¶ Intro / Opening
Way wait.
A sad.
Welcome back to midnight Viewing, where this season we're taking a look at George Ramiro's nineteen eighties television series Tales from the Dark Side. Sharing the midnight view with me are the Culture Cast Chris Statue.
I have no strings to hold me?
Also joining us as always the projection booths Mike White.
I don't have any strings to bet, but I will bet two bandages.
Tonight we are taking a look at two more episodes from season four, the final season of Tales from the Dark Side. Of those are No Strings and the Grave Robber No Strings. Season four, episode five, originally aired on October the twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven. It's their Halloween episode, written and directed by David O'Dell, starring TJ. Castro Novo. We're gonna talk about him in a second Barry Dennin, Cameron Millser, and Bradley Fisher here listed as Brad Fisher,
friend of the podcast Brad Fisher. This is his second appearance on the show. If you remember back in season one, the Keenan Winn episode where the Devil came to take him, he was the devil there. He is TJ. Castronova's right hand man here, who's having the affair with his wife. This is the story of a life size marionette puppeteer who is rousted in the night for a command performance for a newly crowned mafia boss. What did you think
¶ No Strings
of this one, Mike?
You know, for all the praise of the last couple episodes we talked about on our previous episode, ooh, boy o boy o boy, you know how fast those were, this one was such a slog for me and I just could see so many things coming from so far away. I was very happy to see Barry Dennon. I think he's great in things like the Shining He plays Patches, Violot and Jesus for a superstar, very distinctive face. Very happy to see him. But it just I killed a guy. Now.
I want you to make him a big puppet so you can make him apologize and kiss my ass as this puppet. No, just what are you doing? This is so silly, so stupid. I don't know who talk me out of it, fellas, Chris, What did you think I liked?
How stupid it was? I don't know. Father. To quote the ever immortal Christian Bale, backed me up on this one, Father Millon. This is a this is a Tales from the Crypt episode masquerading is the Tales from the Dark Side of This is like the some whacked out season eight concept of Tales from the Crypt. Like it's it's strange. There's probably there was something. I know there were puppet adjacent or puppet episodes of Tales from the Crypt. I don't think they ever had this exact conceit, but there
were people being controlled by puppets. There were people controlling puppets. There were puppets on people's hands. I believe is Don Rickles had his like twin brother on his hand at one point. So puppets are nothing new to a. Yeah, So I enjoyed how kind of bizarre and strange this was. I bought into it, and I enjoyed it. Andry Dennan, I love Barry Dennon. He's here such a strange role to have him play just I don't know, it was fun. Follow one. What did you think?
I'm glad that Harley Quinn is the last gasp of the gun Mall as a character. If I never see the fucking gangster Mall character ever, this was it. I don't this. This episode broke me. This is supposed to take place in modern America in nineteen eighty seven, and it's still.
The oh g blah blah.
Like what are you doing? What are you doing? And by the way, what are you doing? TJ Castnova. TJ Castnova is effectively the showrunner of telst The Dark Side, has been since the beginning, and he's also on the other show I do with HP Night, mister Walters. He's a frequent actor on Taxi. He was for all five seasons of that show. He ran the bar Marios that they all go to. And I can see, Okay, here's the thing. It's season four. They know this is it.
They know this is their final season. So TJ Castronova's like, well, fuck it. I'm an actor. I'm going to give myself an episode here and it's the final season. What are they gonna do? Throw us off the air? Let's do this one in nineteen eighty seven, Sunday Night at seven. This is a fucked premise to be watching. I remember seeing it, and I look, I was no slouch in Gore and Whatever by nineteen eighty fourteen years old. By then,
I was I was steeped in it. Man, But even this was a bit much like the idea of the not so much once the corpse is being pumpeteered, but when Brad Fisher is putting in the hooks and the sound effects and the why is this taking so long? I don't know. They keep slipping out all of that business. Really grossed me out and continue to gross me out even on the rewatch. Honestly, ex use.
The bullet holes. What do you do?
