Night Gallery S02E03 (Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay - With Apologies to Mr. Hyde - The Flip-Side of Satan)

Noise junkies. It's a music podcast, baby, covering every musical genre. What we got that the others don't. I'll tell you. We got Mondo, Heathers, Heather Drain, no junky, we got wolf and raisins hp Nie Junkie, we got dark Destinations, Father alone n and we got you.

We got music and we got you babe It and you getting a weird and way media noise junkies weird. We do a little mate light and shot Realism, Surrealism, Impressionism, end of a storage and interesting behind the ball, a good of nine shooting towards the bisire. And this place is nothing if it isn't bizarre. There's no admission, no requirement of membership, only a stroke of the biding belief in the park at the top of the stairs or the things that go bump in the night. The name movement is a place you you would committed your actually deventially out of the rank.

There's the Night Gay. Welcome once again, Art Levers to Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast. I'm Vallo Malone and joining me here in the gallery as always are the Cold Jack Tapes and Mike White. Say Hi, I'm Mike, Hello Mike. Also joining is this game of Bros.

Chris Stashire, Hello, Mike. There we go. We're all said it this if we are covering season two, episode three, which aired on September the twenty ninth, nineteen seventy one. This is broken into three segments. Since on to idac Ada came to stay, I keep wanting to say and I I don't know why.

With apologies to mister Hyde and the flip side of Satan. Now in the last episode I mentioned I want to take a moment to highlight some of the behind the scenes and in front of the scenes members of the Night Gallery crew. We had an episode in the last one directed by Gerald Freeman. Gerald Freeman directs one here, he writes a bunch he ends up directing a whole bunch more and as it turns out, started his career as a PA at the Chrysler Theater in the nineteen fifties, where Jack Laird was a writer and a producer, and Jack basically became his mentor. During the early sixties, he directed Silent Snow, Secret Snow as a short film, and that would eventually become an episode Here which he would direct.

He was not really part of the staff in the first season because he was running a show called The Psychiatrists also on NBC, which was part of the Wheel, which was the wheel that Night Gallery and the Psychiatrist I was actually the proto wheel which would become the wheel that we love the Wednesday Mystery movie. This was a Sunday night thing. Gerald Freeman actually, once he saw the pilot for Night Gallery, hired Steven Spielberg to direct two episodes. It's Psychiatrists like based on that episode. So anyway, I just wanted to point out mister Gerald Freeman onto the first segment, which is called Since aunt Ada Came to Stay.

This item here is called Since Annada Came to Stay. And an Aida is a most memorable character. You may not like her, but I seriously doubt if you'll ever forget her. Be thankful you've met her. Only in the ninth Gallery.

This one was written by Alvin Sappinsley, based in the short story of the Witch by A. E. Van Vat, and this one was directed by William Hale. It starts James Farantino, Michelle Lee, Jonathan Harris, and Jeanette Nolan. It's story of a logic professor who suspects his wife's aunt may not be who she claims.

Chris, what'd you think of this one? Well? I can tell you that I am a fan of Alvin Sappinsley's other work, namely the hilariously titled code Name Heraclitus. Right, yeah, it's a TV movie featuring none other than Leslie Yea by Jack Laird. It's like the name Heraclitus.

Uh. I mean, look, this is a boiler plate stock and trade story that we've seen a million times, to the point where the ending is just what I expected it to be. The oh you stopped it? Oh did you? Yeah, it's it is exactly if I told you.

It's a story about a husband and a wife and there's a third person in their house who's not what they think they are, and the person is trying to body swap, like you know what this is gonna be? Like, you know, so all of that out of the way. It's actually okay for what it is, but I think it's a little long, and there are some logic gaps here with the characters where they act like big dummies. I think it's the big dum dums, especially James Farrantino's character, just like you're trying really hard to prevent your wife from being turned into a witch. Like I'm convinced you couldn't, right, Yeah, he really did.

