Night Gallery S03E13&14&15 (Whisper - The Doll of Death - Hatred Unto Death - How to Cure the Common Vampire - Die Now Pay Later)

All right, listen up, Cave's I got your assignments riga six four three wheeler one four eight n eight oh four and only you. You need to join host HP and Father Alone as they examine one of the greatest sitcoms in television history, Taxi in Night, Mister Walters, a taxi podcast BANDA zero like your boxing record, Frank, mister Walters, We're in way now check this one if you will. Tonight we offer you these summer food of a scientist figure. But there are at least some of the things that cannot be accomplished, and they're in Lives and tail Man Hames, The Picture Giveness, The Night Gallery. Welcome back, art lovers to Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology podcast, where we've been discussing Night Gallery, Rod Serlings follow up to The Twilight Zone.

I'm Father alone and with me here in the what's not the Gallery? I guess we're in the gallery right now anyway. The Culture Cast Chris Stasure. I prefer to be known from here on out as cheap. Yeah.

The projection booths. Mike White just grabbing me really tight across the back like a big hug. Tonight we are talking about the end of season three. Those are episodes thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen. In the segments therein Our Whisper, the Doll of Death, Hate, Hate to Death, hav to Cure a common Vampire, and yeah, there's so many segments.

So there's a segment that was originally filmed for season two that ended up being aired in syndication. We're gonna be talking about that that and I do want to point out that with the series did end on a blackout sketch. But first up, Whisper strips of ethereal night clouds are seen from the vantage point of a square acre of tombstones and the face of a neutral onlooker who surveys the silence, well, perhaps not quite total silence, because the name of our painting is Whisper, and it tells the story of one body inhabited by two people. And at a point, as you can well imagine, this gets crowded. And if this one doesn't ice up, you old spine, we'll send you one of our official apologies along with the body.

That's the kind of guarantee you get in the night Gallery. This is season three, episode thirteen. It aired on May thirteenth, nineteen seventy three. The previous episode aired in March. They skipped the entire month of April.

What why That is because they couldn't handle the awesomeness of April of nineteen seventy three anyway. It was written by David Rafiel from a short story by Martin Waddell. Directed by Jean Zuark. It stars Tony Hey, Tony no Phony, Baloney, Tony the Tiger, LaRusso, Dean Stockwell, Ladies and Gentlemen, also Sally Field. It is about it.

It is the story of a young wife who's getting high on ghosts and her husband is the dealer. Like what you think about this one? Don't nobody can see you? Whisper ha ha, You couldn't hear me whisper that you that I could. I didn't really like this one all, especially the way that it ended.

I had no freaking idea what was going on for so much of this one and then it just ended? What the fuck? So what did I miss? What did I miss with it? That seems to be my thing for the shows, And somebody please explain this to me?

Okay? Very simple young couple Stockwell and Sally Field. Sally Field is touched she can communicate with the dead, or she's like a conduit for the dead. They can take her over and they can solve their problems, their unfinished business on earth through her. And Stockwell has always known this and known it's true and is attracted to that aspect of it, even though it's frightening and he's a little worried.

She one time she won't be able to get back. She feels a pole across the country, and so they end up stopping the small town where they've been living for about three months, and she keeps looking for this house over and over again, and then Stockwell goes, see, here's the thing. Stockwell goes to a doctor to get her sleeping pills. At that point, the doctor said doctor is categorizing it as hallucinations, and he's basically blaming Stockwell for enabling these things. And he says, I've seen cases like this.

The subject wants to go further, they don't want to come back. That's the setup for the end, because eventually the main ghost that's been haunting her trying to find the summer house, it's another young bride whose child had died and their baby was interred incorrectly and that has to be corrected and that's been the task the whole time. Wow. So Dean Stockwell plays the part of the husband and he buries the baby, the proxy for the baby. But it's been happening for so long that what Sally feel, what Dean Stockwell was worried about, and what the doctor warned about comes to pass and she can't get back to her body.

Yeah. Wow, So I was so confused because Sally Field through this whole episode is talking I guess with the ghosts she but yes, but she is the ghost at times, but she's talking with the ghost and then Dean Stockwell, I guess he's talking to us the audience. Yes, Okay, See that's the most confusing thing. You can't have one character talking to nobody and then have another character talking to nobody, but one character's talking to another character and another character's talking to us. That was really fucked up.

Man. I'm sorry, but I just like, I'm with you. It's fucking bizarre. Look hy like, are you like it's my thing on this show? It's not yet?

Things like fucking win? Are you that? That's what I feel like? I mean? To be fair, how many times have I asked that on this show, I'm not high while I'm watching these episodes, I swear I'm straight.

But to be fair, I was gonna say I did get what was going on, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, this is just a god this is just a spinning of wheels and a treading of water for twenty minutes, just the and you know what, Dean Stock was fine. Sally Field's fine. Sally Field doesn't play the crazy very well. She's just too goddamn and daring as an actress. And yeah, the ending is just, oh, you need to see Sybil's Yeah, I haven't seen that, so barring not having not seen that, this is not a very good representation of that is probably a better way of putting it.

And the ending is laughably bad. I mean, it's it's it's yeah, it's it's as nines. Oh my god. But what so the question then becomes, if you can't get back to your body, what does that mean? What the what does that mean?

