¶ Intro / Opening
Dark Destinations may be end times Night's creature.
Why would a few more casually struggle.
Me because of their blood?
Will join yours a.
Radio drama anthology. You are wrong how you figure Every mark on Mongo is hunting you down. Not you, your partner, he said, I didn't have a ray gun. Full cast
¶ Discussing 'The Devil's Advocate'
performances set in the haunted corners of the globe. Darkness is coming for you. That's the fear that taunts me.
Dark Destinations by fatherm Alone at Weirdingwaymedia dot.
Com weird Way.
Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast, where this season we're taking a look at George A. Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. Sharing the Midnight view with me are the Culture Cast, Chris Statue he wasn't absent, Jay Landlord, and the projection booths. Mike White, Hello Detroit, you're on the air. Hello, Hello tonight. We are taking a look at two episodes from season one, though I guess everyone wants to talk about one in particular.
Those are The Devil's Advocate and The Distant Signals. Now.
¶ Mike's Take on 'The Devil's Advocate'
The Devil's Advocate is from season two. It is episode seven, It originally aired on November tenth, nineteen eighty five. This was written by George A. Ramero, So watch yourselves, gentlemen, and it was directed by mister Mike Hornick. This one stars Jerry Stiller. It's the tale of a late night talk radio host who's bitterness and anger with humanity make him the perfect mouthpiece for hell. All right, who wants to go first? Have at it?
Chris, Go ahead, ladies and gentlemen, Mine is Luther Mandrake And this is Infu Warphus Jesus Christ. This is I think, so far for me, probably the best thing seen in the show. Jerry Stiller is off the wall as one of the worst people we've seen on this show, if not the worst. Some of the things that he says are beyond the pale. I like that we finally have, by my approximation, the first good radio DJ bit on any of these anthology shows that really I think works.
Is it a little on the nose what happens at the end with the mo haha, I'm the devil and Nevenman my best helper, Like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ show, no shit, that's what was going on. So it feels a little like the show thinks that we're dumb and obvious with a name like the Devil's Advocate. But I think Jerry Stiller is so good that I just enjoyed this episode I mentally and I couldn't help but thinking about all of the people that are like this now
un ironically as opposed to this character being written. I guess ironically, I mean for a specific purpose to be an asshole who gets his come uppance, but stake lutheriper Mandre can put in any one of the Alex Jonesy and friends and any one of those dudes, and it's like, look, see this is what's gonna happen with them. In the end. They're gonna be on the old is the old switchboard in hell?
How about you, Mike, I'm going to peel back to Burton a little bit here on MADI Viewing. When we record these episodes, we actually record them back to back. I won't say if this was the first one or the second one. You're gonna have to figure that out. But a few weeks ago I was telling you guys that of these four episodes we watched, I really liked three of them. This is the fourth. I did not like this episode whatsoever. I just you were talking about
how George was dumbing it down for us. I didn't understand what the hell was going on as far as at the end. Okay, so I guess he's being tortured, but yet he's the devil's advocate. So is he promoting that like I don't understand, and that people are talking to him without a radio. He's now like a DJ, taking calls from all times in all centuries. I just
I didn't understand how it goes. I thought that the makeup effects were pretty nice, especially the way that they build on him as they're going along to a point where I was like, oh, his face looks a little different, and I thought that was nice and subtle. But otherwise I just didn't jive with this one.
Okay, near as I can figure, what has happened is this man who has spent the latter part of his life spreading hate amongst the populace, is now dead and has taken his place in hell as a voice in people's heads telling them that they're hopeless. So these people
¶ Comparing Radio Hosts and Talk Shows
don't have radios. They're confused by the idea of radios. In some cases, they just hear a voice talking to them and they're talking back, So that part of it is really really good and actually really scary.