He turned his back for ten minutes and didn't check on his wife, who he was worried about. The logician used the most logical method possible to keep an eye in his wife here at the end. I mean, you didn't even talk about the special effects, which are just incredible special in special effects too. Oh my gosh, I seem to remember liking e Van Vott, but this story feels like sub tears. Stephen King, like, I this whole the aunt who actually is a witch reminds me a lot of that Grandma's Boy or well Grandma Grandma.

Yeah yeahs save it totally is. And I'm just like okay, yeah, and yeah, this one on for way too long. I'm like, please, this should have been one of these blackout skits that we've been talking about, but nope, nope, this just keeps going. And it was nice to see James Farantino, that was cool. And you know, Janette Nolan wearing more more makeup than the witches from Witch's Feast.

My goodness. I wasn't impressed more than the corpses death in the family. I mean, it's funny because I keep slagging on the show, but I am actually enjoying this season more than the first season by a lot. So I'm like tolerating these if not sometimes enjoying them, but this one, it wore out, is welcome pretty fast. Yeah, this season is like Warts and All, is comparatively a much better season.

Like if, even if they're doing bone headed things, I'm enjoying the bone headed path that they're taking. Remember when that we began season two, we got a new segment at the beginning where we got a rundown of every night's guest start, sort of like wondering why suddenly they were doing that well. As it turns out, NBC had zero notion on how to market this show, like none at all, because it was a different a bunch of different stories every week, a bunch of different characters every week. They had nothing that they could grab onto, and the only thing they could grab onto was guest stars, to the detriment of the show, because they began allocating portions of the show's budgets to getting what they considered draws to get people to show and that didn't go beyond stunt casting, which we saw in the last episode with ivangen Cocha and her husband King Donovan and in this episode with James Farantino and Michelle Lee were both married at the time.

Really their chemistry, they're great, right, there's a lot of charms to be had in this episode. I know it is croat story. We've seen a million times, and we would see it a million times since then. Like the hand that rocks the cradle is basically this story too, Like the person wants to take the other person's place. Having said that, you know, they saddled these filmmakers, you know, with sticking them on the back lot and sticking them on sense, and sometimes they can pull it off.

Like there's a lot of preponderance of shots from down below looking up at everybody, and I'm sure it's because they don't want to show the same goddamn sense that we've seen in every TV show that's on television at the time. But like it ends up like working in the show's favor. The goddamn bone headed penultimate climax of this where he loses her is the stupidest thing I've every like Oh it's great. Does it Does the ending redeem it in any way? No, the ending makes the fucking sense.

Wait a second, just so you know, when you're editing this, I was being facetious about James Farentino and Michellee, like they have no chemistry. Oh oh, I disagree with you. I don't know if they have chemistry together, but I think she's an okay actress. And here I thought she was fantastic. I thought she was like enlivened and engaged and like all her reactions were really real.

And I didn't know that they were married till after the fact that I don't know if that affected it, but it I thought she was really good. So I don't think they they didn't have chemistry. I thought she did. And I'm gonna edit that part in nice but good for you. I like James Farantino, but again, like the failings of the characters and they're like inherent stupidity takes me out of it really hard, because it's like I need you to be there, stay in, Like here's the thing.

I put myself in his position, and like you're not trying very hard to not get your wife swapped with a witch dude, like I just I have. It's it's it's like you're put in the minimum effort, like no way, stop, don't go, you know what I mean. It's like it's not believable and the stakes are pretty high, Like they've established how high the stakes are here in this in this segment, I mean, the skeleton was gonna move the skeleton kids, same goddamn thing. It ends almost the exact same way, even exactly. It's like there's like no way that they don't tell the story the way that they told it, Like they can't have it end in a quote positive way or a happy ending.

