Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Horror Rewind: Tales from the Dark Side
What if you could step back into the 1980s and wander through the campy, eerie world of horror television? Join us for a nostalgic trip as we unravel the origins and creative genius behind the classic anthology series "Tales from the Dark Side." With roots linked to the iconic 1982 film "Creepshow" and the visionary George Romero, this series ingeniously blends humor, horror, and the supernatural. We recount the unforgettable premiere episode, "Trick or Treat," where a capitalist antihero meets a spooky fate, and reflect on Romero's tenacity in bringing his chilling vision to life despite legal hurdles.
Our conversation shifts to spotlight standout episodes like "Anniversary Dinner" and "Inside the Closet," showcasing the talents of Tom Savini and Fritz Weaver. Journey into the heart of these episodes, where an albino ghoulie lurks to the haunting sounds of a theremin, evoking a sense of thrilling nostalgia. We also explore the series' cultural impact, especially through its adaptations of works by renowned authors like Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker, and Stephen King, adding layers of intrigue to an already rich tapestry of storytelling. There's even room for a laugh as we connect these eerie tales to the world of musical theater.
Anthology series have evolved, but their charm remains timeless. We draw comparisons to modern successors like "The Twilight Zone" and "Black Mirror," examining the puzzle-like nature of their narratives. As we reminisce about the original "Tales from the Dark Side," we ponder its enduring appeal amidst today's streaming challenges. We wrap up our episode with a candid discussion on podcasting ethics, underscoring the value of genuine research and active listener engagement. With a sprinkle of humor, we remind our audience to support local businesses and leave no trace behind, making this episode a delightful blend of entertainment and insightful discourse.
Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality, but there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit, a dark side. Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 3:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative, negative.
Speaker 2:All weapons Now Charge the lightning field.
Speaker 3:Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. To Dispatch HX. We're doing a Halloween short. This time, exactly what you're doing, and it's been a long time, brother man, we're doing a retro rewind. Retro rewind, I was hoping you'd remember. This time we're doing a little show called Tales from the Dark Side. What?
Speaker 1:That is right. This isn't the hood, this isn't the crypt. This from the Dark Side. What? That is right.
Speaker 3:This isn't the hood, this isn't the crypt, this is the dark side, though not completely unrelated to Tales from the Crypt, in fact, extremely related to Tales from the Crypt. Tales from the Dark Side, if you remember, was a TV show in the early 80s. I said late 80s. Jesus Christ, it's 100% the early 80s.
Speaker 1:Well, it's early to late, honestly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true. It is an American horror anthology TV show created by the one and only George Romero. This show it's different than Tales from the Crypt or Friday the 13th the series.
Speaker 1:Monsters.
Speaker 3:Well, we'll get to that. It's kind of an underrated, unseen, extremely low budget version of tales of the crypt that was on during the early 80s. Right at the beginning of the 80s, slasher film explosion, you something that would really really appeal to audiences. They could watch at home the kind of horror that they think that they're getting in in things like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street or what have you, and there is a good reason for that. So let's rewind a second to the movie Creepshow, which was released in 1982, based on the EC horror comics which would later become DC comics of the 1950s, like Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror. Now that movie did find some pretty remarkable success, considering it's, you know, underground nature and it's pretty fucking low budget, just like all horror was back then. Low budgets, big returns.
Speaker 3:Because of that film, its producer, laurel Entertainment, decided that they were going to explore the idea of making it an anthology tv show. The only problem was warner brothers had rights to some of the elements of creep show because, remember, they took stuff from tales from the crypt and stuff from vault of horror. So and then some of the other rights were taken up by various other, constantly changing, taken up by various other constantly changing distributors. Uh, you know, I don't know. Go ask bruce campbell. Everybody's got rights to something at some point. And so originally romero straight up wanted to do creep show as a tv show. But obviously there were a lot of the elements of the stuff they wanted to do because they wanted to bring in a lot of the comic book elements to the show. They couldn't. They fought it for a really long time. So what they did was they basically took all the stuff that wasn't specifically owned by Warner Brothers and plugged it into a new show that would use the same sort of sometimes campy, sometimes funny, often dire, horror short format. That Creepshow was just like Tales from the Crypt and its predecessors. This is where you get Tales from the Dark Side. It explored the same themes as Creepshow, but it discarded the whole framework. Now, a lot of the stuff that they were going to create was based directly on the old EC comic that inspired people like Stephen King, clive Barker, george Romero, all of these heavy hitters that would come later in the horror genre.
