Night Gallery S02E09 (House With Ghost - A Midnight Visit to the Neighborhood Blood Bank - Dr Stringfellow's Rejuvenator - Hell's Bells)

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Hear it twice monthly at weirding Way Media. Astounding Tales of the Public Domain with Father Malone, weirding Way Media, Redially pat Pignic, light and shad, Realism, surrealism, impressionism, endless story and interest in the dblall a good, a lunship toward the desire. And this place is nothing if it isn't bisarre. There's no admission, no requirement of membership, only a strong and abiding belief and department at the top of the stairs or the things that go bump in the night the name of there is a place that you would committed your actually deventially out of the range is the night Got Welcome back art lovers to Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery podcast, where we discuss Night Gallery, Rod Serlings follow up to The Twilight Zone.

I'm Father Alone and with me here in the Gallery are the podcast of Powers, Mike White Like hell Man and of mushrooms and men's Cristatue. Was it intentional that on the episode with Forrest Tucker you mentioned the mushroom podcast that I do? I think not? No now. This is season two, episode nine, which aired on November the seven, nineteen seventy one.

The episode was split into four segments. Those are House with Ghost, a midnight visit to the neighborhood, blood Bank, doctor Stringfellow's Rejuvenator, and Hell's Bells. Painting number one out of the real estate section of a Ghost Town Weekly, a ginger Bredy item quite appropriately called House with a Ghost. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the night Garie House with Ghost, written by Jeane R. Kearney from a short story by August Derleth and directed by Jeane Kearney as well, starring Bob Crane, Joanne Worley, Bernard Fox, who I mainly know from a movie called Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, which I now realized, having rewatched this episode I saw way too much in my youth.

It also stars Eric Christmas. The same year he appeared in Harold and Maud as the priest and Alan Napier. Very briefly. It was so weird seeing Alfred in anything other than Wayne Manor and in Imperial that's sort of the mustache and the mutton chops in the middle. Oh wonderful.

This is the story of an ex An expat couple living in London who need a change of scenery and a new home. They pick one with a ghost. Also, the husband is a duplicitous ass who was encouraging his wife to have a mishap through supernatural means, which I think of this one chorus, It's the first time I've ever seen Bob Crane in anything really yeah, which is kind of weird. He never watched Hogan's Heroes, not a singular episode, my friend. He plays a dickhead really well, but I don't think he was known from playing a dickhead and Hogan's Heroes.

He kind of was actually, oh really okay, So he plays the dickhead really well. Do you think again? Go ahead? No. Greg Knear played him in the in the biopick auto focus of him.

Do you think that that's an appropriate casting, because I think it's the greatest casting of all time. I think if I think, if if anyone's going to be cast as this guy, at least Greg can here looks like him. And then I have never found Greg kinnear to be an actor who can be genuine. I feel like he's really good at playing people who are immensely disingenuous, like in Mystery Men. So makes sense.

I don't know Bob craiging plays really disingenuous. Really well, it was, it was fun. It's kind of like the Diary. The character at the end does kind of get their just desserts. Maybe not as much as they should, but yeah, it was.

It was fine. Yeah, this was kind of great seeing Hogan and doctor bomb Bay and Alfred and joe Ane Whorley all in one episode. I didn't realize just how stacked joe Anne really he is. I guess I'm just used to seeing her in like those moo moos and terrible outfits that she used to wear on like laughing and uh. I think she did a couple stints on Match Game, if memory serves.

But I love her and so I was a little Yeah, I immediately sympathized with her that Bob Crane was trying to kill her. Um, it was a little obvious what was going on with this one, but I had fun with it. I thought it was kind of nice. Um, and then the twist at the end. I thought they could have gone a little bit further with it, But yeah, I thought it was all right.

It kind of reminded me a little bit of that Portafoy episode from the you know, the pilot, this whole thing of you know, using supernatural means to get rid of somebody. Wasn't it filmed in the same house? Sure looked like every every time they do an episode in a building or a house with a staircase, like a grand staircase. I just I'm you couldn't convince me it's not that same set from the first episode of the show. We got a staircase in this one.

