Anne,

I couldn’t agree with you more about Carolyn being a spoiled, rich girl, who never wanted to leave a bar or a party at a reasonable hour, like how she would drag poor and decent Joe Haskel to the Blue Whale so that she
could dance with other guys or look for Burke Devlin specifically. I had girlfriends like her in the long-ago past,
who didn’t know when it was time to go home, the “drinking Irish,” being the worst. Ah, yes, the things you
have to experience and put up with, when you’re a young and callow fellow like Joe Haskell was in 1966.


As to having a color television set back during the 1960s, I bet that Roger insisted on having the largest color console at Collinwood, so that he could see Dame Diana Rigg’s lustrous, Titian curls every week on the latest
episode of “The Avengers.” Roger probably secretly wished that the beautiful Mrs. Emma Peel would someday
relocate to Collinsport, Maine. 

Hey, gang,

I was watching the very early episodes of DS and Mrs. Stoddard was apologizing to Carolyn for the apparently tough time Carolyn had as a student at Collinsport High School. This got me to thinking, what was Carolyn’s life like when she was a high school kid? The other kids must have either been in awe of her or resented her wealth and privilege. I can’t decide which scenario it might have been.

Do you think Carolyn participated in many (or any) extracurricular activities at Collinsport High School? Do you think Carolyn wrote articles for the school paper? Did Carolyn participate in sports like tennis or softball at Collinsport High? Was Carolyn a cheerleader like the slightly older Maggie Evans apparently was? Did Carolyn develop a crush on Joe Haskell, when Joe was the starting quarterback for an admittedly so-so Collinsport High School football team?

I could see Carolyn being driven to and from Collinsport High School everyday by that old softie, Matthew Morgan.  No doubt, the other kids thought that was “slightly” weird. And, did Carolyn ever invite the other kids up to Collinwood for a party? With Mrs. Stoddard so concerned that someone might discover that her “beloved” husband was taking a permanent “dirt nap” under the floor of one of the locked rooms in the basement of Collinwood, I kind of doubt if Carolyn was ever allowed to bring friends from school up to the great house.

And, do you think that Carolyn was ever embarrassed when the other kids would gossip about why her mother never left that spooky old mansion?

Oh, what we might have seen if they had done a flashback of the early 1960 years at Collinwood. Anyway, you know in high school yearbooks how they sometimes make predictions about members of the graduating class? Well, maybe the 1965 Collinsport High School Yearbook had these predictions:

Most Likely to Switch Careers: Maggie Evans.

Most Likely to Succeed: Chris Jennings (future architect).

Most Likely to be Incarcerated: Harry Johnson.

Most Likely to Snag a Gig on WGBH’s “This Old House”: Tom Jennings (handyman extraordinaire).

Most Likely to Drive a Top-of-the-Line BMW and STILL be Unhappy: Carolyn Stoddard.

Most Likely to Enter Local or State Politics: Susie (Hoffenmuller?) (current Collinsport Inn Waitress).

Most Likely to be Featured in “Field and Stream Magazine”: Joe Haskell.

Most Likely to Finally Find Jesus: Irwin (?) “Buzz” Hackett.

I got one wrong, too - I didn't get Patrick McGoohan's Danger Man correctly. I've never even heard of that show, though that may be because, after I looked it up, I learned I was only four when it came out, or because it was never syndicated in my area. Though even if it was syndicated in my area, who knows what sort of station it may have been on? Back when I was four I only remember watching the three networks, ABC, NBC & CBS.

Now, if it had been McGoohan's The Prisoner, that I would have gotten...

MB,


Yes, “The Prisoner” was an absolutely great show from the 1960s. I remember that Channel 2, the local station in NYC l, ran this truly unique show in early Saturday evenings during the summer of 1968. I never missed an episode, watching to see if “Number 6” did manage to escape from that eerie village.

I also remember Patrick McGoohan as British secret agent John Drake in “Danger Man,” which was called “Secret Agent” in the USA. In fact, many fans of both shows believed that John Drake was also “Number
6.” However, Patrick McGoohan denied that they were the same character.

I believe that British actress Valerie French, the wife of DS’s own Thayer David, appeared in an episode of “The Prisoner,” entitled, “Living in Harmony.”

“Number 6’s” time in “The Village,” sort of reminded me of the “Dream Curse” on DS. Were  “Number 6” and the Dream Curse “participants” actually living through these weird experiences or were they all just imagining it
or strung out on drugs?

