How & when you discovered Dark Shadows

[DarkShadowyFigure]

A reference to the pre-Barnabas era of the show(episodes I'd love to have seen) in another thread made me want to ask this-  how did you find out about Dark Shadows and when did you first watch the show?

For me, I was told about the show by a classmate back in 6th grade. Most people in my class knew of my interest in all things monsters- horror movies, monster magazines, eerie posters, etc. I was quite surprised that I hadn't heard about a tv show with a vampire as one of it's main characters until one day during recess.

I arrived at the show during the 1795 storyline, around the time of the trial of Victoria Winters, sometime in March '68. I was immediately hooked (I kept asking that classmate for details about prior eps) and stuck with the show til the end. Well, there were eps I missed because of poor tv reception as well as missing parts of shows due to late school bus arrivals in the neighborhood.   

Thanks in advance for your replies.

[murph]

Hi Darkshadowyfigure,

First of all welcome aboard.  I have enjoyed your previous comments and I hope you post as often as you wish.

I have thought long and hard about your question since I first discovered Dark Shadows again about three years ago.  I'm actually not sure how I first learned about it in it's original run.  I had always assumed that I started watching because of friends at school but a couple years ago I was talking to my oldest sister (she is 13 years older than I am), anyway she told me how our oldest brother and her husband who are a both a year older than she is would have her watch the show everyday and then advise them later on what happened in that day's episode.  It seems they both had to be at work by 4 and this was before VCR's.  (Funny thing is at this time my sister had three infants and I'm sure watching the show wasn't at the top of her priority list.  She had three kids in 18 months and none are twins.  Her second child was born 2 1/2 months premature but 36 years later that one is just fine and just had a baby of her own).  I have a feeling I started watching because of my brother, Pat and my brother-in-law, Ed.  I doubt that I'll ever know for sure, though.

From watching the episodes when they last aired I believe I started watching in late '68 or early '69.  I have no memory of the Adam/Eve storyline and also had no memory of the Victoria Winters character but I did remember the haunting of the children by Quentin and also Elizabeth being afraid of being buried alive which I learned from the last time the episodes aired is a subplot that went on for about six months.

Great question!!!!!

Murph (who has just posted for the 100th time.  I didn't think I would ever make it, it's taken almost two years!!)

[LorraineAAB]

I always maintained that my DS thing started with all the very public TV funerals our generation was subjected to at tender ages.  I was 6 when JFK got shot, 10-11 when MLK and RFK went.  I developed a semi-morbid, semi-sincere interest in obsequies, cemeteries, history, and ghosts that, while I no longer believe in the latter, I still find entertaining or intriguing or moving, depending on the situation at hand.

I was already aware that the program existed--- I do remember the preview announcements, though I was but a tender young cookie pushing age 9.  However, this was 3 years before we got a bigger antenna and new TV, which could pick up the NYC ABC signal better than what we had (our local affiliate never showed it, though they showed the other ABC soaps of the time, AMC, GH, and OLTL.)    In any case, DS didn't move into the 4:00 PM time slot for, what?  A couple of years anyway.

I DID have one friend, though, who raved on once the Barnabas thing got going.  She had me over a couple of afternoons during the 1795 storyline.  She tried to explain about Barnbas and how he hated Angelique, but I had the foggy notion that they were the PARENTS of the little girl on the episode ("Sarah", I know now.)  But just one look, as the song says, and I was hooked.

However, it was another 6 or so months before my parents finally got the coveted TV and antenna, around the start of the Quentin storyline.  Vicki was long gone, and the other 1795 people I vaguely remembered.  I caught up by buying "16" magazines (which I still have), but their synopses depended, at that time,  upon the spotty memories of fans who contributed.  Still, it was good for a start.

I loved all of it, even the Leviathan story so many complain about, if only because I was as tired of seeing the actors in the same Victorian clothes every day, as the actors themselves were, probably, of wearing them.  I wanted to look cool as Marie Wallace in her slinky pantsuit and belt when I grew up.  (Alas, didn't turn out that way.  I'm generally about as cool, fashion-wise, as Mrs. Johnson.)

I even signed the petitions to keep it on the air, though, in a way, I was relieved, because in high school we had a split schedule, and, thanks to there being not even Beta-maxes at the time, I would have missed it anyway in my freshman year.  I wasn't involved in after-school stuff at all (like 6 hours a day wasn't ENOUGH time to spend in that place, plus I loathed sports) so I guess if the show had continued, and I was on the day schedule, I suppose, would still have kept up as much as possible, for a few more years, anyway.