Let's go over to stage twelve, right the werewolf noises though, we're going to leave those out, Yeah for this this time, just this one. I think this is I liked this one a lot. I thought it was a great idea, one I wish were actually true real estate being sold because the houses are haunted, and not just rent or buy a haunted house, but what level of haunting you're looking for? Right? And where the ghost is?

Yeah, like, oh, do you want this is a basement ghost? You're good? With that, like, yeah, that sounds good, like just moaning right, nothing, it's not gonna stab me. Oh no, no, no no, it just moans, uh, Joanne Warley, I agree with you, Mike. I adore her and I've never seen her so restrained.

Yea performance, she's usually like beyond ten. She's up at fifteen or twenty like with that voice. And she was great at it. I'm not criticizing or anything, but like good to see a natural performance out of her here. You know, they kept talking.

Okay, so the lead characters have swapped houses. They're from New Jersey. They've taken this flat in London, which they were in a house in New Jersey. Bob Crane's talking about it like it's the greatest thing on earth and like how terrible that where they are then, And I'm just like, are you guys kidding? You're in the middle of London, Like we can't we can't have good parties.

We know what kind of parties you're looking for, Bob, I did appreciate that, you know, there's a little tongue in cheek, maybe not just a tongue, but so okay, So they get to the they get to the new house, with ghost and immediately the ghost starts to fuck with them by using a ghost razor. My favorite part of the episode this this this razor that the ghost is cutting their bag open with. Oh my god, oh just one example of ghost items. Because later he gives him a bill like a ghost bill, a ghost receipt. This is your this is your charge.

I don't know that tickled me more than that showed up. Oh. I did want to point out that his mistress, uh, Bob Crane's mistress that he's a philandering around with was Tricia Noble. She was Padme's mom in the Star Wars prequels. Oh wow, good call on that.

I never would have put those two together. Yeah, I mean she looked great here and then like thinking back, like she just died maybe you know, a few years ago. But um, but in the prequels she looked great too, So I don't know, I don't know what she was drinking, but it was working overall. I really did like the episode. I think her demise, Oh my god, when when she's being pulled down the hallway by this specter sort of early on, like I thought it was genuinely frightening.

They used this fish eye lens on it and stuff, and it felt unsettling and I and I genuinely felt for her. Also when she finally goes tumbling down the stairs to her demise, the fact that Bob Crane flattens himself against the walls and just watches her tumble like again, just that rely sackish shit, really just one a horrible guy, and like, you know, he deserved worse than he got. However, that's what I'm saying, man, he really deserved worse. Way he wasn't really getting a proper come up. And so the ghost shows up and he's like, all right, listen, I did this for you, and now you're going to be paying my mistress because my mistress got shot out by my ex wife so or my late wife or I'm the late anyway, so that's what's going to happen.

And if you don't do that, I'm going to kill you. But it seems that ghosts are sort of bound by their physical limitation, like their previous residences, right, Like, there's not the basis of the entire episode, So how does he propose to enforce that easily? Have ghost friends on the outside. I mean, the solution is just as Bob Crane, I'd just be like later, yeah, like, hey, you know what, suddenly New Jersey sounds great to me. Thanks for the thanks, thanks for the murder by.

I'm going home, Guys, like, I don't know why you expected me to stick around here where my wife was murdered by a ghost who can't leave the house. I know Poultergeist rules. Apparently we play by Poultergeist rules here. I'll just head to the hotel, put the TV outside. Yeah, right, like, you know, but really enjoyable episode.

And from gene Kearney, who I have pretty much not enjoyed anything he's written so far. I think this one was speaking of Lovecraft last time. Darelith ends up being like the one of the people who is originally publishing Lovecraft right right, Like he kind of made his bones publishing Lovecraft stuff totally. And this is Yeah, this is a worthy adaptation of the work. I think, Yeah, I think this is I think this is this is fun because of who they have in it.

If it hadn't been Bob Crane might not have been as fun. But he's he's enjoying himself the same way Larry Hagman was enjoying himself in the first season of this show. Yeah, bring back Larry Hagman. I want more of him. Right, there are a few actors who pop up a bunch.

