Tales from the Darkside S01E00&01 (Trick or Treat - The New Man)

All right, listen up, Cave's I got your assignments riga six four three wheeler one four eight not 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, weird Way. Greetings, midnight Viewers, Father Alone here, Welcome to a new season and a new series. We're beginning Tales from the Dark Side Season one momentarily, but at the halfway point of this episode we have a very special interview with Tales from the Dark Side director of photography extraordinary mister Robert Draper. And now on with the new theme song.

Welcome to a brand new season of Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast, where we discuss televised horror in all of its guises. This season, we'll be tackling the George A. Romero series Tales from the Dark Side. Look. The fact is after the first season, Romero's involvement will be minimal, but I do not care.

I'm going to be continued refer to this as his series for the length of the run, and with me here in the Dark Side, on the Dark Side called John Cafferty all the way from Bollywood Cinema Club, Mister Chris Stashu. I was gonna do a witch cackling, but I think we heard it enough in the episodes to know what it sounds like. So insert witch cackling noise here. I'm here as well. And that's other sound, the sound of worrying in the background.

That can only be a projection booth. Mister Mike White, right to stay into the light. That's why I'm not a professional voiceover artist. All right, Tonight, we're going to be looking at two episodes from season one. Those are Trick or Treat and The New Man.

Now, gentlemen, I want to know about your experience with Tannism the Dark Side. But before that, I do have to give some backstory to how the series even got here. A lot of this knowledge is from a lifetime of soaking up every piece of information about George Romeiro. But I also want to shout out Paul gans excellent. The zombies that a Pittsburgh, which is a reference book I have worn out repurchased three times.

I distinctly remember the moment in high school reaching into my book bag and pulling it up and feeling the pages detached and fly everywhere like gory confetti like I always use. Yeah, Oh my God. In nineteen eighty two, Stephen King and George A. Ramara came together and made the film creep Show. It was an ode to ec comics, a shared childhoodhood obsession of both of them.

They were actually doing it to get a version of The stand Maid, but nobody would trust them with such a big budget, so they needed a trial run movie, and that was creep Show. As in far as anthology films had gone, this was the first major studio released anthology. In sometime the next year, we would see The Twilight Zone. The successive Creep Show taught the fine folks at Laurel Entertainment. That's George A.

Romero and his producer partner for nearly a decade at that point, Richard Rubinstein. They decided to fill that gap and create Tales from the Dark Side, which they could not They was going to be creep Show, by the way, but because they had sold the rights to Warner Brothers, they could no longer call their show creep Show, so they dispensed with Creep Show and the comic book framing and all the splash panels and everything reimagined it Tales from the Dark Side, and we got when we got creep Show the show however many years later, which I mean, I think just speaks to the value of the brand, apparently, the enduring quality of Creep Show. Yeah, you know what's funny. So this beat the Creep Show beat the Twilight Zone movie by a year, and then Tails from the Dark Side beat the return to television of the Twilight Zone.

Twilight Zone eighty five follow Who to Thunk the Twilight Zone to being also ran to Georgia Merrow. Twilight Zone was a was one of a flurry of anthologists came after Dark Side. All of those series had better budgets, they had better access to actors and top filmmakers, and they all fell by the wayside by two seasons, unlike Tails from the Dark Side, which continued for four Here's a fun fact. Show was film simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles on opposing weeks. On one coast they would be prepping an episode, while on the other they would be filming.

Each episode costs approximately one hundred thousand dollars, which is minuscule at the time by comparison Spielberg's Amazing Stories one million per episode. The insanity of that wow half hour million dollars. But Darkseide had two secret weapons. Michael McDowell, the future author of Beetlejuice, is a heavy influence and the heavy contributor to Taosmith Dark Side. I think he actually wrote all of my favorite episodes.

The other thing that Darkseide had over all those shows, get ready, Mike, and I'm going to say this with total conviction. What it had over every anthology series ever is the creepiest, most effective opening title sequence of all time. Well, yes, it is lots of bucolic shots of rural Pennsylvania and then a narrator in tones of script written by Romero. It starts out sinister and it only gets worse, and it comes back at the end. There's an outro justin k you had forgotten how freaked out you were by the opening one minute of this show.

He comes back and basically straight up threatens you try to enjoy the daylight that fucked me up as a kid. I didn't even mention the score there by Donald Rubinstein. That's Richard Rubinstein's brother, but this is a nepotism. Rubinstein. Donald Rubinstein had been providing scores for Marrow since Martin, which is one of my favorite soundtrack scores of all time.

The other aspect of it is that narrator I mentioned Paul Sparer, a wonderful actor. He was from Boston, married to Nancy Marschan Olivia Soprano. Hey, hey, everybody, I bet she was a nicer person in reality. Oh, let's hope. So just recently, I was revisiting the television series Spencer for Hire, which was filmed in Boston around eighty five.

I have eighty six, and I remember watching it then and now It's really like what like a time capsule for me. And at the end of season one, a character walks on you can't hear, you can't see him, but you hear him, and it was Paul Sperit freaked me the fuck out because I had only ever heard him in the guise of the Tales of the dark Side. Narrator, that's where we are. But where are you, gentlemen falling on this series? What experience had you previously to it?

If any I'm going to start with you, Chris, because I'm guessing none at all, if any, I make up the if any of the equation. I am the Z to y'all's X and Y. Again, I had never seen it. I had never heard. I'm not that I hadn't heard anybody talk about it, but no one had ever suggested it to me other than y'all.

And I figured where we were when it was suggested. It's we might end up just covering it, so I might just save it for a rainy day when someone gets their druthers, and again, here we are. So I was at least at least in that regard that I'm glad I waited, because to watch it and be the one who had never seen it before is always a It's a fun hat to wear. For the most part, I've been the one wearing it a lot of time doing it. It's raining again, baby, I know.

And I'm cool with that because it comes from two people who I do have a lot of exposure to. Romero and Stephen King, obviously two pretty big names in their own right, both separately and together. Obviously with something like Creep Show and then something like this, and look, Stephen King, someone that father Malone. You and I have a very weird history with personally. I don't think we've ever spoken about it, but the pandemic derailed our Dollar Baby, which is a whole fucking thing that actually happened.

And then Romero is the king of the zombie movies and has made some of the great ones, if not the greatest one. Yes, yeah, that's correct, It's not my favorite, but it's the again, like that's it's the one that's important. It's the ones that are important. And then you just talk about their other influences on their respective genres and things. Stephen King, his influence will never be will never be able to quantify it in any substantive way because of just how important he is to the genre.

So I'm excited to watch it and experience it for the first time. But I am a fan of everyone who is part of the creative process to bring the show to fruition. I remember watching this a lot when I was younger, but I could not tell you any episodes other than the word Processor one that was based on the Stephen King short story word Processor of the Gods. I know, as we go through here, I'm going to say, oh, I remember this one, But right now it's like, I mostly just remember the opening and closing of the show, so I know that I watched it enough to be very familiar with that. Yesterday, when I was rewatching these, I was just saying it right out.

