Tales from the Darkside S01E10&11 (Djinn, No Chaser & All a Clone by the Telephone)

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Darkness is coming for you. That's the fear that taunts me. Dark Destinations by fatherm Alone at Weirdingwaymedia dot com weird Way Media, Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror anthology podcast, where this season we're taking a look at George Abramero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. I'm Father Malone and sharing the Midnight view with me are the culture cast Chris Statue, you said, it's thank us for a podcast host. And also with me is the Projection Booth's Mike White.

I don't know if that's the Genie or the Answering machine talking coming from somewhere in animate. Tonight, we're taking a look at two episodes from season one. They are Gin No Chaser and All a Clone by the Telephone Jin no Chaser Season one, episode ten, originally aired on January the thirteenth, nineteen eighty five. Written by Haskell Barkin, based on the short story by Harlan Ellison, This was directed by Shelley Levinson. No surprise to anyone, he directed Time and Teresa Golowitz on Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five.

It also stars Charles Levin. He's the owner of the Discan dat and spinal Tap, and he's the reporter in The Golden Child at the beginning of The Golden Child. For any fans of that movie, maybe I'm just the only one. Also starting Colleen Camp, I want the I Yes, I was just hoping Mike would. I didn't want to have to intrude.

Was cure enough. Sorry to interrupt, but no, that had to prove my allegiance at some point. Yes, I'm a fan of that movie. Also starts Colleen Camp. Who would appear opposite in our next episode is Harry Anderson in Tales from the Crypt Corman's Calamity, which bears a striking resemblance to our next episode here.

This would also start Kareem Abdul Jabbar. This is about This is about a newly webbed couple who are augmenting their home decor with a magic lamp, but the Genian side is not interested in wishes for anyone. What do you thinking about? What did you think about this one? Mike?

I am rather ambivalent about this one. There are a lot of things I like about it and a lot of things I don't like about it. And I'm kind of on the fence with do I like it do I not? I have to so I've only read a little Harlan Ellison in my day. Is the dialogue coming from him, like all these like equips and things and the like them talking in script form and stuff.

I mean, I think I liked it, but I'm not exactly sure. I almost would have liked to have been more of that in them going through their daily lives without the genie thing, because the genie thing just complicates things unnecessarily almost. It's also very weird that we have this whole thing where he is talking to the camera, we never see who he's talking to, and I guess he can just leave the asylum that he's possibly at, but I don't know if he is. Yeah, I think I liked this one, of course. Once Scream Up Duel Jabar shows up.

He's amazing. I love that guy. He's so great. And then Colin Camp I'll be honest, she could just be reading the phone book, but as long as I get to look at her, holy shit, she is just gorgeous and she's in prime form in this one. So and then yeah, I think actually like the lead guy quite a bit.

I'm I know, I've seen him a ton of things, obviously you mentioned two of them, but he just seems so familiar to me, and I'm wondering if he was in a TV show I used to watch or something. But yeah, I think I like him a lot. He's like one of these stand up comic type guys just would show up at the right time and just he always did everything that he could to get a laugh. Yeah, those are my thoughts. How about you, Chris Well, there is a there is a connection to something that you and I have talked.

He shows up a fair amount on Alice of the episodes of that show. Okay, Linda Lavin our dear friend went Worth over from Barney Miller. But I think I agree with you. I think it's it's a fun episode. I mean, we're seeing what tales from the Dark Side can do when it's not just like forward, and so now that we're kind of seeing what else the show has to offer, it's interesting because it does strike me as a better put together version of Night Gallery, or more aptly, I think Twilight Zone eighty five.

I think this is a better version of Twilight Zone eighty five, which is to say, if you had called this twilight Zone eighty five, I probably would have believed you. And these episodes specifically at least this one and the next one, but definitely this one. It's like, again, there's like this thing at the center of it, and it's this one thing and they're trying to figure out what to do with it. Like that just strikes me as such a Twilight Zony thing, where it's like focusing on a singular object, like the Shatner episode from the original run of the show with the Little Devil Fortune Reader. It's like that.

It's like, we're gonna focus on this one thing and kind of fully flesh out the idea of what it does and the characters around it. So I thought it was fun. I think every time Kareem Abduel Jabar's voice emanates from the Genie's lamp. It's just he's just go for it. He is just going for it, So everybody's having fun.