It would have been great fun to have seen Barnabas, Willie, Maggie, Roger and even the sartorially-splendid Dameon Edwards also each check in for a “vacation” at “The Village,” which is located on the beautiful coast of Portmeirion, Wales.

I wonder if the town fathers arranged for fireworks to be fired over Collinsport Bay in celebration of Independence Day?

No doubt, Sarah Johnson would get down to the waterfront REALLY early to get a great seat for the event. Although, I doubt that Roger would deign to attend the celebration with the unwashed masses, who were clearly NOT in Roger’s exclusive social strata. 

And, the unfailingly convivial Bob Rooney would be absolutely delighted with the brisk business at the Blue Whale on Independence Day. After New Year’s Eve, Bob’s second best day for business is July 4, a day when the Blue Whale stays open well into the night. 

Oh, yes, Happy Fourth of July to all of my DS cousins across this great country! 

I forgot to cancel recording this show on my DVR so after I noticed that I got this week's ep I decided to watch it to see if it was any better than last week's. And it was - to a point. I feared the worst when the Osmonds were a part of it  - and of course they were called upon to sing - but thankfully nothing about them was barf worthy. And the main plot seemed to be proving that in this week's story Native Americans fared infinitely better than women did last week. One might even say they came across as sympathetic characters. (Though why do I suspect that any Native American who might watch the ep may be horrified by any liberties taken with a ceremony held at the Native American camp because back when the show was made it doesn't strike me that the show had any sort of Native American consultant to make sure such things were accurate.) But any steps forward the show seemed to be making were pretty much wiped out by the summation at the end of the ep when Jamie's narration included, "it sure was amazing to find out that injuns was just as good as human beings." Oh well, one step forward, two steps back...

Well, if we’re going to be completely candid, the DS writers were hardly being “politically-correct” or “woke” with their treatment and portrayal of the Roma people otherwise known as the Gypsies.

Magda, Sandor, Julianka, Lazlo and King Johnny were all treated with contempt by most of the residents of Collinwood. In fact, Gabriel Collins seemed to take great pleasure, when he sneered the word, “Gypsy!” as he was addressing Lazlo, the fortune-teller. Heck, the Collinses showed their “great” affection and concern for Jenny Collins (Magda’s “lookalike” sister), when they locked her up her up in the tower room of Collinwood after she suffered a nervous breakdown, immediately following the departure of Jenny’s philandering husband, Quentin, who was in hot pursuit of Laura Collins, Edward Collins’s unfaithful wife. (Did you follow all of that?)

And, don’t get me started on Judith Collins-Trask, a truly “gracious” and “kindly”woman, and her dealings with and treatment of Magda and Sandor Racosi, the Romani “answer” to Caroline and Charles Ingalls of “Little House on the Prairie” fame.

In a show of “tolerance” and “love conquering all,” it would have been very heart-warming and inclusive if the DS writers had concluded the long 1897 storyline, with the crusty, old hidebound Count Andreas Petofi finally casting aside his long held prejudices and hatreds and actually finding love in the autumn (or late winter) of his years with a benign and gentle Gypsy woman of a “certain age.” Think “Silver Singles” comes to Collinwood! 

Of course, who better to play the fey and limpid love interest of Andreas Petofi, but that great Russian actress of the stage and screen, Maria Alekseyevna Ousopenskaya (sp?), who moved us all as Maleva, the comely
mother of Bela (portrayed by Bela “Count Dracula” Lugosi), Romani fortune teller and unfortunate werewolf in “The Wolf Man”?

Well, excuse me, while I pop in my dvd of “King of the Gypsies” on this Fourth of July weekend and pray and hope for a more tolerant and inclusive America than we sadly observed in Collinsport, Maine from 1840 through 1897. 

Bob the Bartender, who, as a young boy, was inspired to embrace worldwide tolerance and inclusion after hearing the song, “It’s a Small World” while touring the Pepsi pavilion at 1964 World’s Fair in beautiful Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, New York City, two years before “Dark Shadows” entered our lives and changed us all for the better as caring and thoughtful men and women! 

I remember seeing Frederic Forest in that DS episode; Mr. Forest left an indelible impression on me after his appearance (and gruesome death) in “Apocalypse Now.”

It’s cool to spot young actors at the beginning of their careers during those first year episodes of DS. KLS wrote that Susan Sullivan appeared as a ghost on DS. Although, I don’t remember seeing her on DS.