I was like, Okay, I remember this for sure, word by word, but yeah, not so much when it comes to the episode. So I'm excited to get back into this and revisit the show because I have very fond memories of it. I watched it in its initial run and subsequently over the years whenever it would you could catch it, being when it was syndicated. I'm kind of in the same boat with you, Mike. Look that I know a lot of these episodes a lot better any of the Romero ones I'm really familiar with.

Actually, you know what, I'm taking it all back. I'm not fuzzy at all. I'm pretty damn good in this series, except there's a lot that don't have Romero or Savini or John Harrison or Michael Gornick as the director. Those are the ones that I kept seeking out, no matter if it was playing on TV or not. But I've been noticing skimming through it that there are quite a few I don't think I've even seen once, So I'm also very excited for this.

Oh No, I hope it's more a mix of everything we've done and not just one of the shows where they kind of peter off. That's my hope. That's my big hope with this, because we've kind of seen this weird collectively, like when we did Tails, the Tales from the Crypt show, and then when we did Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, they all kind of start petering pretty hard at varying degrees of petering. So I hope that this at least maintains throughout. That's my big hope, because again, these shows are so much fun, but it is so weak to week to week because of the way the show is, so the level of quality can really oscillate a lot, a lot, a lot a lot, really, So I will say this season three, late in season three contains my favorite episode of the series, So that bodes well there, Well, it does bode well.

I don't think anyone would say anything in the last season of Tales from the Crypt is their favorite anything other than maybe thing favorite thing to avoid on a TV show that they like Twilight Zone. Yeah, I was going to say, Twilet Zone maybe five notes so much, But there were a couple bangers when it came to Night Gallery. I seem to remember that one with the almost not a bull weavil, the thing that laid the Gearwig, Lawrence Hardwig, thank you. Yeah, so I think that was third season, so that was a good one. But yeah, definitely Twilight Zone.

Boy you boy. We wanted to trot that out and shoot it in the backyard. The Caterpillar the name of that episode. That was actually the finale of season two. Oh well, I take everything back.

However, however, Return of the Sorcerer with Bixby and Price. I enjoyed that one quite There were quite a lot of good episodes in season three. It's just that they got Oh we've discussed you all heard it in the last episode. Anyway, all right, here we go the ladies and gentlemen tales from the dark Side. We're starting with Trick or Treat.

This is season one, episode zero. It's a pilot. It aired exactly one year before the series came on. It aired over Halloween weekend in nineteen eighty three, originally as a test to the test pilot. Basically, this one is written by George A.

Romero and directed by Bob Balaban. This is his directing debut. He'd eventually go on to do an episode of Amazing Stories. It's nearly identical to a different episode of From the Dark Side. Most people probably recognize him from Wes Anderson's movies, but he is a fantastic actor, always interesting to watch, and as a filmmaker, ah, not so great.

But anyway, I like parents, like parents. I like parents too. Oh my god, gentlemen, gentlemen, parents. Wait a second, I think, Mike, I think we found it. I think we found are say it with me now, transl It's here.

It's a Bob ball But here's the thing. I think the other people will agree with me, So it'll be just you two singing the praises that particular flick that sub David Lynch. Oh my god, tell me, well, hey, wait a minute, you're telling me these staid conservative people are actually cannibals underneath. Oh my god. Anyway, all right.

Episode one, Trick or Treat, Here we Go, written by As Marria, directed by Bob Ballaman, starring Barnard Hughes. I am Hobson. He's getting off this merry go Round Max Wright. He was the hater of alf on screen and off. It's set in the nineteen forties.

It's about a bitter miser who uses the debts owed to him by an entire town on Hallo's Eve to torture children, basically, which you think of this one? Mate? Yep, I really enjoy this. I had a fun time with this. I was kind of see why this was the pilot.

It moves really fast. I watched this one again right before we started recording, and I couldn't believe how fast it goes. I guess it's just a really nice, tight, half hour TV show. There were a couple of things that I wanted to throw out there while listening to Barnard Hughes, because he laughs a lot in this episode. Was he the laugh of the Joker's Little Laughbox in Batman nineteen eighty nine.

I swear there's a moment where he does that like a kind of thing, and I'm just like, that sounds exactly like it. I'm going to cut it in right here. I'm going to let the audience aside for themselves. But god damn, that's intriguing, and in my mind it actually makes sense. Yeah, he was fantastic.

I really wish there had been a little bit more Max Right personally. I always could do for more of him. It was kind of odd that beginning scene that really doesn't add too much, but it just set up the character. And yes, I love that he tortures children. That's that's pretty fantastic.

And that one of the parents has beaten his child in order to strengthen him to not be scared out of mister Hackles's house. Still good. Took the strap to him, took the strap to him, that he ain't afraid of no ghosts. I enjoyed. I enjoyed it.

I think I think Mike mentioned it moves pretty fast. A witch just shows up. It literally when I say a witch just shows up. At one point, when I was watching it put with my wife last night, she goes, where did the witch come from? And I go, the witch just showed up.

The witch just just showed up. The witch was just at the door, and he thought it was a He thought it was a kid dressed up as a witch. I guess I found this fun. This was fun. That's all it needed to be.

I don't think it needed to be some grand musing on anything. It's Barnard Hughes getting what he deserves as kind of a I don't like a Scrooge kind of equivalent, like a Halloween Scrooge type, like it's that was the fun part. That was the fun part of the story for me, is like he's screwed adjacent, so all of these things that are happening to him are like the ghost of Christmas past, but instead of that, it's just like a fucked up mutant pirate guy with like a fucking weird face and again like and then he dies to the day the end, because this guy's kind of irredeemable. Like I had fun with it. It was exactly what it needed to be.

And that's Barnard Hughes dying twice in forty eight hours for me. Last time he got murdered by John Voyd with a phone, so the devil's a little bit better. And last time we saw Bob Balaban, he was giving John Void a blowjob in a movie theater. Yeah, it's a reunion of Sir Sarah. I loved this episode when I was a kid.

I haven't seen it in Quointe some time. I like it still overall, but I think it has a bunch problem. But I'm going to read to you mister George Romero's thoughts on this episode quote. It was sort of a weird trip for me. I was really infatuated with the story, and it was the first time I ever sent anything off to military school to be directed by someone else.

I didn't like being in that position. I felt that it was done with no real affection or glee in terms of the horror genre. I argued for doing it in Pittsburgh with the same crew we've used in our feature films. I was even willing to direct it, but I was overruled. That is a pretty good idea of where Romero and Rubinstein are in their relationship at Laurel.