Speaker 3:The show premiered, not so coincidentally, on October 29th 1983, with a banger of an episode called Trick or Treat, directed by Bob Balaban it's a terrible name Written by George Romero, plays Gideon Hackles, an archetypal, if not cartoonish, capitalist who keeps the town he lives in in constant debt to him. Every Halloween he offers the town folk a chance to win money to relieve their debts, if they can make it through his haunted house. So the twist of the whole thing is, convinced that he's won another year of his exploitative high life, an old crone appears at his door. He's convinced it's a prankster, but it turns out to be the manifestation of karma but I mean not actual karma, but like what we think of as instant karma, I guess, and his comeuppance on hallow.
Speaker 1:Ha got you good you fucker.
Speaker 3:I don't want to give too many spoilers for each episode, because it is a fun journey watching some of these episodes. It had such a wide reach of creative minds behind it. So some of the standout episodes one called Anniversary Dinner, about an elderly couple who takes in two travelers as they prepare their 25th anniversary feast. That's kind of a big one. And then there is a oh, the best episode. Well, not the best episode, but the most fun episode to show someone is an episode called Inside the Closet, directed by Tom Savini Huh, and starring the dude from Reanimator, the other dude.
Speaker 1:Fritz Weaver, I'm right there, yeah.
Speaker 3:One of the things I wanted to do was show you a clip from that.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm excited. Okay, this door is opening. Oh, she's getting out of bed. She, I'm excited, okay, this door's opening. Oh, she's getting out of bed.
Speaker 2:She's got her flashlight.
Speaker 1:Oh, we've got like the theremin sound in the background.
Speaker 3:Classic theremin shit right there With some drum, drum and some synth in there. Even though it's like a pretty heavy flashlight for Now she's crawling on her hands and knees.
Speaker 1:The flashlight isn't even on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the flashlight's not on. That probably would be like a.
Speaker 1:Now he's transitioning to a theremin slash. John Carpenter synth score.
Speaker 3:It sounds very John Carpenter at this point too.
Speaker 1:She's next to the door. She's about to turn the light on. Oh, what's going to happen? Oh, the light's on. Hey, little ghoulie. Oh, it's an albino ghoulie. Who's come to say hi, it's the albino ghoulie. It jumps on her back.
Speaker 3:Oh, good lord, he's mangling her. He's got webbed hands and toes. Is he trying to like vomit on her, Whoa?
Speaker 1:Whoa, that was a weird, weird pullback. Somehow I don't know how he got the. Oh, is she dead? Oh, she's effing dead, isn't she?
Speaker 3:Just wait.
Speaker 1:Wait, what's he doing? Alright? So the ghoulie thing was on her back and like flipped her back and she fell, breaking her neck, I think.
Speaker 3:Or something.
Speaker 1:And then he dragged her back into the closet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to the back of the closet, whatever that means.
Speaker 1:This guy is saying that he didn't see her. He had rented her room and she wasn't there. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Alright, now we're back looking at the room. Oh wait, the little Wait. What's going on? Just wait. Now we see this little ghouly feet coming down the carpet.
Speaker 3:He's a veterinary scientist.
Speaker 2:Oh, little albino gooey thing.
Speaker 3:He is now picking it up and playing with it like it's his little baby pet. Oh, he's kissing its hand.
Speaker 1:Oh, albino gooey.
Speaker 3:Oh, albino gooey.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's sweet-talking to it like it's his little baby.
Speaker 3:So what you don't see in that they cut it off a little quickly. What you don't see in that is that he then hugs it and it puts his head on his shoulder. Oh, that's adorable. And they hug and that's the end of the episode. Yeah, so that's definitely that hug and that's the end of the episode. Yeah, so that's definitely that. That's fun stuff. Yeah, of course he's from Re-Animator, of course, and the other one is a renowned actor. He's done a lot of stuff on London's East End. Jake refers to him as the Albino Ghoulie, but he honestly has a long history of musical theater Works alongside Nathan Lane and Christine Baranski both albino ghoulie, but he honestly has a long history of musical theater works alongside nathan lane and christine baranski both and a lot, of, a lot of in closet features, I'm sure well, I said nathan lane, no, that's, that's out of the closet.
Speaker 1:So that's well, now okay so he used to be big with the albino ghoulie crowd.
Speaker 3:Well, you know it's. Hey, you know, let's not, it's not for us to judge, it's just, and don't call them albino, they're just, you know.