Now that makes a lot more sense. That might make me reevaluate this episode. Thinking the whole voice inside their heads thing that I did not connect with.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of cheese going on here. You know, I sent you Fellows a link to what Ben Stiller, son of Jerry Stiller, seemed to think of this episode where he parodied it in on The Ben Stiller Show. This five minute like late night, low budget horror. I agree with you, Chris, however, that Jerry Stiller is fucking going for it here and I love him. There's a scene where he's just reacting to a caller where he's just making fun of him by gyrating and like
making faces and stuff. It's fuckings, it's fucking hilarious. Like it usually wouldn't work with most actors here, but he made it great.
I mean, yeah, Jerry Stiller, he's gonna be Yeah, he's always swinging for the fences. I mean, this is him as George Costantz's dad at his most unhinged. I know it's not his line. While he does say it eventually, but while we were watching this episode, I was just like spreadity down throughout so much of it.
This also reminded me of a Ninth Gallery episode, Flip Side of Satan with Artie Shaw or already but Artie Johnson from Yes.
Think that's what kind of yeah, that's what this When I think of that episode, I think this is the better version of that episode.
Of course, I was thinking, and I was curious as far as when talk radio was out compared to this, because it reminded me of that. And I know, I mean that was a weird shift in America when radio came back, and it came back as talk radio. I mean it never left, I know, but just this whole thing of like these evil DJs, and I think that's what Bogosian was kind of, you know, talking about in
talk radio. But I mean this is well, I guess Imus was on the air, though not what he eventually became when he put on the c Span cameras or whatever that was. But I mean this is prime Rush Limbaugh. I mean, my gosh, both of these episodes. So this week and last week I'm talking about us talking about my stepdad, my stepdad listening to fucking rustling ball all the time, which meant I had to listen to him. Drove me up a fucking wall, and he just got worse and worse as the years.
Why not.
Yeah, Romero himself had a bit of a fascination with talk radio because it has been around forever and ever and ever. Yeah, it plays a big part of his nineteen seventy six film Martin. Like, the lead character of Martin uses a talk radio show to call in and you know, spill it his feelings and it's actually really chilling at the end. Incidentally, that talk show host in Martin was played by Mike Gornick, who directed this episode. He's got a great Wow, he's got a really great
radio voice. In fact, at the end of this episode, the voice of Satan telling Mandrake he was doing a great job is also Mike Garnick.
Oh wow, Yeah, he does have a great radio voice. It's been so long since I've seen Martin, but I remember loving it.
Yeah, it's it's, no doubt Jeorge Ramiro's best movie. You know, not my favorite, but like, but you can tell it's obviously you know, it's best anyway, And yeah, I keep talking about it. Lately, and somehow I keep not watching it. I'm gonna have to do that later tonight.
Just coming soon to a culture Cast episode near you in September.
Oh my god, that's right. Okay, yeah, that's why you keep thinking.
That's why you've never seen September.
Find that lost cut that was being sold on ebed and then somebody bought it and they won't release it.
Now, what's Yeah, I don't know what's up. I'm sure we'll talk about that in the episode. But yeah, if said print exists, and I please need to see it before I die, for Christ's sake, somebody get the fuck on that, like like three hours, four something.
I don't know, yeah, I think four hours.
Yeah, Okay. Here's a couple of things that I thought about this episode. First of all, it's really interesting choice to be eating a bowl of pea soup while you're performing on a talk show that you're hungry, right, But soup, I mean.
Well, what else is going to eat? Apple? Carrots?
Soap is very quiet if you know how to do it right.
Okay, all right, all right, You've got.
You put the whole spooning your mouth and you just turn it upside down. The soup falls under your tongue and you pull it out and there's no sound.
Okay, here's the.
You're right, you want him to be eating ruffles once you're scientifically accurate.