We're gonna see William Wyndham again, and Joanna Pettit shows up next season and John as as an actor at the end of this episode. Who's been on the show what two other times? Now? Well, he directed his wife was just on. Yeah, exactly, that's why.

And I don't know if they were married at this point. I don't think they were actually, but but yeah, John Astman was appeared in the first season, he appears and this season. He appears next season as well, So yeah, give us more of Bob Crane and Larry Hagman. I guess you know. Yeah, Bob Crane, he just like, oh, you just want to slap him.

But at the same time, he's like he's so charming. It's it's I don't know, it's an off putting combination. I've never looked into his murder and that would be something maybe worth doing an episode of another show on because there it's never been solved. Right, That's what Auto Focus is ostensibly about. So yeah, I wanted Auto Focus to be better.

I really wanted it to be better. Like I was more interested in the video equipment they were using than the actual movie, and I was like, I think I should probably care more about the characters, but I was just like, oh, is that an old tube video camera? How did the deck? How they doing? Yeah?

It did sort of fetishize that equipment because I felt the same way like okay, good oh yeah, no, no, but I think I I keyed in a little bit more than you. But but yes, that's that. That's what that whole movie is about. Look at that equipment. Man, like, oh yeah, look at that screen he's putting in.

Jesus Christ. What a setup. And he kind of just want, you know, warmed the Foe to come over to your house and like, hey man, let's have an orgy. It's like, yeah, great, it's a group grow buddy. Yeah.

I just wanted to see those tapes too. That was the other thing. I was just like, yeah, just show me the Bob Green tapes. I don't care about the rest of this stuff. Now, are they out there?

Has anyone seen them? I don't know. I haven't seen them. What is this like snuff film? Is that what you want to watch?

No, no, no, they filmed all of their dalliances they had like origin craziness. Yeah right, and it ties into the murder. So before we get to our next segment this season, I've been highlighting some talent behind the scenes in night Gallery. Old of this case, it is in front of the camera. It appears in our next segment simply named Bat's Chirping.

Very scooby doo. Yeah, they didn't have to go far for this because it actually originated in the Universal Sound effects department. I'm not sure of the date of its creation, but I do know bats Chirping has appeared in literally hundreds of different titles, not the least of which is every Halloween episode of every television series produced by Universal Television. And it actually bats Chirping kicks off our next segment, which is a midnight visit to the neighborhood Blood Bang, written by Jack Laird, directed by William Hale, starring Victor Blono. So that's two Batman alumni in the same Well, we're having a little beneath the Planet of the Apes reunion here as well with the next segment.

Right chronologically speaking, this is Blono's first appearance on the show. But if you had seen it anytime other than its original airing, this would be the second time you had seen him because the segment I forget the name of it replaced, which is Satisfaction Guarantee Unity. There we go that replaced which is brew on the last season. So oh. It also starts at Journey Laird, the other the other actress, and that that is Jack Laird's daughter.

It's it's a blackout sketch. Dracula shows up, wants some blood, but she gave at the office. That's the whole thing. It's just a matter of semantics. Really, why are the titles not swapped?

I don't get it. Yeah, because literally I gave it the yeah. Yeah, Like this would be a total waste of time if Victor Bonos weren't so goddamn charming man. Oh yes, I like he's saved something like murder can hurt you from being not as good as it could have been because he commits in something like that. I appreciate Victor Bono committing whenever he's doing anything.

Oh, he's amazing. I like that little notebook he has, though, little notebook of victims, Like, oh, I don't know, I gotta cross another one. I can't can't feed on this one. He's dressing like it's the eighteen nineties, but he's got a twentieth century solution, you know, right, and just all the makeup on his face. He's so different of a performance of Dracula than when we just saw Caesar Ramara.

Right. Wouldn't you like to see a whole movie of Buono's Dracula? I sure would, Yes, I actually would. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a Buono versus Romero, you know, like you said another, take our Batman villains and cast them in a new characters all both his Dracula, yes, and then have George Hamilton being the referee between the two of them and just calling them both derogatory slurs the entire time. Yeah, where's the multiverse Dracula movie that needs to happen with every version?

Can't we digitize them all into one thing? Please? Yes? Have you ever seen The Mad Butcher with Victor Buono? Oh?