At this point, Ramera, during the first season of the show, is attempting to get Day of the Dead made. Now eventually they made that Dead Reckoning Land of the Dead film, which is actually his original script for Day of the Dead. He was not able to get produced, and so he and Rubinstein stopped seeing eye to eye and their relationship became a bit fractious. And that's why he's getting overruled. Here.

Doesn't mean he's not going to still be involved. It's just that he was in preparation for Day of the Dead, which is why he didn't really direct anything on the series. I love Barnard Hughes and and I agree with you, by the way, that opening scene with Iam Hobson and Max Wright, these weird little accountants like commenting on everything. They were just so natural in which in an episode which there's some arch kind of performances, they really set the tone. I think well.

Barnard Hughes's character is an inventor, right, and he mentions this he created fasteners and that gave him his fortunes, so he's already a wealthy man. If you haven't seen the episode, he basically takes his house and he turns it into a walk through haunted house that he can control from a little control room where he's it's the nineteen forty, so it's all levers and switches that he pulls and little bellows and he can speak through megaphones down at them. If this character had simply been born this time, my god, he would have created the greatest haunted house. Everyone would be paid like. He could have gotten his jolly's all day long, scaring people like it's totally acceptable.

The evil way he's going about it is really horrible. I like this script a lot. It's such a potent little idea that he has this sway on the town where not only are these parents beating their children into trying to get them to not be scared, which is so horrifying, but then a lot of these kids are doing it because they want to help their family and then are crushed afterwards when they couldn't. It's just, oh my god. I just feel bad all through this episode.

I mean, I agree with Rameiro that the horror wasn't really pushed. I don't think Ballaban knew what he was doing. He's went well, which is going to show up that's scary, and didn't Taylor the filmmaking to be scary. But I think it's still a bit of a hoot of an episode. The sound effects is this is insane.

It's all de Wolf Library tracks. We've heard them all before. I've played a lot of these tracks when we were discussing Night Gallery. But they don't overdo it, and that's nice. It was just weird to hear this cacophony of all of the Night Gallery sounds while we transition into a new series.

Well, but it makes sense because he's sitting in a room scaring children who at no point their parents didn't just go He's just fucking with you. You've got plenty of time just walk around the house. As I love the simplicity of the script because it does make very little realistic sense. But the idea that this guy has this way over the town is an interesting idea, and I think it's done. I mean, I have never seen a premise like this before, and I think it's a I think it's fun the way that they do it, and I think that's fun.

What happens to him, I'm not sure I entirely understand what the hell happens. I guess Satan shows up and just goes all right, But I mean it's I mean, it makes sense. This guy is powered by the almighty dollar and that's what brings him down at the end. Ballaban got that shot of the dollar bill flitting out of the door as it closes, which I did appreciate. I was like, oh, I got that one.

But yeah, for as much as I like parents, this is pretty pedestrian in terms of the way it's directed. It's there's not a lot of there's not a lot of style given to it, really, like other than close up shots of Barnard Hughes crawling on the ground with a red gel filter on You're getting warma now, hotcha hot. I liked how they took the you're getting warmer from him and then made it Satan telling him that he's getting warmer as he's going into hell. That was pretty nice. Satan is played by Ed French, who is actually the makeup effects artist on the series, so I think anytime he was lacking model he just made himself up.

He's good too, So yeah, I like that scene a lot. The repetition of the of the war or warmer it got a little bit much. Also, who bought the tombstone? There's a tombstone? Yeah, it's carved ironically, it got there really fast.

Yeah, well that's what I'm saying, Like, there's not a lot of internal logic to this, so I kind of just leave my logic at the door and go just magical realism. This guy's getting punished for being a dick. That's why I said, that's kind of like Scrooge in a Christmas story. It's just the magical realism of the situation. Don't think about it too hard, right, Yeah, because those goose ghulls and goblins and that amazing witchy Pooh type witch.

I love that the witch is just like the stereotypical witch. But yeah, all of these guys, I'm guessing that they're just mad because he's kind of co opted the holiday for bad reasons. So yeah, they're basically the ghosts that show up and scare the hell out of Scrooge, that decaying pirate who's cackling him. The laugh emanating from him, the is from mister Tim Curry. I love the design of that.

Yeah, no, that was great. I wanted more of him. I wanted more of just actual personifications of trick or treaters showing up every skit. A real ghost shows up the floating mass. That would be fun.

It took me a little while to realize, Oh, the little girl was the witch and the little boy was the devil. And then we've got two who is a Billy is the one that who He's great. He's just got that little voice over every single time we see him. I can do it, I can do it. Actually, I love what he pops his head out of the door and goes, I don't believe her demons aren't really pops his head back.

Answer it was amazing was Oh, he was totally leaving until he saw his dad, the one with the strap also in that one. Obviously, it's horrible that he's beating his kid and not doing what you had suggested, which is I would have given my child a strap and said anything that statue in just fucking kill it. You're absolutely allowed to. That's a curb your fear. But when that kid finally breaks breaks down and comes out of the house and the father that's the same dad from a league of their own, it's such a sweetheart.

It's a genuine embrace there. So yeah, good stuff. I remember him from The Rocketeer, That's what I remember him from, where he plays also a sweet dope who I believe is the one who dresses up is the clown and goes up in the plane and has to be saved. He's I like that he plays that like hang dog. Really well, it's just like I beat my kid.

It's just like you don't. You wouldn't believe that first dad would beat his kid, But they had to have a dad in there, who's the personification of a bad forties father using the strap or the sweitch, but not enjoying it. At least it's he's doing it because he needs to get his family out of debt and out of the Thrall right, fucking horrible trick of a human. I mean, the max right scene does at least show us that he that Bernard Hughes's character would will go after four sense for a cup of coffee. Well, you can just take that out of our pay if you want.

Yeah, I love how amused. He finally is like, okay, fine, yeah, give me another cup of coffee. Ridiculous thing. Oh god, and he also like you mentioned the witchy poo witch. But Barnard Hughes also looks like just the most generic Generico old man possible.

Like everything about the story feels like perfectly of the season. So yeah, when it aired like this, this had everything working for it as far as I'm concerned, Like, even though it is just like a generic witch, Like when I think of a witch at Halloween time, if I'm thinking of like a certain kind of decoration, it's gonna be that Witch's not gonna be anything else. I do wish that. Look, he gets just a fine come up and it's going to hell and you can't really beat top that one as far as a bit of vengeance. But right, but how about a little bit more scared, Barnard Hughes, how about you should experience some terror, you fucking dickhead, that you scar all of these children for life.

Let's see these things take you apart. Yeah, to your point before, like, it's not horror is not necessarily what I think. It's worrying itself with. It's much more. Again, I wouldn't say.

