Gary shows Kristen around his dad’s magic shop - its spooky wares give Gary story ideas. Kristen confesses some of the other Midnight Society members to have sensed a decline in scariness of Gary's tales. Kristen picks up a pair of black-framed spectacles set with iridescent lenses - these, Gary says, are said to give x-ray vision. In a puff of smoke, the Specs vanish from his hand.
At that night’s meeting, behind some nearby trees, Gary whispers an instruction to David, who, he tells the others, is off sick. Tonight, Gary has a tale of three kinds of people - those who believe in magic; those who don't, and those who... should. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, he calls this story "The Tale of the Super Specs."
At Sardo's Magic Mansion, aspiring magician Weeds stocks up for April Fool's Day. To girlfriend Mary Beth, he shows a pouch of the Dust of Danderash, purportedly ground from monkey bones. On the counter lies an open spell book. Weeds casts the Spell of the Second Sight, and flings a pinch of Dust, some of which lands on a display of spectacles, whose iridescent lenses briefly glow. On arrival of shopkeeper Sardo, Weeds buys some Dust of Danderash, as well as a pair of the spectacles - these Super Specs, says Sardo, are said to give x-ray vision. Mary Beth dons the Specs, and looks around the shop. Through their rainbow-rimmed lenses, she sees, standing behind by the window, a figure whose clothes and face are shrouded in dark silhouette. Weeds claims not to have seen anyone...
In the school corridor, Weeds, wearing the Super Specs, lingers inconspicuously. Nearby, Mark opens a locker, to be lightly punched from within by a spring-loaded fist. Weeds hoots with laughter. Mary Beth arrives, and laughingly borrows Weeds's Super Specs. Down the bustling corridor, she sees someone she hadn’t noticed seconds before: a woman, whose face and clothes, like the stranger in the shop, form a uniformly black silhouette.
Outside, Mary Beth exasperatedly retries the Specs, and, beneath a nearby tree, sees the silhouetted woman, who raises a pointing arm. In fright, Mary Beth screams, drops the Specs and hurries off. Walking home, she recounts her strange encounter to Katherine, and clings to the possibility of an elaborate hoax by Weeds. She reaches into her bag, and finds something frighteningly familiar - the Super Specs. Aghast, she hurries back to Sardo's Magic Mansion. It's closed. Through the letterbox, she pushes the Specs.
She returns home to find the house empty. In her bag, she once more finds the Super Specs. Afraid yet curious, she puts on the Specs, and looks around the room. On the cooker, she sees a previously absent kettle. On removal of the Specs, it’s gone. In the living room fireplace, only seconds ago empty, blazes a fire. Fearful yet entranced, she wanders through the silent house. She looks through the open door of her parents’ bedroom - and sees, standing before the bed, the silhouetted Dark Lady. Mary Beth looks around, and sees two more sinister silhouettes. She screams, and removes the Specs. The figures have now vanished.
On the sports court, Mary Beth finds Weeds. Near tears, she tells him of the apparitions, and dons the Specs. She now sees the sports court to host half a dozen silhouetted apparitions, playing with a silhouetted ball. On realising themselves to be observed, they turn to Mary Beth, and slowly advance. With a scream of despairing dread, she runs.
Mary Beth runs to the closed Magic Mansion, and calls desperately through the door. Intrigued to hear the Super Specs work, Sardo lets her in. He consults a book. The Spell of the Second sight must have opened up a window, probably at Mary Beth's house, to a parallel universe, whose residents are now visible through the Super Specs. Sardo, for a fee of fifty dollars - oh, alright, twenty! - offers to Uncast the Spell.
In Mary Beth’s darkened kitchen, around the small round table, sit Weeds, Mary Beth and Sardo. Before a crystal ball Sardo waves his arms, repeatedly intones "alakazam," and flings some Dust. The room suddenly falls to near-total darkness. The table remains lit by a sudden light from the crystal ball. From behind Sardo floats a plume of pale vapour. The small table quakes. Behind them, in the darkness, glows a multicoloured haze. Mary Beth dons the Specs. In the void, stand at least eight silhouetted apparitions. Weeds and Sardo can now see them too. A fearful Sardo finds the Spell of the Cosmic Seal. On his incantation, Mary Beth flings some Dust, and the apparitions vanish into the void.
Behind Sardo, from high above, a shaft of white light shines onto the table. Behind it appear two colossal, disembodied eyes. A thunderously deep voice reproves their tampering with the Cosmic Seal, and announces restoration of balance. The eyes and light vanish. An ethereal gust of wind blasts across the table. Pinned back by the cosmic storm, Mary Beth and Weeds cling to the table...