They just can't bring themselves to do it. And it like infects the rest of the story because the story knows it's not going to give you a satisfying ending, so it tries to give all these visual tricks and other bullshit to distract you from the fact that you're going to see something you've seen before done not any differently than you've seen it done before. Either. Well that's a strong opinion, sir, I don't disagree with any of that. I think when you're when you're dealing with such a trophy environment, you have to be better than anything that came before.

You can't afford to have a character just turn his back and write on a chalkboard, giving your wife enough time to leave your classroom, walk down the hall, go get in the car, drive home, have some tea. Like that's how long before this character turns around? It like a yeah, and then he runs in the rain. He doesn't like ask someone, Hey, can I get my house? Yeah?

You spit, You'll get an a if you give me a ride right now? Yeah? Like what? Oh, I guess you just must not love you. And here's the thing, Like the way the story should have been told was his wife is a nag and he lets her become the witch because her being the witch is less of a problem for him than her just being a terrible nag.

That would be if Rod Sterling wrote the episode. Okay, well, for once, I actually want rod Sterling to do something. I didn't have any problem with the story starting being being told, and I think they brought up some interesting things visually that didn't pay off. That that kind of a drag, like you know, he's at the chalkboard and he's you know, writing out these mathematical formulas while she's back drawing pentagrams on the floor of her thing, and I thought, oh, that's interesting. Is he gonna like use science and math and aligebra to defeat like this this witch?

Like that would be cool. Now that's that was so obvious. That's way too obvious and smart and interesting. And see he could have like sworn and said I'll so my soul to get this answer and then like Satan. Well uh oh yeah, I did want to say.

You know, another appearance by by a veteran, a veteran of movies and television, Pearce in this in this particular episode, Uh, gentleman, might I present you sci Fi Machine Gone Crazy? That's straight out of Star Trek. Yeah, that's that is straight out of the twentieth century Fox Sound Library, which eventually got purchased by the Hanna Barbaris Sound Library, which is where you're going to hear it primarily, but for some reason this episode they decided to use for all the supernatural sound effects, they use science fiction sound effects, which I actually found kind of effective. But given that I spend most of my time dealing with sound effects, and I listened and I heard this one a lot in like other things.

Now, like I just want to give a shout out to sci fi machine gun Crazy. No Wilhelm scream yet, I'm waiting for it. I haven't heard Wilhelm scream at all in the in Nike gallery yet. Well, I hope we get one. I do too, and if not, I'll just put one at the end of this episode dollars to don't less.

We'll get one before the end of the season two. All right, off to our next segment, which, again, you're not gonna hear an introduction on this. You're not gonna hear an introduction on most of them. Why because Rod didn't want to. But this was called with Apologus to mister Hyde.

Written by Jack Laird, directed by the center Jano Schwark. It's really hard to say, but it's worth saying. This one starts Adam West and Jack Laird. This is the play a Playboy magazine cartoon from the October issue. It's oh boy, Yeah, you guys want to I love Adam West, just not in this.

He doesn't do a bad job. Could have been anybody. It feels like he was there so they could go on this week's episode. Yeah, Adam West for two, say he's in that. On this episode of the Twilight Zone or Night Gallery.

He's on that longer than he's in the actual episode. You overpromised an under delivered and yeah it's a gag. That's fine. It comes and it goes as quickly as I wanted it to, which is to say it was like thirty seconds effectively, is what it felt like. So good.

Yeah, you can't stay mad at these things because they're not around long enough for that to for them out really register. And plus yeah, in this case, it seems like Jack Laird and Adam Wester are just drinking buddies and they probably had conversation. Any come to work tomorrow, we'll do this. You want to make segmentimum? Sign me up.

Yeah. I watch an interview with Jenna Schwark and he was saying how the Class of ninety nine episode, like the half a day he got to film that that wasn't that common. But if you were getting assigned a blackout sketch, you had two hours. That's so you should start these Janos Wark cast. I'm gonna a deep dive into the career of Jeno Swark.