Does that mean she's just a catatonic shell, eyes rolled back into her head, can't do anything, or is the ghost still in her body? Again? This isn't a oh they don't explain it because they don't need to. They don't explain it because I don't think they have a way to explain it, because they spend twenty minutes doing everything in their power to try to show, not tell, what's going on, and they somehow fail remarkably. You just wait, Father Malone's gonna love this episode.

I fucking loved this episode. I did. Boy, that is the theme here. It's too hot, too cold, just right. It's the magic of John's work.

No, I'm not that's not the case. I'm not liking it to the John's works. Wark should be the name of your next podcast, because I think at this point you have been You have defended no director more ever in the history of anything we've worked on than Jean's Wark. He's really good and he does fucking really good work here, Man, what can I tell you? He's no John Batham.

I'll tell you that he's at least Batham's equal. Live sir. Okay, here's what I liked about it. I liked the confusion at the beginning where okay, first of all, it starts in it it's typical of Night Gallery the entire run of the series, where I think we've all been baffled for a good portion of every segment as to what time period this is. But this episode actually embraces that.

It makes us that we're in some sort of like little house on the prairie time. And then suddenly she's burning a plane ticket and the thing, I thought, that was great, I do understand what you're saying, like, because she's talking to what I thought was her. I thought she was breaking the fourth wall. I thought she was talking to us initially, but then she's just talking to nobody. And then when we get outside, it's this slow pan of her and we get this voiceover.

I thought, I like, oh, we're getting a voice over from Dean Stockhol. We're gonna pan over and see what he's up to. And then we realize he's speaking out loud, and then is he narrating to himself? And then he turns to us, and it's so unnerving. Every time they've done it, and they've done it a lot this season, it works like Gangbusters mat And not only that, in this he basically says to us, you're dead.

That was extra uneasy, thinking I'm now supposed to be viewing this in the guise of a ghost. I'm just one of these floating spirits around her, and he keeps looking to us and over again he'll notice us peering at them. I liked that a lot. I think, honestly, is the this is an episode that Rod envisioned. I know he had nothing to do with this episode, but this is what he wanted Night Galler to be beginning to end.

I think these gentle character pieces with supernatural overtones, that's what I took away from Anyway. I do want to point out one thing. I haven't done this in some time, but there is another performer in this episode who deserves a bit of a spotlight. Here we go. Oh that stormy wind from the hannahbar Era library so good.

I'm glad I had to hear it again. I'm gonna play it again because it comes up again later. Oh. I know. It really to the point where when I was watching it with my wife, she goes, can you turn it down?

It's really obnoxious, And then I go, of all the times to be watching this you as opposed to early in the morning. So here's something cool. When William, Hannah and Joseph Barbera left MGM to start Hannah Barbera animation, they took their sound editor from MGM, who in turn took with him a massive amount of sounds from the MGM library, which had made available to all the studios in nineteen sixty five when Hannah Barbara released it as their own soundtrack library that includes Stormy Wind. Here it plays a prominent role. Here, it's been played too often, too long.

It is no longer in use, thank god, but it has appeared a lot in Nike Gary Gallery. It just was so prominently displayed. I had to had to point it out here. Yeah, I am shocked that you like this, But to Mike's point, it is kind of on brand. But that's not a bad thing.

Like I think my issue is more in tune with where Mike is coming from, which is I really had a hard time understanding what the fuck who the fuck was being talked to and that I mean again, I understand I ended up understanding what was going on. I just I don't know coupling the weird storytelling with a very weak ending, Like again, I'm really struggling to understand what the what the the meaning of the story is. Can I say about the ending? I actually found it horrified that the concept, Like I know, they don't explain to us what it means. But in my mind, she's just floating in the ether now and her body is a vegetable, like right, so it's like get out there, like okay, yeah, And now not even that.

But Dean Stockwell now is stuck with the notion that everyone has said to him, you shouldn't be encouraging this in her, And like the docu even says, teim, she's got all these things. What do you have? I've got her. So the horror here is that now he's caused this thing and this crisis of supernatural conscience. This, I don't know.

It bothered me. It worked on me at this ending. What can I tell you? I get it you and passionately describing it I think made me appreciate it a little bit more just now because it did a very poor job in expressing it's Dean Stockwell man, he's just so goddamned expressive. The best part of this episode.

Oh my god, he's amazing. I enjoy any chance to see him, and he elevates everything and I don't think I don't think the script does him in the service. Too often on this show, we've had really like Powerhouse guest stars who have been ill served by the script. I don't think the script will served anybody here. I know, I understand the problems you guys had with it, and I understand them.

I don't know it just this one just vibrated on a different frequency with me for some reason. It's okay. I feel like while we might disagree about this one, I feel like the longer we go on in this episode, the less we're gonna disagree, probably to the point of complete and total agreement. It's gonna be a high five at the end. We don't need to say a word.

Yeah, there'll be a freeze frame. Yeah, it'll be good. Anything else about the whispering? All right? Then?

Dally Field is cute in this She's very adorable adorable. I know he's been adorable, I know, but like it's like extra adorable, like extra adorable, Like they shoot her in such a way and she's just sent her free in the whole time, talking into the distance, like just something about it, Like they just went adorable twenty eye and they were lucky to get it. Yeah. Here at the end of the night Gallery Road, we call your attention to this general facial study withou, the one visible intriguing eye and the windblown hair. And to those of you whose visual acuity is perhaps better than most, you'll note these skulls that that one eye is contemplating.