Just use the bullets? Okay, Look, there's a lot to recommend this episode. Honestly, it's fun.
It's a fun episode.
Yeah, I agree with both of you. I do think it's way over long. I think it lies way too much on tired old conventions. This guy, I don't know, David O'Dell, who wrote and directed it, I don't know who. He was obviously friends with t J Castnova or something, but it's it is not well written, and they're just little things that could have made it better. Look, not only do we get the gun mole, but we got there like the rods, what are you gonna do with them?
And David O'Dell directed Martians Go Home? So come on, he knows, he knows his tired conventions.
That makes sense.
His puppets. He were for the Muppets for a long time and wrote the Dark Crystal Father Malone.
The tired conventions are just there.
Replete, okay. But here's the thing, all right, so now he now we know that he has this sort of now he has this background in puppeteering, right, Oh, why why isn't it more hands like why make it a marion at all? Why not make it like a Waldough thing, like a one for one thing where it's like directly connected to you. The setup here is you're behind a curtain and you're attached to wire that are attached to the corpse, and Barry Dennin is acting like, oh, this
is so disgusting, I can't go through with this. But you don't know what's happened. You're not see. If it was like you're in a black outfit and the corpse is attached to you and your cup, that would have been something that would have been really horrifying. But I don't know. It wasn't direct enough. There was just a level of remove that it made it queasy in theory only. Why not just grab this guy while he's alive and make him do all these things? What the fuck is happening exactly?
That's what I kept asking. I was like, did you shoot him nineteen times? Accidentally?
Yeah, desecration of a corpse is in in nineteen eighty seven.
I mean, I like that fat Polly was super thin, and I like the axial marionette pumpet that the guy uses had this like weirdo little orphan any head on this two stringy bt.
Look like carrot top.
It was so weird. What this guy's apparently renowned, Like he's got his own show down at the line see him and everything? Is it a horror show? Because I can't imagine kids doing anything but screaming through his act.
It reminded me of that DELIJAHC. Scugs Head from Freaked, the one with the eyeballs that come out. Yeah, Rick de Grin, what the fuck? Yeah? What? What child is gonna want to see this and go, Yeah, this is what I want to sit around for an hour and watch. Run Jesus.
You know how we know their mafia because there's a giant curt that says olive oil on it.
Eighty seven was not a time for subtlety.
Nevertheless, as much as I'm making fun of it. I really enjoyed it. This is a batshit crazy one and the fact that it got on the air is baffling to me. And hey, they got a fucking puppet corpse on the air, good for them.
On primetime TV.
Cheers.
I could see this giving me Nightmarre said, I seen it at that tender young age.
So there we go.
It's a win.
Let's move on before we just add different. The next episode is called The Grave Robber is the season four
¶ The Grave Robber
episode six, aired originally on November the first, nineteen eighty seven. This is written by Harvey Jacobs and Don Wallner from a story by Harvey Jacobs and directed by Jeff Schiro. This one stars Arnold Stang, Polly Draper, Darren Kelly and Ed Covin's it is a pair of Egyptologists. To me, it's a somebody take it.
I don't. It's a blackout sketch that listen blown up to twenty two minutes. Hey no, it's not. Yeah, no, you're right, you're right. It's a Playboy one panel on in a fucking Playboy.
Man, maybe a full page, maybe a full page, like a whole gayandul.
But pal out Jappie for Mad Magazine.
Right, but it is definitely not a blackout sketch. It's not an image and a joke. It gets us there. There is a game that gets involved, there's training of clothing and soft you know what. Here, I'll say this about the episode. The makeup is really good. And what we've said this in previous seasons. Shooting this in New York, you had access to these old, fucking actors who are
fucking troopers, right. The fact that Arnold Stang at his age allowed that like basically full body makeup to make him look as and it looked and it looks great. That to me consistently amazes me that these acts like that had to be the most uncomfortable for that man at this age, but he fucking did it because he's a fucking.
