DARK SHADOWS FORUMS

General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '25 I => Current Talk '07 I => Topic started by: David on March 27, 2007, 07:51:29 PM

Title: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: David on March 27, 2007, 07:51:29 PM: :D

A few of us mentioned on another thread how watching DS influenced our goals, dreams, artistic pursuits.

I discovered DS in '67, about a week before 1795.
I loved the show on sight & love it still.

DS launched my lifelong love of classic horror films of the Universal/Hammer/AIP era.

Because of DS' costume stories I began checking out Masterpiece Theatre & going to museums like the Met in NYC.

My fantasies about being on DS led to my producing two low budget feature films in the 90s & working as a film critic today.

How did DS influence you?

David
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: IluvBarnabas on March 27, 2007, 07:56:57 PM: Watching all of the time-travelling on the show made me into a bit of a history nut....I started becoming interested in the way of life in the 1600's, 1700's, 1800's, early 1900's and all the inventions that came into being.

Once a year we go to Mackinaw Island, where they have houses and buildings from those centuries, and they have a huge fort. In those houses they have signs telling the history of who lived there, what they used for a certain purpose, they even have prototypes of the furniture, clothing and machinery of earlier times. I always look forward to going there.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Cassandra Blair on March 27, 2007, 08:29:31 PM: Let's see...watching Dark Shadows as a kid prompted my love of period drama - seriously if it's a costume drama I'm there! Also, I'm sure DS influenced my curiosity about gothic stories and the supernatural. ever since I first discovered the show, I've enoyed reading about ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night, particularly if they're set in an old house with some of the other gothic trappings. Lastly, I sometimes dabble in writing fiction - with some of the above elements in play.

Oh, and my love of Dark Shadows has also made me poorer - from buying the DVDs, and it's made my husband a more tolerant man - he has to put up with watching DS with me from time to time! ^-^
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Brandon Collins on March 28, 2007, 03:43:16 AM: I'm not sure that DS influenced my life so much as it enhanced some of the hobbies and things that I already had. I've always liked writing, ever since I was about 8, and watching DS turned me on to horror stories. I've liked horror movies since I was young, but DS probably set me up to become a fan of other shows that are similar to it, like Buffy and Angel.

I've also liked history ever since I was young, but that's because my Dad enjoyed it and I liked learning about it from him. He ordered me this huge box of Civil War fact cards that have pictures and like 3 paragraphs of information on them about specific events that happened during the civil war. DS probably made me interested in more of history, different time periods and stuff, or rather, gave me a glimpse into those time periods, even though I'm sure there were plenty inaccuracies in DS during those time periods.

Here lately, as I've focused more on screenwriting and scriptwriting, I've learned to appreciate DS in a new way because I can imagine the scripts being written and how they may have looked. And I can infer what characters were meant to say when the actors said it wrong. Not to mention that the two attempted revivals of DS have made me start writing a DS Pilot of my own, that will probably never be produced (hey, I have hope :D) but that gives me great pleasure to write.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: loril54 on March 28, 2007, 04:00:30 PM: How DS effected my life. As a teenager, it made a safe and fun place to go when like was difficult. It gave me an interest in reading and love of Shakespeare and interest in Renaissance period and English History.

Also learned to love American History and wanting to see early America places and architecture. Like when I went to Independence Hall it was like I had been there before. Maybe I have?? I sure really like that period.

I also have meet a great group of people that are DS fans here on line. We all seam to accept each other as we are. That is great. It has hurt my pocked book and humor with some of my friends. I could really go on and on, but I think that you get the idea.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: onyx_treasure on March 28, 2007, 04:17:50 PM: I was going to say that DS has not influenced my life. However, I live in Maine(9 months of winter, three months of damn poor sledd'n) and I am a recluse. My neighbors also disappear for months. We won't see each other until we all start mowing are lawns in July. I also have a room in my house with a dirt floor covered by bricks(root celler) but my husband is not buried in there. I don't think anyone else is under there either.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Willie Loomis on March 28, 2007, 09:24:59 PM: :-    it made me scared of werewolves....gave me nightmares for days.
:)   i got to discover grayson hall as an actress
8)   got me into the literature that they "borrowed" from
::)   got me to appreciate Dan Curtis movies
::)   Got me to know the whole collins family, which got me into family sagas.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: michael c on March 29, 2007, 01:52:02 AM: probably the biggest and strangest impact that d.s. has had on my life is that i am not otherwise remotely interested in anything having to do with the occult.