Another one of those Bob Ballaban movies other than Parents that I cannot defend is My Boyfriend's Back, which I like that. I actually have that on DVD over there. Okay, well I can't defend that one as much. But again, in my mind, like Bob Balaban is not really a horror director anyway, so fair granted, granted, yeah, right, but that doesn't mean the rest of the series won't have some absolute heavy hitters in the horror genre like true I'm Ready for you. Yeah a Balaban not so much.

Yeah, No, I didn't realize that. Bob bayliband directed two episodes of one of my favorite one season shows, Chris, which is Dead Last. Nice. Yeah, which when I finally take over the one season show, That's what I'm gonna be talking about, just waiting for you. Last dead Last was one.

It was three teenagers who are in a band and they end up I think they kill somebody or they end up they run into of all people. Oh god, why am I blanking out his name? The guy that played Murdoch in the A Team, And now I'm blaying on Dwight Schultz Lieutenant Broccoli. Yes, yes, Dwight Schultz. And they get the power to see the dead, and they're outsolving mysteries in their van, of course, and I love it.

I thought it was great. There's some really dark, dark humor to it. And it was Taylor the Bean was one of the three main people who I always love. Guy who gets mentioned as is in things people like but rarely gets to run long enough for it to really catch on. The guy who was licking toads on the X Files of Memory Serves.

Yeah, wasn't he also the best friend in Reaper? Yes, Reaper was a great show, and yes also canceled too soon. Yeah oh yeah, all right, good evening, midnight viewers. We have a very special segment for you. We spoke with dark Side Royalty mister Robert Draper.

He's a producer and director, an editor, a teacher, and for the past forty years, a supernaturally talented cinematographer. Not only did he lends a wapping sixteen episodes of Tales from the Dark Side, he was also the DP on seven episodes of Tales from the Crypt, a series Chris Stashuo and I covered on Chronicles from the Crypt, and for the past four seasons he has been what Taxi and Cheers director James Burrow calls a resident filmmaker on the Shutter series creep Show. Not only that, but mister Draper's collaboration with director John Harrison gave us our only Dark Side feature film, Tales from the Dark Side, the movie. I sat down with mister Draper to talk all things Tales from the Dark Side.

Unbelievable. Yeah, I don't know what it is. All of a sudden, it's like people have discovered Halloween five. Think I've done interviews for I've got another interview next week and that will make seven interviews in the last three and a half months. Mike, what it's a Halloween five renaissance.

It's crazy and Dark Side is not far behind. Really, that's very heartening to hear, actually, because it deserves the re examination obviously. Yeah, we should, we should do Tell from the Dark Side the series two point zero. Yes, like immediately, well, I think that's creep show. I know it is, it really is.

I mean they're rather interchangeable ultimately. I mean, it wasn't in my mind that or from what I've read, that was the initial impetus of the show, the successive creep Show, that they wanted to make a creep show series, but then Warner Brothers said, we own creep Show, and they said, haha, Tails from the Dark Side. Yeah. Yeah, I think George Romero and Richard Rubinstein and Stephen King were sort of part and parcel of all that coming about. An old school director by the name of Aaron Mvaki and he was a writer director, and he was real good powers with Francis Ford Coppola, and also Ralph Rosenbloom, who was Woody Allen's editor.

Ralph edited Thousand Clowns and and he also edited Annie Hall. So so Ralph was you know, he was one of the top editors in the business. And the two of them knew this producer who was somehow tied in with the guys who were doing taals in the Dark Side okay, and so they got me an interview with the producer on tales and all I had I'd never shot narrative stuff at all. All I had was docos and music videos and commercials on a reel. And so they got a big wrap up from Ralph Rozenbloom and Aaron and they said, look, we don't need to see real just we'll give you the first episode.

So you go and if it goes well, then we'll put you on for the series. And so that was basically how it started. And the week before we did day one of shooting. I didn't sleep. I don't think I slept seven man.

I do a lot of prep. I mean I do an enormous amount of prep on anything I shoot. So when I go in, I know exactly what I'm doing. There's no standing around going, oh do you I wonder what I'll do next? Yeah, I know exactly what I'm going to do.

But that gives me the room to be creative and flexible. But on that show, the amount of prep that I did in that first week, Holy mackerel. And I just couldn't sleep. I was so bloody nervous. This is inside the class.

No, the first episode was a case of the stubborns. Oh, okay, you did that first yeah, And that was Jerry Cotts directed it and it was with Eddie Bracken, Yes, wonder where he would racket? Where he wouldn't die? And that was the first one. So you know, I shot the first day and they came to me at the end of the first days the next morning and said, okay, you're on for the show.

So a great weight was lifted off of you. Then I felt like I could have slept for about a week. Romero's story like when he was coming up, he was an editor at his local news stations for like the sixteen So that's interesting that kind of a parallel thing between the two of you. Well, when people ask me, because before that, I'd shot hundreds of documentaries, and people asked me the best way to become a DP, because I don't agree with this film school business where you go to film school immediately you call the DP. You're not really a DP.

You're a camera person, you know, And Will Masigmad used to say, you're a cameraman for ten years. You're a cinematographer for ten years and after that you become a director of photography and one a full way to look at it. Yeah, and it's kind of true people is I used to say in Australia and I want to shoot a feature film and they go, yeah, you don't know enough stuff yet. No, And it was like bloody old people, you know, because I'm a young guy coming up. But you know, you don't realize until twenty years down the road how much you really don't know about being a director of photography because it's not about making pretty pictures, right.

But that's the I mean, that's what makes a good to great director of photography, right, the one who at least recognizes their skill set at the time and knows that they need more. Yeah. Yeah, And and I tell you that the thing, you know, when we were doing Tails in the Dark Side, they had a set of rules on that show. And yeah, and there are a set of rules, and the rules were number one, you had to shoot on prime lenses. You couldn't use the zoom.

Oh no, no, actually I can't remember if we could had to shoot on primes or on the zoom, but it was one or the other you could only use one hundred as a stock. You were not allowed to use four hundred ASA. You had to shoot at a The widest you could shoot was T four, so there was no shooting at one point three or anything like that. Yeah, everything had to be lit with hard light. There was no soft light allowed.

And and then we would have we would do four days prep, one day pre light, and four days shoot. And then so in the prep, the director and the DP would sit down and we had to come up with a shot list. We had Monday and Tuesday to come up with a shot list, and then I had to draw out a lighting plot for all the sets that we're going to be shooting in a really detailed lighting plot. And then on Wednesday afternoon, we'd sit down with the producer, the production manager and the line producer and we had to present and the AD and we had to present our plan. These are the shots we want to do scene by scene, and this is the lighting, and go through the whole thing.

And you were allowed one hundred shots per episode and twenty optionals and if you're doing well, you could add optional shots. If you were doing bad, the optionals didn't come in, but you had to make those one hundred shots, and if you fell behind and you went under the one hundred shots, they would just remove a page. Yeah, but we very rarely fell behind because we were so well prepped. At the time. You felt that you're you know, you're under all these restrictions.

