisha Cuthbert and some other randoms
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Finally! You can face the world, dressed as the Midnight Society member of your choice!
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| Spotted at Fashion Week Toronto '92 |
Say someone talks shit on Harry Houdini and you want to glare at them with just the right level of sophistication and disdain:
Or maybe you need to start a fire with the aid of only two sticks, your willpower, and the flames of two loser naysayers:
Or what if someone's trying to get you to join their wilderness-group-slash-fishing-cult and won't take no for an answer:
Or maybe someone's paired a neon windbreaker with a matching backwards baseball cap and you need to react with the perfect amount of incredulity and sadness?:
Now you're ready for every occasion!
(Worry not - those fashionistas Sardo and Dr. Vink will be addressed in a later entry.)
Until next time!
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