There are certain stand-out scenes that I carried in my head for all those desert years that DS was, seemingly, gone forever.  Then it came back during the time I was pregnanat and a while after Son was born, so it cheered me up a bit.  Then it was gone AGAIN... Then it was back and I saw all I had missed, a couple of times... And now I know other fans, something else that I had missed, because the few local fans that I knew had all moved and we'd lost touch.

And with the Internet, it seems "there will always be someone" out there "with the same button on" as me, like the folksinger Melanie wrote....

L

[A.I.Collins]

 Hello all!

   I started watching reruns of Dark Shadows in June 2001 not long after the latest run of the series began. I believe it was somewhere around the Bill Malloy murder mystery. I watched it once, and i wasn't interested. But for some reason, I decided to watch it once more when I heard someone talking about it in a yahoo chatroom. The next time I watched it....Yep....I was hooked!..Had to see it everyday and couldn't miss a minute of it!.....ever since then...it's been Dark Shadows-mania!

Needless to say...2001 was a very good year for me!

Adra

[ProfStokes]

I watched my first episode of DS while on a family vacation.  The hotel received the Sci-Fi Channel, our home didn't, so several years passed before I was able to actually view the show regularly.

I had heard about DS from my mother, who knew of my interest in the supernatural and told me stories about a show from her childhood that featured vampires, witches, werewolves, and a mysterious room that could whisk people into a different time.  She also recounted the various bloopers: falling or breaking props, wobbling walls, and flubbed lines.  It sounded pretty intriguing, so when our cable company finally picked up the Sci-Fi Channel during my freshman year, I started to tape DS.

The first episodes that I taped were set after Maggie's kidnapping but before 1795.  Jason Maguire had just been buried and Julia Hoffman was at Collinwood, posing as a historian.  Initially, the show really didn't appeal to me as much as I had hoped it would.  I felt that the pace was slow, the dialogue repetitive, and the characters not very likeable.  However, my feelings changed once 1795 began in earnest.  Perhaps the different setting or the change of characters drew me in; I don't know what the magic ingredient was, but it made me a fan and I stuck with the show to the end and through the reruns, attending Festivals and posting on message boards to this day. 

ProfStokes

[Cassandra]

For me, it was really my two older sisters who got me into watching DS.  I was around 6 at the time and since they were always watching it, I started watching it too.  I got hooked right away.  I think it was seeing the ghost of Sarah that really got me hooked because being a small child myself, I could relate to her more than the rest of the cast.  I found it so facinating back then to see such a young girl being a ghost.

I remember the big fuss my two older sisters made when Quentin arrived on the scene too.  They went right out and bought the 45rpm record as soon as the song was released & played it endlessly!!

I found it again sometime in the 80's when it was featured on the NJ Netwood channel.  I was so happy to see it airing again, but unfortunately, that was short lived.  :-(

This time around I found it in 1999 while I was working full time.  The woman I was working with was telling me how her son, who's a real horror buff, was surfing through the channels one day and came across this show that featured werewolves, witches & vampires!!  I knew this sounded strangely familiar so I asked her what channel it was on.  She told me it was the Sci-Fi channel and she believed it was DS!!  I then called up my local cable company right then & there, asked them if they were airing DS, which they were, and then ordered the Sci-Fi channel right away.  The rest is history!

Murph Wrote:

Murph (who has just posted for the 100th time.  I didn't think I would ever make it, it's taken almost two years!!)

Congratulations Murph!![thumb]


Cassandra

[Raineypark]

I was in front of the TV the day the first episode aired.  My mother had read somewhere that Joan Bennett was going to star in a new soap opera so she made a point of having it on from day one.

The very noir atmosphere of those first episodes was enough to keep me hooked.

High School arrived just about the same time as the Ghost of Quentin Collins.....and that was the end of that.  I only re-discovered it on Sci Fi 2 years ago which means I've only seen the majority of the show once.

[Cassandra Blair]

I started trying to watch Dark Shadows when I was a really little kid, I think it was during the 1840 storyline.  I've loved spooky stuff ever since I can remember.  But my grandmother (who cared for my cousin and me during the day) would hit the roof if she caught me changing the channel over to DS, so I saw very little of the show.

When the 1991 revival series began running on NBC, I was fresh out of college, working my first "real" job and still living with my old college roomate.  He and I really got into the new series.  While renting movies at the video store one night, we found the MPI tapes of the original series and started watching them.  I think these were the early Barnabas episodes.  We found the pacing slow, but liked the atmosphere and the story of lost love.

