i am glad that it is finally available for everyone to see. i am also glad i saw it at the festival because those with dial up connections like me have to wait about 5 hours for this to download!  

i have many of the skits on vhs that i can put on dvd. as for baby dark shadows thats richard halperns deal.

fans in new jersey did not get to see the entire 1897 story untill new jersey network showed them in the mid 80s. i think they even showed the out of sequence 1897 episode in the middle of 1968 storyline and i think other stations did the same. cant remember if sci-fi corrected this but i think they did.

yes that outake did air in atlantic city. i was not previewing the tapes at that time. i kinda knew it was coming because i saw the same outake air in the mid 70s on wkbs tv in philadelphia. i just couldnt remember exactly which episode it was. i remember sitting in the control room as this episode was airing and thinking that this is the one and before i knew it everyone heard "cut" and we all went into a panic and were running around looking for a "please stand by" slide to put on the air! as for the merv griffin show, that came right from jonathan frid. i was friends with a girl who worked at abc in new york and she knew frid well. from what she told me, it was  merv griffin that gave the segment to jonathan and he kept it but had no way of playing it because it was on the giant 2" videotape that was used in the 60s. abc also gave some kinescope episodes to jonathan. he gave all this to the girl. she copied the 2" merv segment to vhs at abc. she lent me the kinescopes and i transfered those to vhs at the tv station i was working at the time in exchange for a copy of the merv tape. the kinescoped episodes and that merv segment got circulated around fandom long before mpi released the merv segment on dvd. the kinescopes were treasures at the time too because the episodes had not yet been syndicated and they had original commercials. ah what memories of early fandom when just seeing an episode not seen since the 60s was such a treat!  

that outake with grayson hall and jerry lacy was on the vhs mpi blooper tape and i hope its on the dvd as well. i think its rehearsal footage that accidentally wound up as the 1st scene in an episode when DS was 1st syndicated in the mid 70s. wwac in atlantic city was the last station to air it. then it was corrected when worldvision prepared new tapes for wnbc in new york. i saved the out take. years later jim pierson contacted me for a copy and i gave it to him. i got no credit on the vhs tape.  he did give me a free copy! thanks jim! i doubt i got credit on the dvd either. i will hold my breath waiting for my free copy of the dvd. lol

i came across this article i wrote for a fanzine in 1985 called EAGLE HILL SENTINAL. the articles about my days at working at a tv station that was showing syndicated reruns of DARK SHADOWS. i started working there in october of 1981. WOW THAT WAS 25 YEARS AGO! DAVID NAHMOD suggested i share this story with you all. i will delete some information that has been posted here a thousand times like the explanation of kinescopes. here goes.......
In october of 1981 i was pleased to be hired as a videotape operator at W.W.A.C. TV 53 in atlantic city, new jersey. atlantic city had never before had its own tv station. so i took a gamble(lol),left a similiar job i had at a tv station in scranton, pa and headed for the casino city. just before i started my new job, i read in the newspaper that the station had been on the air since july of 1981 and has been showing one of my favorite programs, DARK SHADOWS every weekday from 5-6pm, two episodes a day. needless to say i was very anxious to start!
October 13th,1981: i reported to work. i met the master control operator and quickly discovered that he too was a DS fan. before i knew it 5pm was coming and one of my 1st tasks was to prepare DS (SYNDICATED) episode #111 and #112 for broadcast. i did so with pleasure! the show ran smoothly but the tapes were worn. worldvision only made one set of tapes and back then the one set of dubs went from station to station when the series was 1st syndicated in the mid 70s and this was the same set of tapes.
November, 1981: the program director announced that DS would have to be cut back to one episode a day. this was done because it was feared that the station was running out of episodes too quickly. worldvision had not yet decided it they would release any more episodes after syndicated episode#260. soon after switching to 1 episode a day, we discovered that by pure coincidence, we were showing the episodes on the exact same month and day that they were originally broadcast in 1967!
April, 1982: i noticed that syndicated episode #260 would soon be shown. i also noticed that the show was becoming very popular with everyone at the station as well with everyone in atlantic city! one day someone observed that several kids, who usually hang out at a nearby 7-11 store, would all disappear at around 5pm. the store manager explained that they all went home to watch DARK SHADOWS!
April 12th,1982: i report to work and saw a brand new tape. it was DS syndicated episode #261. the episode had not been broadcast on any u.s. station since its abc broadcast in 1968! i could not resist treating myself to a preview! the station soon became the first to show more than 260 episodes! the master control operator and i would preview every episode as soon as it would arrive at the station. one night we were puzzled by an 1897 episode that was placed in between the 1968 episodes! we could not figure out why this was done. we thought worldvision did it as a joke because the episode (pansy faye arrives)mentions atlantic city several times! later it was revealed as just a numbering mix up and just another coincidence! tried to tell the station manager that this episode is out of order and maybe it shouldnt be shown but he didnt listen and ordered it to be shown as is. showing it did prove that the show was popular because of the numerous phone calls the station received about the mixed up episode.
June 21st, 1982: the bad news came when the station manager announced that due to financial problems, the station was going "off the air" that night at 7pm! sadly, we broadcast(just one week shy of DS 16th birthday)syndicated episode #303(vicki tries to tell sam her dream)and soon after, tv53 was history!
i went back to pa and later moved to los angeles. thought i would never see the show again but i was so wrong, the show never died. it was shown for 3yrs on new jersey network and a local station in orange county showed it and of course sci-fi and then vhs and now dvd. hope you enjoyed this old article.

i heard they are bringing it to the next convention and there is talk of adding the foyer to the set!

great pics joey. they did great job reconstructing the drawing room. however they never used it during the recreation of the 1st and last episodes! what a waste. bad enuf they were just standing in front of microphones reading scripts but it could have been so much better if they did the drawing room scenes from those episodes in the drawing room set! especially the final scene from the final episode where melanie is put on the sofa. there was a nice sofa right there waiting and they didnt use it!