Tales from the Darkside S03E19&20 (The Social Climber - The Swap)

Way wait a s oh. Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror and Vology podcast, where this season we are taking a look at George Abramero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. I'm fathom alone. Sharing the Midnight view with me are the Culture Cast Chris Stashue. You guys ever look at Richard Romanas and just go why wasn't he more popular?

And then I think to myself, didn't did Judge Reinhold just take that away from him? You just don't know dmon. Also joining me are the Projection Booths Mike White. When it comes down to making out whenever possible, put on side one of led Zeppelin four good. That's right.

Tonight we are taking a look at two episodes from season three. Those are The Social Climber and The Swamp. The Social Climber season three episode nineteen, originally aired on March the eighth, nineteen eighty seven, written by Ellen Sandhouse and directed by friend of the podcast A Mastriani, starring Albert Haig, Robert Ramanis, and Talia Balsam. A cobbler's assistant wants the sweet life, and he wants it now, and he works with the magic man who makes magic shoes, social climbing, high jinks, ses. The Malone special shoes, you say magical shoes, crocks?

Were they cruel shoes? Not the cruel shoes. She had the jokes. Yes, Hey, we finally got a fucking twist, like we haven't had a good The universe hates you twist in a while. I think the last one might have been that stupid son of a bitch that got caught up by the ceiling fan.

These episodes are here to teach us a lesson, right, This is all about moralizing, all about telling us be happy with what you have, don't try to don't try to be a social climber, don't try to get ahead in life. Just be content. And this one just brings that home in spades. Yeah. I thought it was decent, felt like it took fucking forever to get where it was, and it didn't really seem to know the rules of the shoes, which I don't say.

Very often, not often enough. It just felt it felt off. It's like I almost want to see if there's like, was this based on a short story, because it feels like it should have been. Nope, I don't know. If now, okay, yeah, I don't know.

It feels like Allan Sandhouse had more to this at some point, as she just had to start clipping stuff out, and what we ended up with didn't make a ton of sense. I hate to be the guy who's just the rules, set up the rules? What are the rules of this thing? But you have to so then you know what you're playing against and then the twist makes a lot more sense when it comes to that. But what'd you think about this one, Chris?

Don't set up the rules, man, if you're just going to ignore them? What they didn't? What rules? I know? That's what I mean?

Or I was gonna say, don't set up the rules, ignore, or just do what this episode does and just don't fucking establish rules at all. I liked this more when I saw it as an Adam Sandler film a couple of years ago, called The Cobbler, which is more or less this film. This episode's plot a man works at a store that makes shoes and repairs shoes, and in repairing said shoes, he finds out that he can put said shoes on and walk a quote walk a mile in someone's shoes. And it's Adam Sandler, and it's directed by, of all people, Tom fucking McCarthy. Oh, I thought you're gonna say Dennis Dugan.

By the fact, it would have been if it had been Dennis Dugan, you would have not if I get it like one of those quipitch things, I could have lied to you and been like, it's Dennis Dugan. You would have been like, yeah, it probably is. You're trying to grown ups one and two? Why not the Cobbler? You know what I think?

To Mike's point, Bob Romanus in this episode is pretty decent and the twist is open, But what the fuck episode did we twenty minutes for this and then it's just like a dies off screen? Yeah? Okay again, I like the twist, but I don't like the execution. Lea gives a lot. To be definitely feeling like well, definitely feeling like they ran out of money here at the end of season three.

The past few episodes of this one in particular, they're keeping it all in one location and not a lot of special effects and zero monsters of late here on Tails from the dark Side, I guess. Because Manity is the monster Father alone. Oh no, yeah, overreaching is you're right. This feels like an easy comic, like careful what you wish for or be grateful for what you have, because he's already got the perfect girl and he could have the perfect life, but he just wants to rub the elbows with the Holy POLOI weirdly, and by the way, the doughnuts look great, coffee looked delicious. Liked all of that.

This is a weird little Fame reunion too. Two actors from the television series Fame. Robert Ramanis wasn't in the movie that Albert Hague was, but they're both in the series. I'll never forget Robert Ramani's portraying the role of Moriarty in a musical of Sherlock Holmes on Fame. Wow.

Wow. Should I go back and watch that? No? I shouldn't. If you do, come, I'll come do that with you.

I've got a soft spot in my heart for Fame and all of its iterations. I finally just watched the movie maybe a year ago. It was not that long ago. Yeah, I grew up hearing the songs and everything, but it was just a smidge too old for me when it came out, and just never checked it. Out.