Proa Arnold's Stang man. I mean, he is the best part of Hercules in New York, which isn't saying a whole lot, but he's just oh, just that voice that
he has is so great. He just always seemed like such a sad sack, Like it felt like Wally Cox could beat this guy up in a fight, you know, and just some of the stuff that he was in that I mostly remember him from like Scudoo or oh god, I already mentioned Hercules in New York, but just oh gosh, he just would show up in so many things, and then he knew that he had a cartoon voice, and he would do so many cartoon shows and just little appearances and stuff. And yeah, I'm just so surprised, Chris
that we didn't see him on Barney Miller. He seems like he would have been primed.
I'm sure, or on Rankin either because again, to be fair, he's also the voice of top Cat, the top hat where or the I guess, not really a top hat. It's more of like a pork pie hat wearing homeless cat, because.
Well all the cats are homeless. And he's what's great is he's doing it. He's doing an impression of Phil Silvers, who also has a super distinctive voice. So it's one super distinctive voice human doing another.
Yeah it's great, and that's no, like you said, Michael, he had a cartoon voice and he knew it.
Yeah, so good. And yeah, it's a stupid, stupid episode, but I really liked it. And all right, I'm going to say this and I probably just said this a few weeks ago. There's the Egypt one. We were talking about mummies recently, and there's the Egypt one with Frisian Slater. Is that in the tail from the Dark Side movie?
Yes? No, A lot two four nine.
Yeah, okay, so this reminded me a little bit of that. But this is obviously just done completely for laughs, laffs, and I I was kind of there for it. It was so silly and so stupid, and especially when they're trying to pull the wool or the bandages over this guy's eyes and oh no, no, this is a better hand and lying tom cheating and they can't even cheat well enough. Like then he suddenly learns all the rules of poker because he astro projects to Vegas and takes
all the knowledge of this professional gambler. I'm like, yeah, this is so silly, but I'm so here for it, and I loved how cartoonish of it everybody was acting. Maybe I was just in the right mood because I could see myself hating this, but I really had a fun time, and I think it so lands on the shoulders of Arnold Stang.
I'm surprised, did you not watch this episode in the last episode at the same time, because they're both just as goofy as one another. I'm kind of surprised you didn't enjoy the last episode as much. I don't know, Like this episode is, like you said, like, this episode is just as this one is way more humorous.
This is like it's going to make a gag fest, not mean spirited. The last one is mean spirit you have. I think you need to be more in the mood for the last one to enjoy it than you would this one. This one is at least boisterous.
Yeah, I guess that Darren Kelly's characters, I don't know the fate that he has at the end, I don't know. It seems pretty it's horrible. It's not great, Like it's pretty bad. It's worse than what happens in the grave or No Strings, because at least in no Strings they're dead. And this it's like, now you just enjoy being in hell essentially as a guardian of the tomb of Akinatin or yes something, I'm in ho tepe of one of them. That's a terrible fate. That's a fate worse than dead.
I'd rather just be dead.
Mike since you brought up the Townsman nark Side movie. Now it does feel loud that, like the two characters, that thing is a three character thing, and and it's Steve Bushemy. Well it's four I guess, so it's Steve Amy, Christian Slater, and then Christian Slater's sister and her boyfriend. If you took the sister and the boyfriend character and pulled them directly out and put them in here, it's almost exact like those are the same kind. That's my mind is a little bit blown actually that like how
how close those characters are in both scenarios. That's weird.
But did they play strip poker in that one.
No, but they're just as vapid and yuppie like and obsessed with sort of Egyptian things, and it's I don't know, it's weird.
Okay, I'm glad I wasn't completely off base thinking of that story.
No, it's right in there. Yeah, I don't know. This is this one passes the time. I guess this as far as comedy episodes go, this it's not. It didn't. It was never insulting. It didn't feel like a blackout sketch where it was just like, oh, okay, yeah, you didn't have enough remouth. We got it, Okay, that's fair.