In the house's now daylit living room, two youths realise the dimensional window to have been closed. Into the room walks the Dark Lady. She removes her veil - and claims to have closed the dimensional window. With a scornful chuckle, she gestures to a crystal ball on the table. From inside, their desperate yells muted, are the pleading images of Mary Beth, Weeds and Sardo.
From his bag, Gary takes a pair of Super Specs for everyone. On his count of three, everyone puts them on. With the exception of Kristen, they cry out in fright and flee: stood behind Gary is a silhouetted apparition. David pulls off his hooded black mask, and the three celebrate a first rate April Fools gag.
This episode provides examples of:
- An Astral Projection, Not a Ghost: The silhouetted apparitions seen by Mary Beth through the Specs are revealed to be living people whose presences are seeping through from a parallel universe.
- Another Dimension: A parallel universe, seemingly breached by Sardo's magic powder, begins to merge with that of the protagonists.
- April Fool's Day Episode: Both the Midnight Society meeting and Gary's story take place on April Fool's Day. The story's plot involves a prankster accidentally causing two parallel universes to fight over the same space.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Played With. While the silhouetted apparitions are unsuspecting residents of a neighbouring universe, most of whom are probably just as alarmed by the cosmic merge; one of them, a powerful sorceress, solves the problem by trapping the protagonists in a crystal ball, and seems rather vindictive about it.
- Big "NO!": Played for Horror, most effectively, by Mary Beth’s perplexed terror.
- Chekhov's Gunman: David is mentioned to be out sick at the Midnight Society meeting. Guess who shows up at the end to pull off the prank.
- Clingy Macguffin: After having discarded them, Mary Beth repeatedly finds the Specs back in her bag.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Subverted. Most of the apparitions seem to be unwitting or at least involuntary invaders, and the Dark Lady magically closes the dimensional window. However, her gloating revelation of having trapped the protagonists in her crystal ball, with the implication of having usurped the populace of their dimension, is decidedly sinister.
- Decoy Protagonist: It looks as though Weeds will be the protagonist in the first scene, but it turns out he's just an Unwitting Instigator of Doom, and Mary Beth is the actual protagonist.
- Downer Ending: One of the most famous in the series's history; where the protagonists end up trapped in a crystal ball and the invasion goes ahead. The framing device even ends with Gary pranking the others, terrifying them.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This is the only episode, outside of "The Tale of the Silver Sight" (and even that's Gainax Ending throws it into doubt), to have a scene outside the woods during the day.
- The Faceless: Having partially seeped through the Cosmic Seal, the apparitions are completely shrouded in dark silhouette.
- Fog of Doom: When the kitchen is plunged into darkness, the dimensional breach is further heralded by luminous mist.
- Foreshadowing: Gary's prank with the guillotine in the first scene hints that he has a prankster side.
- Haunted House: Subverted. Mary Beth, on seeing through the Specs otherwise imperceptible objects, one of which her hand passes seamlessly through, believes this to be the case with her house. She’s actually seeing into Another Dimension.
- Honest John's Dealership: Sardo (mistakenly) believes his magic items not to really work, and tries to charge fifty dollars for a counter spell.
- Insistent Terminology: Sardo repeatedly corrects addresses of him as "Mr Sardo" to "Sardo. No 'Mr'. Accent on the 'do'!"
- Magicians Are Wizards: Subverted with Sardo, to whose amazement, the Dust of Danderash turns out to be genuine.
- Oh, Crap!: Weeds when he realises that he can see the black figures that Mary Beth was warning him about. Only now they don't need the Specs to see them!
- Pin Ball Protagonist: Mary Beth ends up as the only one seeing an attempted invasion purely by chance; she's in Sardo's shop with Weeds, ends up with the Super Specs and her efforts to do something amount to nothing.
- The Prankster:
- Weeds cannot get enough of practical jokes.
- Gary pretends to guillotine his own finger.
- Gary, Kristen and David spectacularly prank the others by staging an extra-dimensional invasion.
- Running Gag: Sardo trying to interest customers in vomit.
- Scenery Dissonance: The eeriness of the silhouetted apparitions is rather enhanced by the innocently daylit settings in which they appear.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Mary Beth tries to do something about the figures she's been seeing through the glasses, but it amounts to nothing; Sardo is too incompetent to un-cast the spell, and the other dimension wins, trapping Mary Beth and the others in a crystal ball forever.
- Spooky Séance: Sardo’s un-casting of the Spell of Second sight strongly evokes a seance - assemblage in a darkened room round a table, which violently shakes, and around which appear ethereal figures.
- This Cannot Be!: On realisation of his novelty magic Dust to have breached a parallel universe, Sardo is staggered with fear.
- Unexpectedly Real Magic: Weeds buys the Dust of Danderash hoping it'll help him pull pranks. Due to the magic having a bit of a delayed effect, he spends half the episode convinced it's fake.
- Voice of the Legion: The Dark Lady, on closing the window.
