Shilling Shockers DVD giveaway 2! With special Easter Leg...er Egg!

[JosettesMusicBox]

Yes, PennyDreadful - my disk also arrived!

LOVED the Easter "L"egg - you loooooook FAB darling!!!

Now tell me, could that possibly be THE cane...  Just curious...

Thanks again so much!  You are a doll!

[Pansity]

My disk arrived today, thanks so much! 

 I haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet, I hope to do that either tonight or this weekend.

[PennyDreadful]

Glad you liked the disc Retzev and JosettesMusicBox.  That cane is supposedly made by the same company where they got the Barnabas canes for DS.  The catalog says "Yes!  This is the one!" without making a reference to Barnabas since it isn't a licensed DS product.  I got it years ago from a fan who was selling them, and it was pretty expensive!

[petofi]

I've got one of those canes too, Penny.  I got it for my birthday last year, after pining for it for years.  For thos who don't know, a company called Unique Canes sells them, among other companies.

Petofi, who also owns his own version of the "Petofi Box," complete with "hand."

[Gothick]

Hi Penny Dreadful,

my roommate and I viewed the extra-special Easter Leg last night and we were both in awe of your Witchy way with accessorizing!  I actually learned something, too, as I don't believe I ever saw the "retro orange" DS cards before (although I have this weird half-memory of having read about them, somewhere or other).

My biggest complaint about the various card sets is that none of them, so far as I am aware, included Cassandra.  I now have nearly the entire Cassandra storyline on DVD (minus her lovely cameo appearance in the autumn of '68) and was reviewing the discs over the weekend and just realizing all over again why Cassandra will always be among my own favorite Witches.  (Doesn't stop me from snickering whenever Nicholas rakes her over the coals as "incompetent" and even worse, "amateur"!)

You didn't include the Viewmaster set, my personal favorite DS collectible. Wish I still had mine, with the booklet "in sombre colors" that included a muted, gorgeous portrait of Julia.

Best, Steve

[PennyDreadful]

Gothick,

 I wish I had those viewmaster reels and the booklet "in sombre colors!"  That was one of many DS items I've never managed to collect.

 The orange Retro Card Set was produced by Celebrity Inc and designed by artist John Graziano.  I picked up a set on ebay a few years back.  It is my understanding that they were an officially licensed DS item but were released in limited quantities.  They were mainly sold at the DS Fests and possibly some other horror/fantasy conventions though I'm not certain on that point.  That snazzy Barnabas binder came with the orange card set.  Unfortunately Cassandra does not appear in the orange set either.

[CyrusL]

Hi Penny,
 I got my disc and we put it in this weekend. I didn't realize you had the whole film of "The Terror" on it. Its all very nice! Thanks so much for the spooky treat! I really enjoyed your location footage. I remember when we were there a couple of years ago, I made Diane recreate the Vicki Winters running down the deep back lawn in her ladies trench coat. Its so nice to see the Horror Host tradition being upheld. Count Gore Devol is making a convention appearence in Baltimore next month. 

Diane and I met Jonathan Haze, one of the Corman regulars,  at a con in Baltimore a few years ago. He was with Jackie Joseph and we got them to sign not only my favorite book, "Graven Images", a history of horror film posters, but a still from "Little Shoppe of Horror" which I later got the late Mel Welles to sign. I'm an inveterate collector,    I have never met Dick Miller, but a friend of mine wrote him and got a three paged signed letter explaining why he wasn't signing auotgraphs, lol. 
   
 Likewise, no matter how much Shadows stuff I have, there's always more out there. I have the View Master reels, (they cover the late Adam storyline) but I hope to get the jigsaw puzzles down the road.    I just wanted with all respect to your work to let you the three Dark Shadows model kits (Barnabas, the Werewolf, and Barnabas's Groovy Vampire Van   <<you can't make stuff like that up) were actually put out by MPC, a competitor of Aurora Models. If like me, you have a soft place in your staked heart for the classic Auroras, you may be interested in picking up "Illustration Magazine"'s current issue # 16, which has an article and interview with James Bama who did many of those beautiful Aurora box paintings. He also did the old "Doc Savage" paperback covers.

Michael 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

the booklet "in sombre colors" that included a muted, gorgeous portrait of Julia.

Hmmm - I'm ashamed to admit that I don't even remember the drawing of Julia in the booklet.    Though, in my defense, I haven't looked at that booklet in years and years. Some day when I get a chance I'll definitely have to dig it up...