This painting is called Doll of Death, and it tells a story that takes place in the West Indies, where the ancient art of voodoo is still practiced and celebrated. Now, if you don't believe in voodoo, you can take this with a grain of salt. On the other hand, if you find yourself dancing to that distant drummer and the drum seems to beckon, check for missing pins and brand new dolls. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Night Gallery. Our next segment is Doll of Death.

This one aired on This was season three, episode fourteen. It aired on May the twentieth, nineteen seventy three. This one was written by Jack Guss, based on a short story by Vivian Mike and directed by John Badam And This one stars Susan Strasburg, her second appearance after Midnight Ever Ends. She'll eventually show up on another horror anthology show, Tales from the Dark Side. It also stars Alejandro Ray Murray Matheson, who fans of Manichek will realize will recognize as Felix and the Check's version of Huggy Bear and alternately, and it also starts alternately the Father of Vulcan Philosophy and the Scourge of my hometown, Las Vegas, Barry Atwater.

This is the story of a spurned English aristocrat who uses voodoo against the man who ran off with his bride. Would you think of this one, Chris boy? It feels slightly ironic to end this series with a an episode with Barry Atwater, and it given that was the first thing that Mike and I ever collaborated on. Oh so back in the early days of anything on the Nightstock Marine. He was yaoscurs me, this is fun You know what this is?

This is the episode that Tales from the Crypt wish it could have ever done with voodoo anything. It's somehow the most successful voodoo thing I've ever seen in any one of these shows, these kinds of anthology shows so far, mind you, and the least racially problematic. Yes, right, Shock King, It's what's funny? Is you know? Again?

To mention something else we worked on, we did a Tales from the crypt Show, and it almost was like a primer, a primer as it were for what we're doing now, because that was the first anthology thing you and I ever worked on, Father Malone, and it really is like the episode that the show never had. Because that show, we went on the record multiple times talking about how offensive most of those Voodoo episodes were and bad more or less across the board. This is the first one that's neither bad nor offensive. It's just kind of it does the voodoo thing, and it does it, but because it's this weird white dude doing it, it's just, oh, this is just weird instead of being problematic. Yeah, I found myself enjoying this one quite a bit.

Yeah. I see the twists coming and everything with all the attention being paid to that ring and everything, But I thought that they handled it pretty darn well. And I liked when the voodoo stuff starts proper. That Alejandra Ray is just an absolute agony. Seeing that kind of reaction on screen, I really like.

So I love to see people in pain, is what I'm trying to say. And the makeup serves it so well. There it's nearly fingers that have been crushing his back. It's really it's creepy and odd and wonderful. Yeah.

I really like that effect of the fingers and just the way they fade in. It was nice. Yeah. I really enjoyed this one too. I agree with you, Chris.

This is Townsender. Crypt was yearning to get close to this episode where the characters are all well defined and the dialogue is good and I understand everyone's point of view, and we're dabbling in voodoo when we shouldn't be, and it's a bunch of white people doing white people things. Yeha, and that's as it should be. Like every other time we've seen voodoo, especially when we did Chronicle Crypt, it was like, oh, look, it's the white people. And then there's all the island folk dancing around of five in the distance, and stay away from them.

They're coming closer. And what happens when they come into town. They're gonna take you back to their village and do god knows what. It's Wow, this is fucking ridiculous. And it was just that over and over again.

It was often, here's the other thing. I'm glad it wasn't. I'm glad it wasn't zombies, because that was the other thing on Chronicles from the Crypt, when we talked about Tales from the Crypt, it was always zombies. It was never voodoo. I don't even think there ever was voodoo dolls.

I think it was always zombies or some sort of. I think at one point the thing with Clancy Brown was like a thing that made you live longer, but you were effectively like a living zombie. This is like voodoo dolls, which again I'm cool with that. That's about a baseline of voodoo thing as most Westerners knows. Okay, oh right, I remember if it was the last episode or the episode before, but we just saw a voodoo doll episode on this and it was really also effective, remember with I think it was a woman sticking the guy in the fire and everything.

Oh yeah, yeah, screaming. This is up there with that. I love how Susan Strasburg. It's just at first I thought she was being mind controlled because it's like her wedding day and here comes Alejandra Ray just like, no, you're mine. We fucked before, you gotta come with me, and it's just whoa, Okay, this is pretty raw here we fucked in the barn animals, Yes, exactly fucking hey, bro, I mean he's shouldn't be wearing white.

Yeah, he's fantatastic though, he really is. Yeah, he was in a lot of television in the sixties and the seventies and need to see a bit more of it because he was very magnetic. Oh yeah. The misstep here for me in this episode is at the end when she's holding the voodoo doll and asks him what would happen if it was your hair and your nails? It was like, Ray, didn't, You didn't Right now you're gonna say that?

Come on. I was loving the episode till this moment, but the effect at the end when Barry Attwater crushes the skull and then it's like the simplest thing. It's this weird slow mo with a little bit of a double exposure and his scream extended and weirded out, like his skull is somehow imploding inside. Oh it was wonderful. I loved it.

I thought that was a I don't know, Barry Atwater just plays such a creep so perfectly. Look again, he's young, ascores any which big place in my heart. But this is a pretty This is a pretty good role for him to just chew up. And then yeah, when he cocks back and smacks Susan Strasberg, Dude, you're huge, Like you're gonna whack this woman's head clean off of her body. And yeah, when he inadvertently kills himself.