Wow, that's a movie I watch every year. I think, Wow. Yeah. I was so surprised, especially to see the cancer eating man in here. I was just like, what is this guy doing.

Paul mccrane, aka the guy that gets spattered by Ray Wise and a RoboCop. He got his arm cut off by a helicopter on er. Oh my god, that was amazing. That was so good when that happened. I met him in a parking lot of a thrifties once.

He was so sweet, he was He was so excited that anyone recognized him. Honestly, you go, oh, you think you're pretty smart. Huh, smarter than a bullet. No, it was funny, is no, because he said everyone recognizes him from RoboCop. But I was like, oh my god, fame.

And he was like what and came right over to talk to me about it. It was fun. Yeah, that's awesome. I don't know this is a It is just a little easy comic. It's guying, very easy.

Yes. Yeah. The problem is I would like to have seen something with the shoes. Can we leave the sets it all happens off screen. Maybe we don't need we don't need to see what happens elsewhere to see what happens to him when he's there.

It is classic screenwriting. You tell you don't show, come on when you have no money, what do you expect to do exactly? I really feel that way. Her mom Nostriani is usually pretty thrifty and ingenious with stuff. He was the one who created I believe he created a fucking circus out of a light package at one point earlier, in one of the earlier seasons.

I'm a little shocked he didn't come up with some sort of phantasmic oracle thing to give us, I don't know, some impression of what Robert Ramanis was going through instead of his just glum recitation of what was going on the night before Liza was there. Frank, Yeah, talk to the mayor. Okay, cool, Well what are you getting out of this? Did you have a good time? Doesn't sound like you had a good time.

Richard Ramani's just always seems so fucking disinterested to late. Like, I get it in terms of way that's cool, Like you're a cool guy. You seemed disinterested. That's what cool guys are. But I'm not sure I want that guys my also, father Malone, this just reminded me too much of that Christopher Reeves episode of Tales from the Judge Reinhold or Judd is Judge.

No, Judd Nelson. That's a cannibal episode. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, And that's what this is reminded.

Richard romanis and Judd Nelson facially similar. No, I feel like. They do from You're just in that movie together, that's all. No, they look similar. You don't think Judd Nelson and Richard romanis similar.

Not at all, not even remotely. Sir, that's not true. You're lying. I think they look similar, which is why I often think that jud Nelson is in fast type. Fun fact, Albert Hag wrote the wrote the song You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch, not the lyrics.

Obviously, I wondered why that was why he was showing up around that. I thought that he because they said something about writing a musical, but I guess the cartoon is a musical. Indeed, that was his claim to fame before before being sucked up into fame. Oh interesting, or being in space have Yeah, and he's very familiar about Hag. Talia Balsom also fucking fantastic missus John Slannery just he's great man.

And she's been in a bunch of but she plays Alex Rieger's daughter on Taxi, jued Nelson, Judd Nelson, jet Hurst's daughter on taxi. So I've been seeing her there a lot. And then I was start on mad Men a lot recently and I just dig her. We need to see more of her. Yeah, she was, she was very good.

Yeah, no, Elves. You can't really have a Cobblers episode without Elves. I don't think. No, it's so funny. I was just talking about the cobbler's wife the other day to one of my coworkers.

Of course, he had no fucking idea I was talking what I was talking about. I was like, you know, the cobblished wife. If everybody's got shoes in town, but the cobblished wife, because you don't take care of what's I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah, And I've tried to tell the whole story about the bread crumbs and the elves and all that stuff. These kids today they don't know the classic stories. And it's they're readily available in cartoon form.

They're just not getting the old classic MGMs and Warner Brothers. Are available in tales from the dark Side for them guys, come. On, Oh yeah, you can get the mess maybe. As me being facetious obviously, how does he die at the end? He just dies, Yeah, because he wore the shoes of a dead man.

And so he gets to experience that man's life. Yes, so they take the shoes. If they take the shoes off as he come back to life. Oh, in a special cemetery. However, they ring the bell.

The Twilight Zone a new twilet Zone. We had dead woman's shoes based on the dead man's shoes, same sort of idea, like put on the shoes, live the life of the last person who if. We're going to go in that vein, I'm much more like that Twilight Zone episode that we've neglected to do where that one guy just becomes black in the episode that's if you're going to walk a mile in someone's shoes. This is the are you talking about? Twilights on two thousand and two with Forrest Whitaker.

That's the first episode of that show. Yeah, we will. We will never do that, seriously. Why it's you know what, you know what you we will do. We will meerch the good name of it.