not vampires.not witchcraft.not werewolves.nothing.

i've never watched 15 seconds of the sci-fi channel(other than this show).i don't in general watch films of the horror genre.

it was just something about this very particular set of actors and sets and costumes and music that hooked me. :P
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mark Rainey on March 29, 2007, 04:32:35 AM: While there was a host of things that influenced me to become a writer of scary things, DS is certainly one of the most significant. For so many years, particularly when it wasn't being aired, its mystique had a real hold on me. Oftentimes in my writing I've sought to convey the kind of allure that DS had for me, especially as a young 'un.

Being involved with the novel, which threw me sometimes jarringly into the business end of it all, was both a dream come true and a kind of climax to the mystique. Still, DS has a grip that continues to spark my own creativity.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Sunny_Collins on March 29, 2007, 06:29:46 PM: I've never been interested in horror movies or shows either, but there is something about Dark Shadows that pulled me right in.

As for the influence it has had on my life, well, it gives me something to watch, since I don't like much of what is on TV anymore.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Elmont on March 30, 2007, 03:45:02 AM: Dark Shadows didn't really effect my life so much as my after life. After watching the show for so many years I've developed this fear of walking the earth for eternity as a supernatural creature. It's for this reason that I've instructed my next of kin to upon my death,"burn my ass". I figure if I'm cremated I cant come back. It should work, don't you think.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on March 30, 2007, 05:08:25 AM: Quote from: Elmont on March 30, 2007, 03:45:02 AM
I've instructed my next of kin to upon my death,"burn my ass". I figure if I'm cremated I cant come back. It should work, don't you think.

Maybe not. Being turned to dust never stopped Dracula from being resurrected in the Hammer films. [b003]
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Philippe Cordier on May 28, 2007, 05:57:21 AM: I began writing a response to this post a long time ago, but the more I thought about the question the more involved my thoughts became. I had actually been thinking about this very question before the thread first appeared.

The responses here are amazingly varied and interesting. In my case, the influence of DS has meant finding correspondences between things on the show and events or places in my life.

After initially seeing DS at scattered times while in elementary school in the 1970s, it later dropped from my memory. Occasionally when some reference called the program to mind, I felt a sense of excitement combined with a sense of loss for something from the past that was gone forever. While attending graduate school in California in the mid-1980s, I happened upon several late-night broadcasts on a PBS station, which were sadly short lived. They were episodes from the Leviathan period, and I dimly recalled having seen some of that storyline as a child. This was the first time since childhood when I had really thought of Dark Shadows, but the influence quickly evaporated when PBS stopped showing it.

More recently, I was able to view the entire series thanks to the SciFi channel, and its importance in my life has increased. Viewing the series as an adult, I now saw correspondences from my childhood that I hadn't considered at the time I lived them. These were things such as a mansion we had visited during childhood, complete with an old adjoining cemetery, along a rugged, rocky lake shore, yet I don't recall ever thinking of that in terms of DS at the time. I don't remember it being at all spooky, but now looking back I think of this location as my version of Collinwood and Eagle Hill cemetery. My aunt lived in a Victorian era house nearby, but I didn't really appreciate the Victorian design or architecture at the time; yet now I look back and think of this memory in terms of the 1897 storyline. We had a grandfather clock at home, but it is only now as an adult that I see these things through a Dark Shadows lens. Collinwood was another world when I was growing up completely unlike the ordinary world I inhabited. So how can I look back now and find similarities between my life and Dark Shadows? I suppose it's a combination of escapism and a nostalgic imagination.

On my walks in the bigger city where I lived only a few years ago I was always finding houses that reminded me of those on the show, including one that I would describe as Jeffersonian that I always thought of as the Old House, another one that I imagined as Angelique's home during the Leviathan period, and a mansion that looked very much like Collinwood where I almost rented a room in the carriage house.

