Tales from the Darkside S03E13&14 (The Milkman Cometh, My Ghostwriter the Vampire)

Weary Wait.

Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, where this season we're taking a look at George Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. I'm Father Malone, and sharing the Midnight view with me are The Projection Boots, Mike White Howdy and the Culture Cast Chris Statue Double Howdy. Tonight, we are taking a look at two episodes from season three. Those are The Milkman Cometh and My Ghostwriter The Vampire.

What tell us, Mike, your guess is as good as mine, because he pays the milk bill on time. I guess maybe no, because he's going to implant a baby of himself. In the wife.

Now, that would be a strange twist to make it for the last ten seconds of the episode. Don't you think.

Wouldn't it be weird if that were the case?

Okay, what we have here is a it's a graphic designer, our second ad agency guy this season. It's weird how they kind of pile on a particular They're.

Like architects, they're everywhere, or writers, disgruntled writers.

Yeah, and we're gonna get some of those as well. Now this he's a graphic designer, but he's also a copywriter. Uh, and he's not making any money. And then his son who has lost his watch but is completely obsessed with finding the watch, because what twelve year old is me? It was me. I was obsessed with my watch when I was twelve years I had a swatch. Oh man, Oh jealous.

I never had a swatch.

And and we've got to this is the traditional sort of tamnispman dark Side said this one. Also, I said Cobbler in the Alms. But it also reminds me of a word processor of the gods with the creative type and the nagging wife. When are you gonna ask for that raise? Are you gonna get You're gonna make some money around here, honey.

Yeah. The conceit of this episode felt a little trite out of the gate, like is this he honestly felt like Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five, Like that's what it felt like. The setup for this episode felt very Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five to me at least.

Yeah, if it wasn't for Robert Forrester and Seymour Cassell hanging around this episode, I might be a little harsher on it. But to see those two going at it, I was alright with that, especially young Robert Forrester. Oh what a man?

What did you think about Robert Forrester as like this beat down romantic lead though he felt so out of place. It feels like Robert Forster should only ever be playing grizzled old Robert Forster.

What did I just see him in where he was like a young honk and an action hero?

The black Hole?

Oh well there's that. But it was called Walking the Edge and he was really good in that.

Wasn't he an alligatory?

I think he was?

Yeah?

Alligator?

Yeah, not gator, that's Sirt Reynolds, a whole different thing.

Oh yeah, it was also be myself an Irene. That's what I know him from. Oh god, that's a random Yeah, he plays I think Jim Carrey's boss in that movie.

I want to say this episode features the most aggressive synth score i've heard that.

Oh my god, the score was something.

Take it for a walk. They're taking the synth for a walk. They put a collar on it and everything. They're just taking it for a walk.

Oh yeah, it did not fit with this.

They have this like aggressive electronic like Jews, hard buying twang. What what is going on? This is supposed to be a spooky suburban myth.

Nope, it feels like Stephen King's rejects, like a Stephen King's dregs. Right, I don't know. Have you guys seen the Monkey. I'm not saying it's like that, but it's again like this feels like a Stephen King short story. Was what was the baby? The dollar baby that you and I were gonna do? Wasn't it about milkmen?

Yes, there is a milkman, like delivering tarantulas and like other horrible things.

It's right, Okay, you put.

That together with the word processor of the gods, here we go.

That sounded a little bit like the original lawnmower man concept before it became VR.

Yeah, exactly, just like odd and horrible things going on in the recognizable neighborhoods in the early mornings.

Yeah, what was the original short story? This was based on some of the temperature days on Hawthorn Street.

What a name?

Yeah, a much better tiitle. Oh no, I like milkman comments as well. I mean that's a little it's not bad.

Yeah, I love the wife's outfit early on. She's wearing just like a pure yellow suit, like like pants and shirt, and it's like and it does nothing to help what feels like an utterly set bound episode, like one of I think the most set bound episodes we've seen in a while.

Yeah, that's true. It is not particularly well directed and or paste for that matter, because what we have is in the opening scene, this child expositionally mentions the Milkman. I can't find my watch. That'll lead me to tell you guys about the milkman and what he's been doing

So I love how that's the conclusion that you're like, no one's asked for an F sixteen yet.