But it actually had some bangers in there, and you know it like the one episode where everybody's just in a computer game, another great one. First of all, we have so many good series to get through before we get to another twilight Zone. We have done the Twilight Zone, so we've done, in fact, the best twilight Zone. You've done, the best, best iteration of the Twilights. If we're not doing all the Twilight Zone before we're all in the Twilight Zone, I'm going to be just one.

And I thought that eighty five was just an Appa teazer and ordure to the main course of watching the entire show. We're fucking living in the Twilight Zone. Why do you want to fucking go back to it? At one point we went through the veil while watching the show into the fucking twilight Zone. Yeah.

I think we might have caused this. I blame Jordan Peterson. Why because I fucked up Jordan Peele's name, that's what. Yeah. I was like, hell, yeah, is that what you're going for?

That's right? That bit? Yeah, yeah, yes, obvious as you possibly can't remember. They had a child playing the President trembling. It was so controversial, so on.

The Nose podcast at twenty thousand feet. Did you know that the internet radio was a thing? And they it was the other passengers. They were the gremlin. He was dead the whole time.

Wow, it was in a dream. Spooky. Remember John Candy and his Twilight and Zonettes. He was on Fridays one time he hosted Fridays and he was like, I'm Rod Serling, these are my Twilight Zonets and it was just like it was just it basically boiled every Twilet Zone episode down to a fucking blackout sketch. Can I just point out that I feel like I would have vibed a lot more with the SETV people than the SNL people, because the SETV people always seemed like they were really fucking weirder.

They were involved in the Teriica Moore, because the Twilight Zone, that is just that's Canadian comedy for. They weren't on cocaine. They run tim Hols and tim bits are speaking of bashing me over the head. Here we go. The Swap Season three, episode twenty aired originally on March the third, nineteen eighty seven, Written by Richard Benner, directed by John Drury and stirring Charles Ludlam Maria minousch and James willcheck.

This is a love triangle and it's got bodies switching. I wonder where we've seen that before. Oh all anthologies, Night Gallery, Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt. I knew we'd get here eventually. What is the newest drinkle in this one?

Can you tell me, Chris? I liked the Skeleton Key when I saw it in theaters. Ah, that's what this reminded me of. And that movie's not very good. And the twist of that movie is the twist to this episode.

This episode is exactly what do you expected to be. Once you see where the setup is going, it's oh okay, one of them's gonna switch the body with its twilight the mic. You were on the tails from the Crypt episode with the body swapping, and that episode not great. This episode not great. But better episode than this?

Yeah god, oh yeah yeah again. This guy gross looking. That's just let's just give him skin lesions and that's enough. And you know what, you can easily have moles removed, not a problem. I used to have a mole right here.

Would also get caught when I was shaving. I think I had a big one on my forehead at one point and it's oh, there's a different one right here. But yeah, it's like, yeah, just go to the doctor, get those taken care of. It's really okay. But and I don't know why after you swap bodies with this guy, that guy then has to start looking gross because that feels like defeats the purpose of switching bodies with the young honky guy.

I'm gonna switch bodies with the young honky guy, and then he's gonna turn out to be gross. Now I could understand that a body swap. It occurred because we're fucking stupid. Because we're dumb. Yes, okay, because we are dumb shits.

It's not like they didn't we didn't know when he said, oh there's a missing ingredient and it's what seven letters and it starts with an H, and I was like, okay, I'm locke. Yeah, wow, okay, Yeah. Horny go Weed had Horny Goweed had too many, just. Like yeah, the picture of the mom who was really getting to me. Was that just like leftover from another episode or something.

It just felt like a weird photo. Thought, yeah, no, that was Charles Ludlomon drag. It was okay, is that why he's in drag also on his profile picture on IMDb. I can't vouch for that. I just know that in this episode that was supposed to be him as his own mother.

I did not pick that at all. I thought that was a stell. I thought Estelle was coming back to haunt me, that she had turned from a mannequin into a real person was now haunting my dreams. For those of you who don't, nobody's talking about good for you. Yes, lucky you, I believe is the correct.

Wow. Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of this one either. Talk. I don't expect these anthology shows to be subtle. You got what, twenty two minutes to get a story across, You got to really hit that sometimes, just really, we know which way we need to go, and we're gonna go that way, and we don't care if you see that curve coming or not.

We're just gonna plow right through it and that's it. But this was one of the most unsubtle episodes I've seen, and I just didn't care about any of the people. And it's not you know, I talked with the shoe thing as far as the whole don't try to better yourself. Don't try to do this. This is all like the moralizing of these stories.