Here, I want him to be eating soft tacos. Okay, oh all right, Man Drake is a prick, right, Like everyone who calls in no matter what, he just slices them down, right, which a couple things going on. His show is called the Devil's Advocate, right, So by the very nature of that title, he's going to be adversarial. So what are these people calling in without hope hoping to achieve He's literally doing his job by telling them
that they're wrong. You know, at least on the Night Gallery there Ardie Johnson had an affair with like his station manager's wife and it ended up with a suicide or something like that. Right, Because here's this guy's crimes. He's being a dick to people, right, but he kind
of has cut some legitimate beef. He rattles off a list of things that have happened him recently or you know, over the course of his life, where his mom died in a plane crash because the crew sold like like faulty lug nuts to them, and then his dad died on a union picket line, and then his wife is currently in a coma because of every yearesthetic snafu, and
then his son was killed by a drunk driver. You know what, the fact that he's on his feet is pretty okay by me, and the fact that he's just being a dickhead on the radio doesn't mean he should go straight to hell out out there. I think this guy is he's doing okay, and he's.
Not crawling on the ground begging for mercy.
No, because this isn't you know, this isn't like talk radio. This isn't like Barry Champlain, who is just a miserable, fucking human being who you know, wants to harm other people like because he's so like dissatisfied with himself. Like so, I don't know. I mean, maybe this is just a case of this being tells from the dark side, and sometimes this is what you get, motherfuckers. That's the world we live in. But you know, it was a little lopside.
I mean again with something like the last episode that we did with Halloween candy and satanic panic or panic satanic piano. I mean the first episode is pretty mean, and then this episode's pretty mean. I mean, this is yeah, it does he deserve to become like Satan's ghoulish radio DJ. Probably not, but and it's also essentially implied. It's not essentially implied. It is more or less said outright that the devil is the one who did all of this
shit to him to make him like this. So it's like, wait a second here, this isn't even you're not even playing fair. I mean, who expects the devil to play fair too?
By the way, nobody's calling in with any real problems. Heady bullshit, right, so like who cares. It's not like people are calling in and going like I don't know what to do. My child is dying, and he's like, fuck you and your child, Like I wytn't just smother him, mother pillow.
It's not like that, right though. No, it's like you're a watchman. You just like to sit and watch people, like what the fuck is this guy's problem? Dude? I mean but again, like you, like you said father moment, like I understand what his problem is. This guy has had like every bad thing happened to him. Ever, is what it feels like like, this show's moral compass always points in a very strange direction, and rarely does it point the direction I would assume it's going to point.
And this is one of those episodes where it's like, sure, he deserves to be damned to hell forever, You're right, all right, Sure, I'll follow that.
This show has inherited a lot of the bitterness of the original Twilight, so they are totally the kind where that makes Burgess Meredith just for being a book where I break his glasses like that, that that spirit lives beating hard and strong hair and fails from the dark side.
But that would but this show would go one step further and have Burgess Meredith be blinded.
That's true.
Yeah, yeah, he falls down and just blinds himself by accident. That's how this show would go, because this show pushes
¶ Transition to 'Distant Signals'
it just that little notch more, which I appreciate obviously. Like for me, this show pulls the trigger when it needs to and look, well, while Luther Mandrake doesn't maybe deserve to be damn to hell in the context of the story, this guy's kind of a piece of shit. I mean, he's maybe not the biggest piece of shit, and it turns out that the Devil was not playing fair.
But when does it ever right?
Exactly what I really want to Georgia.
That's when what I really liked in the episode is it begins with Mandrake arriving and he's complaining. He's apologizing for being late and complaining for the reason, which is there was a dead guy outside his apartment, and it's him like in the end, Like I just thought that
¶ Analyzing 'Distant Signals'
was like and nice, Yeah, but I also see all of the cheese that was involved in the episode with him just sort of railing against the problems of America and you know that switchboard, that glowing thing that ugh, that was not great, you know. And here I wrote in my notes to things, these makeup changes are not subtle. And then I also hear it, Ah wolf Man wolf Man Stiller baby, Yep, he was. He was gotten pretty wolfy pretty quickly. Like it's, like I said, not a
subtle effect. But I don't know. Ultimately, I like this episode.