Oh hey, I had all those pepsi points and they still didn't deliver mine.

That's right, bastard. Well, yeah, here is this fucking set in where people are getting milk delivered to their houses. What weird? What?

What?

I father Malone, I'm surprised you didn't mention the weird anachronism of people having milk delivered to their houses.

This is eighty seven. Can I just tell you that?

Oh no, but you know what I mean? The year is that important? Any milk being delivered host nineteen fifty five?

Okay, Like, well in nineteen eighty seven, I was still having milk delivered to.

My house in glass bottles.

Uh, No, in cartons, like like a box outside our house, and you just mark off what you wanted to leave it in there. The fucking dairy guide show up and leave off what you wanted, and.

Then he would leave a fighter jet as well if you ask for it.

No.

I never thought to ask him for like something, something deadly or some money. Yeah, it seems unnatural if you're asking people for something, but it was never on a checklist that was provided for us of the.

Butter.

It wasn't like fifty thousand dollars yeah on the bottom, like as a nuclear winter.

The while you're sleeping with the wolf logo, I kept thinking there was going to be a wolfman involved.

In the sun is Yeah, what's the wolf gotta do with anything?

I guess it's just that he's howling at the moon or something because it only comes by moonlight. But I kept thinking this is like a monkey spall waiting to happen. So when they're talking about like yo, yeah and all this stuff, I'm like, Okay, well where's the price. What's the price going to be? Is the milkman going to exact the price or is just feet going to exact the price on this guy. And I guess maybe because Seymour Cassell at some point says, I really want a hot young thingus.

But that's the thing, Like, no one is actually getting a come upance here. Seymour Cassell, when he describes the death of his wife, he says he very specifically asks for a like a young girl to replace her. So the language that ended up killing her, it's not like there was a come uppance for his what. It doesn't seem like anyone in the neighborhood is getting anything done to them untoward.

It's just exactly what they're asking for.

Yeah, and this guy's wife can't, by her own admission, can no longer get pregnant. We've been to so many doctors. I can no longer conceive. And so this alien thing, whatever the fuck it is, who is the milk? He he helps him get a He gets them a fucking baby the base way he can just impregnanty of herself.

I thought it was like a moleman thing.

Is it a man who knows?

I don't know. And it's like scaled, It looks like it has like scale. It's like scally like an armadillo, So I thought it like lived underground, where do you get there? Didn't want to assume the milkman's gender either, don't know, Well, just milkman, milkman, Yeah, milk are there more than them.

Milkman's there's probably thirteen milkmen.

On that round.

That's what, thank you, Mike. Thirteen milkmen?

Silly?

Yeah? What the fuck good?

This?

What's funny?

Is? I mean?

Again, Father Malone? I know you mentioned like, well, they were delivering milk to my house, like it's a silly like the setup in my mind while it was still happening, and like, okay, like I'll take a step back on that one. This is still a very silly setup, right. It's almost like it's almost like a blackout sketch like oh, like you said, oh, just because it wasn't on the sheet, I couldn't ask the milkman, Like, so you didn't get

Well, the gag is careful what you wish for, because if you wish for a replacement daughter, you might get a mole person baby instead.

And why did they deserve that?

Nobody?

Well, I mean that's the only option. He doesn't just give them like five thousand dollars. He gives them a fucking lottery ticket or tells him to go to the dog track or the that's.

Actually but that's still but that's still checks the box of what they're asking for.

They're asking for a child. They're getting a child. Nobody said it had no men.

That's true. He did say, like it doesn't he it's actually Robert Forster's fault. He says anything will.

Do, Yes, he did.

That's the real issue.

Healthy is what he said.

Yeah, as long as it's health.

By the way, can look as a someone who has lost a child. The expositional fucking dialogue here of we lost the baby girl last year. That is some fucking casual talk to share with your spouse, let me tell you. And because it's exposition it's like extra insulting.

Well, we'll get through it, just like we did the other thing.

Like wait what And then they follow that up with the Seymour Casselle's wife is like, Oh, finally getting through all this crazy business, get through all that bullshit, and they're like get a new kid, Like whoa Like, who are these people?