Unfortunately, the video store only ended up getting a handful of those MPI tapes, and discontinued buying new ones.  We never got to see much more than up to the first color episodes.  Around that same time, NBC cancelled the revival series!

Fast forward to 1999.  I was at the laundromat folding laundry.  They had several televisions there, most of them were tuned into a Spanish language soap opera that was very melodramatic (and perhaps somewhat supernatural?), and set in the 19th century.  This reminded me of Dark Shadows, and got me wishing it was still being shown.  I didn't have cable, and didn't know it was on somewhere!

The next week, I'm again at the laundromat, flipping through the channels of the nearby television, as I fold more laundry.  What should pop on on my screen?  The haunting, strains of that theremin laced oh-so-familiar theme song that plays as the ocean waves whip over the rocks at the bottom of Widow's Hill.  Oh.  My. Goddess.  The original Dark Shadows!

When I got home, I called the cable company.  "Do you carry the Sci-Fi Channel?  Yes?  When can you hook me up?"

I began watching just as the Chriswolf storyline started.  The rest as they say, is history.

Oh, and btw LorraineAAB, I LOVE your avatar!!! Dark Shadows is my precious, too!
 

[Maria_Merriweather]

I remember seeing promos for a new gothic/mystery soap opera on ABC, so I was anticipating it. I watched it in the afternoons until the local affiliate changed it to air the following morning. After that I could only watch it during the summers. Nostalgia-wise, I always think of the intensity of the times when these shows first aired in the sixties.

[TERRY308]

My mother had just had my brother and would be home for 6 months.  My aunt "Cookie", her sister, had told her that to be sure and watch "Dark Shadows" Monday, becaues Willie, something or other, broke in to a coffin and something was in there.  So Monday came, and sure enough, something was in that coffin.  I was 10 years old and Barnabas scared the bejeeze out of me.  But I had to watch it everyday.  And, there was a buzz at the elementary, you have to watch Dark Shadows or you were "uncool".  If the truth is known, it was probably me that started that.

Any-who, thus was my love affair with Barnabas.  He scared at first, then, I felt sorry for him, then I kinda liked him, and then, at the age of 10 going on 11, I fell in love with him.

Years pasted, and it was on Sci-Fi.  I was right there watching it.  All of these memories came back to me.

Thank You Jonathan Frid and David Selby.  David by the way, was born and raised about 15 miles away from where I live now. 

[Gothick]

I found out about it the Summer I turned 10.  It was the last year my Mom hired a babysitter to be with my sister and me (she's a year younger than me) during the day in the Summer.  Judy was a teenager in high school and was obsessed with DS.  She told us stories about Barnabas and Angelique and drew a very clever copy of Angelique's portrait on a blackboard we had in our basement.  I well remember her talking about how beautiful Angelique was... and how evil.  I think she also talked about the time when Dr. Hoffman tried to cure Barnabas and he aged.

Judy was only around part of the afternoon, and she left before 4, but after a few days I decided to check out DS.  The first episode I saw was from a few days before the current 1968 start point.  It was when Sam Evans died and Prof. Stokes kept him from revealing the Dream Curse to Vicki.  Next day was Cassandra's exorcism by Trask's ghost and boy, was I hooked!  I had never seen anything like this on TV before.

It all happened back in June 1968.

G.

[VictoriaWintersFan]

Hello,

Sadly I just started watching "Dark Shadows" this past summer on the Sci-Fi channel. I had heard of the show before but all I knew about it was the fact that there was a vampire. I didn't even know his name was Barnabas lol.

 1970 PT was what Sci-Fi was showing at the time and I quickly enjoyed the whole John Yeager storyline. I even thought that the characters were real and in real time, that is how little I knew of the show.

I decided to research the show, and so I got on the internet and quickly released there was much more of the show than I thought.  I learned about Victoria Winters and all the other characters and time lines.  This interested me because I had never seen the shows before Parallel Time, and I wanted to see them.

I then realized that there were DVD Sets out, and I wanted to start with the very first episode. Well since Set 1 starts with episode 210, I decided not to get it because I wanted to see episode 1 to 210 first and then after.  After looking over the other Sets, I picked out Set 5 which started the 1795 SL.

This was a good choice, and I quickly became fascinated with the show and formed my favorite character Victoria Winters.  Since then I have purchased Sets 5-9, pre-ordered Set 10.

I am currently on the last disk of Set 9. This is where I am today, and I  will continue to buy the DVD Sets up to 11, which is Victoria's last appearence.  I would love to get Sets 1-4, but I am waiting until they release the early (Pre-Barnabas) episodes, and then I will purchase them.