I will say though, all of these Egypt or Egypt to Jason episodes all do have the same stink to them. They all got the same funky stank, the stank of a tomb closed for far too long, like they're rarely are we outside of a tomb, or if we are, we're in a room with a sarcophagus. And that's it, like rooms with sarcophagus or tombs, and that's and like the and I don't know, like half of these or at least half of these, maybe more have been like comedic as well, which is again, can we not? We
can't do because mummies aren't scary. They're not like mummies aren't scary? Is that the thing? Because mummies are scary.
Well, they would be on tail some dark site. Once that fucking movie came out. That's that's probably my favorite mummy of all time is the one in that movie.
Oh I don't know, Arnold does.
Yeah, I have to say, is my I know, but
¶ The Quest for a Scary Mummy Movie
you guys are converts to that movie and I am not converts.
I saw that movie. I thowt movie. I was nine years old in the theaters.
You guys are acolytes to that film. I am not.
I see no problem with that.
I like the Mummy to be scary.
I agree with you, But you know what, I'll also.
So you don't know, you don't because you like an action movie the best.
But I was going to say, to be fair, I will if I can't get a scary Mummy movie, at least can I get a Mummy movie that's fun?
No?
Fair?
No, I mean that's fair. I mean, look to be fair, Like a scary Mummy thing is not something I've seen a whole lot of. So I would like for someone to do the like definitive scary keep.
Waiting and they making it and they just mean making action movies.
And I I'm not disagreeing with you, like I like the nineteen ninety nine Mummy, But at the same time, who wouldn't want someone to take the concept of a mummy and like really do something with it, Like I'm.
You know, you know, I always go back to the Karloff one. I think that's genuinely still scary, and the Hammer one I thought was pretty darn good as well.
The Hammer one more than the Karloff one. I think because the Karloff one, if you go back and watch it, the Mummy's in it for one scene. It's basically Carloff, just as that as the other care to skulking around the entire time, I'm looking for a bandaged man coming out of the night and ripping your spine out. Come on.
Now, I guess I have a soft spot for the Karlof one because that's where the whole do you have to go around opening graves to find girlfriends line comes from. And whenever I hear.
That it's a great movie, no question, it's a great movie. Yeah, for scary Mummy. I think that the Christopher Lee one is the actually really scary one.
Can we also keep if we do a scary Mummy thing, can it not be like the Mummy is a love sick creature looking for his mate, Like yeah, you drop that too, because like another another Mummy ism that again, like I served its purpose, but it is like a little pass a. Now we have plenty of films where characters don't have romantic interest at all, So I think maybe it's time now to just do a Mummy movie that's scary with not oh he's trying to get his lover back from the grave, or it's that's been like
the same fucking tune that they've played. Even in these even in these like anthology shows, there's like the love Lorne's Mummy, Like, why is this the thing?
Here's the story for the next Mummy movie. Hey, don't open that. That will be fine.
There we go again. Nineteen ninety nine Mummy takes a turn. It's scary for a moment, but then it takes a turn. It becomes a full on action movie. That's fine. There is a version of that nineteen ninety nine Mummy movie that's just a scary movie, but I don't think it is as nearly as successful as the movie that ends up coming out. But I would kill for a scary Mummy anything, or Mummy anything that's not that Tom Cruise thing.
Oo oh jesus. Yeah, there was a time, I think it's just last year of the year before, where I got onto a Mummy kick and I watched all the ones, all the universal Mummy movies that aren't just the Karloff ones. Yes, some interesting things. It goes and the Mummy's Tomb, the Mummies Ghost, the Mummies Curse, and some of those. There was one of them where I was just like, oh, I've seen these shots before. You are just recycling so much of this mummy footage and you could tell the
heights would change and stuff. I'm like, Okay, I guess it really doesn't matter who you put in those wraps, but maybe keep them the same height.
The second Doctor Phime's movie is, while technically not a mummy movie, is an egypt movie and it's just weird enough to slot in there and satisfy my my mummy yen. But I can't think of the last good scary mummy movie honestly, Like I agree with you. I think it's it's probably Christopher Lee in the sixties.
And you know who I would tap, Somebody like Germo del Toro.
He has you know, I wouldn't you know what he can That's the short answer. Guy, Let's see Frankenstein before we give him every.