There's I guess it's because his wife is an adultus. But what the hell were they doing together? Anyway, he was the worst person in the world world she's not that much better, but he Bubba basically wins in the end. I'm like, that doesn't make sense. Is this just we have to punish this woman for being an adultress?

Okay, in that case we're talking dark side. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with the villain being a villain and being and winning in the end. That's fine by me. What I do have a problem with this is every fucking trope.

This is the love triangle trope. This is the handyman and the wife for having the affair, and the poor aggrieved husband but he's worse than her somehow. And then the body's swapping, which we say Larry Hagman over on the Night Gallery was doing it with his housekeeper. As far as love triangles, Jesus Christ tells from the dark Side, it tells from the crypt it's just a wash in love triangles. Hammering all of that shit here and then not doing anything new or interesting with it.

In fact, I don't know. The performances are fine, the main guy is pretty good. The fucking friend who's also a reverend made me want to kill myself. The not quite otho Glenn Shaddocks, Oh thank you, bargain basement Glenn Shattocks basically, oh. My god, that haircut.

What He's in a movie that I've been wanting to see for a while now called Happy Birthday Gemini. And this is almost enough to make me actually watch it. It just looks so bad. And so here's the plot. A poor Harvard students romance with a girl hits a rough spot when he realizes on his twenty first birthday that he's in love with her brother.

Based on the nineteen seventies Off Broadway smash Twist. Oh, I want to see that too. My god, that sounds great. Yeah, that's hilarious. I don't know.

I've got to I've just got to think for fucking college movies, I just think, particularly if they're really earnest. This one looks like a balls up comedy and it's Madelan Con. Oh fuck, it's true nineteen eighty. There you go. If I find Goodbye Gemini or Happy Birthday Gemini, Goodbye GEMI is a whole different thing.

I will let you know and we can check it out together. Yeah boy, yeah, the swamp, the switch, the Freaky Friday, the Happy death Day. But all I don't know what this was? This Happy death Day? What the fuck is that?

Freaky Oh, freaky yeah, freaky yeah. I already said Freaky Friday, which is what of course, they very subtly. They're very subtly referencing, just like. The predator and predator, two different things. For Okay, so she's a trophy wife and this guy's lording over her young boyfriend that he's taken her off to fuck her and he's really gross and everything.

And but okay, as a trophy wife, we're to assume that he's this guy is loaded from his modest surroundings. I'm going to say he is not loaded. And then so his scheme is unlike previous body swapping schemers. His plan is to inhabit the body of the young man and then she'll inherit all of the money if she marries the young man. And now that there's common, they give him some Louisiana because this is a new Orleans episode, he gives her some sort of local statute that says that common law now says that the community property that he now has, he has access to half of the money.

So at this point doesn't she just go, okay, divorced and if that statue was in the on the books to begin with, then just divorce and take half of his money and go off with the kid. Nobody swamping necessary? And no, I think they're being punished by the way at the end MIC because they murder him. Oh yeah, they gave him himlock, which was the secure ingredient, so they really kind of helped him out. That was not their intention, an accidental good deed.

They weren't like, hey, how can we help your husband? How about a bottle of imlock? I know, let's tie him spread eagle to a bed and feed him poison. That will help him. Have you been reading my diary again?

Why is this such a popular trope to go back to? Because it's just so cheap? Is that what it is? It's relatable. Everyone's jealous, Okay, I'm just curious.

Everybody wants that better life. I want to wear those. Shoes, that's right. Everyone's social climber I want. To wear those cruel shoes.

I want to I want to dance, I want to sing, I want to live my life. Apparently that's nope, nope, stop that, stop that. No singing, no singing. I just when they start having his face mutate at the end, I'm just like, but you must really think that the audience. Him just repeating the phrase that the guy said all the time and cackling the way the guy cackles.

Get it. In fact, we already know as the audience we've been following along. Yeah, it's readily apparent what is going on in this episode, And I just I find it very hard to believe that anyone watching along wouldn't be like, I get it. I guess they figure because who else could it be. The husband at one point has a conversation with his friend and they're talking about the transmigration of the soul.

But then they cut away real quickly, so I think they think that they were just laying a breadcrumb that would pay off later that we didn't know this was going to be a body switching episode because it's called the swap. What else would it be? Snowballing? Have you been reading my diarrhea. Who he likes to snowball folks.

Are you just looking at my browser history. Snowballing and traps folks? Mike White, Yeah, fan of it all. He's a fan of it all. There's nothing that this man doesn't like.