During the past year while living again in the town where I grew up, I've imagined similarities between the town and Collinsport. Touring some other old towns with another aunt, she told me about the old newspaper office she had visited and read many of the town's newspapers from the turn of the previous century. They even let her take many of the newspapers home to read, with a promise to return them! I immediately thought of the newspaper office in Collinsport where Barnabas and Julia sought information on more than one occasion. My aunt also talked about visiting a few years back with a man in his 90s at a bakery where he had worked since the early 1900s, and he claimed to recall my maternal grandfather's parents who were immigrants there in the 1890s. This reminded me of some of the elderly Collinsport residents such as the cemetery caretaker and the jeweler who had old records of dealings with the Collins family from earlier eras. One of the original jewelers in town here now no doubt has records going back a century, at least I would have that sense from my memory of the store as a childhood, and how ancient the store was even then. To step into the store is to walk into the past.

My interest in the past and in family history are something I share with Barnabas and other Collins family members. This was not an influence that came from watching Dark Shadows but something I was always fascinated with as far back as I remember, instilled by things I heard from family members, along with old daguerreotype and photo albums of ancestors. I was mesmerized by a tin type of my great-grandfather who died very young in 1897, the same year as a favorite DS storyline. Digging into the past of my ancestors has been one of my major occupations over the past few years, and I've come across people and events that have occasionally called to mind the Gothic genre in general. Some of the correspondences I can make with a movie that has touched a deep chord with me, "Eye of the Devil," seem almost uncanny (similarities with names, occupations, and locations). Not long ago I found a record in Latin of an old ancestor known as "M_______us Lupus." My heart almost stopped when I stumbled on that, because I seriously entertained the notion that this ancestor might have been thought to have been a werewolf; later I realized this was simply the Latin form of his surname, which was Wolf. Only a few years ago, when looking at the Collins family tree in one of the Pomegranate Press books, I was impressed with a family lineage known into the 1600s, which seemed the unfathomably distant past. Little did I realize that I would be able to research to that point, and earlier, in my own ancestry.

These are many of the parallels I draw now as an adult between my life and Dark Shadows; in making these parallels, I see how DS has influenced me.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Gothick on May 29, 2007, 11:07:27 PM: My Mom got very annoyed when I was most intensely involved with DS and my conversation was mainly a super-heavy rotation of these three sentences:

"I don't understand!"

"I don't know what you're ... TALKING about."

"I MUST."

twinkles,

G.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: MagnusTrask on May 30, 2007, 03:08:36 AM: Passing through an airport, in the gift shop, I begged my parents to buy a thick paperback about the I Ching for me.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: jennifer on May 30, 2007, 05:54:22 AM: funny i also watched it as a teenager and loved
the costumes and time periods i remembered
some storylines better than others and when it came
back on SciFi there were scenes i did recall and others
that i didn't remember at all i know i started watching it
around when that cousin came from england and ran
home to watch it but without vcrs and dvrs there
were days i must have missed i have since have watched the whole series
numerous times i find it is a pleasant escape from the real world
just for a short time to watch a show from my teen years that never gets old
it is like certain books that i have reread many times
my mother still gets annoyed Steve when i even mention the show
she still says "i can't believe Joan Bennett was ever in that
and i believe she really doesn't believe Joan ever was LOL

jennifer
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Gothick on May 30, 2007, 05:36:45 PM: My Mom DETESTS Dark Shadows. Now she more or less ignores it, but back in the day she actually forbade me to watch it. It was banned--the only TV show I can recall my parents banning from the house. I think she happened to catch part of the episode in 1897 when the werewolf is attacking Judith in the drawing room and just thought it was WAY too violent for a child to watch. I know she did think it was a bad influence on me and when I left home for college she went through my bedroom and made a clean sweep of every bit of DS memorabilia in plain sight. (She still denies doing this.)

I used to know someone who described to me how when they were on vacation, his father drove him several miles to another town because the local affiliate did not carry DS (this happened more and more in '70-'71) and he watched the day's show on a portable set--in the back of the car! Needless to say, I often had to put up with missing episodes when we were on vacation or if I had to stay late at school to work on a project.

From '69 onwards I had very few friends who watched it as religiously as I did. I remember being shocked at a pool party in the neighborhood when several other kids were commenting that they had long since stopped watching it because it was "too confusing." This was in the Summer of '69 around the time when Count Petofi first came on, I think.