At least that's my at least basic takeaway. Father alone, what about you? Well, okay, I have a complicated relationship Tarland Ellison. He's one of, if not my favorite author of all time, and watching this episode got me thinking about the fact that the real giants of science fiction, they virtually have no presence in television or movies. Like Ray Bradbury, you think there would be a ton of adaptations of his work, but the problem is it's really his language that enchants you in those novels, so it's not so easy to adapt with Ellison.

His language is it's the same. But the problem is what reads well on the page does not necessarily sound good coming out of somebody's mouth, And a lot of his dialogue sounds very comic book, particularly when he's doing comedy. And there's nothing wrong with doing fantasy comedy juxtaposition, it's just that Harlan's idea of comedy always tended to lean into the bors bell and the juxtaposition isn't justification enough to be hacky with the jokes just because you're throwing a couple of Mesopotamian god names into tired punchline. It does not enliven them above tired punchlines. That's my main problem with the dialog.

That was my main problem with it as a kid. It's a kid. I did not like this episode at all. Now I liked it quite a bit on the rewatch, particularly because of the performances, and of course because of the presence of fucking Kareem abdulence of bar Jesus Christ. He's fantastic.

I did think Charles levin his performance. What I wrote here was he seemed to have learned to act at the Juilliard's Nickelodeon campus. He's very very early nineteen eighties. He seemed to me to have done a lot of commercials, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw him from a lot of commercial because he has a very pitch manny attitude. Speaking of some of those lines from Ellison, we get an efendi here, hearkening back to our Dais and the Night Gallery.

Apparently Ellison is anything at the same bar as Godfrey Cambridge and make him laugh, make me laugh, Vernon baby, that is right to Bendy. I think it worked better here, though the special effects dude on this episode must have been stoked. This is all practical special effects. He's got ducks flying and blinds flying off the walls and stuff. As much as I liked all of those, and as ramshackle as they were, they were a little too ramshackle.

Like I felt, this episode was overreaching in its ambition. We go way too quickly to this guy like losing his marbles. Like you said, is he crazy? He just seems to get up and leave. And what I liked in the third season of Night Gallery so much is both John Badam and Jean Sire kept forcing us in on the story by making their characters break the fourth wall and address us, and each time it was pointed and unsettling and wholly necessary to the plot.

Here, it's just as an it's a first of all, it's an info oh dump. It's just to let us know who these people are and what their situation is. But I resent being made the doctor here, particularly when we start in this like silhouette of him, like the shot of him in the side, and then we swing out to base him and then he starts talking to his I'm like, okay, if we're the doctor, what were we doing just at the beginning of this I don't know. It was really weird. I think Colleen camp in addition to being incredibly beautiful and seemingly ageless, every time I see her in something, I go, oh my gosh, she looks perfect.

There wait, this isn't she will always be. What's funny is this same year basically is when a Valley Girl came out, and she's playing like an aging hippie in that two years earlier, she's in Apocalypse. Now is one of the bunnies at the USO tour that needs to be rescued, like Ada, she's a vampire or something. But she's also a very, very deft comedian. It's easy to overlook that because she can play it really broad and deliver in that way.

But here she's underplaying it. She's exactly what she needs to do because Charles Levin is going off the fucking walls. I mean, he mugs every chance he gets, Like every time he like picks something up or does something he like looks He's like, hmm, It's like Jesus bro, Like, at what point are you gonna maybe hold five percent back? Let alone? Ten, like it doesn't always need to be one hundred percent my friend, like and he's just always with the mugging.

It's like, oh, it's it is very comic, bookie and like over the top. It's over. It's very overwritten and over. Here's the thing, Mike, you asked if a lot of this dialogue was straight from Harlan Ellison. If you've ever read any of Harlan's I'm calling him Harlan like I knew.

Yeah, if you've ever read any of mister Ellison's scripts or screenplays, they're no one would ever want to make them because he's directing from the page. They're like close up of pistol, like medium shot of this, like move in on this. He's not just telling the story. He's being very exacting, and I think he seems to have inspired anyone who adapts him to kind of be that slavish to it. And I think Haskell Barkin, who I believe is an Ellison acolyte, like he does Hue very very closely to the original story as far as all the dialogue goes.

He changes the ending a little bit, and he actually makes the ending a little bit better, honestly, and in the book's it ends with the husband's still in the psychiatric hospital and then the wife comes to collect him, and the idea is that she's overcome the genie and now she's going to get him out and he's going to be okay. Well maybe that's a better ending. I don't know, but no, the ending in the episode is better because we get to interact with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and they're all friends, and that was cozy and comfy, and I like it. I love the way and ending where he's just like chilling in a suit and she's like, oh, everything's fine. Now it's right.