Yeah, I like, man that if they could have done a better effect, they would have, And that would have been if Tells from the Crypto would have had his head explode. Yeah, the whole episode would have been predicated on that effect going off right, the rival scanner right right. This feels almost more like a radio plate to me, the way that it's set up, And I could close my eyes and kind of imagine hearing this on the radio back in the nineteen fifties or something and just like, oh, this is, you know, one of those spooky story type of things. And they would just have to explain that as far as like him grabbing onto the head and everything. But I think it would have worked well with that absolutely, particularly the scene on the boat when the doctor comes to talk to them.

He looked. They lay everything out basically like, oh, understand, you made a mockery of the marriage institution and now you're reaping what you sowed. But it's not voodoo because I know this guy. He wouldn't be a voodoo guy. He's a white guy seeing him right, you know, It's funny when I saw A Knight's Doctor, and I saw it a lot.

I had never seen Barryotwater in anything prior to that. I had because I had seen Star Trek, but I didn't recognize him in it. So this episode was the first time I had seen him acting. Because he doesn't have any dialogue in Night's Talk or he's just so I thought he was just some sort of stuntman lute. Just the way he looked, I didn't think he was a professional actor.

And now he's I'm watching him, he's aeradite, Like, oh no, sorry misjudging you, mister Atwater. I will say, the haircut does not and the haircut is missus. It's a choice, as they say, a real poor choice, but a choice. Nonetheless, I like the grab bag of it's not a voodoo episode at all. Like when they when he reveals that he's involved in the dark arts.

He's talking about isis like this temple. They had come to the view that I'm like, wait, what, Like you've got a potpourrie of dark magic going on down here. Okay, it's like the episode just keeps letting itself off the hook for all the problems we've had with every Voodoo episode, including here on night Gallery with the Lagota's heads. Yeah, because we've got the man servant who is an f An American gentleman. Actually Haitian Americans is where he's from, and we could have pinned everything on him, and I'm so glad that we didn't.

No, he ends up being like the one who tries to save them, like by rebelling against the dark, and he's the one who warns us at the beginning with this very unusual omen of the dread sow underneath the tree. Yeah. So I liked that shot at the beginning where we see like that that that was where I was like, this is feels a little different. Like that was again like it felt like they were going in a different direction than all the other voodooy stuff. And oh, I mean I guess this is this is obey because he even says you have rang that obay that when that scene first starts.

But within the wedding, I somehow the first time I had watched it missed the opening dialogue amongst Berry Attwater and uh Murray Matheson, And it went straight up to the bedroom and where she's getting ready and she's obviously not interested in this marriage, doesn't want to wear the gown. She's drinking rum by the fucking gallon, and and so I thought, oh, this is this is going to be the story of this poor guy who gets spurned by her. And then when I rewatched the episode, I heard what he's saying. And he's saying They're like, oh, you finally got the untamable what's her name? And he's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to break her in.

I was like, oh, fuck this guy. What Yeah, he's a real scumbaga. He breaks his own head. Yeah, what a way to go. Just what a terrible, absolutely terrible way to go.

I love that. It's it's a fitting end, and he clearly has a moment of recognition, Oh look what I've done. Yeah, yeah, this is no this this for me kind of is a late quality entry in that gallery, because we there may be a cliff that we're about to just walk right off of it. No anyone can show you a Rembrand or a Cusso or a Jaction of Pollock, but we dig much deeper with our paintings frequently six feet underground, as is the case with this painting. It's called Hatred under Death, and it makes comment on the fact that there are certain anthropologists and psychologists who hold the conviction that blood memories are passed along in the genes.

You scratch the surface of the twentieth century men and you uncover a Neanderthal. Now, if we're to accept this theory, it suggests a kind of unending reincarnation. But if man has a mister Height perpetually struggling deep within him, what lies beneath the surface of the lower beasts? We offer it neither a postulate nor promise. We simply suggest that you watch and listen.

This is the night Gallery. On to our next segment. This is Hatred unto Death. This was season three, episode fifteen. It aired May twenty seventh, nineteen seventy three, starring Steve Forrest, Dina Merril, Fernando Lamas, a man who inspired two separate SNL sketches, Kennes Masmacho Fernando Lamas, oh Ricardo Montalban That was a Bill Martrat sketch, and years later Fernando's Hideaway Billy Crystal's You Look Marvelous character was modeled on mister Lamas.

It also stars George Barrows as me the gorilla Quick worried about Barrows. He had his first role in nineteen thirty four's Tarzan and His Mate, where he played a gorilla, and he'd rack up over two dozen roles as gorillas over the years, building his own gorilla suit to do so. The most famous role of course being Roman the robot Monster. That's right, that's the robot monster chasing Steve Forest. Okay, this one's about this son, is about a conservation.

There's a whole history of these guys with these these performers. Like I think there were like two or three guys that were going around in their own gorilla costumes, and then like Rick Baker picked up the mantle with his gorilla costumes. There's this big interview on the Island of Lost Souls disc just all about these gorilla performers. Yeah, about them today. It's amazing.

Oh, it's amazing. Yeah, it's just like, oh, he had the suit and and this suit is great, and he looks amazing in this suit. We need a gorilla for this call. One of three people. Oh, Georgie.

Yeah, now George is an available called Day. All right, Dave got a good book? All right? This one is about a conservationist couple who kidnapped a gorilla and force it into a game of cat and mouse in a history museum. What do you think of this one, Mike, this is gonna be a weird good plate is such a weird complaint.

