How Did DS Influence Your Life?

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

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.

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.    And I'm sticking to that story 'til this day!  )

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. 

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.

  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

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

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.

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. 

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.

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

I like that one too:

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.    And I really do need to find the time to restore the history boxes with the Robservations links...

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.   

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

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).

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

jennifer

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 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 ...

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!

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...  :-