That's fair. That's fair. It would need to be somebody who has a reverence for that or or not to be fair. Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
Get Josh to do it fantastic right now? Yeah, yeah, I don't think he's too busy.
He's been busy for about damn near a decade now.
But like those kids, those two guys are from Australia who did the Talk to Me movie? Oh oh yeah, give them the Mummy movie. You know what I mean?
Like when with you, Yeah, I don't even like it doesn't have to be the Mummy, just needs to be a Mummy.
Right Hey here, guys, give us your version of the Mummy. Holy fuck, because that's what we need. The fact that we just kind of keep telling the fucking nineteen twenties version of the Mummy. This is what's scaring us, is it? Is there not some modern interpretation of this, Come on, man, and not the fucking howling wind down the fucking streets or the fucking Beastie and the okay anyway, but you.
Could do but you could do the nineteen twenties Mummy scary, Like you could do it that scary. You might get like a period piece scary. And it could be scary as fuck too as a period piece, because you could have the Mummy coming out of the night and taking people like again, like you could do what you could go all kinds of directions with it, or you could
set it in modern time. But like, just don't do the same like putsy half in, half out comedy sort of, this is way comedy obviously, like this is strip poker with a mummy, Like there you go, like, but they're like some of the other ones. I want a mummy half in, half out.
I want a mummy that never turns human. I want a mummy that is just a delegon. I don't know, because they want an actor and they want a sexy thing.
Well, it's because there's the love interest. Because again the love interest has to kiss the mummy.
Fuck all that. Let's just have a fucking sentinel bent on vengeance. That's it.
Yeeha, I'm with you. Yeah, well, mummies are like low mummies are low key. I don't know. Of all the universal monsters, the Mummy is the one that I'm just like, we what like underrepresented so much?
Can I just say too that mummies are not germane to Egypt. They're in most cultures. You can set the Mummy basically fucking anywhere.
And yeah, that's literally, isn't that. I believe that's the joke at the end of the Third Mummy Movies and then he went somewhere where there were no mummies. South America and it's wan. That's not the cake. Yeah no, it's I don't know yet.
I could have a a Mayan mummy, an Incin mummy.
Like yeah, nope, it's got to be like the Egyptologists with the hat.
They could these dummies could even fucking structure quietly a like franchise of mummy films. Just do it, do it without fanfare, Like we're gonna tell a story that takes place in South America and now we're also gonna tell a story. Oh, by the way, those are connected. Hey, a universal shared horror universe dark universe.
¶ Closing Thoughts and Next Episode Preview
Even one might say.
Well, no, no, now you have to go to Orlando. That's where the dark universe is.
That's true. Thank god they took that back from themselves.
By the way, I cannot fucking wait to go there. Same likewise, Okay, on that note, on the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we're gonna be taking a look at the next two episodes of season four or those are The Yattering and the Jack and see more Lama Yattering in the Jack is the first television adaptation of anything my Clive Barker and Seymour Lama stars Divine Midnight Viewing. The horror Anthology podcast as a proud member of a 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? Where could people find it? Chris Statue?
Anything and everything that I work on, with the exception of one thing, can be found at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That one thing is the ranking on Bond podcast, which could be found at my patreon, patreon dot com, slash Culture Cast at Mike's patreon, patreon dot com, slash Projection booth, and Father Malone is on there from time to time. But more importantly, be a patriot of Father Malone's Patreon because you're listening to this show right now, which is
his show, and that's the important one. We're just we're here. He's doing the thing. Support guests. Yeah, we're just guys. He's the guy on this show. He's the guy. He's the man, this is his show. Support him. What about you, Mike White, I'm the man. I'm so bad.
I should be in detention. No, just what you said, Yeah, as you said, it's so eloquently last episode, ditto, ditto.
Indeed, then you know who I am? You're listening to midnight viewing. We'll see you on Monday with the weekly round up, and we'll see you back here next week with something fest All right, until next time, trying to enjoy the daylight.
Then she took to att