You know, you can admire somebody and not be a fanatic about I don't have to talk about him every week. He knows I love him. Yeah, fan club of work. He doesn't even will because I'm gonna forward these two him. We're gonna, we're gonna get in touch with you as long as if you can, if you can somehow manage to get Mike White to talk to Jo's work along with yourself, it's a success.

Listen, Mike can speak for me as my proxy, just as long as he knows that there's a fucking lunatic out there named Father Malone who's one of his biggest fans. And like Annie Wilkes, now that's oh yeah, like any Wilkes, I'm your number one fan. The wife didn't drink the Coca duty tea, right, did it? Which I now know what that is in reference to, So all those times before I sat and didn't say anything, now I get it. It's a it's a good movie, very good.

You know, I'm going to encourage beyond you, I'm going to encourage our listeners to watch Misery a little. If you have HBO Max, you should watch it on there because they have a TCM intro with Rob Reiner. Oh nice, or he talks like ten minutes about the movie. Wow on zoom essentially in his office. If we contacted him now, I bet he would tell us some stars.

Yeah, hey, rob God. I just looked at him and I thought, let's put him in a bed, like, let's take all the physicality out of him. Anyway, we refer to him by different names, Lucifer, Mephistophel's, Bushi Bob, but by any other name, he'd smell of brimstone. These the ingredients to a one man stool, this jockey or radio show, and a painting we call the flip side of Saving all right. Our final segment here is called the Flip side of Satan.

This one was written by Malcolm Marmerstein and Gerald Sandford, based on a story by Howl Dresner, and directed by the aforementioned to Gerald Freeman. This one stars Artie Johnson. He is a passed his prime DJ taking an assignment in the Deep South. Do you know what I mean? You know what?

I'll take the lead on this one because I've vividly remember this segment from I saw it when I was a teenager, right And at first I thought it was a segment that we haven't gotten to yet, which I really really like, called Hell's bells, but it turned out it was this one right now. Artie Johnson is a fine performer. I have recently watched a bunch of Laughing's just and reevaluated, and like, obviously there's a lot of talent going on behind it in front of the camera, and some of it is funny in whatever. But here's how my cynical punk rock teenage brain be of this episode. I thought Laughing was like a bunch of straight conformist types dressing up what they thought the youth culture was and wanted to see, like I said, fucking cash grab.

So when Artie Johnson comes walking up to the radio station here as this past is Prime DJ dealing with exactly that, I was like, I can't wait to watch this guy. Burn liken't have been a better cast like person for this role. In my mind, that art Johnson represented everything was having so I didn't care what happened to him after that. This is a radio play of an episode. It's it's a one man radio play of an episode.

This is something we're going to see a lot in every sort of anthology. Sorry, everyone goes to the one man radio radio station who ends up in hell. I do want to say this. If the job that he gets in this, if it's a real thing, I'll take it because I want to go to a station where they leave me a note to turn on the transformer and flip this switch and do that, and I'm alone by myself, if they don't even need to program it. I would have picked that music anyway, Like that's supposed to be so horrible that he can't like stand it.

I'm like that organ dirge, Like I would turn it over to side too. Anyway, this is not much of an episode. It's okay, And that's what I'm taking away from it. What about you, Mike, what'd you think of this one? I?

Yeah, this was interesting. Artie Johnson, I am very ambivalent about him. I think it was more the just I watched a little bit of laughing when I was growing up, and just like the little man character that he was doing, and the whole like interesting but stupid, Like it just felt like, can we get away from these catchphrases plays? Can we do something else? It seems like he should have been in a cocktail lounge at times.

Oh yeah, him just playing this hipster and stuff. I was like, oh boy, and yeah, I agree I'm just like, man, you're really full of yourself because you have a job. You know, you should be pretty happy about that that you have a job. And yeah, I would take this job in a heartbeat as well. It telegraphed where I was going pretty quickly.