I hope this story wasn't too boring lol, but I do need help.  I haven't decided if I am going to buy any other portions of the show. So far I am just wanting Victoria Winter's run (1966-1968).

What other SL's do you guys suggest I get? I have thought about getting 1970 PT, but that will be down the road when I have extra cash. Set 11 which comes out in March, will be the last Set I get for a while.  I am keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping they release the early episodes.

Shane

[A.I.Collins]

  Hey guys!

  VictoriaWintersFan, I would also reccommend you to get the 1897 episodes when they come out also. 1897 was a really suspenceful time at Collinwood, and there was so much going on.There was Quentin and his "issues",family struggles,infidelity,posessions,hitmen,Crazy Jenny, Laura Collins(my fave)...and of course, Barnabas and Angelique's problems...not to mention count Petofi and Aristede....etc.etc. You would love 1897.

Adra

[Craig_Slocum]

 I started watching Dark Shadows in 1968 when I was 4, soon going to be 40 this year.  My mom got me interested in the show, she was hooked on Barnabas Collins and still is to this day!  I watched the show with her and my brother. We had all the bubble gum cards. My dad didn't like us watching Dark Shadows, so when he came home early from work, we went to the next door neighbors or other friends homes to watch it.

 I saw the show again in 1980 when it came on late at night. I was a teenager, would come home after an evening out with my boyfriend, then put Dark Shadows on before I went to bed. I got bored with it at the time though, because they were showing the early episodes, so I quit watching. In 1990, I remember on Friday nights sometimes, seeing the new Dark Shadows, and only after catching a few episodes, it was gone.

 I moved to Las Vegas, NV in 1996 when I was expecting my now live wire daughter. In 1998, I found out there was going to be a Dark Shadows Festival here, so I went, but I didn't remember the actors because I really hadn't watched the show that much since I was a little girl. The only actor I remembered at the Festival was John Karlen as Willie Loomis.

 Then the following year at the end of the century, while watching 1968 Dark Shadows reruns on the Sci Fi Channel, I fell in love with Craig Slocum, and now have a website, and online memorial for him, also my Cheryl's Dark Shadows Website, which to my surprise won a Merit Award in 2001. I'm also a collector, I have a huge Dark Shadows collection. I went to five Festivals, met many DS stars, made some friends with fans, and one lives here in Vegas. I never met a nicer person.

 I have all of the MPI Videos and some of the DVD sets too. My mom watches Dark Shadows when she comes to visit, she likes to see Barnabas. My daughter likes the werewolf, lol! I keep all of the MPI Videos and DVD's with Craig Slocum in them on top of the big screen TV in my room and I watch those. 

 Dark Shadows will always be my favorite TV show! 

[Josette]

I was a junior in college when a couple of my friends told me about it.  One of them had watched from the beginning and the other from 1897 (or perhaps before that, but I know she had missed 1795).  The one who had seen it from the beginning had the better memory and informed us both about the early parts and helped the other in bringing me up-to-date with the later parts.

I've decided that it must have been Leviathan when I tuned in, as I know I saw nothing of 1897, had vague recollections of Leviathan when I saw it again many years later, and I know I was watching before the first hints of PT.  I saw from there to the end.  Apparently we didn't get the show in the early years, but fortunately when I went home for summer vacation, one of our UHF stations (in those days there were the main networks and a few new channels on UHF.  I think all sets came with UHF at that point, but those stations didn't have the kinds of ratings as the main national networks) was showing it.  I got my mother interested in it and she continued to watch to the end even after I returned to school.

Many years later one of our stations brought it back, claiming it had been the most requested show.  We saw from coming of Barnabas through most of 1795.  At that point they pulled the show, supposedly temporarily-after all, it had been the most requested!  That was it!

A few years later the tapes came out and at some point I learned of them.  I managed to find a video store that was getting the whole series for rentals.  We watched, as quickly as possible, from the start (coming of Barnabas) to the point where they were (I forget how far that was, but I think they were up to tape 84 or 88) and then I had to wait each month for the next 4 and race a few other renters to get them as soon as possible.  We finally saw the whole thing.

Then, came the classic episodes - from the beginning - but no one else wanted to rent them (I couldn't understand that), so after tape 16, she stopped getting them.

When SciFi came along, we didn't get it.  We finally got it in spring of 1996 (I think) and I tuned in one day just to see where they were, got hooked again, and have been watching it ever since.  This last time, FINALLY, I got to see those early episodes!!