G.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on May 31, 2007, 12:17:55 AM: When I read stories like Gothick's, I'm always grateful for how lucky I was. Not only did my mom support me watching DS, more often than not she watched it with me because she was also a fan. She also supported my nearly insane desire to get my hands on everything I could related to the show. (The only time she ever questioned something I was doing was when I spent hours transcribing an audio tape I'd made of NoDS so that I could write up my own synopsis of the film. But I told her it was all Paperback Library's fault that I had to do that because they didn't release a novelization of NoDS. [wink2] And I'm sticking to that story 'til this day! [lghy])

I also missed episodes whenever I would stay later at school or when I was on vacation, but I was lucky enough to have a lot of friends who would fill me in on what I'd missed. Though my most useful way to keep up with the show when I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch it came along in '68 after I was vacationing/visiting in Texas with one of my aunts, and she explained to me how I could use a timer to turn on/off the audio tape recorder she'd given me as a gift and the TV so that I could record DS whenever I wanted to. And even though I couldn't see it, I could hear it - and then all my friends had to do was simply fill in the bits whenever all there was was music on the tape. I have to say I was extremely grateful to her for explaining that. And it was definitely quite an efficient pre-VCR process. ;D
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Lydia on May 31, 2007, 03:06:56 AM: My mother told my how once, during her childhood, a strange kid from down the street came dashing uninvited into my mother's home calling out, "I have to go to the bathroom!" My mother said that was how I was when Dark Shadows came on at 4pm.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: PennyDreadful on May 31, 2007, 04:24:00 PM: Great topic David. Of all the spooky things I've enjoyed in my life, Dark Shadows was always the one I loved best. When I was a youngster, my uncle introduced me to the show via grainy bootleg VHS tapes in the early/mid-80s and I became hooked. My mother was mildly concerned over my fascination with Dark Shadows, but she had been a fan in the 60s so she always relented and let me watch. DS was really the first terror-related "world" I got into, and it soon led to an interest in classic literature (both horror and non-horror), and classic horror films from Universal, Hammer & AIP which were also introduced to me by my uncle.

The characters and storylines of the DS universe sparked my imagination. I was sort of an outcast, and DS was a fascinating world to escape into. A half-hour in Collinsport was much more interesting than those long, boring days at school where the "popular" kids could be mean and rotten. On DS the outcasts were the cool ones. These beings, cursed with any number of horrible magical afflictions, were interesting and fun to watch. I think that must have appealed to me on some level.

As I continued to watch, I developed a strong interest in acting and writing. I have a ball playing villainous or fantastic roles, and I think that stems from the characters & performers I was always awed by on DS and in the classic terror films. As I grew into my late teens, "theatricality of the macabre" was the order of the day. My parents had a cow when a friend gave me a big black coffin he had built for a play. I decided to use it as a decoration in my bedroom (amidst loads of candles, and posters of Barnabas, Quentin, Angelique, Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, Dracula, etc.) My folks sort of blamed Dark Shadows and horror films for my strange predilections, but they never got TOO worried because I was quite tongue in cheek about the way I dressed (quite spooktacular if I may say so) and about the way my room looked. I was never morbid in my disposition and outlook. I just had fun with visually celebrating the things that inspired me.

Nowadays, I no longer festoon my apartment with caskets (they're in the basement of course - j/k ;)) but I do have a pretty nifty set/attic which is littered with fake spider webs, candles and arcane tomes. Of course, there's a poster of "Cousin" Barnabas on the set as well. DS doesn't actively play a huge part in my life like it used to in my youth, but it has definitely left its mark (ahem) and I will always be a big fan of the show.

- Penny
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: David on May 31, 2007, 04:58:26 PM: Gosh, Gothick, did your post hit close to home!

DS went against my parents' religious beliefs, and watching it was a constant battle.
I missed it for weeks at a time!

Mom & Dad, in their insane, misguided love
for me, often took what I enjoyed most away from me, and I still resent them for it, sigh......

David
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Gothick on May 31, 2007, 05:24:42 PM: What a coincidence--the episode I mentioned with Quentinwolfy's attack on Judith is featured in today's slide show!

Great shot of Cassandra from the '68 show, too.

Thanks again to MB for making these available to us. I'll feel true regret if the shows come to an end upon the completion of our year cycle on June 27 this year. Any chance we might continue for another year?

Looking at the slides is always one of the bright spots of my day, particularly since I seldom get the chance to watch the show these days.