I remember being absolutely thrilled to death when I got the Viewmaster set in '70 and found out it featured the [spoiler]Angelique attacking Barnabas and Eve/Peter/Jeff[/spoiler] weeks of the show because I'd only caught very few bits and pieces of those weeks because, for a four month period during the fall of '68 and the very early winter of '68 and '69, one of the ABC affiliates in my area had stopped showing DS outright and the other had moved it to 8:30am.    The only episodes I actually saw were when [spoiler]Angelique ordered Barnabas to poison Joe, Angelique held Barnabas in the shack and after he escaped Vicki found him, Nicholas was going to destroy Angelique but her coffin was empty, and when Angelique had her audience with Diabolos.[/spoiler] I never saw any of Marie Wallace's episodes as Eve until I finally saw them in local syndication in March-April of '87.
(Nor had I seen any of Betsy Durkin's or Carolyn Grove's episodes as Vicki. Actually, the only exposure I'd originally had to Betsy Durkin was a photo of her with Roger Davis in character as Vicki and Jeff that had appeared in 16 magazine.)

[Gothick]

Thinking it over, I'm pretty sure that Cassandra is included in a group shot in the MPI 1990s color cards.  I don't much care for those cards, but friends were nice enough to club together to buy them as a gift for me one year way back when.  There are a couple of nice cards in that set but, for the most part, I find the pictures so tiny that in some cases, with the cheaply printed color overlay, you don't even have any idea what you're looking at it unless you've already seen the episode in question.

MB, thanks for the reminiscence about the Viewmaster reels.  I did not realize that they did not even come out until 1970.

For a loooonnnnggg time, looking at those reels was my one way of keeping my DS memories fresh.  The reels disappeared around the same time as my stash of DS related mags.

Best, G.

[PennyDreadful]

Michael,

 D'oh!  I assumed they were Aurora kits and didn't double check.  Ah well.  Thanks for letting me know.  I may include a "correction" slip with the DVDs when we sell them which says the kits are actually by MPC.

 By the way, congrats on your mention in the new issue of Scary Monsters (#59 - Monsterfest 2005 Article)!!

 Also in that issue, board member David wrote a really nice review of "Shilling Shockers" and wrote a great tribute to Dan Curtis to kick off his review column.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

MB, thanks for the reminiscence about the Viewmaster reels.  I did not realize that they did not even come out until 1970.

I could be remembering wrong, but I *think* they're copyrighted 1968 - it's just that I didn't come across them until 1970. Which is actually sort of odd because there was a store back then that I frequented weekly that stocked all sorts of Viewmaster sets (I remember buying the sets for both Lost In Space and Land of the Giants in 1967-1968) but apparently they never stocked DS until 1970. Well, unless some other DS fans always happened to see and snap them up before I got there. 

[CyrusL]

By the way, congrats on your mention in the new issue of Scary Monsters (#59 - Monsterfest 2005 Article)!!

Wow, I hadn't seen Scary Monster's new issue yet, I'll have to go by Borders on the way home.  That's really cool, I've now been in both Famous Monsters and Scary Monsters. I was in FM # 206, Wolfman cover , in a photo with, you guessed it, CONRAD BROOKS, lol! Well, knowing I'm in Scary Monsters makes my day! Thanks again!

Michael  [/color]

[MsCriseyde]

That's really cool, I've now been in both Famous Monsters and Scary Monsters. [/color]

CyrusL -- Is he more scary or more famous? You decide.

[Pansity]

Finally got a chance to watch the dvd you sent.  Thanks again, it was great.  I wish I got the tv station that you host on!  And I agree with the cousins who said that it's great that you are doing this kind of horror movie hosting.

Drunk Shadows was a lot of fun, and nice to see "Collinwood" again. (Wish the Fest were doing the trip to RI again -- South Street Seaport isn;'t a big draw to someone who lives in NY and can go anytime.)

Interesting trivia I noticed about "The Terror" -- Francis Ford Coppola apparently worked on it in his early days.  And maybe it's just me being warped, but every time I see the title, I flash back to the Bugs Bunny cartoon with him as the wrestler, and the announcer introducing him as "THE TERR-AH".

The easter egg was great, and thanks for making it easy to find.  I tend to NEVER find those things on commercial dvds.  Boy did your collectables bring me back.  And does ANYONE still have a Barnabas game where they can FIND the teeth?  .  I don't remember having the viewmaster, though I did have a ton of them in my time ( and might still have in the attic -- packrat GALLOPS in my family!).  What I remember collecting though were the 16 and Tigerbeat mags -- especially for the retelling of "The Whole True Story of Dark Shadows", since I came in so far into the show.

Congrats to CyrusL about being in Scary Monsters.  The couple of issues I have look good; remind me favorably of the issues I have of Forry Ackerman's Famous Monsters.  Must hit a bookstore this week and score a copy of that issue.

[Gothick]

I can never remember whether there were TWO board games, one called Barnabas Collins and one called Dark Shadows, or whether they were just different packagings of the same games.

The story about the fangs basically is that kids would run riot through the house "fanging"one another, then take out the fangs and run off to watch DS... their irate Moms would grab those icky fangs off the kitchen counter where they had been unwisely parked and sweep them right into the bin.  Poof!  no more fangs.

Best, G.