I like that this show has spent a lot of time getting these like old school actors into like ugly makeup, like Jerry Stiller, Eddie Bracken, Like let's just get these like classic comedic actors and make them look gross and fucking weird, Like all right, sure, why not? Who cares?
What I love is all these old school actors are game?
Yeah, oh totally yeah. Fuck yah Chuck McCann talking to some aliens. The best one still, Frankly, that one will stick with me forever.
As it should.
Right, that was the.
Point, all right? Moving on? Our next episode is Distant Signals. This is season two, episode eight. It aired originally on November the seventeenth, nineteen eighty five. Written by Ted Gershooni. Written by Ted Gershooni from a story by Andrew Wiener, directed by Bill Travis. This one's starring a trio of spooksters, Colchak and X Files and Millennium Darren McGavin and Twin Peaks is Lenny von Dollen and the Ghostbusters mayor David Margallies.
This is about a mysterious businessman who reunites the creator and actor from a fifties detective series that was canceled mid season to film a new ending for an audience not from around here. What do you think of this one?
Chris so Galaxy quis right, That's what this reminded me of. I mean one, I mean, yeah, yeah, well, I mean it's this. When I realized where this was going, I was like, oh my god, that's what this is. Huh. And look what's funny is on top of everything else, it's oddly prescient about legacy sequels and the return of like TV shows from twenty or thirty years ago. What can you let me? Wan Dolan literally from Twin Peaks.
I think it was by the time the return.
Yeah right, But I mean if he had been alive,
¶ Comparisons and Reflections
he totally would have been in it, right, I mean, I mean everybody else was literally Everett McGill showed back up and he hadn't done shit for what the lolling time.
Missing an action. I remember David Lynch putting out a call at the same way. Know where ever McGill is he alive.
But you know, with something like this, there's a lot going on here that feels very contemporary in a way that I was not expecting. But it does feel like other things that have come out since that are I mean, for me, Galaxy Quest is the top of the pile of these kinds of things for a lot of reasons. But actually really liked this and I think it was really good. In Luck Dade. We had to talk about
Dearren McGavin. Mike, what's up with that? I know, so excited we go dear McGavin again just for a little bit.
Didn't even realize it was him at first, and then I was like, oh, holy shit. As soon he started talking, I was like, oh wow, this is great. Yeah. I was just already tickled pink just to see Harold from Twin Peaks come back or whatever his character's name was in Electric Dreams. I mean, he plays that creepy alien so perfectly, and he always has that other world that they look with those like light blue eyes and the dark hair. I thought that he was perfect in that role.
And I really liked just this whole thing. Yes, even though I'm a big fan of Galaxy Quest and I know this is coming much earlier, and I kind of want to track down the Andrew Weener Distance Signals story to read it and see how much that is, you know, how close it is to this is and how close it is to Galaxy Quest, because yeah, this just felt so much like that and I appreciated it though, and I'd like this whole idea of like, you know, nobody is ever going to see this other than the people
on my home planet Sea Pouci.
Out excellent comparison there, because this reminds me of an episode of Futurama called When Aliens Attack, where Aliens are going to destroy Earth unless they get the final episode of Single Female, which is a parody of Ali McBeal a character named mc neil. It's one of the best episodes of Futurama. It is this exact lot.
Wow, that's funny.
Who would want to watch a show in black and white?
Really?
Who would know a network would ever air such a thing? The funniest just like.
The articles about the Ripley series that.
Was just oh yeah, right, that put That did put off a lot of people. Actually, yeah, what's funny is that the Twin Peaks the Return thing like immediately sprang to mind. Thanks to Lenny von Dolan's involvement here, this in fact, could be a documentary of how that show got made. Twin Peaks yeps, you know, I could totally see they send some fucking total weirdo. We're just like, I've got gold bars everybody, you know.
The people that I represent have lots more gold bars.
Where that came from?
As well. What did you say about gold Bars. Yeah, if it's a little.