Yes? Oh so good? He's just I don't know, man, what is it about that guy? Like he's so good and everything. But you know, my first introduction was King Tutt obviously on the old Batman Show.

But like every time I see him in something, he's just so he's better than everything on screen everyone. He's even really good in something we talked about on Ranking and on Bass, the Flight of the Dragon cartoon, where he's in that with James Gregory of all people. That's right, Yeah, he's good there even like I don't know, Like again, he obviously passed away way too soon. He was forty three when he died, which is just like such a shame, just such a shame, because you really, like, if he had lived into the eighties, there would have been a whole opportunity for him to have a career resurgence. Like I genuinely believe that.

Oh yeah, he was portrayed as a character in that most recent television series Feud. Oh really yeah about Betty Davis versus Joan Crawford. Yeah, he's he's a character, and that the actor they got playing him was was remarkably good, Like wow, a decent performance, and they seem to have captured his essence. So uh, if you're if you're a bono fan, check that one out. Interesting.

Nice and past that uniquely American institution known as the Pitchman, the wheeler and Dealer of magical lustrums, guaranteed to cure, to palliate, to bring back the glow of health. Tool everything but a condover modeled dreams, if you will. Our painting is called Doctor Stringfellows Rejuvenator Drink Hardy. Our next segment is Doctor Stringfellow's Rejuvenator, written by Rod Serling, directed by Gerald Friedman. This one's special because this is the painting we used to represent Mike in all of our animated ads, but into the episode itself.

It stars Forrest Tucker, Murray Hamilton, Don Pedro, Coolly and lou Frizell. It's the story of an Old West medicine show snake oil salesman whose rejuvenation tonic can cure any ailment, including death. Maybe I think that's what happens. Which you think of this one, Mike, Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was a little confused by this one. I was so happy to see Don Pedro Collie.

I love that guy so just anytime he shows up in anything. I was so happy. Murray Hamilton, same thing, I mean, always great to see him. And then four Stucker. I thought he did a great job as well.

But yeah, it just didn't get the motivation of these characters and exactly what was happening. I mean, it almost feels like Murray Hamilton knows Forrest Tucker from the past, but they don't really make it that clear. And then poor Don Pedro Collie, like he's not a magic Negro in this, thank goodness, but he's definitely he's dumb, but he's wise at the same time. So yeah, I was just I was a little confused as far as what was actually going on with this one. And I mean, I don't think that that Steph cured anything.

So yeah, I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this, Chris, hear me out here. I get where they were going, and it took them a long time to get there, but ultimately, what was the fucking point? So long did they go? I don't know. I think they thought that they were making some sort of interesting statement on like responsibility as someone who is full of shit selling snake oil and whether or not that haunts you as a person, And I think that's what the Murray Hamilton characters trying to get at.

But I don't get it, Like, I don't get the point of this story really, Like I was confused by the narrative that they were telling it really was. I liked it. I thought the direction was really strong. I thought the acting across the board was great. I think it looked really good, like a little movie.

You know, virtually every Western, or like b Western anyway, was made in a backlot, So here the backlot is actually a benefit instead of a distraction. As far as the story goes now, I think a medicine show character is bursting with supernatural potential in that way. I was really drawn to the episode. I was looking forward to what they were going to do with it. As far as that goes, Rod chose not to do anything really in that regard.

It's just you know, another again, I don't know what he's trying to say other than a biter gets bit kind of thing. Maybe like this man who sells hope, like you know, ends up being hopeless. Maybe what's funny is now our lead here is the antagonist right because he's duping this man who has a sick child and telling him this rejuvenation tonic is going to cure her. I don't have any problem with portraying the death of a child on screen. I think the moment in the Salton Precinct thirteen would a shoot the little girl with an ice cream cone is an actual thing of beauty and anything is on the table as far as storytelling goes.

But the story of a villain profiting on a hopeless situation, particularly with a dying child, makes me queasy in ways that are hard to articulate. The episode putting me on that kind of an edge I actually appreciated. I know it's a sounds contrary to what I just said, but I thought that was a win that I actually felt invested in that father and his child. But to me, the antagonist of this piece is absolutely not doctor Stringfellow. It's Murray Hamilton's character, who they kind of pass off as the town drunk, right.