But I tell you what, I learned so much about about scheduling and working fast and being able to estimate how long it was going to take to do a shot and learn, and I learned lenses so that you know, I don't need to walk around with the director's viewfinder. I mean I knew those lenses because you didn't have time. I mean, you know, you had to work like a bat out of hell, and you're working always with hard light, which I loved because I actually fell in love with film noir. So you know, when they said it's all hard light, it was like awesome. You know, that's that suits me.

And so I became really good working with hard light under really tight conditions. But yeah, Tails from the Dark Side was My first best learning experience was four years as a news cameraman and doing docos and all that sort of stuff. And my next best experience was was the I think three seasons of Tales from the Dark Side I did on this show Midnight Viewing. We've been looking at a lot of anthology series over the years. We watched The Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five, We watched Tales from the Crypt, which you were also involved in.

I'd like to talk to you about that another time maybe, And Night Gallery is what we just wrapped up on and watching all of those series, in some cases with budgets a lot more than you guys had, in some cases less and sometimes a little bit more. In particular with Night Gallery, they used their work on sound stages almost like a to overlight everything so they could turn everything around really quickly. And when I watch Tales from the Dark Side, the lighting is so atmospheric and fantastic. Like on most anthology shows, everything gets over lit, and it's obvious that we're on a set. What you guys were doing with these interiors, particularly sometimes you guys were shooting exteriors on a sound stage and then going into an interior, it's all magnificent, particularly the stuff that takes place interior with it's supposed to be daylight outside.

The way you were lighting all of that stuff is amazing. I'm shocked that this is like your first step into like narrative filmmaking. It all looks so good, and now you're telling me about hard light Noir. It makes a whole lot more sense because it's so atmospheric. I don't know if that as much as a massive compliment, because we've seen a lot of these shows and this is the best looking of them.

Thanks mate, I really appreciate you saying that. I mean, you know, we, like I said, I've put an enormous amount of prep into and do everything, and so I would prep the living daylights out of the shows because I wanted them to look good. And I also had a challenge from myself that every show should have its own it's its own look, you know. And and given the budget and the limitations that you know, you've got on a lot of these things, even on Creep Show, I mean, there are a lot of limitations, even though it's a bigger budget than we had on Tails from the Dark Side, but you you still have to work incredibly fast, so there's a lot of compromises that you've got to make. And you know, I've had people come to me and say, well, look, I've seen how fast you can work on Creep Show.

I've got a feature and we need to and you get nap. Now, there's a big difference between the compromises you get away with on a small screen over the compromise. If I made those same compromises on a big screen, you'd be dead the film. It wouldn't work. I don't want to say that on any anthology series.

I never want to say that there's a definitive episode. But Inside the Closet is the definitive episode of Townson The Dark Side. Yes, oh my god, and Michael McDowell's first first script for Tewnston The Dark Side. So it's like the perfect Townson the Dark Side thing, Savini and Michael McDowell and if there's a Beastie involved and Fritzweet coming over from Creep Show just to anoint the entire thing. And again not so much a question, but there are images from that episode that have haunted me since childhood.

So I wanted to thank you. I'm not being ironic. I wanted to thank you for those. But look the pan, I don't know if it's a pan, but it goes from her in the bed and it slowly pans down to the to Lizzie opening her eyes and it is the most horrifying thing of all time. And then I'm just going to keep praising it.

And then at the end of that episode, Lizzie is the cutest thing of all time. How do you do that? Man? Fall in love with Lizzie? Yeah, that that episode, it was the first time I'd met Tom and we had an absolute ball on that and we've you know, we're still good friends.

I mean, we've kept up with each other over the years, and we did an episode of Creepshow in season one. Certainly did and but Tom when we did Lizzie because it was in that little I forget what you call those little doors in the attic. But we moved from la to Maine, and the house we moved into in Maine, the two kids' bedrooms had those little doors at them. Oh no, and we had I had to go up and screw planks across the doors and keep them shut. And there had to be a night light by the door because because the kids couldn't sleep in there was like, there is no fucking way, I'm going to say place where they're likely and if they heard the slightest noise like you know, snow falling off the roof, they'd come running back, no doubt, just the nightmare doors.

It was pretty funny. And you look at it now and you go, why would you get scared by that? But you know, as a little kid, scared the living daylights out of you. Oh my god, Yeah, I just what a spectacular episode. Now, okay, just talk me through that.

You have how many days to shoot that? And is that on location? Is that that was all on the stage? We shot in this tiny stage in Queens And all I know about it is Pink Floyd used to rehearse. There was the Pink Floyd Rehearsal stage or something in Queens and lair to Tails from the dark Side, yea, and it was.

There were two stages and they were only tiny. I can't remember how big they were. But the sets, everything was on set because you know, we did we did do I think a couple of days where we went out on location, but we had to go to It was a wheel to location from the studio. Wasn't a drive to because we just didn't have the time to drive anywhere. So everything was done on the stage and so they would be built, a construction would be working on one side of the stage of the building, and then the other other side they're shooting another episode.

You know. So it was always this constant battle of they've got to shoot for four days, but the set needs to be built in four days because I've got to pre light it on the fifth day. So you know, there was a lot of a lot of pre lighting going on while there was still wetting on the wall. Is it true that Telsondrecs was filming on both coasts? Yeah, yeah, they shot.

I had one one group in La shooting and another team in in New York, and I was on the New York side. I just love that. That was the part of the production that it was. It's crazy and utilizing everyone like and like good actors, like particularly you guys in New York. Just had a treasure trope to draw from, and it was well, it was fantastic because we had some of the best stage performers, you know, in the history of theater coming in.

I mean, it was just awesome, just day after day after day, fantastic actors coming in. Juliane well, Julianne Moore was in the movie, right, Yeah. But speaking of the movie and the series, you worked with Christian Slater twice as a tiny tot and then as a young man in the film. Yeah, I've worked with Christian Slater a few times. But yeah, he yeah, that was pretty funny.

Yeah, speaking of Pwerhouse New York actors Victor Garber and The Tear Collector with Jessica Harper, who I've had the pleasure to speak. Actually, she's just luminous. How is that to work with those two? Well, Jessica Happer was something else. I mean I I'd fallen in love with Jessica Harper before I even left Australia, and so when they said she was on the show, was like, yeah, it was almost all I could do to contain myself, you know, because it was like, oh my god, when you fell in love with her?

Was it in Phantom of the Paradise? Perhaps, of course, let me show you my death records. In fact, my girlfriend has that across her back. We're all Phantom fans here. Oh that's funny.