Weird that the show that they end up producing doesn't take place in the seventies, Like I know that they try and age everybody down and everything, but like if you're on that planet waiting for the next episode and suddenly you get this Darren McGavin, you'd be like, wait, what happened? Did they falter a time warp? Like? And I'm sure those questions are valid on that planet, like what happened? Like why?
Well? And I imagine they have to be kind of speaking to Darren McGavin as Mike camer when you with him, you know, years before Colechak. I'm sure that they I wouldn't be surprised as if I went back and watched Mike camera if it was kind of cripping from the dialogue and stuff, just very typical Gribby stuff. And I like that they finally solved the mystery. I thought that was kind of nice that we actually get to see it. I thought that they were going to keep that from us.
Yeah, I thought we did spend a lot of time at the end with the actual episode of the series a little too long, maybe because that it's not great. It is very cliche The long whilest Brother, And although I did enjoy McGavin pirouetting before he shot his brother, and then I also loved by the way, how fucking blaise Like he's like, I'm your long lost older brother, pirowett bang sayya, just like saunters off into the sunset. That's the end. I hope you enjoy that, Aliens, I.
Got to see the end of the series of the historical documents.
Yes, you know, it's kind of a silly episode in some ways, but in other ways it feels like, you know, I love that it forces in this episode, and I think this is just true in general, where creators are forced to reevaluate their past work, the kind that they've shrugged off like that it's insignificant because it started that they did it in like an early portion of their life.
But this might as well be called comic con circuit as far as an episode goes, because actors and creators are so dismissive of genre work for so long, and then they realized, like that's where the money is, but not only that, like that's where the genuine affection for them is. And I thought that like really came across in this episode, even with the bullshit psycho ending where McGavin wonders aloud if they were really aliens or not, It's like we already know, man. I mean, it was
nice to see. It was nice to see the Empire State Building making a cameo in the background here, but I don't know that we needed that at the very end.
I love that monologue at the end. It was so on the nose. He punched me in the face over and over again, just like, well, yeah, imagine, if you will they were aliens.
It's so my body of coal check though you know, he would posit stuff like yeah, perhaps this is a you know, but it was so much happier than any of the cases Colechack was on.
I'll pull a red letter media and say that it reminds me specifically of the end of the alien Autopsy video hosted by Jonathan Fraakes, where he goes, listen, if you will, if this was a real alien. It's like, where is this coming from, Darren McGavin. Oh, is this because he was given that pill? Is that one that's.
In this bill? Because I hate in that next scene, no.
Bots or I heard possibly if he wasn't alien, there was some black goo out there that might have helped him. You become a better human because of it's the Prometheus strain, I think is what it was called. I don't know, maybe maybe you guys have heard about that. Yeah, it's part of the life just drains from your face because I just refuse to acknowledge any of this.
No, I'm exhaling. Well, uh, speaking of Gavin and like how good he looks here. It was great to see that shock of red hair again. I don't know, I'm so used to seeing him from the eighties on where it was kind of a little more faded here, but here it's like whoa, yeah, that's that's an irishman right there.
Yeah.
I wrote down what was in those pills because I want them. This is John Harrison directing the episode, so it's really cinematic. It's really well shot. Actually, on top of everything else, including the recreation of the of the fifties television series, the high marks all around the writing and the direction this episode and the acting like overorld like that. I don't know why we've hit such a fucking hot streak with Tails from the Dark Side lately.
I don't want to look this fucking gift to us in the mouth or anything, but like second season about now, we'd be going, oh, I don't feel so good in any other series. So this is a bit heartening.
It's a lot hardening. Yeah. No, I'm very glad that we are having good experiences with this show because I'm coming especially for you and I father alone where you know, the original version of this show, like you know, once we did Tales from the Crypt, it was like, we really like that show was just a slog in a lot of ways towards the end, and like we have never experienced that, the three of us, thankfully, but we got close with some of them mercifully.