Speaker 1:Is it better than I? Think it's a little better than white ghoulie, I think.
Speaker 3:That does sound like some sort of MAGA thing. Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker 1:We got all these white ghoulies coming across. We got all these white ghoulies coming across. They're taking our hard-working American jobs.
Speaker 3:Free health care. No, I was thinking the other way. Those are the white ghoulies.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:They're the ones securing the border.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have their sacred white ghoulie oath that they have to proclaim.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, I just thought that would be funny. That's the kind of thing you get with Tales from the Dark Side.
Speaker 1:I just thought that would be funny. That's the kind of thing you get with Tales from the Dark Side. Oh, the closet monster has been nicknamed Lizzie by the staff during the production.
Speaker 3:Oh, lizzie the albino ghoulie that's going to become our mascot, by the way. So the crazy thing about this show, as opposed to a lot of other horror anthologies, was that a lot of these episodes were adapted from short stories from really, really well-known authors, or even written by those authors themselves, including Harlan Ellison, clive Barker, michael Bishop, robert Block, john Cheever, michael McDowell, frederick Brown Don't forget, obviously, george Romero, stephen King.
Speaker 1:He had two episodes, one that he directed too.
Speaker 3:He did, and then Tom Savini. A lot of these things were like oh, we're not going to make a huge deal about it, but we have these short stories if you want them. The crazy thing about the show one of the most interesting things, honestly is the number and the quality of guest stars in it. It seems to surpass things like Star Trek or Twilight Zone. It's crazy. Here's a very short list of just a TV show guest stars Debbie Harry, christian Slater.
Speaker 1:Wasn't Slater in the movie he was in an episode Was he in an episode or two.
Speaker 3:Okay, I think it was A case of the stubborns brett, spiner, tom noonan, justine bateman, harry anderson from night court and other things, carol kane, jessica harper, danny aiello, tippy hedron, classic vick tabak, who was in the star trek, the original series episode, a piece of the action, the one that Tarantino wanted to turn into his movie. Oh okay, divine Patrick Mee from the British Avengers, obviously Bruce Davidson, david Patrick Kelly from Twin Peaks, jerry Stiller, phyllis.
Speaker 1:Diller yeah, did you see this? The trouble with Mary Jane. The comedic parody of the exorcist, with Phyllis Diller and Lawrence Tierney.
Speaker 3:This show is low budget and kind of hard to watch at a lot of points, but more ambitious than tales from the crypt in a lot of respects. I'm not even done with the short guest list. Hold on Paul Dooley, jerry Orbach, sherman Howard who's been in a lot of stuff including Star Trek Penelope Ann Miller, seth Green, james Hong and Marsha Cross from Melrose Place, and then eventually Desperate Housewives.
Speaker 1:Abe Vigoda.
Speaker 3:Abe Vigoda, abe Vigoda. There are so many more I didn't even get to. So this show eventually did produce nearly 100 episodes, but it was cancelled in 1988. But it did reach that threshold of syndication, which is how you and I watched it and became a fixture of late-night television, or in your and I watched it and became a fixture of late night television. Well, we're in your nice case, saturday mornings at like 10 o'clock on channel 62. Now, a lot of these, just like Twilight's on the movie, just like, well later, the Tales from the Crypt movies. This movie was some of its better tales, based mostly on EC Comics stories repackaged into a movie version. Tales from the Dark Side, the movie in 1990, which was also written and, if I remember, directed by Romero. I know it was written by Romero. It was directed by John Harrison. Good, that guy we're always hearing about. He actually did direct a bunch of the TV show, to be fair.
Speaker 1:He did the Dune miniseries on SyFy.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what? That's not the worst version. Well, I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess it is Well yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess it is technically the worst version, but I mean, like they do some cool stuff. I mean they do some cool stuff, I mean in a lot of ways, it's better than.
Speaker 1:Lynch's for some things, but it's also like Lynch's, is its own beast.
Speaker 3:I mean, technically it's the worst version of Dune, but it's also not that bad. It's got some really interesting takes on it.
Speaker 1:He did direct the Hallmark Luke Perry Carrera vehicle Supernova.
Speaker 3:So there's that Tales from the Dark Side of the TV show was kind of a cult hit. It found most of its fame in syndication and then found sort of a second life in the movie in 1990, which did star people like Julianne Moore, steve Buscemi, james Remar, david Johansson, matthew Lawrence. Oh man See.