I had such trouble knowing where these characters were. Like once they they're they're in the forest and they're they're jungle, and they're going someplace and they're gonna do something. But then they run across this gorilla who just hates Steve Force, oh hates just staring daggers at him, and apparently he just loves Dina Merril. So I'm like, okay, this is interesting. But then they're like, okay, we're gonna send it to for Fernando Lamas and he's going to put like electrodes in them.

Basically, they they're cunning him to be sending sending him to be vivisected. I'm like, okay, yeah, all right. What I want was I wanted those electrodes in this guy's brain, in this gorilla's brain to tell him about the like cultural memory type of thing. Thank god, Serling basically spoiled the episode in his introduction by talking about blood memory and things, because otherwise I don't know if I would have picked it up until way near the end of this when it's like, oh, you seem to know me, big fella, don't you. Oh look at you look and all that hatred in those eyes, And I'm like, uh h, you can only say that so many times, but they want to push it to say it as many times as possible.

Mike Chris, Before you, I just want to point out that this one was written my Halsted Wells and directed by Gerald Perry Finnerman. Are you saying that we should give this less of slack because it's not, as you know, Slirk. Things obviously go to town, That's what I'm saying. I don't know if y'all know this about me, but I'm a huge fan of gorillas and primates. I think they're fun and cute, and who doesn't.

And I have a friend who went to Africa last year and got to go see gorillas in the wild. I was very jealous, very jealous. So this episode is right up my house in terms of the insanity that is on screen with a gorilla with human eyes and one of the greatest, if not the greatest, montage with a gorilla's face with images super close. Oh my god, I love that. So that's the greatest minute of television you'll ever see, because it's just fucking insane.

This entire episode, which is fucking insane. Steve Forrest gets impaled by a gorilla in its blast dying breaths. It's fucking and it's just fucking insane. I can't even believe this is night Gallery. This feels like a joke because it's so bananas.

I. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about this. Here's the problem for the episode. For me, it feels as if it was written from like a It was written to illustrate this idea of genetic memory. Somebody read about that and when oh, I want to write a story about that.

The other part of it is a tense, like I said, cat and mouse game between a gorilla and a man with a certain number of bullets who's also trying to protect his wife, who's now she's fair game. And that stuff is great, But all the other stuff with them with the gorilla, when they first of all, everything we were praising the previous episode about, like avoiding all of the racial bullshit like that rust real hard at the beginning of this episode when we're in Africa, by the way, I think, I always think it's really funny when they redressed the hills to be the jungle. But they clear doing it in the winter here because everything is dead except for the jungle plants that they lined the roads with. Wait, that's not Africa.

Wait a second, you're telling me this was through the roof. Oh my god, I figured it. What I mean? Yeah, I thought they were on the Veldt the entire time. What the fuck?

I think, why we went to Africa at all? Why not just have it be this couple who are like primatologists, have this thing show up and it hates this one guy, and then we can get into that because the whole genetic memory thing, Like he's wondering from the opening, like why does he hate me? So what does he recognize me? Well from what? And then he gets back and then Fernandolamus is like, you haven't dealt with primates?

What do you think it is me? He remembers you, And then fucking Dina Merrill is talking to him like, I think you remembered. I'm gonna tell you a story, mister gorilla. You remember back in the day when you were fighting with the pale man who had been the trees and he beat you and then he took you a woman. Oh my god, how about we just have the monkey running around chasing Steve Forrest while he's shooting at it and dropping his gun inexplicably.

I think the better part is why why did Dina Merrill instead of going and closing the cage, she picked up the phone and called Steve Forest tell him that the gorilla had escaped when the gorilla was in fact still in the cage with the door three quarters closed, and she goes the gorilla's escape, and then the gorilla comes charging out of the cage at her after she took five seconds to call him. I mean, it's just it's really ridiculous, and I feel like the only way to enjoy the later part of this episode is to just throw caution to the wind. And god had they had a guy in a gorilla suit and two other actors and they just said, go nuts because we're we're fucked. Otherwise we're fucked otherwise, because this is a this is nonsensical beyond belief.

Rod Serling attempts to say even a nonsensical episode, and I think he does it better job than you would think he could. But I like the Gorilla. I liked all the gorilla stuff. That was fun, like all the stuff when it when the lights go out in that museum and did the elevator ain't gonna ain't gonna be taking them anywhere? I thought it was.

I thought it ramped up and it was really good. I just was so tired of being lectured about fucking genetic memory. I got it, man. I mean, maybe that's because it's fucking fifty years later and it's just sort of a common thought now, but maybe revolutionary back in seventy three. I like Steve Forrest taunting ma Gorilla, Hey, cheap hay, big boy, Hey, come on down, big boy.

Like it's and that mustache he just looks like a right proper dickhead. Like it totally does. It's perfect, and it's a nice counterpoint to when we saw it really Amazon women on the movie. I saw him in that, but we also saw him in this show. Steve Forrest.

Yeah, it wasn't he in another Night Gallery episode in like the second season. I'm like nine percent sure, I don't think so, I'm gonna check. Yeah, the waiting room, waiting room, which one was that? That was the waiting room? And the Last Rites of a Dead Druid.

Oh, guys, you're you're forgetting the episode where the old Western guy goes into the bar and everybody goes stop forgetting that you're dead kid. Oh, he's the guy who keeps forgetting that he's dead, and Buddy Epsen just keeps going, You're dumb boy, Remember you're dead. Yeah, this is better than that episode, primarily because that episode didn't have a gorilla chase. After Buddy, no man, add gorilla to any Night Gallery episode that we didn't like, and it would get better. I think, to any film, any TV show, music video commercial.