Oh I didn't actually, because you one of the precious few people I can speak to who worked with Divine. Oh yeah, yeah, what do we do with Divine? The Seymour Lama episode, it was yeah, which, by the way, I remember work was with Divine and with Meatloaf Meatlofe was in the Monsters. I was a Monster's Okay, my god, you've been You've worked in so many fantastic anthology series. Realized that right.

Oh. You know. The funny thing is when when I came over here the very first I did Tails from the Dark Side, and and I told my agent's, look, I don't want to get stuck doing horror films. And because I said, that's that's not my thing. I don't mind doing horror films like The Shining or The Exit, but I don't want to get stuck doing doing lower budget horror films.

And then Halloween five came up, and they said, you've got to do that because it's a Hollywood film and that's your first Hollywood picture and and I and I didn't really want to do it, but they said, there's you've got no choice. You got to do it. So I did Halloween five. But it's been there's never any parade of Tails from the Dark Side, Tails from the Crip, Halloween five, doctor giggles. You know, it's like bloody hell now creep show.

And yeah, but I got to say that the one thing with shooting horror is it is a lot of fun, especially with all the prosthetics and everything involved. You know, it really is a hohot. And it's also a challenge, you know, I mean photographically, it's a real challenge because you know it's really easy to make those prosthetics look like rubber suits, and so working under the pressure that we've got and trying to keep it atmospheric and avoid the latex looking at latex and make everything work is Yeah, it's a real challenge. So, you know, it is it is something that I've sort of grown to love rather than the going no, I don't want to do it. Yeah.

Right. At a certain point, Vincent Price had to surrender and just say, okay, I'm a horror guy. Yeah. Well, you know. The funny thing is I when when I was doing the I can't remember if it was the first season or the second, but I got a call from John Harrison, and you know John right, Oh, I don't know him personally, but I adore the man contempt.

So John called up the first words out of his mouth work do you like film Noir? And I said to him, well, do I like film Noir. Let me start listening off the films. So we were instant friends. And the episode he was coming from LA to New York to shoot was Everybody Needs a Little Love?

Oh okay, perfect, and he said, you know, I wanted to have a real film noir feel to it. So it was like, no problem, all hard light. We're good. But John and I we're sort of working together on a potential film, feature film that we might be doing very shortly. But I can't say too much about it, certainly, but I won't press.

But that's fantastically exciting. Yeah, when you hear what it is, you'll be We're excited. I think, oh, good, good, good. Yeah, But it's all very tightly under wraps at the moment. But but yeah, we did We did a couple of episodes on Tales from the Dark Side, then we did the movie, and then we did we almost worked together on Tails and the Crypt.

That's a long story. We'll talk about that later, all right. And then we've done a few TV movies and miniseries and stuff like that. We've been working and we've been friends, and our kids grew up together and all that sort of stuff. I've known John since about eighty four.

Wow, well, yeah, I mean that makes sense. That's when you guys started collaborating on Teesus in the Dark Side. And what a fruitful and fantastic come And I love working with him because he is he is a fan of cinema and and we always go back to the language and the grammar of film. We don't look at all, what's the latest gizmo we can use to make this to make people go, oh, who are we look at what can we do in the language of cinema to make a really compelling story. The one interaction I had with mister Harrison was to congratulate him on all of the transitions and tails from the Dark Side of the movie the theatrical you guys were doing the Cat from Hell.

It's just it's breathtaking. It's so simple, And like you said, everyone's how can we morph this or you know, wipe or pan this or CG that, And it's just like, how about you turn this light on in this light off? Yeah? Well we we We spent weeks working those transitions out because we had to do them practically and on location. And the one where where William Hicky's in front of the fireplace, and then it transitions to the car driving down the ride and the flips over, burns goes up in flames, and then we pull out and he's back in front of the fireplace.

That was a combination of shooting on location, painting the location onto a theatrical scrim, shooting the scrim in front of the car with a flame bar in the studio, and then going then finishing it on the location, pulling out of the fireplace on the real location. But when we looked at it, John said, I'd love to do something where we don't have to dissolve in and out of the flashbacks. And we started looking at it and working out how we're going to do it, and most of that stuff is practical and on location. And to make it work, I had to do double lighting of every scene because we didn't have eareds back then, so I couldn't change colors the lights. So when we went from normal lighting to blue, I had to have two sets of lights, So every set where one of those transitions happens had to be double lighting and all run through big five and ten dimmer boards to be able to execute the changes.

All that care shows on the screen, all the planning, it's documented forever. We love that stuff. That's thing is great. And in this new film, where there are some transitions that we've got to do that we're looking at even snazzier ways. But I'll tell you where that a lot of that came from.

We both love One from the Heart, Oh my god, yeah, which is they're re releasing it right now. Yeah, and One from the Heart. Sterio used a lot of theatrical scrim to play scenes against each other and to transition through them, and that's where that came from. And I said to John, look, I think if we look at One from the Heart, I think we can do some of the transitions with theatrical scrim. Now, we wanted to do more, but it was too expensive and it was hard to work out to calculate exactly how we're going to do it.

So we decided to do most of them on location and do them practical. And then the only one that we did between the location and the set was going into the car. Yeah. Yeah, And we had to work out the blocking of every single shot in those sequences because they all had to work. You know, if they didn't work, the transitions wouldn't work.

It works spectacularly, and you got to hang out with William Hickey right in front of you, for which must have trip. No, he was pretty cool, and so was David Joe Hudson, especially when he had to swallow the cat. Thank you so much, sir. Thanks mate. This episode is called The New Man.

This is season one, episode one, aired originally on September the thirtieth and nineteen eighty four. Written by Mark Durand from a short story by Barbara Owens. This one was directed by Frank de Palmer and stars Vic Tayback, Chris Hebert. That I know Kid from Last star Fighter, also from Twilight's on eighty five, Kelly gen Peters, Billy Jane, He's just one of the guys. And Paul Jenkins, gentlemen, damn straight.

This is our third anthology series that we've reviewed, and this is the third appearance by mister Jenkins. Something in the Woodwork on Night Gallery and Dead Run on Twilight's on eighty five. He's the new Man here. I would i'd give an introduction to this, but instead I'm going to let the real first Avenger. English thespian Patrick McNee introduced this episode.

Addictions are an unpleasant word for habits. Our bodies and our minds do not choose to let us be rid of. But if one rebels against the domination of one's subconscious and of one's belly and blood, then the fight against addiction is a hard one. It's a battle that's constant and in the end they don't always come out the winner. Watch mister Alan Cooms is having some problems with an old addiction in the new Now.

That is the final thirty seconds of a three minute introduction by Patrick McNee for the British run of Tales from the Dark Side. Oh Why He acted as Rod Serling. They're all available on YouTube if you want to check them out. They are very eloquent, very aeratite, and in some cases very instructive for the episode you're about to watch, and also completely derails any of the tension built up by that opening title sequence and then directly into the episode. You don't need narration on any of these, but it's a fun curiosity that yeah, completely undermines the episode in a way I was not expecting it to.