Speaker 1:If you guys had listened to the hour that we didn't record before this.
Speaker 3:We talked a lot about Matt.
Speaker 1:Lawrence Deep in the Lawrences.
Speaker 3:We were elbow deep in the Lawrences, but it did, of course, create Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone, jesus Christ, you're all over the place. I mean it would be better if Twilight Zone the movie had been replaced by Tales from the Dark Side the movie, because, you know, fewer people died, that's true, but in its initial run a company called LBS Communications distributed Tales from the Dark Side. Then it later was passed on to World Vision Enterprises, which people like you and I if you and I sit down and watch a lot of the fucking syndicated shows we did when we were kids, like Renegade and shit like that we have definitely seen their title card. But then it was acquired by Aaron Spelling Productions, because they bought World Vision Enterprises and Laurel Productions in 1989, which are now owned by CBS.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Hmm, yeah, trickles up.
Speaker 3:Released on VHS as a complete series with the episode's original music, but then later it was released on DVD, which changed a lot of music and that was mostly because of copyright stuff. So it's actually better to watch them on VHS than it is on DVD. Paramount because Paramount and CBS were merged for a very long time split up and then merged again Released all of it on DVD on February 10th 2009. Released all of it on DVD on February 10th 2009. And then they re-released the complete series on for collectors out there Region 1 DVD in 2018. And then a different company called Revelation Films released the entire series in Region 2. Who cares? But after it was more widely seen by people outside of the syndication wavelength, executive producer Richard Rubinstein and his company Laurel, which of course ended up being bought by CBS, would go on to make the horror anthology series Monsters.
Speaker 3:Oh, I see which premiered in 1988 and ran for three seasons, which we have done.
Speaker 1:A retro rewind episode about we're just going back up the chain yep, we'll probably get into tales from the dark side.
Speaker 3:The movie in a different thing, but it was actually a commercial success and a sequel was announced but never made. So so it came out in 90 and fortunately, that never came to be. Now let's fast forward to November 2013, when Joe Hill and then hold on, don't look it up. Who would you guess would be the people that might remake this show Right off the top of your dome? Don't think too hard. No, don't think too hard.
Speaker 1:You're thinking too hard, well, that's.
Speaker 3:I don't know Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orsi.
Speaker 1:Oh, obviously, why wouldn't I think of that? Well, right.
Speaker 3:Kurtzman and Orsi were developing, along with Joe Hill, a reboot of the series for the CW in 2014. Hill would serve as creative director. Quote Darkseid is a loose reboot, which doesn't matter because it's an anthology show. It tells stories about different characters. Oh alright, who would have?
Speaker 1:guessed.
Speaker 3:Nailed it. Wait, this pitch didn't make it all the way. It also tells an ongoing story Period. Hmm, I love the original Tales from the Dark Side, comma Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, but I think in a post-X-Files world there's really no room for a straight anthology show. He might be right, I'm not sure, but he might be right. I mean, look at Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone.
Speaker 1:But I mean.
Speaker 3:Channel Zero was kind of hit and miss, which I like it, but it's kind of hit and miss but I mean Black Mirror. You're right, black Mirror, which is but I mean Black Mirror, you're right, Black Mirror, which is, I mean honestly, the genuine successor of this, of this genre. I mean, it's a bit more sci-fi less horror there are horror episodes.
Speaker 3:Well, it kind of started out more like horror, I mean it was. It was always speculative fiction, right, some of which was horror, some of which was sci-fi, but so was Tales from the Dark Side. I mean, there were a lot of weird sci-fi episodes that would pop up every now and then, but it may be the outlier of anthology shows. I mean, I would like anthology shows to be a thing. I just don't know if they would work today. But anyway, he goes on to say I like stories that work like puzzle boxes. Well, just make fucking Hellraiser. Why don't you? I don't understand. Clive Barker did this too. I don't understand. So every episode is turning another facet. We have something a little like that in Darkseid Every episode is a different story, but three or four episodes in you're going. Wait a minute. These parts actually all go together, don't they? So in February 2014, the CW gave the reboot a pilot order. Shooting began on March 19th and wrapped on April 4th. The CW did not pick up the series. Yeah, they then shopped it around, completely unsuccessfully.
Speaker 1:But Joe Hill did do Tales of the Dark Side, the comic for IDW.
Speaker 3:Those scripts were then eventually turned into a four-issue comic book series in June 2016, followed by a collection of scripts in book form in October 2016. Both the comics and the book were released by IDW, so at least his ideas were still out there, I guess. Good or not. Not good enough for the CW, but Vampire Diaries is, so I don't know how much cred you get for that.