He's a town drunk, and he used to be a surgeon, and he's supposed to be this kind of personified guilt for Stringfellow, like you know, a drunken old West Jimminy cricket, which is which is fine and interesting, except he's able to call him out because he's been witnessing what's going on. And this surgeon does not go up to that father and say, hey, your daughter's going to die. And this is nonsense and he's selling you fall, so no, he waits. He waits till they're gone so he can pounce on Forrest Tucker. Man, if he really wanted to like call him out, he could have done it while the fucking pitch was going on, like a Sweeney Todd the whole thing, you know, like this is a bullshit you're selling and all of these people are gonna die.

Who's gonna take it? Like, I don't know, I'm complaining a lot about that, but I gotta say I did enjoy the episode sort of overall weirdly, even though the ending is so obtuse, I can't even really figure it out, Like I read the script you gave me, Mike, and it's actually a little more explicit in the script in that when he sees the ghost of the girl, his reaction is, I'm hoping you're real. I'm hoping I did revive you because we're gonna make so much money with my ton and then the sign and then the sign follows on him and kills him, and that made sense. What we get here is it was a ghost, I guess, but she makes the sign fall on him, like don't I don't know who knows, right, who knows it's not supernatural, but it is the fact that Rod Serling can't pick is really frustrating because there's nothing wrong with it being supernatural.

Actually that that maybe one of the reasons we're here for fuck's sake, Like, don't feel like you have to hew close to reality constantly and every there can without without with supernatural stakes, there can be no real come uppance is kind of what this feels like. Sometimes it's like supernatural come up and says somehow are less are less than a real come up, And it's like, oh, someone being turned into a fly and being stuck in a web is less of a come up and send a sign cracking this dude over the back of his head and causing him to just die from a broken neck maybe or or again not clear, very obtuse. So and that's the thing, like, Rod, you made your bones on the show about the supernatural interceding in people's lives and teaching them a lesson.

Why are you pretending to like it's not something you want to be involved with now? Right right? Yeah? Where's that monkey pot edge to this? Even the diary Like, okay, it's pretty explicit at the end, like that was that was a punch.

This is a weak slap, Like, you know, I don't want to kick him again, but you know he's not He's not a horror guy ultimately, like as much as he forced himself to be a science fiction guy for Twilight Zone, like, horror just doesn't mesh with Rod unless it's just bitterly ironic enough to qualify. But like, once he gets into ghosts and stuff, he just seems out of his depth. And that's evident here. And what's great is Forest Tucker is so immensely unlikable that you really want to see him get his come up and in a really satisfying way. Yeah, and I don't.

I have not seen Forrest Tucker in a lot of things. He's an original ghostbuster, guys, that's a thing. It's a real horrified ghost. Oh yeah, yeah, he's he's like he's the yokel on that show. I believe.

Um. He seems so immensely unlikable, just like as a person, I feel like, like to his core being like not maybe four Stucker the actor wasn't that way, but it just seems like he has such an air about him that it is just natural that this character feels so nasty and it just I wanted to come up. It's to fit the crime of taking advantage of a father and daughter who are like wasting away in front of him, like you need to pay the pay the piper pal, and not just oh maybe it was supernatural, like take a stand, Rod, Come on, man, it's your show still still, how's your name on it? It's been so long since I've seen F Troop, But I want to say he was kind of almost the Andy Griffith to Larry Storch's Barney Fife in that one.

But I could be proven wrong very easily. It's funny because when I was growing up, F Troop and Hogan's heroes were like Staples on TV, so getting revisitation of these two actors is kind of interesting. Oh. I was having f TP flashbacks all through this, Like I loved him on that show. I loved him here he was so mean, but like, yeah, he haint that way in the on F Troop Chris, like he's a he's fun, interesting and nice, Like yeah, interesting and interesting, huh.