I mean, the painting at the beginning of the episode is one of the best paintings. Why because it's a gorilla. And yes, that montage was just fricking amazing. I know, it's like I put some fillip glass behind that and it's like Cooleana Scots. I just think, for the first time in the entire season, the music by Eddie souder fucking worked like when it because it goes from tribalism to this synth explosion and the transition is fantastic when it goes from this litany of of jungle animals to these smokestacks just belching out, Hey, now we're in the now, we're in the man's world.

We needn't have had one speech about what the original fight between man and gorilla was. Did that montage set it all? I'm a fans I'm a fan of the usage of something kind of what I meaning again, it's like, very different from what we've seen. I don't think we've seen anything like that in the show, like as a very weird choice that stands down. I kind of wish someone else had done something similar.

But well, they attempted back. They tried back in Silent Snow, Secret Snow for this. Yeah, but that beats those gorilla eyes really well. This one was telling us something, whereas Silent Snow, Secret Snow was just like look at all the pretty stock footage of snow. Right.

Yeah, So this, I mean again, like all jokes aside as kind of wild as this episode is, like, I had fun with it. It was fun because it was just completely nuts. It's it really didn't feel like a night Gallery episode because it again, like without the genetic big boy like all of that. Even if you take that out, it's still just a guy taunting a gorilla. It doesn't say night Gallery to me.

It just it's a weird diversion away from the supernatural paranormal because a gorilla kidnapped. That's a great it is going to be aggressive in captivity because it was aggressive in the while. What did you think was going to happen? Why did you do this, Steve Forest? Because you're an asshole and it's so weird, Like even the character even his wife goes, why are you doing Davin?

She asks him, like, why are you doing this? You're normally such an a normally placid human being, which just hangs back. It doesn't you're conservationists, but all of a sudden you want to enslave this gorilla and take him home with you. Why And he just goes because he recognizes me. It's so bizarre, but yet sure, I'm along for the ride because the episode kind of just revels in it.

During the entire finale, all I kept thinking was they have to have spent it with like ten to fifteen thousand dollars to get this gorilla over here, just to murder it, like they could have just Also, during the scene where we discovered the gorilla for the first time and it's trapped in a pit, when Steve Forest makes the decision that they're going to take it with them, before we know that that's what his intention is, he walks to the back of the jeep and takes the gas can on, and for a moment I went, oh, my god, no, and then he opens the tailgate to get the net, and I was like, okay, good my god, night Gallery, you were scaring me. I was really just waiting for them to start to Steve Forrest and a gorilla to start crafting a gauntlet that allows the gorilla to talk together.

Very good. I'd like it. Ugly gorilla, go away it smart gorilla. Ugly Gorilla is ugly. What's funny is so they've shipped this gorilla to the United States.

They have it in the Natural History Museum because they're waiting for Fernando Lamis's facility to be reinforced for a beast of this size. But the entire plan is to cut this thing open and fucking turn it into a vegetable like, drug it up and haul it on over? Why is it even at the museum? And who at the museum? Okay this, Oh just put it in the back room.

Yeah, just what they should have done was hide it underneath the stairs and then sent Billy to check it out. Yeah, oh man, it reminded was it the skit from was it Kentucky Fried movie? He doesn't have one of his cigarettes? Was Amazon Woman on the same setup the film? From the gorilla's perspective?

Yeah, exactly all right. The final segment of this episode final segment aired for Night Gallery is a blackout entitled How to Cure the Common Vampire, written and directed by Jack Laird at Start, starring Richard Deacon and Johnny Brown. Johnny Brown people might remember him on Good Times as Bookman the Hotel, Hotel, the the What am I trying to say? He was the superintendent. Guys, here we go, somebody, somebody tell me what happened here?

So two guyss is Richard Deacon? That's that's not Rob Petrie's boss, is it? No? No? Wait?

Is it? Yeah? It is Mel Cooley. He played milk Cool. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

He goes in with Johnny Brown to the old spooky dark Castle, the crack opened the casket of a vampire. Uh. Johnny Brown hands over a mallet and a steak to Richard Deacon, and Deacon says, what does he say? Is this? Are you sure?

Yeah? And then Johnny Brown, in the last line of this whole series, let's just say, couldn't hurt? Couldn't hurt? Which pop is Jack lads entire philosophy for programming the show. Should we put in a segment here where somebody goes on to an elevator and just takes their head off.

Good hurt, And boy doesn't it cut? That's it? And then it boom, shoot right out. That's it. There was, Ladies and gentlemen.

You don't even need to watch it now you saw it. Theater of the Mind. God nice. Yeah, you gave Eddie Sotter too much credit. One time he did one good thing that we had to hear thirty other times poorly.

Yeah, this really is not the the encapsulation of the third season of Night Gallery in a lot of ways, that couldn't hurt And then fade to black immediately to cover up the fact that you didn't film any more than that, or god knows what the hell you were doing because it faded to black so quickly. Shame Really, I should have ended on the monkey segment. At least we could have gone out with a monkey dying after killing a guy on a pair of horns and cutting to a Neanderthal statue, remember the late Remember the late mister Pettington. When it cut to that seawan the guy falling out of the building. That really shock ending there, That's how they should have ended the serious couldn't hurt then out the window?

