Uncle Roger,

I wonder if Quentin Collins could have been accumulating credit from the Social Security Administration for all of the jobs he presumably toiled at during the the 72 years between 1897 and 1969, when “Grant Douglas” showed up in Collinsport?

Matthew Morgan must have been owed a decent monthly allotment from the SSA for all of his years as a faithful Collinsport Cannery employee and, later, as the Collinwood handyman/factotum. Too bad ol’ Matthew didn’t stick around long enough to collect his monthly check and use his Medicare benefits to see Doctors Woodard and Lang for annual check-ups.

By the way, I wonder if Angelique, Nicholas Blair and Diabolos had some comparable SSA and Medicare benefits as employees of Beelzebub down “below”?

The Dream Curse Or Tad’s Playroom?

Hey, gang,

I’ve been recently watching some of the 1968 Angelique-inspired Dream Curse episodes and also the 1970 Gerard Stiles haunting of Collinwood episodes. DS fans have expressed varying opinions on these two storylines. For example, Robin Vogel, in her superb “Robservations” here on this site, has opined that she found the Dream Curse to become tiresome after ten or so DS characters had experienced the increasingly terrifying dream. Personally, I enjoyed the Dream Curse, especially when Dr. Julia Hoffman and Willie Loomis experienced Angelique’s Dream Curse; Grayson Hall and John Karlen literally each chewed up the scenery with great elan as they staggered and made their way from door-to-door in that eerie limbo-like Dream Curse room.

It’s too bad that not quite every DS character got to experience the Dream Curse. I would have liked to have seen the venerable Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker experience the dream; it would have probably looked like Mr. Magoo fumbling through those “endless corridors,” and trying to keep his prince-nez glasses from steaming up in that oh-so-spooky place.

 And, what if the haughty Roger Collins had been beckoned by someone (probably Madam Janet Findlay or possibly Leona Eldridge), and upon observing the squalid condition of the Dream Curse room, Roger exclaimed, “How did I ever end up in a Hell-hole like this!?!”

If Blue Whale bartender Bob Rooney, my personal favorite DS character, somehow took part in the Dream Curse, I suspect that, upon entering the Dream Curse room,  the blunt and direct Collinsport saloon-keeper would unleash a steady stream of “colorful” and “descriptive” invectives that would make even the late Red Fox and Andrew Dice Clay blush in embarrassment! “What the ‘expletive-deleted’ is this God-d@mned place!?!”

As to Tad’s now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t playroom which we were shown during the summer of 1970, I found the room to be a real sleep-inducer, even better than Ambien or Restorol PM. To see David Collins and Hallie Stokes initially express great uncertainty and anxiety in that room and then for them to temporarily (and repeatedly) morph into Tad Collins and Callie Stokes, respectively, got old in a hurry. And, weren’t the teenaged David and Hallie too old to be hanging out in a room, stocked with toys more suited for ten-year-olds to enjoy?

And, please, don’t get me going on Hallie Stokes’ incessant whining during this DS storyline. I felt very sorry that Hallie had lost both of her parents in a recent automobile accident. It’s terrible for a young person to lose a parent (or parents), when that person is not even in his or her twenties yet. But, oy vey, Hallie’s anxiety attacks were just too much to take. “Give that young girl a Xanax, will you, Dr. Hoffman!?!” And, the usually sage and thoughtful Professor Stokes hardly “distinguished” himself by deciding to bring his grieving niece to Collinwood (of ALL places!) to emotionally recover from her terrible personal loss. (Beirut or Benghazi would have been more “peaceful” than Collinwood, imo.)

Finally, after all of this playroom nonsense in the summer of 1970, when Julia (and later Barnabas) finally  travelled to 1840, the playroom was only seen once or twice in passing, and the ghosts Tad and Carrie, who were so important during the summer of 1970, were mere afterthoughts as young people during the 1840
Gerard Stiles/Judah Zachary storyline. In fact, actor David Henesy appeared as Tad Collins in only a few of the 1840 episodes before leaving the show for good.

So, even with its faults, I prefer the Dream Curse episodes to the narcolepsy-inducing Tad’s Playroom episodes. What say you? 

Hey gang,

Since most of us “Dark Shadows kiddies” (as the late, great Louis Edmonds once nicknamed us), are now sexagenarians or even older, I wonder if Barnabas and the other DS characters signed up for our nation’s healthcare program?

When you think of it, Barnabas was already 172-years-old in 1967, well over the minimum age for Medicare membership, when the avaricious Willie Loomis released Barnabas from his chained coffin. Yet, don’t you think Mr. B. Would have a hard time establishing his age with the good people at the Social Security System? And,  besides, after introducing himself to Mrs. Stoddard and the rest of the Collins family as a member of “the British branch of the Collins family, could Barnabas enroll in Medicare as a resident
 alien?

Let’s say Barnabas could establish his credentials with the Social Security System, do you think Barnabas would settle on just Parts A and B on Medicare or would the shrewd and savvy Barnabas opt for Prescription Parts C and D with Medicare? I don’t know, but considering Barnabas’s longtime relationship with Dr. Julia Hoffman AND Julia’s status as the “world’s most persistent house guest at the great house of Collinwood, maybe Julia kept Barnabas and the rest of the Collinses, well-supplied with any needed drugs/prescriptions from Julia’s private hospital, Windcliff?

And, maybe Barnabas could supplement his retirement income by becoming a paid spokesman for supplemental Medicare prescription plans like former New York Jets quarterback, Joe “Willie” Namath and Jimmy “Dy-No-Mite” Walker?

