Folks who are interested in the behind the scenes drama of the original series will enjoy this intriguing 1983 appearance by Ron Sproat, videotaped by the legendary Guy Haines at the 1983 DS Festival in Newark. Topics include the early 1966 storyline, the Phoenix Laura Collins, Vicki's parentage, the 1795 storyline, the introduction of Julia, and lots more.

Favorite moments include the expression on Ron Sproat's face when one fan is explaining to another about Julia's astral body in 1897, and Ron's very brief response to the question 'Was Dan Curtis a slave-driver?' A poker-faced 'Yes' is the reply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD1AH8qIrMw

Gothick

For fans of the 1991 series,

One of Matt Hall's recent auctions included a treatment for a "Quentin story" by Sam Hall. Only the first page of the three-and-a-half page document was scanned here, and it reads more like a plot outline from the original 1840 storyline than a proposed treatment for the second season of the revival. But Matt dates it to the period in 1990 when he and Sam were both working on the new series.

https://msbhall.wordpress.com/2023/06/08/the-original-art-wallace-bible-for-pre-barnabas-pre-laura-the-phoenix-pre-sam-and-grayson-dark-shadows-and-a-weird-little-1990-document-by-sam-hall-about-quentin-just-for-the-hell-of-it/

G.

Fans of Greystone, or early 1960s Gothic supernatural stories, might enjoy this 1962 episode of the anthology series, THE DICK POWELL SHOW. "The Clocks" features guest star Joan Fontaine as a widow haunted by the ghost of her dead husband. Future MASH star Wayne Rogers appears as a wise-cracking scientist helping his friend, a professional parapsychologist, investigate. STAR TREK alumna Celia Lovsky (T'Pau in "Amok Time") appears as the housekeeper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW2NXS03VY0

Several scenes were shot on location at Greystone.

G.

Dear fans,
I'm pasting in an announcement posted to social media today. I know nothing about this event; simply passing along the info for fans of KLS. I wonder who among the surviving DS cast will be present.

Gothick

The announcement:
KATHRYN LEIGH SCOTT will be presented with a Career Achievement Award at the 50th annual Saturn Awards of Science Fiction & Fantasy, and will be joined by her Dark Shadows cast and colleagues.
WHERE and HOW fans and friends can watch the SATURNS LIVE on October 25th, starting with the Red Carpet at 5:30PM (Pacific) and then the SATURN AWARDS from 8:00 PM.
To watch everything on a computer or phone even!--  just click on the link or type into their browser and the site comes up -- and on the day of the show it'll have the SATURN AWARDS ready to watch. Plus, everyone can download the ElectricNOW app on their televisions for free.
There are 3 ways to access the ElectricNOW channel:
You can download the ElectricNOW app from any of the devices by going to https://www.electricnow.tv/devices or clicking the QR code below.  Each of the icons will take you to the site where you can download the app for free.  You can also tune in
You can watch the ElectricNOW channel from any of our streaming partners such as The Roku Channel, Sling TV, Xumo, Plex, Stirr, etc.  Please refer to https://www.electricnow.tv/devices or click the QR code below
You can watch by going to https://www.electricnow.tv/.  There’s no sign up or registration required.

I was excited to see this old LP released by Golden Records to promote The Munsters back in 1964. My parents gave it to my sister and me as a Halloween gift sometime either that year or in '65, I believe--it was a long time ago so I'm not sure of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRNlPDma_88

There are songs--it could be staged as a musical version of the show.

I was quite surprised a few months ago to see a "teaser trailer" for that new film version by Rob Zombie--it looked much better than I expected (I expected something unwatchably bad--it was actually pretty good).

G.

Our very own and much beloved Penny Dreadful has begun a new DS podcast: TERROR AT COLLINWOOD!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irvY8PAuueQ&list=PLkKN4d4hugdPuC5Fqbsr_xyehJzIwkZSF&index=94

There's a website for the podcast, too:

https://www.terroratcollinwood.com/

Themes from the first episode include Penny's memories of how she got into DS thanks to her extremely cool Uncle Vlad (!), her discovery of DS fandom in the 1980s, general thoughts about the series and its relationship to the genres of the Gothic tradition and supernatural terror in literature and film, and her conviction, which she argues brilliantly, that DS was NOT CAMP.

cheers, G.

Dear fans,

A few weeks ago, I started re-watching the original 1966-67 Laura Collins storyline, beginning with the episode in which Laura first arrives at the Maggie Evans Coffee Shop (as I have come to think of it). I've really been enjoying this, in part because this is the first time in decades that I've been watching DS on a regular daily basis. My delighted discovery is that I love the show more than ever.

A few observations: First, despite what you may have read or been told, Malcolm Marmorstein was a REALLY good writer. Based on his Laura scripts, I'd rate him up there with Violet Welles and Joe Caldwell. Maybe Marmorstein's early Barnabas scripts--his final period of writing for the show--weren't up to the gold standard of his work on the Laura storyline; it's so long since I viewed those early Barnabas shows that I can't comment (but I might be able to do so eventually, if I keep watching). In an interview on one of the MPI DVDs, Marmorstein revealed that during his final month or so of writing for the series, he had gone out to LA for an extended stay. In the interview, he said that he did this because his wife told him she needed a vacation from living in NYC. Evidently, Bob Costello and others interpreted Marmorstein's month-long sojourn out on "the Coast" as his looking for another job--and that may have in fact been in the case, but Marmorstein claimed it wasn't. All that notwithstanding, nevertheless he revealed that when he was told that his association with Dark Shadows was at an end, Marmorstein immediately began working on Peyton Place. He claimed in the interview that this was a fluke which occurred thanks to a chance conversation, but it's certainly an interesting development. He actually said he didn't miss a single day of work between composing his last script for Shadows and his first one for Peyton.

In my previous viewing of the Laura saga (which I recall as having been patchy and intermittent), I'd definitely picked up that elements of Laura's storyline were re-used for the Cassandra storyline. Now that I've been watching it all properly, in a regular, orderly manner, I'm struck by how much of what was done with early Barnabas and subsequent supernatural storylines during the 1967-1969 period was established by specific plot features and structures of the Laura storyline.

We have a mysterious blonde relative who unexpectedly shows up in town with a problematic backstory. We have multiple incarnations, or are they incarnations, of the same person over a period of 200 years. We have a major character being proclaimed as "one of the Undead." We have a seance, which leads to yet another seance. We have the ghost of Josette Collins, heralded by the smell of jasmine perfume. We have the Undead character's obsession with an important family member. We have a threat to David. We have dreams of occult significance, though so far the dreams are only described, not staged. We have mysterious portraits with an evil influence. In one scene, Laura even gives David a music box, though it has not been referred to in subsequent follow-up shows.

There's more, too. But since so much of this was written by Malcolm Marmorstein, I definitely get why he felt he should receive credit for inventing the Barnabas character. So many of the elements seem to have been re-used, in a shifted or modulated form, from how he wrote Laura.

G.

For those who haven't seen it, here is the only interview I have ever been able to find with DS writer Violet Welles. I consider her and Joe Caldwell the most talented and distinguished of all the people who wrote for the show.

https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2015/08/30/interview-violet-welles/

G.