G.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on May 31, 2007, 05:45:07 PM: Quote from: Gothick on May 31, 2007, 05:24:42 PM
What a coincidence--the episode I mentioned with Quentinwolfy's attack on Judith is featured in today's slide show!

I'm so glad you mentioned that because I meant to point it out yesterday in my response to your post, but it completely slipped my mind when I finally got around to posting it. [6184]

Coincidence, indeed! And I don't know if your mom worked - or even if she did, if she was normally around when DS was on - but the fact that Ep #786 originally aired on Memorial Day might have been why she was around to see it. Maybe it would have been better if DS had never originally aired on any holidays (as was most often the case on Sci_Fi) so that potentially disapproving working parents would never have been able to catch it.

Quote
Great shot of Cassandra from the '68 show, too.

I like that one too:

(http://www.dsboards.com/eventimages/0530ds_6.jpg)

Quote
I'll feel true regret if the shows come to an end upon the completion of our year cycle on June 27 this year. Any chance we might continue for another year?

I think my arm can be twisted - particularly when I haven't had any time to devote any thought to what might replace them. :D And I really do need to find the time to restore the history boxes with the Robservations links...
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: ProfStokes on May 31, 2007, 09:07:22 PM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on May 31, 2007, 05:45:07 PM
Quote
I'll feel true regret if the shows come to an end upon the completion of our year cycle on June 27 this year. Any chance we might continue for another year?

I think my arm can be twisted - particularly when I haven't had any time to devote any thought to what might replace them. :D

Nothing against the slideshows, but what about the lovely collages that we used to get for each episode on the old VantageNet board (and the first few years of this forum)? Now that we have the DS watching project, the day's collage could be for that day's episode.

ProfStokes
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on May 31, 2007, 09:28:23 PM: Well, perhaps the collages can be revived as well and put at the top of the Current Talk board each day. But I'm going to need to get the new themes in shape before I can do that, though. For now there will only be the Robservations captures to check out each day. New ones will continue to be added through Ep #383 (and then new ones will pick up again with Ep #720).
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: jennifer on June 01, 2007, 02:47:03 AM: steve i'm laughing at part of your post when you say your
mother denies throwing out things i KNOW my mother
threw out my DS things my pictures and DS album
but she claims she never saw them ::) i vow i'll never do that
to my kids i just stick itheir thingsin a box and put it in a closet
no matter how weird i think some of it is :o

jennifer
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: *starshine* on June 01, 2007, 03:32:24 AM: I remember afternoons (especially in the winter when it was too cold to be outside) with my mom watching Days of Our Lives, the Doctors and Another World...we watched them together...her ironing clothes using niagra spray starch and me glued to the tv set. She always left the room when DS came on- it was time to make dinner for my dad. I loved all things 60's...the colors, the clothes., instant food, plastic! DS was no exception...I loved the fashion on the show. And I felt at home watching the episodes of the Blue Whale- my grandpa used to drag me to a bar similar to the Blue Whale....his bribe was jiffy pop popcorn , orange soda and the chance to play the juke box.

But I also loved the history of the show and that it was U.S. History- which is something that I still love to this day.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Philippe Cordier on June 01, 2007, 05:44:06 AM: I thought I was the only one who couldn't watch the show because of the violence (rather than the more common "religious" objections ...). Fortunately, my mom didn't have any concerns about the supernatural elements, although the effect was the same. Banning the show (for whatever reason) probably intensified the desire to see it, which sort of defeats the purpose ...
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mary on June 01, 2007, 07:27:00 AM: My parents thought DS was too scary for me to watch and both my grandmas thought it was indecent (LOL!), but they still allowed me to watch it until once I had a nightmare and woke up screaming that Barnabas and Fred Flintstone and various other cartoon characters were after me (LOL!) and then my mom said I couldn't watch it anymore. But everyday I sat out on the front porch and waited for her to come home from work and asked her if I could watch it again. A couple of my friends were telling me what I was missing and I kept saying "Mom! Barnabas is trapped in his coffin and can't get out!" (LOL!) Finally I drove my mom crazy enough that she let me start watching it again -- LOL!
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on June 01, 2007, 07:44:28 AM: Umm - just from a purely logical point of view, did she also stop you from watching The Flintstones and any of the other cartoons that featured the characters in your dream? If not, well... :- ::)
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mary on June 01, 2007, 08:11:33 AM: Quote from: Mysterious Benefactor on June 01, 2007, 07:44:28 AM
Umm - just from a purely logical point of view, did she also stop you from watching The Flintstones and any of the other cartoons that featured the characters in your dream? If not, well... :- ::)