You're like fine, what happened in the meantime? Yeah? Well, I mean I've got some thoughts and theories. Most of them have to do with the genie and his wife not waiting for him to come back. Uh huh.

Yeah, and with the way she's doting on him at the end, I totally see that she's very quick to dismiss the notion. Oh no, no, no, no, no, how dare you suggest such a thing. I would never rub this man to completion for anything, let alone in or outside of a lamp. Mm hmm. Yeah.

The punchline at the end is pretty corny. It was. It was funny because as soon as she's starting to talk about and he's like, how did you get him out? And I was just like, can opener right, And I'm like, I don't remember ever seeing this episode. So when they like Amber goes over and then shows you the can I'm like, okay, yeah, that was a little much Like all she had to do was hold up a can opener and it would have been fine.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't think we need the can opener at all. It's like, no, that is sort of that. It feels very seventies fantasy. Ha ha ha. Can opener used to open a genie's magic lamp.

It's the Age of Aquarius. Everybody like, yeah, but this is like what eighty five? It's it's a little yeah, it's little goofy. I mean, the whole episode is goofy. It reminds me of was it was it Night Gallery or Toilets one eighty five where they have the they're in the studio doing the broadcast of the radio show and then all of a sudden everything starts coming to life.

It's Twilight five. Twilets on eighty five so it kind of reminded me of that where it's like, oh this what if this thing actually happened? And what if it did happen? What if you did find a genie who was irate and unable to come out? And I guess I don't understand why is he being addicted to them when they're the only ones who can get him out?

Right? Right? What what they're gonna be like, Oh, well, we're gonna let you out, given that you're clearly so mentally stable that you're just trying to kill us while we're already out here and you're stuck inside. Look, he just don't no no better. Okay, no one's ever been nice to him.

Ah, Okay, it's a Lion's Paul kind of thing. Right. It's like it's like a Laddin. No one's ever get set the genie free, Like, you know, what's the final wishes? I want to set the genie.

Nobody's ever been nice to me? Okay, genies are so put upon it apparently. I think this is kind of a mediocre episode overall. I do want to point out that the DP on this Karen Grossman, this is a this is an LA episode, and I think it's actually shot really poorly. This is this one is the first time on Teil Some of the Dark Side that I feel it was very scent bound and oh boy, big time, Like when he shuts the door at one point, the whole wall shakes.

Yeah. And there's like moments where he's at the window and they've got a flat out there of the thing and they've got like a green light on him. And if listeners, if you want to go back to our the first episode of this season of Midnight Feling, we talked to Robert Draper, the one of the dp's on the show, and he said the lighting rule here on Tales from the Dark Side was noir lighting. It was low key lighting, so hard light, and with that you can disguise so much. And it doesn't do it in this episode.

But Karen Grossman shoots the next episode, which is also an LA episode, and I think it looks fantastic. So I might have to blame the director here, Shelley Levinson, for maybe running the schedule a little quick, trying to meet the day speaking. It's also just maybe because Harry Anderson just looks so West Coast compared to Charles Levine. Well, there we are We're at all a clone by the telephone. This is season one, episode eleven, aired originally on January the twentieth, nineteen eighty five.

This one was also written by Haskell Barkin, directed by Frank de Palma, and stars Harry Anderson. Like I said, he kind of remakes Corman's Calamity with Colleen Kamp at a certain point with this episode. It also stars Marcy Barkin and Joe Dante good Luck charm Dick Miller. This is about a struggling television writer who finds an alley through the help of an answering machine and an alternate universe. What do you think of this one, Chris So?

Harry Anderson is someone who I haven't seen in enough things, but the thing that I've seen him in he's definitely not right. In that thing being Steve King's Two Night Special Event. He is actively I think one of the worst parts of that movie, just because I don't know it's not him, it's really what he's yet he's terrible in that he drags every scene he's in down. And I love Harry Anderson. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I don't think it's him.

I think it's the I mean, look, I don't think it should come as any surprise. The second It sequel wasn't great either, so the second night of It has never been good to begin with. My point being I haven't seen Harry Anderson in much other than It and a handful of disparate episodes of Night Court. So that all being said, I think he's great here, and I like him a lot here because this seems like the perfect kind of put upon thing that works for his comedic saying, his style that he brings to things. I think he's great, and I think this episode is definitely better than the last one, and I think I think it has more to say.