It makes it sound so fun. Yes, Sir Dennis eaton Hog like it's just it's like there's nothing about it that is menacing. It takes all the menace out and if and it's probably also because he's British that has to be a huge part of it as well, like you know what I mean. Like, so there's something about the British accent that can be so disarming, and that is very disarming. I liked it, but it's very disarming.

Oh that, like I said, that's just the tail end of it. So he's actually rather jocular through it, like, oh, people who give up their vices too quickly, I don't trust them like that. There's that in there, like it's all too welcoming. And again three minutes. Can you imagine a night gallery thing where Rod certainly walks around for three minutes talking about that painting.

You'd lose your mind? Wow yeah, ooh wow god. Yeah, the amount of time that you would have to carve out in those episodes for that, yeah, right, Like it's a blackout sketch a bit basically. So I just want to put this out here. I hated this episode.

There we go. I just hated it. I hate when people are gas lit. So this whole thing like of course you remember, oh your son, you don't remember your son? Come on, and Victor back just being Victa Back.

I fucking love the guy. Yeah, last time we saw him, Chris, he was he was yelling about being an artist on Colombo, way back in the suitable for framing episode, and here he is just going off, you know, which is great because people are are treating him like garbage and apparent. So how does this work? Is it the guy at his audience and and this devil child that both are working in tandem and they find ex drunks to work at their arby Oh wait, wait a second, Okay, No, I was about to say, I feel like we could go read around the room on this one. I okay, So if that's if that might be what you're putting out.

I thought it was much more mundane of just this is the representation of alcoholism. This child is Victa back in this child or you know, going back and forth, but the child actually exists. I don't know how to square that away. Which is the problem, Like that that as they say, like that interpretation only takes you so far. So I don't know.

Like at one point I want to say, like it's exactly what Mike is saying, but like that's fucking insane, Like if that's what it is, like that makes this that makes this episode even nuttier than possible. But I thought it was just Jerry is your scapegoat that you give your addiction? Or again, it could be any number of things, but it is the human personification of addiction. Father blah and bring us on, what's your reason? And again, Chris maybe also maybe also ye, this could be a delirium dream from somebody who is coming down off of alcohol after a bender, after they've lost their family, and this is how they've imagined they've lost their family.

He does wake up in that child's room, completely drunk, and then speaks the line that the boss keeps saying, the waste not want not What about the denew mall? How does that play for you? Obviously my theory falls part there. But and that's the thing, Mike's is the only one that doesn't follow right, And Mike's is the one that I believe. I don't know that they're going out and finding these former alcoholic or maybe they are, or maybe they're creating them.

But there's something going on at that office obviously, Like it's that guy listening in, Oh he needs to celebrate. Let me bring him the drink. That thus it begins, and it's the same child visited upon each of these alcoholics. Does that mean that this is He's just the physical manifestation of alcohol wrangler. That could be it.

It could be a melding of the two. I like that. I like that at least there is a debate here that doesn't feel insulting. It doesn't feel like a lot of endings of Night Gallery episodes where we would go, what the fuck was that? What was that?

Was it that simple? Or is it actually that fucking insane? Like this, I'm like, could be this could be that, And then the strength of the episode or its failure rests on the episode itself as far as the acting and how well directed. I love victay Back. I think he's fucking great here, as good as he's ever been, honestly, and he's all he always delivers.

I grew up as I'm sure Mike you you watched Alice, I'm sure, yeah, to me, that was Victaimac, this sort of groff but lovable bear of a guy. Forget how ferocious he can be sometimes. And the other version of Vic Taybach I always think of was Bellox mix from piece of the action in Star Trek. His Belloy in that too, is so good, and I think he's great here, and I think he really sells this. Like you said, gaslight Tail is what it is.

It's but no worse than some of the Twilight Zone eighty five's. The world has suddenly slipped out of my perception and I can no longer reconcile it. And I when I rewatched it for this podcast for the first time, I too hated it, and then I watched it again and again, and now I actually really really liked the episode. A lot of it is because of that debate, and apparently this episode is very heavily debated amongst fans of Talesmen to Dark Side, probably the most debated, and they brought up all of the theories that that we've brought up. And I enjoy it.

I'm of two minds, Like I could, I could see myself enjoying it, and I do enjoy parts of it, but I think also I don't Maybe it's just me, but like this, I don't know, I feel like there's a I feel like it's weird that this is I thought you were gonna say earlier, like, oh, this is the third time. This was the third time we've had like an overt alcoholism episode with a fair amount of like tongue clucking, and I think this one is probably the least. But I would I would direct our listeners to Kentucky Rye. I would say, no, don't, don't listen to him. But you know what I mean, right, like in terms of like a similar thing of like alcohol is bad and alcoholism is bad, and look at this guy being drunk and be and like okay, like yes, but I don't know, like I enjoyed parts of it, but there is a little bit of it where it's just like, man, I kind of just I'm over this kind of storytelling, Like the gas slighting thing is a little like okay, but I do say I will agree with you.

Victay Back is pretty fun. He's definitely just going for it and go here a creeper punk or whatever he's calling his kid, and it's like Jesus Christ and he's just reveling in it too, and starts getting that big big beard, this live o'clock shadow, and his hair starts looking wild. He's just he looks like a wild man. It's that part of it is fun watching his character take that journey. But I don't know if the trappings of the episode live up to the questions it's maybe trying to ask.

Yeah, I've never seen a subtle victay Back performance. He's almost always just turned that dial all. But I will say what you just mentioned, Chris. The interactions between him and Jerry, his possibly imagined, possibly manifestation, possibly something else, entirely child. I love them.

I think that's what I kind of hung on too when I've rewatched watching his interactions with them, because he doesn't really get desperate quickly. He's just annoyed by the whole thing, except for the implication that this is happening because he's drinking again, in which case, his performance there is fantastic. It's if you've ever been in a situation where you can't prove you've done something or not, and it's his well, I said, a desperation there is really good. But the interactions with the kid, which is just like he keeps interrogating him over and over again, like what'd you go to school? What's your birthday?

Hey? You went there? Long? Ah, it's me and this kid, this is our dinner tonight. Really is that the darkest reading is if you just take this literally and he's just literally a drug he is.

He has a fallen possibly fallen off the wagon and this child does exist. But then again that you can't square away if you take the again like you mentioned, like the if you take the little twist a little stinger at the end out, then you could do it that way. But that stinger at the end is so intentionally fucking weird, like it's everything about it is so weird that it almost makes me wonder like was everything just intentional? Because you notice him offered to victay back more times than he offers it to the other guy, And then you wonder like, well, did vic tay Bac actually turn it away or did he just drink it? And like you mentioned father Blone, is this all just in his head?