I'm disappointed Seymour Casselle didn't walk in fucking honking a horn while talking.

About the fuck good god man.

It's this shows like not moral compass, but it's it has a weird I don't know tells from the dark side sensibility vacillate so much, and this is one of these episodes where I just don't feel like this is tonally in step and in line with everything else that I'm expecting from the show. This really feels like Twilight Zone nineteen eighty that's and that in this context is I'm onhat of an insult, frankly, because this show is so much better than Twilight Zone eighty five. Ever was

Well, I'm glad that you said that it was eight months later when we came back from commercial break, because I didn't assume that. I thought that it was like the next day, and I was very surprised when she was like, oh, I'm pregnant now and I'm like what, And then towards the end when he's like, and she just had the baby now, and I'm like, whoa, this thing's gonna be way pre mature.

What the hell are you doing?

This is gonna be nuts.

But they not have just had an establishing shot of her belly and him like rubbing it, like I can't believe we got to Yeah, wait, she's.

Got a belly later on, but you don't really see it, and I'm like, oh, okay. And I don't know why he's so obsessed with seeing the milkman. Why does that become his whole bete noir?

And also why is he keeping it from the wife that he's doing this, that he's making all this money this way, Like shouldn't everyone be like he's keeping that how much money they have, they could be living at a better like standard, Like I don't understand that that conceit A.

Lot of it seems like it doesn't serve anybody, Like sometimes things happen in this episode that it feels like it doesn't serve the narrative, It doesn't serve anybody, It doesn't serve the characters like I don't understand why at the end, it's like, well, be careful what you wish for, Like, there's no be careful what you wish for with anything else. It's literally the verbiage that's being used, Like the episode doesn't make it clear that it's actually Robert Forrester's like

Yeah, healthier the baby come from.

See that's the thing. It's like, yes, maybe they would have gotten a healthy human baby because a couple across the street had a fucking helicopter fall on them. Hey, right, something, we're not getting any of the horrible stuff that's going on to make these things happen for them.

Well, and then the whole thing where he's like, oh, thank you so much for all the ideas for my book, and I'm like, you're asking the Milkman for ideas for your book. You don't even have those. Like, what kind of bankrupt, creatively bankrupt person are you with this?

Yeah, just take your thousand dollars a week from the Milkman and don't be creative. Go do something else.

Robert Forrester and him going, I drink and I write and I drink. And he's like, I feel like Earnest Summingway. I'm like, what the hell, No, you don't drink and write at the same time. That's a spiral into blackness.

What are you doing?

Take this? I told them to take their job and take a bus.

What am I confused as to why we have two back to back episodes that are both writer based.

You're right to what you know?

I guess at a certain point I on anthology shows, we're going to get a glut of writers as protagonist episodes.

Yeah, I know, got it Entails from the Crip.

And we're going to get one right here with my ghost writer, the Vampire. This is season three, episode fourteen, aired originally on February the first, nineteen eighty seven. This one is written by Peter o'keef from a short story by Scott Adelman, starring Jeff Conaway, Roy Daughtriss, and Jilly Mack. Jeff Conaway favorite of night, mister Walters. I'm co host of the show, The Taxi Podcast. It's a little interesting

Two things. Jilly Mack otherwise known as missus tom Selleck.

Her name is Chili Mack. Jilly Mack, oh, Jilly Mack okay, also great angry.

She's been married to Tom Selleck since nineteen eighty seven, which good, good, yeah, yeah, good man, And.

Those reverse mortgages really pay off.

I will say, though. The one thing I couldn't get over with this episode is and again to go back to the Jilly Mack of it all man, did did you know Temple see her and be like, this is just what I'm gonna do in ted Lasso because it felt like that character Keeley from ted Lasso just.

Oh what right off?

Yeah, oh yah, I can see that, but like not not in.

A good way, like Juno Temple. That is a much more thought out role. Like Jilly. Max's character in this episode is one note. Jeff Conway's character is one note. Raydo Trees is one note. It this is we've had We've said this before, We'll say it again. This is a blackout sketch blown This is a blackout one panel blown up into a twenty five minute sketch. Oh, you have a real vampire helping you out, helping you right, Okay, I don't know you.