Is Is this any worse than the way Twilight Zone eighty five ended or Tails from the Crypt? No, this is much better. There were good episodes of this season. Yeah, I'm talking about this flying one. Yeah, I guess Yeah.

This final episode I think ends up being Yeah, Tails of the Crypt, real shit the bed and Twilight's Twilight Zone eighty five it had? Did it not have? Did we not have one or two positive things to say towards the end of that show? Or am I just Twilight Zone eighty five? Did we detest that third season in Metal?

I think there was probably one that we enjoyed and it was probably a holdover from the second season. That's fair. Yeah, I don't understand the decision to go out on a blackout sketch. They had time to fill at this point. There's no thought.

There's just cram everything together and get the thing out. There's that other series, The Fucking the The ended up prepackaging it what they were doing the same thing too. The fact that we got quality episodes at all this season is remarkable, and one with a guy in a gorilla suit nonetheless. Yeah, and appropriate that we go in a black out sketch and appropriate that it's as dumb as it was, and that it's vampires, which I think puts vampires in the lead for subject of blackout sketches because oh yeah, three or four vampires ahead. Yeah.

I think the best one was the you said he's down here I did. That's still the best one, because again it's these are just really lame. You like that one, I like the I like the one with the Victor Blono just because it's Victor Bono. That's fair. Yeah, I think the idea that a vampire would take you somewhere and then you'd be like, I didn't realize you were a vampire really really, they're cold to the touch.

God damn it all right, listen. That is the final episode of Nike, But there is another segment to discuss technically too. It's a measure of our current more is that we base an economy on a credit plan. We do things on time, so to speak. Purchase the item, use it while you were paying it off.

And this sets up the intriguing premise of his painting, in which the fa between seller and buyer is the ultimates. It's called dine Now, Pay Later. The one we're gonna talk about right now is called dine Now, Pay Later. This was originally filmed for the second season. In fact, it was meant to pair up with Little Girl Lost.

This episode was originally called a Year End Clearance. It's written by Jack Laird from a short story by Mary Lynna Roby. Ironically, the story first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Presents magazine, and it was directed by Timothy Galfuss. This one stars Will Gear. He was grandpa' zeb on the Waltons.

Interestingly, he was a union agitator during the nineteen twenties and thirties with Woody Guthrie. He was blacklisted in the fifties. What a fucking awesome human being he is. It also stars another awesome human being, mister slim Pickens. This one is the tale of an undertaker's sale that may be the cause of a town's recent spate of murders.

Which you think of this one, Mike, I fucking love this one. I was so happy watching this just to see he Will Gear and Slim Pickens going at it. But then those weird montages, which I eventually figured out were the cat the spirit of the cat going out and murdering people. So that Will Gear, who I guess is maybe he's Satan. No, he's a warlock.

Warlock. Yeah, he's a big time warlock and wants to drum up some business for his undertaking place. So he's selling all of his wax flowers and of course all the caskets and things because they're all old models. You know, you want to get the new model caskets in there. So what better thing to do than just murder a whole bunch of people that everybody really wanted dead anyway, So I didn't catch the very end of it that they made an agreement that slim Pickens's wife was going to be next on the list.

It took me a second to kind of catch that one, but man, oh man, I love the way that this was put together. It is so fast paced. The way that they are talking back and forth really really moves. Just to see those two guys, I mean, it was just a delight to watch these guys in action. This should have been the way the show ended.

I mean, I'll just go out and say it. Also, Okay, maybe it's just me. I don't want to be that guy, but I'll be that guy because this is the final episode. There's like a gay thing going on here too. Was it just me?

Okay? See, okay, good, it wasn't just me. Will Gears seems lonely, and Slim Pickens seems like his friend that he can't hang out with anymore because his wife says no, Will Gears just give in. Just coming, Hanks, come hang out with me. We'll play checkers and then we'll start drinking.

Nobody comes by anymore. It's just me there. We'll watch the dag films together and then one thing leads to another and then we're wrestling naked covered a baby oil. Again. I'm not saying that's what they were all the way going for but it is kind of strange because it's portraying a male relationship that's a typical in the power dynamic as it were.

Mike, you mentioned creep Show in the last episode, and this actually reminded me quite a bit of the create the Dexter Stanley and Henry Northrop's relationship together. The only thing I bring them apart was goddamn Billy. Yeah, it felt a little bit like that. And I couldn't agree with you more. This was great.

I can't believe. First of all, I can't believe that this didn't make it into the second season. Was the second season so great? I remember some duds. This could have fit in there very nicely.

Who made the decision that this wasn't good enough? Who made the decision that this wasn't good enough for season three? Are they out of their fucking minds? Why didn't they end the goddamn series with this perfect? And it really reminds me of that James Gregory segment as well, where where the woman comes in and she's my husband's trying to kill right.

It reminded me of that because the conceit is more or less the same here at the end like identical. It's like, hey, How'm going to kill my wife? And that's is that not the ending of this? I'll let the sale go for what more days so I can keep coming hanging out with you and doing whatever we've been doing, like playing Checkers again for sure again, Like I enjoyed this segment immensely. It's a real shame that it just was in syndication.

And you know what, also, slim pickens jacket fucking slid. Look, I love that jet. I love the everything about this episode, set design and production design is is just fantastic. Couldn't agree more. Hell of you know what?