He portrays the he portrays such a bastard so well. I kind of you could convince me he was just this way, and I'd be like, yeah, right, so I love Maray Hamilton just playing characters with no backbones, like that's just his Yeah, yeah, all right, you spineless turn. Well, you know he was on the Twilight Zone. He was in an episode that Rod Serling Roade of course, called One for the Angels, where he played Death and Death was pretty spineless there too, Like go you go, Mary Hamilton. Yeah, he's so great.

I love him. Oh you know what I wanted to say, Like this got me reading about traveling medicine shows and uh so you know they they sprang up in Europe, you know, in the like the seventeenth century, and there it was all about the pitch. So they started doing like a little performance beforehand, uh you know, jugglers or sharp shooting or whatever, just to draw people in. When it came to America, and it came with the original colonists, like they sprung up almost immediately, slowly over time it became the pitch was sort of thrown in at the beginning, and it became about the show, which is such an American thing. It just made me happy to read that.

Um. And they actually lasted until the nineteen forties. They were put out of business by the Food and Drug Administration in the Federal Trade Commission. You know, nice. Yeah, the real question is were those jugglers crusty?

I don't get that. No one, Like we don't say the word juggler enough, right, Like what are we gonna use the word juggling jugglers in in every day in everyday parliance? So well, trust me, you do not want to watch the movie no to the juggler, think that you're gonna get that. So where was the juggling? I know, I can think of two things wrong with that title.

When I was I was a projectionist and we showed the director's kind of Brazil had just come out, and we had literally dozens of people like every weekend go I thought it was about Brazil what like like where did they get to Brazil? Yes? Like what like Brazilians coming out? Like I thought this was going to be my homeland for final selection this evening an import from that other region, that infernal inferno down below overdue now in living color and with a small set of sulfur our painting is called Hell's Bells. Our final segment is entitled Hell's Bells, written by Theodore J.

Flicker, based in a short story by Harry Turner and directed by Theodore J. Flicker, starring John Aston and special appearances as the group of demons gene Kearney, Jack Laird, and then Theodore J. Flicker as the devil himself. This is a story of hippies and hell fire when Randy Miller finds himself in a new version of Eternal Damnation. Would I think, Chris, hey, you've got the two hosts of the Barney Miller Show talking about Teddy J.

Flicker. Yeah, I don't know any I mean, the only other person who might be able to speak to Theodore J. Flicker better than the two of us might be our good friend Otto Bruno. You know, it's a blackout sketch, right, just extended. It's like three panels as opposed to one.

John Aston playing a hippie will never not be funny because he is not believable as a hippie. I guess I don't know. I've never seen him trying to be so hip man, but it was pretty funny. It's pretty hilarious. This is way funnier than it has any right to be.

But I think it's just the right length to be. It's fun. It's fun, and that's all it needs to be. I bet you, Mike, Yeah, I I mean that he has to come to the realization and have the devil tell him, well, there's a house just like this, uh in the other place too, and just like really spell it out to him as far as what one man's heaven is another man's hell. Okay, thanks, but I was just so happy to see Hank Warden in here as the very boring man.

I'm hoping everybody would know him as the waiter from Twin Peaks, the I Know about you, just that old man just had his mind and I knew I knew him from somewhere. That's yeah, that's the he's the Giants counterpart from the Black Lodge. Yeah, it's so great this the overriding in this that kind of like two on the nose bit about in heaven as a room just like this one. Right. That was I thought for a moment that the antasmagorical apparition of Rod Sterling had invaded my screen, because that's a Rod sterling ism if I've ever heard one.

Holy shit, come on, Rod, we get it, Rod, we get it. Yeah, but this is not Rod's problem that he didn't do this. This is no, he sure didn't. He didn't, you know it. What's weird is this is the exact story from Pamela's Voice starring John Aston last season where we figure out that she's in heaven and he's in hell in the same room.

So wow, you know so. But they didn't really sort of a hammer on that in that episode. It was just about him being stuck with her forever. That was kind of the thrust of it. But underlying was this concept and now here it is sort of laid out a little too bare, but it's entirely worth it.

For those boots, man, those patch where patent leather boots. He's holy shit, those are beautiful. I love him as a hippie. I think he's hilarious. He seems like I think most hippies would be just people just dressing the part, looking for free love and shit.