The series that we've been handling since Tails from the Crypt only run about three to four season eight seasons. Yeah exactly that Tails from the Crypt is a beast of a series.
You lucked out, Mike, He looked out by.
Not having that you fucking did.
Man, Hey, I did that show fucking twice. No, I really know, I'm the pun it. I'm the sucker for punishment is the reality on this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was just looking up distant signals the story, and I know father alone. I think I gave you a whole collection of twilight Zone magazine and something that I'm going to have to try to find those again because I think it was published initially in that, which is ironic since we're talking about twilight Zone nineteen eighty four in the May June episode or sorry issue, and then
¶ Upcoming Episodes and Closing Remarks
looks like it's also in the Tales from the Dark Side book that was edited by Tom Allen, so those are at least two places where you can get it. I was looking at a collection of his stories, Distant Signals and other stories, and that is cost prohibitive right now every place you look. So I had that going to start at thirty dollars.
I had the book as a kid, that tell Us from the dark Side book, so I know I've read the short story, but I could not tell you what the differences are like at this point, I'm loath to think that I actually still have it and it's in storage right now, but it's actually a fucking distinct possibility because I can imagining the cover in my mind right now.
But I made an impact. We're talking about the show in twenty twenty four for a fucking reason, aren't we.
I don't think anybody else is talking about this show right now, so the fools, I like you guys have both said I've been enjoying this show more than I think I've enjoyed anything else we've talked about, because everything has been pretty good, And even the episodes of this show that have not been great, I think are still better than a lot of the middle of the road stuff we saw on a lot of the things we watched up to this point. I mean, this show, I
think is just consistently good, too great. I mean, there have been a couple of clunkers, but a couple of clunkers is not much compared to clunker after clunker after a clunker, like Tails from the crypt Or. I mean, I want to say night and that wasn't Night Gallery, it was Twilet's one eighty five had some rough us towards the end of that show, some that are like, we don't even remember recording those episodes because they were so unbelievably bad.
Yeah, mercifully, that's not going on here, hopefully. No, that's like, oh, knock on wood, I guess.
Marrow Baby, Yeah, de Ramire, it's the Romero of it.
All yeah, Well, speaking of episodes of this show, on the next episode of Midnight View, we'll be taking a look at the next two episodes of season two of Tales from the dark Side. Those are The Trouble with Mary Jane and ursa minor Midnight Viewing. The Horror Anthology podcast is a proud member of weirding Way Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP with an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time. What are you working on and where can people find it? Chris Stasher.
Culture Cast is the podcast that I do and can be found over weirding Way Media along with all the other things that I do. But that's the weekly show that I do, and I do it once a week, and that's and I'm sticking to it, and I'm about to release episode six hundred and sixty six, Signed the Beast, so y, yeah, there you go. I'm not seven hundred yet,
We're getting close. It'll take another, you know, year, but you know, congratulations to the man here with seven hundred episodes, because he's he's the one charting the course for the rest of us. But where you can find my stuff is Weirdingwaymedia dot com. What about you, Mike Waite, I got.
No problem with Marya Jane. You know what I'm saying. Anybody, Yeah, as for me? Yeah, Also, we need calm where you can find all the stuff that I work on, except for one thing that Chris and I work on with our friend Richard shirt Adam that is ranking on bond and you can get that over at our patreons patreon dot com slash Production Booth or patreon dot com slash Culture Cast. That's Culture with K and cast with the C. That's right, baby, you want to stay away from having too many keys in.
That name, boy, don't we yes?
And how about you find them alone?
Oh?
Same thing. Listen to midnine Viewing, Listen to my show Dark Destinations, Listen to HP show Night Mister Walton is a t podcast I co host over there, and you know, like Projection Booth and the Culture Cast, I'm a guest over there a bunch of things, so look look those up too. Anyway, Thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight. Sorry, I have a dog looking my feet.
We hear from that, I used it. End the episode. Stop st