Maybe not a whole lot, but I think it's It's an interesting look at kind of what are you willing to do to get what you want? Including making a deal with the devil who might also be yourself from an alternate universe, could be Yeah, a lot a lot of questions. What is this other person? Why does he sound like Harry Anderson at first but not like Harry Anderson later on? At least that's how I was.

If we're doing Harry Anderson True Confessions, I will say that I grew up with Harry Anderson. He was my neighbor. No, he wasn't he he was on Cheers all the time, so good. Loved him on Cheers. And then when he ended up being well, and I also would see his stand up comedy sometimes, especially his stand up magic stuff, so that whole needle through the arm thing that he would do.

Oh, that was such a great bit that he would do. And then yeah, when he ended up on Night Court, I was I think I probably watched a lot more Night Court than I remember, and I would almost say, when we're done with Barney Miller, we might want to look at Night Court. Chris, I'm not sure it's definite. Yeah, I mean, I downloaded all the episodes a few years ago, but I haven't watched him, and this would be kind of almost new territory for both of us. I think, so, Yeah, I I I'm not exactly sure everything that's going on in this episode as far as yeah, maybe you can explain some of this stuff to me.

And I guess I'm bearing the lead that I didn't really care for this one that much. I was glad to see Dick Miller. He looked great. He's always a welcome edition. But yeah, that's that's about all.

I all the good. I could say this episode, Chris, you mentioned the last one felt like it could easily have taken place over on the Twilight Zone. I think this one also could have taken place over on the Twilight set. I think the common denominator there is again Harlan Ellison. I think this is Haskell Barkin kind of making his own Harlan Ellison version of an episode, and I think again would play very well over on Twilight Zone.

Can I explain this one? No? I can't explain this goddamn thing. I was hoping you were. I thought that was an intro, like, can I explain it?

Yes? Please listen listen? Okay, So, from what I can understand, this is a universe where all the answering machines and direct dialers are alive and talk to each other, and they have human wants and needs. That's the world he slipped into, right. The machine effectively says you're in and out in an alternate universe.

And what we see is that we get an example of the machine calling another tyler at a what a movie theater recording girl to hit on her. So we get the idea that these things are somehow alive. But yes, it has his voice for some reason, which I didn't even pick up on until a second time I watched the episode. I went in the cast list and I'm looking for the voice who played the voice of the answering machine, not realizing it was Harry Anderson. Anyway, Oh, I do want to say, echo you for a second there, Mike, because yeah, Harry Anderson at this point in history, when he was a mainstay on Center at Live Look at the time where they were doing a lot of variety acts they have around a lot.

He was on had Joel on there, Hodgin, Joel Hodgson. Oh my god, what a string of Dick Eversol did a good job there for a little while. That'side Live in getting some talent on screen that needed to be on screen. But I digress. Okay, So Harry Anderson has fallen into the world of all of these direct dialers and answering machines that are alive, right, but for some reason, there's only one targeting Harry Anderson.

Are there only targeting Hendry Anderson because they have needs? Right, Because in the end, this machine wants fame and fortune, and all this kind of nonsense. So why aren't they Why isn't this world chaos? Right? Wouldn't they be impersonating us into oblivion if they could?

Okay, there's that noe. First of all, no one is gonna mistake a fifty pound VCR for an answering machine. When that VCR hits the floor, it's just like a radio shack exploded. Matt. At first I thought it was a top loader.

They're kind of the old crank on the side. Hey, sign, this is nineteen eighty four. If they can do it to mom Bell, I can do it to you. I laughed at that. I actually laughed at that, and mostly because of nostalgia.

I'd just been talking to a friend about dialing ten ten three two one before calling long distance. The other day. There was a sketch on not necessarily the news at this time, it was mo Bell's answer to the world. They're like, you broke us up, and you're gonna pay. You're gonna have to buy your own phones.

Now. We're not coming out to fix anything anymore, suckers. This whole episode seems to be about overreactions, because the machine seems to be at the beginning trying to help him get work, and then he overreacts to the machine that he doesn't want his help and it's ruining his life. So then it tries to get him what he evidently wanted by getting his girl bag, and then Harry Anderson overreacts to the not only to the I'm going to unplug you, I'm going to erase you. Why are you erasing him?

Why are you going this far? It's just horrible. I thought the endless calling was hilarious. The machine's taunting him because they never straight up taunt him, it's just what they're advertising is pointed at him. Like I thought that was kind of kind of amusing.