You know, he speaks the lingo, but he didn't believe any of it. And we all know by the end of the eighties they're going to be so disillusioned they want to reboot the Twilight Zone and make it all about how disilusion They are exactly right, for the opening salvo, this is the guy. Did you guys read the short story? This is based on exact same thing, exact same thing, except it's not obviously not a hippie. It's it takes place in England.

These are English characters. The one major difference is that Randy Miller is the name of our character here in the short story, it's Septimus Throgmorton, Duff Throgmorton best name. Oh oh wait, of course that's even better. They so should have kept that. They absolutely should have kept it.

There's no there's no cleaning lady who she just sort of keeps, you know, showing up in like in delivering exposition. I love I love the the montage of what John Aston is imagining hell will be like. And you know, I don't know. Something about that montage like made me happy. Also his his line reading I saw this episode right around the same time I saw the previous woman's about ten or eleven years old, and his man, you're boring, John asked, saying that to that guy in that tone like has reverberated in my head for forty some ideas.

I don't know, it's it's it's brief enough. You know, if it wasn't John Aston, I don't know that they could have justified the length of this one. Like you said, Chris, it's a three panel, but it could have been a one, you know, oh for sure, and and and anybody else it would have been. Yeah, but he's just so funny. He's look, he's so charming John and Aston really is.

It's it's almost like he was a lead in another show that he's so well known for that everybody else is just doing him anytime they do that character like and then that John Aston is one of the more charismatic actors I can genuinely think of. That's still around too. He's ninety two, Yeah, still going out to the One World Cafe down in Baltimore, walks there every day. Apparently. Wow.

Well, you know, my great regret in life was that I was living in Santa Monica in the early nineties and was unaware that he was teaching yoga. That you could just, wow, just go to his house and learn yoga from John Aston. WHOA, that sounds amazing deep regret, that's wild. Anything else on this one, it's pretty brave. I mean, you know, love John Aston.

I can't wait to see him again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I always look forward to it. Yeah. John Aston makes a impression anytime he's in anything, to the point where I always forget that he's at the beginning of National Lampoon's European Vacation. But every time I watched that movie, I am always so happy to see him as a I guess playing you know Richard Dawson.

Essentially, do you watch a movie offer once a year? Wow? Okay, I kind of like that movie. I don't know. That was the first one I ever saw of the Vacation movie.

Same here. I saw it a drive in and but I never went back. Interesting, I get it. I've seen it a bunch, not not every year, but hey, man, you like what you like? You know what they say?

I mean, hey, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla. Yeah, you know, there's a there's like a there's there's always one music in that movie too, Robert Plant and in European Vacation. Yeah, oh yeah, no, there's some really good music in that actually. Yeah. And you know Holiday Road.

I mean, come on, oh boy, yeah, what better? Sat Plant Pomoir. That is a great song. Yeah, first first appearance of that song in an American production. All right, we're going to play a preview of the next episode and we'll read right back to wrap things up.

This picturesque background is rural America. It's central figure a young school teacher. But this is where the commonplace ends. You're about to join a roster of students and the learning experience quite without the press. The painting is called Dark Boy, and this particular repository is called the Night Gallery.

Presume that most of you, in moments of weakness or in spasms of compassion, that picked up a hitchhiker. The story behind this item here has to do with a man who stops his car and invites a stranger in. And such a stranger the kind that makes you wish you'd taking the buzzer stayed in bed. It's title keep in Touch Will think of something that's right. On the next midnight viewing, we'll be taking a look at season two, episode ten that's broken into only two segments, the Dark Boy and keep in Touch Will Think of Something Until next time.

Where can people find you, Mike White? You can find me over our Projection boothpodcast dot com. Let's I've got my links to all the socials and all the places where you can listen to the podcast, or you can just go over to Wordingway media dot com and listen to it there, and you, Chris as you the same. Weirdingwaymedia dot com is where you can find this show and so many other shows worth checking out, including, like Mike said, Projection Booth, Astounding Tales of the Public Domain, which is your show father alone, and then the Culture Cast, and all the things we worked on together and separately throughout the years and into the future. He did it for me, all right.

Thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. The gallery is now closed.