I can see it now, Barnabas attired in his three- piece Brooks Brothers suit and Inverness coat and brandishing his Uber-cool wolf’s head cane, saying from the Old House drawing room, “Friends, this is Barnabas Collins of Collinsport, Maine, here to urge you all to take full advantage of Medicare’s benefits, as I did when I became eligible for Medicare membership back in 1966. Don’t miss out on any of Medicare’s extensive benefits, like I did to get free dental work on my rather long incisor teeth, regular eye checkups, so that I could still read the I-Ching wands at my advanced age and help with the inevitable “bladder problems,” that a person of a “certain age” is bound to experience with the passing of the years.

So don’t delay and call the number on your tv screen so that our extremely friendly and helpful agents,
including my good friends Mr. Buzz Hackett and Mr. Bob Rooney, can help get on your way to receiving full medical coverage and so many wonderful benefits. Call right now,  before ‘Jeopardy’ and ‘Matlock’ come on.” 

That's a great list of the inevitable infirmities (and indignities) of the aging process.

How about waking up in the morning, turning on the t.v., and seeing that there's a particularly compelling episode of "Quincy, M.E." on Cozi-TV? And, after watching the seemingly perpetually irascible Dr. Quincy solve a medical mystery, he's followed by Los Angeles paramedics Cage and DeSoto on "Emergency"? It's too bad that "Matlock" isn't on Cozi-TV also.

Oh, yeah, I recently went to see the "Happy Together Tour" at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ. The show featured such classic 1960s acts as The Cowsills, The Classics Four, The Association, Gary Puckett and The Turtles, featuring the always upbeat and uproariously funny Professor Mark Volman. Let me tell you, there wasn't a single person in the audience under the age of sixty, maybe even seventy. (The smell of Ben-Gay was in the air.)

And, speaking of Mark Volman, the husky Turtle with the enormous mop of now-completely gray hair, he said to the audience (just before all of the performers joined into sing, "Happy Together"), "We're all thankful that you came out tonight to see us old f@rts playing the same music after more than fifty years."

I noticed that many of my fellow male, middle-aged concert-goers made a hasty, if not desperate, beeline to the men's room just as the the musical performers took a break during the show's intermission, just like how    the aged Joshua Collins, Daniel Collins and eventually Roger Collins, no doubt, all made hasty trips to those never-seen Collinwood "water-closets." 

Come to think of it, Quentin Collins must have experienced an unbelievable shock, when the evil Count Petofi  switched bodies with Quentin. I mean, literally overnight, Quentin went from being a healthy, handsome and robust 28-year-old to a decrepit, incontinent, arthritic and flatulent 150-year-old man! Alas, we never got to see how Quentin coped with this shocking change of life, very much like how we never got to see how Barnabas, man of the 18th century, was able to so easily adjust to all of the modern conveniences of the 20th century, when he first showed up at Collinwood.

You know, someone should take the trouble to cite all of the changes and physical indignities Quentin had to contend with after Count Petofi performed his amazing mind/body switch. Maybe someone did list the Q-Man's" change-of-life" experiences? I guess that I'm getting too to remember if someone actually did.

Bob, the forgetful bartender.

Who would be more "enjoyable" to meet, Harvey Fierstein or Roger Davis?

Actually, I did once run into Roger Davis as I was leaving one of the Dark Shadows Festivals held at the original World Trade Center; he was very friendly, and, he did not even try to sell me one of his stylish tee-shirts, that he sold at the festival.

Oh, yeah, Roger didn't even stroke/caress that Ronald Reagan-like head of hair his once!   

Wow, that's a great story concerning Marie Wallace and the "Shaft" theme song on "Somerset"! Incidentally, I found Ms. Wallace to be one of the most gracious and friendly stars at the past DS Festivals in NYC. In addition, Ms. Wallace has many fascinating ("fascinating," Sebastian Shaw's "favorite" adjective) reminiscences concerning the many legendary actors she worked with during her very accomplished theatrical career on Broadway.

And, Edward Winter "knocked off" India Delaney on "Somerset"? Didn't Edward Winter also portray the multi-macho, albeit, exceedingly dim-witted Colonel Flagg on "M*A*S*H"? No doubt, the spy-catching Colonel Flagg would have thought that Barnabas Collins was a deep Soviet plant in Collinsport, much like Laurence Harvey's obsessive mother (portrayed by Angela Lansbury) in the film, "The Manchurian Candidate."

And, wouldn't it have been fun to see another Maine resident, Dr. Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce, taking a position at the Collinsport Hospital?  I'll bet that 'Hawkeye" Pierce would have had as "high" an opinion of the "slightly" loopy Dr. Eric Lang as Pierce did of Dr. Frank "Ferret-Face" Burns.

A "M*A*S*H"/"Dark Shadows" crossover would have been great fun to see.

Bob

PS I could just see the pompous and imperious Major Charles Emerson Winchester III (of nearby Boston, Mass.) and the toffee-nosed and supercilious Roger Collins having been the best of buddies, dating back to their time served as US Army officers during the Korean War. 
 

Mr. Storch was such a great comedic actor. I will always regret not seeing him in "Arsenic and Old Lace," with the late, great Jean Stapelton, the wonderful Marion Ross and, of course, the legendary Jonathan Frid.

Mr. Storch was best known for his portrayal as the seemingly perpetually angst-ridden Corporal Randolph Agarn (of Passaic, NJ) on the hilariously funny 1960s sit-com, "F-Troop." Mr. Storch's famous retort on that classic comedy was, "Who says I'm dumb!?!"

Several years ago, the city of Passaic, NJ presented Mr. Storch with the key to the city as Passaic's favorite, adopted "son." Mr. Storch seemed to be genuinely moved by the town fathers' gesture.

What a long and rewarding life Mr. Storch led. He almost made it to the ranks of other famous centenarians, such as Olivia DeHaviland, Kirk Douglas and Norman Lloyd (of Jersey City, NJ).

Requiem aeternam, Mr. Storch.