Nope, she didn't! That's what I always thought -- where was the logic of that? LOL! Imagine -- blaming it all on poor innocent Barnabas! LOL!
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: adamsgirl on June 01, 2007, 03:32:25 PM: Fascinating thread here! When I first saw the question, I thought, "Nah, although I loved the show, it had no influence on my life." That's not true, though, and here's why:

Although I always was a history buff, it intensified my desire to learn more about different eras. I also developed quite an interest in old houses and antiques, something I pursue today. I live in the Hudson Valley where we have many Gilded Age mansions. One of my favorite pastimes is going through these spectacular places and just imagining how it must have been to live in them then, something akin to Collinwood.

Too, as someone else said, I have had the distinct honor and pleasure of meeting many people in this fandom who've become very good friends. We have shared much together -- the trials and tribulations of life, loss, love, divorce, deaths -- you name it. It's a blessing.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on June 01, 2007, 03:37:02 PM: Quote from: Mary on June 01, 2007, 08:11:33 AM
Nope, she didn't! That's what I always thought -- where was the logic of that? LOL!

See, let that be a lesson to today's parents - if your child has had a nightmare in which he/she is menaced by Barney (the purple dinosaur, not our Barn) and SpongeBob along with some character from some spooky/darker show your child watches, ban the watching of ALL the shows, not just the darker show! If not, 40 years from now your child may be posting on some fan forum (or whatever Internet forums and the Internet itself have evolved into by then) with other fans of that spooky/darker show, and you'll be made to look extremely logically challenged. :D
(Although, Barney should be banned in all households just out of turn. Sure, his I-love-you-You-love-me philosophy teaches kids sharing and caring, which is always good - but realistically, at what price to your current and your child's future sanity?! [8311])
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: loril54 on June 01, 2007, 03:44:49 PM: I had friends that couldn't watch it because it would scare their brothers and sisters. I used to do my chores during the commercials, we only had one tv. Or before or afterwards.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Janet the Wicked on June 02, 2007, 02:01:54 AM: Quote from: *starshine* on June 01, 2007, 03:32:24 AM
I remember afternoons (especially in the winter when it was too cold to be outside) with my mom watching Days of Our Lives, the Doctors and Another World...we watched them together...her ironing clothes using niagra spray starch and me glued to the tv set. She always left the room when DS came on- it was time to make dinner for my dad. I loved all things 60's...the colors, the clothes., instant food, plastic! DS was no exception...I loved the fashion on the show. And I felt at home watching the episodes of the Blue Whale- my grandpa used to drag me to a bar similar to the Blue Whale....his bribe was jiffy pop popcorn , orange soda and the chance to play the juke box.

But I also loved the history of the show and that it was U.S. History- which is something that I still love to this day.

I remember running home to watch DS after a grueling day of study. I don't recall my folks banning me from watching it though. Mama was either ironing or fixing dinner at that time before Pop came home. I'll have to ask her about it.
I think that DS influenced me in a good way. It helped me to be more creative in my art and my writing. So there.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: I Ching on June 02, 2007, 03:00:33 PM: Dark Shadows has influenced my life by making me thousands of dollars poorer from buying all of the DVDs, video tapes, and books. But is has been worth every penny.
Title: Re: How Did DS Influence Your Life?
Post by: Mysterious Benefactor on June 02, 2007, 07:54:08 PM: Quote from: I Ching on June 02, 2007, 03:00:33 PM
Dark Shadows has influenced my life by making me thousands of dollars poorer from buying all of the DVDs, video tapes, and books. But is has been worth every penny.

I agree that what I've spent on DS through the years has been worth every penny. But I've actually calmed down since I was a kid. Then, I had to own everything I could get my hands on or seemingly it would have been the end of the world. But nowadays I pick and choose what I want. Though I still probably spend more on DS than I should. [wink2] But then, I probably spend more than I should on a lot of things - particularly when it comes to adding to and/or upgrading my desktop computer & notebook and adding to my general DVD collection. But places like Best Buy, Amazon, DeepDiscount, and several assorted computer Web sites are no doubt VERY happy that's the case. [lghy]