No, it's not. It's not a one panel sketch.

It's two.

Yeah, No, it's three or four. It's like any fucking short story. It has the beginning, of the middle and end with a bunch of different things happening and a one panel sketches. I am at the blood bank. I'd like to take out some blood. I'm a vampire.

I really had hoped that this would go in a different way. I kind of like the idea of it, this whole idea of the guy who's like a Garth Maumerangie type writing these awful short stories. And oh you just had this character stab this guy with a stake in this chapter, and why can't you come up with something creative and why don't you do this? And it's like, Okay, that's cool.

I like this.

And then when the vampire himself shows up. I was hoping that he would be very hesitant at first to do anything and then really start to get into it and like just really enter into that literary world where he's just like, oh, no, I would change this, or have you thought about shifting the tone or how about we go third person with this section or something like that, like where he's really into it or maybe gets into the business of it and he's just like, oh, I

And they've already done this one with the Answering Machines in the first season. Yeah, that's true, very specifically with Harry Anderson and his answering machine who's defiant about wanting credit on the next screenplay or teleplay.

He writes, right, exactly, wasn't.

There an episode of twid Zone eighty five where it's like scientists and ghosts. It's like ghosts and scientists talking to each other. The smacks of that similar thing where it's like one profession being informed by the supernatural. And this again is just like they to Mike's point, they don't go anywhere that they they don't go anywhere remotely creative.

Yeah, I usually like Jeff Conway, especially at this period. Of his career, well before he loses a shit. I mean I used to watch him on what was that Celebrity Drunk Tank or whatever that one was called.

Oh yeah, I know the way it was when they put it. It was the VH one, especially where they put him all in a house together.

Yeah.

Oh god, man, was that rough. That was so rough to see him in that period of his life.

Well, there is one moment from that series where they're in canoes together and he has passed down out in one of the canoes and they row him ashore and they go, Jeff, you got to wake up your asleep, and he goes, oh man, I'm just hanging out. And I think about, oh man, I'm just hanging out all the time.

Ye, Conway was always just hanging out man. Yeah.

Yeah, Look, this is a comedy episode. None of the anthology, particularly horror anthology series, can handle comedy virtually at all. I don't know why they even fucking bother. At one point, Jeff Conway says, I hired you as an advisor, not a gag writer. Dido tales from the dark Side.

Also, what is she an advisor on? How Like? I'm waiting to see how she was an advisor. I never even got the sense of what she brings to the equation because Jeff seems like blind leading the blind.

He is so clueless about the lore of vampires and other worldly things because he's not a supernatural author at all, but that's where he's making his money somehow, And she's able to provide the most basic fucking information Every fucking kid who's ever eating a box of fucking count Chocula could tell him about the supernatural. So I don't know

What I'm saying. It'd be like doing an episode about zombies, being like, what's the one thing we know about zombies? That they're the undead? All right?

That's it?

Like what like there's more to it. I'm just the advisor, though, Like you have to pay me for more, Like what do you know about ghost where they wear white sheets?

Like?

Okay, anything else? Now, that's it all you need to know? Like if the conceit of this episode is bizarre in and of itself, and then you have a vampire, which I mean again, like that's the most interesting part. It just doesn't go anywhere.

Well, first of all, it's for some reason, it's just traditional Dracula Garb vampire, I don't know, in the twentieth century. Free oh my god, free draft cool. And also Jeff Conway needs an advisor. And yet he's been at it long enough and successful enough along in at it long enough that he has a safe room. The trigger to open it is a severed head with a fucking accident. You pull the axe handle down and it opens the room. He needs an advisor after having that in his house. Come on, man, it.

Keeps all the stocks and stuff in there, is what she says.

Yeah, you have to move all your stocks and bonds.

Five was it five timed safes?

Yeah?

Oh god, yeah, this guy's it's such an elaborate thing for this kind of hack writer to have it.

It's like out of Diehard, like like literally, yeah, yeah, that's what I was saying, Like five times Sandy got the guy with the fucking drill and everything. I don't understand.

At one point, the Dracula character says, will you're made be missed? And he says, no, they'll think immigration picked her up. Oh yeah, yeah, Jeff. Yeah. If your idea of comedy is a coffin lined with old silverware, then this is the episode for you.