Like I don't know, Like that the damy moall might be the best part of the entire episode because it's so bizarre it almost just leads you into a field of possible. It's a hell of an episode to like be your first episode or your show outside of your pilot, Like what a fucking episode to just go for it with. Yeah, we're we're gonna see a lot of that. Like, one of the things I love about this show is it really did give a platform to a lot of creative and interesting people who would not have gotten on network television ever. I mean, this isn't network, this is syndicated, but you know, certainly not distributed to the masses.

They would be ordinary like a lot of authors, a lot of directors, a lot of actors. That's totally on display here for the first one interesting fun fact. Vic Tamak is in the first episode of the series, and he's in the last episode of the series. I love I love the way he looks at the end of the episode. I really do, like kudos to the makeup department for making him look just like about as rough as humanly possible.

And that room, that room, that the way that they shoot that room at the end, too, is also really great, just to make him feel really small in that room. I think they might have built a set for that actually to make it look like as odd as it did. I so would have handled that situation differently than he did. Just probably would have been like, Okay, well, let's do like a blood alcohol test, maybe get a breathalyzer, and like really like prove it out, and just like okay, like let's see the birth certificate, you know, and that sound like Donald Trump, but it's just like, let's approach this logically. But it's victa back.

So it's just what, yeah, that he does bring up the birth certificate, and but the wife is so shocked. But there would come a point before you start drinking heavily, I think where you would go. Listen, right, I'm a reasonable man. I don't think this child belongs to me. Please prove it to me.

Show me some photos of me holding him as a baby up till now, Like, can we talk to other people outside this house who knows Jerry as well? Can we go to the school and talk to his teachers? Please? Maybe I had a stroke, maybe I'm not well? Help me.

Funny, I'm having a real hard time here. It's not the alcohol, but something is going yeah, like I might have had a stroke or procedure. Please help me. Is this is well? Like?

And again, like to go down the path of what Mike said, like if that's what's going on, is this kid like a shared hallucination? Because the wife is like, he's our son, this is our child, Like this is our child and then this is the same kid at the So I mean, I don't know. I think I'm more now if I have ever been in terms of this specific episode of Tales from the Dark Side, I think it's like this weird like energy monster that like feeds off of I don't know, like unwell people like per its belief like and for whatever reason, it picked a place that you know what that place reminds me of. I wouldn't be surprised if in from stage left, Shelley the Machine Levine walked in and sat at that desk, like it would be amazing, Rio Rancho, I just closed the biggest deal of my life.

Wow, that's the thing. They don't necessarily have to go looking for drunk real estate agents in nineteen eighty like they're coming to you. Yeah. Yeah, so I I don't know, like that's fun, Like if you take it that way, then yeah, this is just like a complete wild and again very on topic for the time. That's the other thing, you know, kind of similar to Shatter Day, right, Yeah, it feels a lot like that.

That's what I kept thinking about was Shatter Day and wordplay. The world no longer makes sense to me somehow, tapping into that same sort of paranoia, early eighties paranoia, but you know, obviously ultimately a universal paranoia. I'm excited. This is a good opening salvo here for like what comes next, Chris what I mentioned that when I first watched it again, I was like, Sez, I don't like this one at all, And it was because I had fallen immediately into that, Oh, this is just an allegory first alcoholism. And then are you watching it again?

I like, wait, wait, wait, what is Jenkins doing here? Why is he so gleeful and audio? I think is he a recovered alcoholic? That that that this little demon has trapped in his reward for finally pushing them over the edge and calling in Jerry is to get a double shot of bourbon. I mean, that's the more fun explanation as far as I'm concerned, Like I've seen enough of these alcohol is a thing, or alcoholism or or addiction.

Oh Jerry is addiction? Is Jerry in the room with us right now? Like, like we've seen that enough. Like this if that's what this is, this is like just fucking bizarre, which I'm cool with. Just let it be weird, guys, Like, and I'm fine with that.

And this series has a dedication to the supernatural, so you're gonna get that more often than not. This isn't like Rod Serling trying to slip Alfred Hitchcock presents past us. There's going to be a devil or a demon or a monster at some point. And that's the other thing, Like, I don't have that frame of reference yet. So if I had had that frame of reference having seen the entire show to come back to this, it then feels more than ever like that it's a actual physical creature that is fucking doing all of these things like that.

Cause again that was I mean, that's always my concern with No tell On, not Tales from the Crypt, but Night Gallery and Twilight Zone eighty five. It's like they did things that they like went up to that line, and then they decided not to do the thing. And it's like, wait, why, this is the kind of show that would embrace the supernatural or the paranormal, and they didn't, And so I'm always hesitant to expect that maybe they're doing it here. So to hear you say, well, that is the case and that is what's going to happen, that's reassuring to me, I think a lot of series, even the best of them, always have a kind of a high mindedness when it comes to dealing in the trenches with the horror. Certainly we saw that with Rod, who was just like he had total disdain for constantly running through the cemetery.

Even Twilight's on eighty five we would get an occasional one, but only only a toe dipped into the actual horror genre. And I for one am excited once more to be watching this series. There are going to be highs and lows. Look at an anthology series, They're not all going to be great. There's some bad ones on the way, but there are some really good ones and some genuinely frightening ones, which is what more can you ask for.

I'm ready for a return to horror because it is literally been years since we did a horror anthology series. It was literally Tales from the Crypt. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm very excited, all right with that. Ordinarily we'd be playing a preview for the next episode, but there are no introductions here, so I'll just say on the next episode of Midnight Viewer, We're going to be taking a look at Tails from the Dark Side, season one episodes two and three.

Those are I'll Give You a Million and Painkiller. Midnight Viewing is a proud member of the weirding Way Media Network. Our theme song was composed by HP Until next time? What are you working on? Where can people find it?

Mike White? Well, just like the show, you can find everything that I do over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, including the Projection Booth, which is a movie show that I do once a week or more. It's been a lot more this year, so we'll see if I burnout or if I just fade away. I can also be found over at weirding Way Media shooting mamouth olf as they like to say in the old times. A lot of things I work on or weekly like the Culture Cast, or biweekly like the Bollywood Cinema Club, or monthly like The Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller or The Shaggy Detective.

The Shaggy Detective. That would be a great show, but that's how we're doing The Shabby Detective. Those are monthly and I work on those with Mike. And I'm here with Father Blone and Mike talking about this. So yeah, as for me, you can check out all of my nonsense.

Over at weirdingwaymedia dot com. You can hear Noisejunkies, the music podcast I co host with Mondo, Heather's Heather Drain, and HP. You can also hear Night Mister Walters, the Taxi podcast, which I also co host with HP. Speaking of HP, he wrote our theme song, so a big thanks to him. If you want to hear these episodes a week early and hear other exclusive content, or just support us in any way, please go to Patreon slash Father Malone.

Thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Try to enjoy the daylight