I like I said, I love Harry Anderson, but there's a moment where he's smoking while gnawing on a chicken bone that I found deeply disturbing. In this, he liked to push buttons, you know. The erasing of the machine, which I found so horrible, ends up meaning nothing at all, because as soon as he plugs it back in, it's there as if it meant nothing like that. That was bothersome. So Okay, now he's going to after he's been so horrible to the machine, he now is going to need the machine because he goes to visit this producer who wants to talk about the miniseries that he created, but really it was the Answering Machine who created the mini series.

But the producer can't remember the mini series even though it's on tape and has happening, right, thank you. Also, I don't care how fucking excited he was at the time. You would remember at least something, you know, the thing with the cars something. I can't remember any of it at all. What kind of magic tech is on display here?

Magic tech over and over again. Tell us to the dark Side equals magic tech. Guys, he's a horrible human being and now he's going to get his just deserts where the Machine's going to take over his life and make him his slave. Right, But what the machine wants is like fred it Okay, First of all, what is going up on the screen written by execu sect? You're right?

Secondly, wouldn't just be it? Can't he just turned the script in and put his name on it and tell the machine that he did it? Like good enough for Walter Hill. Oh but I don't know. This also reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode with James Coco the Shakespeare episode, like in the ending end of it, you know, the writer trap, like parallel thinking going on between the Zone and the dark Side.

I'm sure ultimately what I took away from this episode is Haskell Barkin took a lot of notes from executives on scripts for television scripts he had written, and they were on his answering machine, and this is what he felt like, felt like his answering machine was controlling his life because it was telling him creative things that he had to do. And then he wrote this, and this is what we get because I don't know ultimately what this is about. I liked it, and I liked it a little bit better than Jen Notchaser, but I don't know what they're getting at here at all. Is it a comment on how disaffected or disassociated we are in society? I don't know.

Well, that's that's and that's the thing again, like why why are we so focused on technology with the show? All of a sudden, for like five of the last six episodes, it feels like have just been like technology focused and they're not saying anything. It's just like, is in technology weird? It's technology as magic? Right?

Because in the last pace, right, it's just a means to get him what he wants, Mookie and Poke, it's a means to resurrect the dead. I mean, at least they're giving us something with it. But what is it here other than man versus technology? And if so, why is it? Why is it even about screenwriting?

Shouldn't it be something about calls? So the fact that we're all stuck on the telephone at all times, it seems very telephone centric for being nothing about telephones at all ultimately, or that the answering machines even exist as a thing. And again, you know, Mike, you and I are doing a show about the Sopranos, and early on in that show they're talking about called Waiting, and that's like a big part of that of one of the episodes. And here it's like, isn't the fact that you could leave an answering machine message weird? WHOA?

It's like, I it was a big it was a very no. I know, I understand that part, but like now it's like, obviously it seems very quaint now. But again, like more to my point, it's like, and that's all you're doing with it, is that your answering machine can talk to you, like right, it seems like a missed opportunity in like eight different directions. It's maybe the technology is too new and this is just the sitting around the office looking at the thing and thinking about it and spinning out this tale without considering what its actual impact it is. I no, no, the furthest we can take it.

What's the logical furthest step we can go with this? Oh? I know my life. It's a lie, Tabitha, come in here. I want you to read something.

No wife murdering this one. No no g us about this one? All right. On the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we'll be taking a look at two episodes from season one that those are in the cards and anniversary Dinner. Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology Podcast is a proud member of the weirding Way Media Group and our theme song was composed by HP Until next time?

What are you working on? Where can people find it? Chris dash Here? Weirding Way Media is where you can find everything that I work on and more, including things that I am not part of but just you know, work with or find places to let people put their shows out. So Weirdwaymedia dot com.

What about you, Mike Kaind of the same thing. Yeah, Weirdingwaymedia dot com. I believe it is. That's the site for all of the things that I work on, including The Projection Booth and The Shabby Detective and the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller and some things that have nothing to do with seventies please shows so well, not very many, not very many, but a few so Projection Booth. We don't talk about cop shows too often, though, I will ask anybody that has been on Colombo to tell me about their experiences.

So as for me, you can hear all of my stuff over there at the weirding Way as well, including Dark Destinations, a radio drama that I write and produce. You can also hear Night Mister Walters, the Taxi podcast that I co host with HP. The aforementioned HP. I want to thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight Midnight Viewing.

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