I actually really like Malcolm Marmestein. He's mostly known for all the work that he did on Dark Shadows, but he also a big friend of Elliott Gould. He wrote or co wrote the screenplay for Spies as and With, which are really bad movies. And he did the nineteen eighty four telephilm Pucci, which as far as I know, has nothing to do with the Simpsons episode I must go now my presence, she buy any chance about a robotic dog? I think it might be.

It's either that or it's one of those you know, like Peter Boyle dies and comes back as a dog type of thing. There's a Chevy Chase movie like that. Oh heavenly I spoke. I spoke with Marma Steine for like five minutes as I'm driving home one night and I'm trying to line him up for an interview about Whiffs and Spies. But the movie I really wanted to talk to him about was Mary Mary, Bloody Mary the Makta Zuma film, because Makta Zuma is fucking amazing, and I'm just like, how did you write this movie from makta Zuma?

But I never got ahold of him again, never returned my calls, never respond to anything. So and now he's dead. So the end of the story. Yeah, end a story almost as bad as the ending of this episode. But because we know where we're going with this.

I was digging the music that it was playing. I love all of these satanic invocations. And when the music starts playing, even after you know the powers off, this is great. I was having a good time. I really thought that he was going to be Satan at first, but he's just a victim.

He's just another sacrifice. The thing that really bothers me though about this is all of those dates on the photos and that it's every ten years, but his was six years, and I was like, wait, no, that doesn't work. You should have kept with the pattern. It needs to be every ten years. They sent a new DJ here and they sacrifice him to Satan.

I definitely think they should have do something like that. He's being sent there because he slept with a friend of his wife, Like that's how he got the assignment, right, Like, so it is there's some organization of radio radio station owners where are also Satanic. So this like comes in handy like every ten years. I guess they had to accelerate it this year because we should ask Monique Marmelstein and see if she knows. That's what I think of when you keep saying, Malcolm marmo Stein, it's just like Monique Marmelstein from Cole Check The night Stalker.

This is this. This could have been in fucking Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five, right like this this is a this story that they're telling. They could tell it in nineteen ninety nine or two thousand nine or twenty nineteen. Like what this story is is rather timeless, which I appreciate. I think that Artie Johnson is not nearly as evil enough, does that make sense?

Like I need him to be more. I need him to be more casually evil, and he verges on it. He's like, well, she was gonna die anyways, It's like whoa, Like where is this coming from? And like Mike has mentioned before with Wikipedia, Wikipedia's description for this segment is a murderous disc job right right when where who who did he kill? He was complicit in that guy's wife dying, I guess, But like he's just a shit heel, he's an asshole, Like he's full of himself.

That's it. Like you know, yeah, he's just a bad, bad dude, right and obviously you know, but did he kill anybody? Like I don't think he actively killed someone? Like then it's like, Okay, he gets exactly what I mean, he gets what he deserves either way, but he definitely gets what he deserves. Look, if you view this episode through my lens and just call that guy Artie Johnson, then if all of that makes that's what it is.

Look this type of episode. By the way, there is a fantastic Tales from the Dark Side episode called The Devil's Advocate with Jerry Stiller written by George Romero and directed by John Harrison that does this and does what you guys were thinking this was gonna go that, like that guy actually ends up the devil and has no idea Like that one's really good and scary, intense and everything, Like it's better than this thing because you kind of know what's happening. Instead of going like what and and and as I said for this, for this segment, and I'm glad you echoed me, like this, this is a this is actually a little wish fulfillment. I didn't see anything wrong going on here, Like I want to be the guy who comes in and just takes the body out and puts it out with the rest and go like I want to be the regular DJA from then on, like you know, for the next six years maybe.

And that's the thing that I did appreciate about this is it's like it does do a good job of setting a sense of like time and like this is continuously happening, and like there's a there's more going on here. And I appreciated like kind of that world setting that they did, But it's there's nothing to it, Like they don't do anything with it. A bunch of pictures on a wall, like a bare minimum of effort. Yeah, and the list of sins that they gave him they didn't they didn't even need to this could this could have been a decent human being who like this could have been his first gig and he thought it was going to be great, you know, like we would have accepted that too. Like this sort of layering on like he's a bad dude and just serves what he's getting was absolutely unnecessary in the world of Night Gallery.