Oh boy, yeah, I guess because it's silver right. I mean, what's he gonna do like start some running water so that the vampire can't.

Cross Overrett, He's not going to invite the vampire to the book sign.

Oh there you go.

Yeah, that would have been.

Also, can I point something out here? And then again, this is just this is just me pointing out a relative obvious plot hole in all, if you wear a vampire, you could live forever. The fuck do you care about any of this?

True?

Just like invest ten dollars and then just go sleep in a coffin and wait one hundred years? You know what I mean?

Like, it's that kind of negates any vampire dal I yeah, agree.

I agree with this one more specifically because he's motivated by money and fame, and it's like, why would he care, especially the fame part. All, all of a sudden, the vampire's gonna have real vampire hunters chasing after him because he has outed himself as a real vampire.

Well, if you live long enough, you want to experience every aspect of life, and why not some fame?

I I mean again, make that statement in the episode. If you're gonna go down that route, why I agree with you, But say it. Give Raydo Trees something to do other than just vamp it up.

Well, you know what he really gives it. It's all when he's dying. I got it. I'll give the episode that he goes on and on.

All full evil dead makeup too. They give him like a claymation red like red vein face and everything.

Yeah, that was nice. I did enjoy that, and I did like, would you say his name was Rayda Trees? I did kind of like him. He reminded me though, and I know I've seen him a lot. While we were watching it, my wife's like, oh, is that father from Beauty and the Beast. I'm like, maybe, I don't know, but yeah he was, but kind of reminded me of the old guy that sells the Magic ticket and the Last Action Hero and just like a thinner version of that dude.

Wait, who was that dude? Wasn't that what's his name? From fucking from Christine?

Yeah, the guy who, yeah, you can do some work around the shop.

Yeah, put the toilet rolls back in a little spindles. That's right.

That Prosky Rosy? Yeah, yeah, he he was Robert Prosky and Missus Doubtfire.

Oh yeah, so I think Robert Prosky and Raydow Trees should have played long strange brothers.

I agree, dough Tries and Prosky attorneys at law.

Now, that would be a great use of AI, the.

Film you've all been waiting for since one person.

Oh, it's even better than watching Will Smith eat spaghetti. AI generation.

Oh boy, anything goes all right? Oh, go ahead, No, I.

Was gonna say to that point that you mentioned, I am waiting for us to see a comedy episode in any of these anthology shows that is remotely funny. Outside of those genuine interstitials that we saw what felt like a lifetime ago. Every single time we've had a full length comedy episode, they have been a slug and this is yet again another example of that. So I would

Well. I think if we jumped over to Amazing Stories, they actually had some pretty funny ones.

Okay, oh yeah, but that's not horror though, right that that's more of just an anthology broadly.

Right, right, It's more Twilight Zone, which could do any of the genres within the genre of sort of speculative. Yeah, but there are several episodes of Amazing Family Dog the Timber Dog, and you made an episode the go to the Head of a Class, the Samachas one with Christopher Lloyd is I thought was really really funny.

I think the only time we've really seen comedy that works in these things. Is the one I of Newton or whatever that one was with Ron Harris and or sorry Ron Glass, sorry calling him Harris, Ron Glass and Sherman Helmslay like that one was funny and good at the same time.

Man's hand.

Yeah, right with then today. Yeah, if they're very quick and get in and make the point and get out, then they Yeah that they work. Yeah, all right. On

You can find it over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Yeah, that's where you can find it.

And what about you, Chris Statue.

Same spot Weirdowaymedia dot com. For everything I work on other than that, Patreon dot com, slash culture cast or slash Projection booth for ranking on Bond, which is a show that Mike and I do with our friend Richard HadAM and Father Malone. You've been on it once soon to be once so far yes, soon to me twice and very soon.

I love that, James bond As for me. Head on over to patreon dot com slash fatherm Alone. You're gonna get episodes early commercial free. You'll get bonus content too, like like cable Box Theater that I do with Noise Yunkies HP. If money is tight, though, you can give us a You can do us a solid by giving us a five star review or subscribe like share tell someone else to listen. Thanks, thank you once for thank

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