Of course, actor Alan Feinstein appeared on DS as that obnoxious jerk who tries to bird-dog Joe Haskell by dancing very passionately with an all-too-willing Carolyn Stoddard in the Blue Whale, just before Joe very understandably punches the creep in the labanza and knocks him on his keester. 

And, it was great fun seeing the lovely and talented Marsha Mason as a Leviathan/vampire very early in her distinguished acting career.

Requiem aeternam, Mr. Forest.

That’s good news glad she’s coming .
Anne

Anne,

That’s great news for longtime DS fans, who are calling for some DS-related event after so long.

I think we longtime DSF cousins on the East Coast should all make an effort to be there at Lyndhurst in
beautiful and historic Tarrytown, NY on Halloween to acknowledge the beautiful and lovely Kathryn Leigh Scott.

Anne, if you’ll make it down from central New York, Uncle  Roger makes it down from Connecticut and I drive up from the enchanting “Joisey” shore, we can all meet with, hopefully, DS cousins from all over the USA and discuss such recondite DS topics as to whatever happened to Adam after he entered Professor Stokes’ closet; is Susie-the-Silent Waitress actually related to Darryl and Darryl from “Newhart” and is the immortal Buzz Hackett now the beloved choir director for Up with People?

Yes, we can all explore the grounds of Lyndhurst to see where Jeff Clark found a bloodied and unconscious Daphne Budd on a tree-lined road on the former Jay Gould estate, we can look for the remnants of the railroad trestle, on which Quentin Collins and Gerard Stiles fought it out to the death over the New York/Connecticut commuter trains and look to see if we can still find the stone foundation of the building at Lyndhurst, which served as Barnabas’s ancestral home, the Old House.

No doubt, Ms. Scott will regale us all with her reminiscences of filming “House of Dark Shadows” during the remarkable “Blizzard of April 1970” with her fellow DS actors.

Who knows, maybe such all-time DS favorites as even Al Lust, David Jay and Christine Domaniecki will make it to the event? We can only hope!

So, I look forward to finally meeting my many DS cousins this upcoming Halloween!

Bob

Quote from: Bob_the_Bartender on May 26, 2023, 10:07:26 PM

Anyway, “American Gigolo” is a very enjoyable film featuring great shots of Los Angeles and artfully conveying the erotic zeitgeist of the early 1980s in America. In other words, a film that both Abigail Collins and the original Reverend Trask would have highly approved of. 

Something makes me think neither would enjoy the actual film - though maybe Abigail would secretly enjoy all of Richard Gere's nudity - and hey, maybe Trask would secretly enjoy it, too. 

Yes, I always thought that must have been more going on with the repressed Ms. Abigail Collins; she was
always so concerned with the alleged Satanic goings-on at Collinwood. And, yet, she never displayed an equal  degree of concern for the illicit carnal activity going on nightly on the docks and at the Eagle Tavern in Collinsport. I guess the unfailingly prim-and-proper Ms. Collins always avoided the seedier parts of town? However, as you have suggested, Abigail must have thought about the other “aspects” of human existence from time to time? 

As to the original Reverend Trask and his possible obsession with the handsome Richard Gere, I just don’t know.  When the shifty Nathan Forbes was pleading with the righteous Reverend to help him get back together with the wealthy and ditsy Millicent Collins, Trask responded by saying that, “physical love is beyond comprehension.” What the heck does that mean and just how then did little Lamar Trask become a gleam in his
witch-hunting father’s eye in the first place!?! 

Clearly, the Reverend Gregory Trask was NOT a sexually-repressed individual like his great-great (?) grandfather apparently was. In fact, Gregory Trask could take his rightful place in that “pantheon” of religious hypocrites, including Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Theodore McCarrick.

As to Miss Abigail flipping out over the lyrics to Debbie Harry’s hit song, “Call Me,” I certainly agree with that comment! Imagine if Abigail had also been able to listen to the late, great Wilson Pickett’s 1965 hit record, “In the Midnight Hour,” an especially salacious song, or the Rolling Stones’ “somewhat” sexist and misogynistic 1978 song, “Some Girls”? Abigail would have had an apoplectic fit upon hearing those controversial hits of the
past! 

Come to think of it, it’s too bad that Bob Rooney apparently never added those lively songs to the playlist of the songs on his juke box in the Blue Whale. I think they would have livened things up considerably at his popular watering hole.