You know, we werenay runs in our blood vote that's more tales from the crypt Like this is almost like a tale from like ec comics type thing, like I don't vary moral, but like you know, the morality seems strapped down just so we can punish the guy, which is way more immoral. Why don't you know that you just want to see this guy get electrocuted and dead, like that's Steve. Don't you know that even made sense? Like that this should have been something better, right, how like that's how he dies, like of his own hand essentially, Yeah, you should have opened the door and the devil just goes ha the Devil's play Pyron or dan Hadeia, you know what I mean, Like we we have now seen there's a problem with all of these devil episodes.

Anytime there's a devil episode or a satanic episode, all I can think of his Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five doing it better almost every time they had a demon or demonic possession or a Satan episode. And this is like a a poor fact simile because like, oh, the Devil's not actually there, it's just in the tape. Like why not have him crying out, like judge the goddamn guy for fuck's sake, Like kill him with a vinyl split his head in half with it, like something more than just in there, like made of made of something. Please, Like if this guy is this murderous disc jockey and Satan is making it his point to make sure that he dies and he's a sacrifice, then actually do more with it. This doesn't work as as an episode overall, but that this is not that bad thing that we saw analysis bad.

I guess no. The first season the show is still so bad for the most part that like the second season would have to do a lot to really sour me, because, like you said, I think it's it's giving me enough right now where I'm like, yeah, is it right? It's better than Mike said, it's better in the first season. It's harder. It's hard as more in the right place.

It seems like as silly and is absolutely disposable, as those blackout sketches are. It just points to a whole new take on you know where we where we were and where we are. So I was just expecting when Artie Johnson put the vinyl on before he's a jolly good fan. Oh no, the satanic sounds afore he's a jolly good fellow. I was waiting, that's this episode.

It's free of that counter, thank you. He's waiting for Bill Mosley to come in and be like, I want to buy some rainy air time comes and scratching his head with a fucking code anger. Yeah, now I just want to watch that. I think you can do me a tour. Goddamn love the tour.

Yeah yeah, oh ye, holy I love all those little Bill Mosley is so fucking good in that movie. My god. Yeah, anytime there's a record, like anytime like records being played in a radio station, that's exactly right, Mike. That's what comes to mind, is that, Yeah, you're not going to get scarier than No No. When he's with alone with her, and then when she's alone with leather Vass like like, it's just endless avenues of horrors.

So good. Plus that movie allows you to say chainsaw penis so and what does phallic chainsaws? What? What? What else?

Really do you need? Dennis Hopper and it's there. He's there. So there you go, phallic chainsaws and Dennis Hopper. Yeah, go see that movie.

That's a great story behind this offering. A word which we've coined us for the occasion, a rechnomphobia. It means, for our purpose, is a special distaste for those crawling little beasties with the multi legged, hairy bodies. In other words, a fear of spiders. The title of our first painting in this the Night Gallery, item number three in the Night Gallery, we call it marmalade Wine.

Look at it if you will with gentleman, restrained eyes, the way you would look at a maniac in the woods. Because that's the story it tells. Hold on your glasses and get ready for a very special nightcap. All right. On our next episode of Midnight Viewing, we'll be taking a look at episode four of season two.

It's broken into four segments, A fear of spiders, Junior, marmalade Wine, and the Academy. Until then, up the Academy. No, that's not that, that's marmalade Wine, not marmous team Wine. Yeah. Until then, folks go to weirding Way Media.

That's where you're gonna find all three of us, all of our podcasts are now on the what are we calling this a conglomerate, a network, a giant weird media folk. That's where you can find this show, every show we're involved in. And uh, we'll see you in the next gallery opening, which sounds gress