Yeah, we didn't talk about women's best fun. Yes, yes, I have some Father Malone. When does the show of course correct? Does the show course correct at all? I don't know.

I'm looking ahead to season four and there are someones just off of the top of my head that are really good, actually, including like the first Clive Barker adaptation. There's a divine shows up next season in an episode in a comedy in a comedy episode, Yeah, Debbie Harry does too. Actually, no, sore. There's some pretty good ones coming up. So I don't know that it ever course corrects to like Season two goodness, but it never falls to Night Gallery or Twilight Zone eighty five levels of badness.

Honestly, some of these episodes lately have been good, Like I really kind of liked Black Widows. Gosh, what was the Seasons of Belief? I think it was. I mean, there have been some really good ones lately. But yeah, but then I think of things like my own place where it's okay, so yeah, all right, maybe I have there been more of season two than season three.

There. The thing is, again, when you have a show like this, and we've talked about this before, when you have a show like this that does as much as this show does, and I mean in terms of the look, not that many shows have this much fucking range. An anthology show is expected to have kind of an unlimited amount of range in terms of the subjects and things that it can tackle. And it's father Malone. You and I I think it was you and I either were talking about this yesterday recording about it that the restaurant that does one thing well or restaurant that has to do a million, this is the You don't have a fucking choice.

You have to do a million things. That's the goddamn expectation. Like the expectation is you will do a lot of different things with an anthology show, and that I don't think is realistically sustainable in the long run. And I think that more or less every single one of these shows that we've talked about has shown that is in fact that these are not sustainable in the long term, because like you said Father Malone words season three and season three of most of these shows flies off of a cliff head. First, I think if you're going to do an anthology series, you know, you've got to have a limited number of episodes per season, and you need to have all rare going in.

You need to have at least three seasons worth of stories. And those stories are out there. You just need to go find them and pay the author appropriately and then make them. And you can do it. The fact that every anthology keeps faltering anthology series keeps faltering, to me, is bonkers.

Like in the same way too, Oh yeah, the same way. It's just like the stories did you start retreading the same bullshit material over and over again? And all I can think to myself is you're telling me that there weren't plenty of short stories out there to adapt. Really, I feel like you hit on something though, that you actually have to pay these writers, which just that's anethema to me. I don't have to pay anybody for this stuff.

Come on, say, we know how Hollywood feels about paying anybody to do anything, especially people that write things. Mike Go, writers deserve to. Live, don't these people just make up the stuff when they're on screen. That's right, everyone just says what's on the top of their head. Yep, all right.

On the next episode of Midnime Jeming, we'll be taking a look at the final two episodes of season three. Those are Let the Games Begin and the Enormous Radio. Midnight of Viewing is a proud member of weirding Way Media Group. Our theme song was composed by Hpole an assist by Donald and Rubinstein. Until next time?

What are you working on? Where can people find you? Christache? You? You can find me and all the things that I work on over Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this show and so many other great shows can be found, including The Projection Booth and Twisted and Uncorked.

And only thing that can't be found there is ranking on bond, which you found at my Patreon or Mike's patreon at patreon dot com, slash Culture Guest or patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. What about you, Mike, Well, speaking of patreons, we should probably give Father Malone's Patreon a plug as well. And I always appreciate Fa theom alone hosting the show and walking us through these anthologies, especially this one, Tales from the Dark Side. It's been very good. I haven't even heard any special audio effects lately.

We're running dry on that front too. That's yeah. It was like the highlight of the episodes for me some time. So that was night Gallery specific. Oh okay, okay, so that particular library.

All right, I got you correct. Our next series, we're going to get into a lot more of that. Actually you hear this guy. The next series. Oh, he already announced it.

It's Hammer's House of Horror. Yeah. Baby, I've had people already asking me. They're like, when are you covering Hammerhouse of Horror? And I'm like, as soon as we get done with Tales from the Dark Side, And this was one we had just started.

Tales from the Dark Sides. Me too. I got hammered by people for Hammerhouse of Horror, Ol. Horrors Horses. Oh so yeah.

Thanks to Follow Alone for doing all this, and definitely check out some of the shows that Father Alone does. I think they're all available over at Waitingmymedia dot com. So that's my plug, is your plug, thank. You very much. Some of those shows that our composer HP does two shows over there.

I'm just gonna plug his noise Junkies, his music Show's fucking Fantastic, pretty in depth look into a particular albums or artists. And he also does a show called Night Mister Walters, which is a look back at the Taxi television series and I'm the co host on that. All right, thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, trying to enjoy the daylight