Barnabas on FOX!

[ClaudeNorth]

Tonight I was watching KING OF THE HILL, during which FOX ran a promo for the new SIMPSONS' "Treehouse of Horror" episode.  The spot featured shots of various "scary" images, leading up to "scary" clips from the SIMPSONS' episode.  One of the images used in the promo was a brief shot of Jonathan Frid as "Old Barnabas" from HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS!!!

I was completely surprised by this!  As far as I know, FOX has absolutely no connection whatsoever to HODS (or DS, for that matter) so I imagine that they would have had to license the use of the image for their promo.  I'm sure that there are several images of vampires in the public domain, so I don't know why they would choose to use this image, anyway.  It did flash on screen so quickly that perhaps it wasn't on long enough to require licensing.  I believe that brief snippets of songs can be used in movies and TV without paying royalties, but I don't know if this applies to film clips.  And, I'm surprised that the people at FOX even knew about HODS to use such a clip.  (HODS being a somewhat obscure film...)

Verrrrrry interesting...

Regards,

John

[TERRY308]

ClaudeNorth, my daughter and I saw that also. Kinda gave you a lump in your throat did it?   

Hail Barnabas!!!

[ProfStokes]

Thank you for posting this, ClaudeNorth!  Now I know I'm not crazy.  I first saw the promo about three weeks ago, but only for an instant.  Nobody else that I talked to had seen it though, and no matter how often I went back to FOX, I was never able to catch the commercial again to confirm if it really was Barnabas that I had seen. I'm glad that other DS fans were able to see it.

ProfStokes 

[Darren Gross]

Was a clip used in treehouse of horror itself?

[ClaudeNorth]

No, the clip was only used in FOX's on-air promos for the episode.  It was the briefest of clips--less than one second--but really quite startling (and kinda cool, too).