Speaker 1:Well, Vampire Diaries is hitting a certain demographic that I don't know if Tales from the Dark Side is honing in on.
Speaker 3:Which doesn't make any sense, because it was the merger of the WB and UPN.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't really understand how it worked out, but that's how it's kind of.
Speaker 3:If Tales from the Dark Side started because Creepshow existed but Warner Brothers owned some of it and Paramount slash CBS owned the rest of it, and you're gonna pitch something to the CW which is the combination of Warner Brothers and CBS slash Paramount. Why not just pitch Creepshow, which I know somebody did, I think on what HBO? What the fuck is happening?
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's a wild world out there, but Tales from the Dark Side.
Speaker 3:It's a wild world up there, but tales of the dark side it's a nostalgic one for jake and I. It is a secretly, really really interesting anthology series, horror series that's got an amazing cast and some of the premier horror writers of, quite frankly, any generation and still was this weird low budget kind of shat upon bastard cousin to things like tales of the crypt. So if you ever get the chance to watch and it's difficult to find, honestly streaming all of it you can find it, but it it's not a lot of it on youtube because of the weird distribution rights. It's really difficult to find on any mainstream streaming platform. But it can be found and it's worth a watch. There's some really, really fun episodes. I mean you could see where monsters came from when you watch it. So if you can do so and that is my short episode for halloween, spooky I told you it was short.
Speaker 1:It was short, short and interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about Tales from the Dark Side in a while.
Speaker 3:I mean it was cool because I could watch a horror thing at 10 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. It wasn't like late at night. You know I was creeped out but I was like, well, it's Saturday morning, it's fine. We would probably cover Tales from the Crypt the movie at a later date.
Speaker 1:You mean Bordello of Blood.
Speaker 3:Nope, I'm sorry. Tales from the.
Speaker 1:Dark Side.
Speaker 3:Well, there are multiple Tales from the Crypt movies.
Speaker 1:I know that's why I was making a joke, of which one.
Speaker 3:Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Dark Side are both based on EC comics. It's Vault of Horror.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know what Tales from the Hood's based off of the Streets.
Speaker 3:So it's Vault of Horror, yeah, but you know what Tales from the Hood's based off of the streets, homicide, mm-hmm. The wire yeah, all of it's based on David Simon's work. The wire connects all the tales. It is the wire that connects the crypt, the dark side that show be creeping the vault, the house of mystery. Yes, all of the above. Trust me, he was embedded for years in the Baltimore Police Department to discover this.
Speaker 1:To discover the albino ghoulies in the closet.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, the albino ghoulies in the closet, the tie-to-reanimator that leads to the tales from the crypt, which are actually from the dark side. Yeah, that lead to the Vault of Horror. Yeah, yes, stringer. Bell was there the whole time too that lead to the Vault of Horror.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, stringer Bell was there the whole time too. Science, boom, science is too tight.
Speaker 3:How many times do we have to bring up Professor Murder?
Speaker 1:Well, it's never enough. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3:Well, that is our short, so we're going to do that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Again, we hope you've all enjoyed, Learned something about the different tales, the shows, the creeps, the hoods, even a crypt or two, but mostly woods.
Speaker 3:the dark side of podcasting oh, joe rogan, the ben shapiro, joe rogan era, yeah hey, I'm doing my own research.
Speaker 1:All right, if you want to do your own research with us, please like share, subscribe, because we do actual research, actual research we don't listen to neo-naazi historians.
Speaker 3:We actually do real research. That's the thing With accredited sources that can be checked and verified. Defo.
Speaker 1:If you do like it again, let other people know. If you want to rate us five albino ghoulies on the podcast app of your choice, ideally Apple Podcasts that would be beneficial to us. Thank you all for listening. We greatly appreciate each and every one of you, and until next, dispatch Ajax podcast. What should they do, skipper?
Speaker 3:Well, they should probably make sure that they have cleaned up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree. Make sure they have tipped their waitstaff, their KJs, their podcast hosts. Make sure that they have cleaned up after themselves. I said that already. Make sure that they have cleaned up after themselves. I said that already. Support their local comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch HX we would like to say Godspeed, fair Wizard, get off of my leg. What is God? Can my leg get any wetter?
Speaker 1:Let's find out.
Speaker 3:Don't answer that, Please go away.