It felt so good to I watched this. We watched the series chronologically obviously, so I watched this last and it felt like such a bomb for the rest of the season. Oh even just to have the season one and two music back, I was like, oh, oh, I missed you so much. Yeah, yeah, it's the same way, like ordinarily my hand goes to skip and then when it wasn't necessary and I realized we were back in the loving arms of the seas one and two. Oh boy, Yeah, I don't think it can be overstated how terrible the music in the third season of this show is it's just it's really a bad it's a bad decision on a show that's already struggling, and so I just give it a fucking bigger shovel.

Why don't you help them shovel the dirt on them? Can you imagine watching the show on TV and hearing that, just being like, if I didn't know what it was, I'm turning this off because it sounds like it's trying to get my attention in the worst way possible. Well, I swear there are screams as part of the sound design in the music. If they're not screams, they sound like screams. Yeah, he's got the violins shrieking at an interminable level.

The worst thing ever, Eddie Soder. Please sir, I'm sorry to I'm sorry the series is over and that we don't get to discuss this group of writers and performers and directors anymore. But I'm perfectly at ease no longer discussing Eddie Soder or having to hear that theme again. Yeah, it's it's it's real bad. And I'm kind of disappointed that this didn't show up in rotation for another reason, which is this not then the only time Slim Pickens was ever on this show.

Yeah, so he never was technically again like technically right syndication, but technically was never on this show, which is a shame because he's always plays this one thing and the things that I've seen him in, but he plays it so gosh dang that you can't help just smile and love the guy. I would like to read to the description of one of the unproduced scripts. This is Rod Starling's final unproduced script. It's called The View of Whatever. It's the story of Joe Spragg, who develops a desire to escape from a present he hates.

Taking the form of strange delusion, he claims that his childhood past can be viewed from his bedroom window, which is a portal to nineteen thirties Bingham to New York. He takes his chance to steps through the window, finds himself ten years old in that summer. Ultimately, he looks pensively at the camera and he does alves to the present where he escaped from, and then that he's lost in the past forever, a fitting in for he's a jolly good fellow, mister Rod Serling. I have the sink of the same thing. You think that song showed up in that I can only pray it did.

Everybody sing with me? Now, I just God, it's like you can hear him doing it in there find a reason Rod. Everyone listening to the theme this season will no down hear the gentle strains of for He's a jolly good fellow. Our theme for the season three produced by the by our pal HP. You enlisted him to send us out on the highest of eye notes this season.

Just want to remind everybody what we had to tangle with. I'm kind of curious because one of the other unproduced things for this will has no such thing as a vampire by Richard Matheson, and that was adapted for a Dan Curtis joint called Dead of Night. I'm not sure if that was a TV movie. I think it might have been, but at Bigley Junior is in that not that particular segment. That one has Elijah Cook Junior and Patrick McNee.

So now I'm like, I'm gonna have to watch this stead of night I saw a million years ago. It's another thing where Matheson wrote the whole thing, right, Yeah, I think so. To Trilogy of Terror, right, Yeah, you're right. I'm gonna seek that out later this evening. Oh it looks like Matheson and Jack Finney, he wrote, yeah, he wrote one of the things.

Okay, yeah, for most people listening, I'm sure you know, Invasion of the Body Statures. Yeah, and several several episodes of The Night Gallery had based on guess all right, now listen. Ordinarily we'd play a preview of the next episode, but we've reached the furthest wing of the Night Gallery. Oh, we're not talking about room for one less that amazing other blackout skit. I guess we can.

Why would we leave out another thing we've seen before, but with a different kind of creature. I think we were going out. That's such a high with Dina pay later. But you know what aired at us? Would it not be Night Gallery if we went out on the which is a disappointing one.

All right, fine, look there's another fucking blackout stage fucking it said elevator sketches a monster at an elevator. It makes everyone be nice. Okay, we saw it earlier last season. It's so dumb. The monster is kind of cool looking, I guess looks like an anglerfish.

Well, that looks like an early Predator to me. Yeah, yeah, the early Predator. Yeah, the club, the Orange Predator. Yes, I uh, I think it. I think it's only fitting fitting desserts, just punishment for for Night Gallery to go out on a retreaded blackout sketch, big wet fart.

Yeah. Wow, there's always season two. Now, like I said, midnight viewing is not we won't be talking about Night Gallery anymore. Next season, tune in, we'll be talking about Tales from the dark Side, the Laurel Entertainment produced television horror anthology from the nineteen eighties. Very much looking forward to that.

Until then, Where can people find you and what are you working on? Chris Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where everything that I work on can be found, including shows that we've alluded to and mentioned, Chronicles from the Crypt which if you're listening to this, you should probably check that out because that's an anthology thing. Dreams for Sale another anthology thing, and then yeah, soon the next season of this which I will continue to watch anthology shows until we run out of things to watch, which at this point we're continuing to find things that we either forgot about or didn't know existed. So I think we'll be busy from here until the end of time, so all those things can be found, and then we'll continue to be found a weirding way Media, how about you, Mike Gosha.

Even if we just stuck to anthology movies, we would be here till the end of time, much less series. Yeah until then. Yeah, I'm over at weirdingwemedia dot com as well, where I work on some stuff with Chris and with you fatherm Alone, and yeah, and my own stuff. You can check that out at Projection Booth podcast dot com if you want. As for me, check out my Show's Dark Destinations, a radio drama I write and produce, and you can hear me on night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast hosted by HP.

If you want to hear this show a week early, head over to Patreon slash fatherm Alone. Membership will get you listening and free and give you access to exclusive content. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. This gallery is now closed. Your mo