How & when you discovered Dark Shadows

[Mysterious Benefactor]

In '76, the reruns of DS started up, and I was again in seventh heaven, until my younger brother started pitching a fit that he wanted to watch Gilligan's Island on the TV downstairs (which was the only one that would pick up DS) ...  Therefore, I missed every other episode of DS until Gilligan moved to another time slot.

I repaid my brother by setting fire to all his GI Joes (and a few other toys I decided he had outgrown).

It's stories like this that make me so grateful to be an only child! 


It always shocks me when I read how in some schools it was considered uncool to watch DS because my experience was exactly the opposite - watching DS was considered the coolest thing to do. Everybody watched, and outside of class it was always the main topic of conversation, talking over what had happened the day before, speculating about what was going to happen next, asking if someone had seen the latest DS article, and collecting the cards, games and comic books.

Like Dom, I used to make my own audio tapes of DS. I used to write the scripts and then a bunch of friends and I would act them out. My most vivid memory of doing that was one day when we were taping a scene that supposedly took place on the Collinsport docks. We were big on "special effects", so we were taping in the bathroom so that someone could be splashing water in the bathtub to simulate the sounds of the waves.    Barnabas was meeting up with one of the typical doxies, who was going to be his victim. Unfortunately though, the girl who was playing the victim got distracted by something else that was going on in the room (I can't honestly remember what at this point) and she wasn't really paying attention to the Barnabas dialogue. In the spirit of how DS rarely ever stopped tape, we rarely ever did either (except to change music cues), and the scene played out exactly like this:


Barnabas - (normal voice): You're very pretty. What's your name?

(Silence)

Barnabas - (louder voice): You're very pretty. What's your name?

(Silence)

Barnabas - (screaming): You're very pretty! What's your name?!

Doxie - (suddenly snapping back to reality): Oh. Grayson Smith. And who are you?
[ Yes, the naming of the character was intended to be a tribute to Grayson Hall, but somehow I doubt she would have been impressed or flattered by the way the scene turned out.  ]

Barnabas - (normal voice again): I'm Barnabas Collins. I live in the Old House over there.

...


As hysterical as the screaming was that finally got her attention, the thing that really makes me laugh now is thinking that it made any sense whatsoever that Barnabas could or would actually point somewhere as if they could actually see the Old House from the Collinsport docks! And, of course, why would he have introduced himself to someone he planned to kill, much less tell her where he lived?!    But, hey, I was 12 when I wrote it, so I guess that's my excuse.
[ And unlike you, Rainey, as ridiculous as it was, I'm pretty sure I still have that script packed away somewhere.  ]

[Connie]

OH!!  SWEET MOTHER!!!

"Where the Action Is"??!!

Connie, you just triggered a psychedelic flash back beyond belief!!

Well, then I've done my job.   

Okay....now that we've made it official  just how freaking old we are.....! 

 a.  Old enough to know better
 b.  Old enough not to care
 c.  Old enough that if you don't color it, there's way
      too much gray hair

I repaid my brother by setting fire to all his GI Joes (and a few other toys I decided he had outgrown)...
....Tell me I'm not a really good brother.

Mark, you're a psycho.

Actually though, I really like you sending your brother some toys and the lighter fluid, etc. (nice touch), so I'd have to say you're a REFORMED psycho.  (who should probably be watched rather carefully)  ROFL      

...My most vivid memory of doing that was one day when we were taping a scene that supposedly took place on the Collinsport docks. We were big on "special effects", so we were taping in the bathroom so that someone could be splashing water in the bathtub to simulate the sounds of the waves. 

I love this!  What I wouldn't give to hear some of these scenes.  How precious!

Barnabas - (normal voice again): I'm Barnabas Collins. I live in the Old House over there.

ROTFL 
This sounds like classic stuff.  (Maybe even better than some of Sam Hall's scripts)   

  

[Raineypark]

[ And unlike you, Rainey, as ridiculous as it was, I'm pretty sure I still have that script packed away somewhere.  ]

And unlike you, Pepe, I have a brother 5 years older than I, who would have blackmailed me till doomsday if he'd ever found those stories.

[Mark Rainey]

MB -- That's a hysterical tale. Some of us kids recorded similar soundtracks to imaginary monster movies, though I don't think we ever did Dark Shadows. My favorite was Professor Smut vs. Dracula, starring me, my brother, and my friend David Hare.

Narrator (David): "What's that? A giant bat. Wait! The giant bat is Dracula! And he's diving on Jahlo. Oh... Jahlo... Look out!"

Jahlo (My Brother): YEEEEAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

Professor Smut (Me): Jahlo scream like girl.

Jahlo: Shut up, Mark.

Professor Smut: No, you shut up.

Jahlo: No, you.

What I'd give to find those old tapes...

--Mark

[Gerard]

I saw the very first episode back in the summer of 1966.  It was in the morning (our ABC affiliate obvioulsy did a day-or-so later-delayed broadcast) and I was watching some game show, my mother telling me to turn off the TV and go outside, it being such a nice day.  The game show finished and I was reaching for the knob (natch, those were the days when TVs had two big knobs, one for on/off/volume, the other for channels, which went from two to thirteen, and you could only pick up your local three networks - if you had a rotor, when weather conditions were right, you could pick up affiliates farther away; there were a few smaller knobs for things like light/dark and horizontal control, and it was a black-and-white set, of course, unless you were a "fancy" family who had a color set) to turn it off when the ABC teaser commercial came on, a local add-on commentary saying that it was starting next, at eleven o'clock.  Well, hearing that eerie music and seeing those foggy scenes, I just had to see what this was all about.  And then I watched it the next day, and the next, and the next.  Even though there was nothing supernatural, ie "spooky", for those first few months, it still held my attention.  I would "play" David, hiding that brake part from Vicki, one of those big motel room key tabs which use to say "drop in any mailbox" serving as the brake thing.

Eventually Dark Shadows "got spooky" and the local affiliate switched to broadcasting it during its initial feed in the afternoon.  My mother kept telling to to "turn that crap off", and we had wars over what to watch.  First, it came on opposite Art Linkletter's House Party to which my mom was addicted.  Sometimes she got to watch Art interviewing kids who said the darndest things, sometimes I got to watch Barnabas chasing nubile virgins with fangs bared.  Then Art went off the air, but the war would continue, as she now wanted to watch that drunk Australian cook on The Galloping Gourmet.  Sometimes she got to watch the drunken Australian cook pour sherry into anything and everything he was whipping up (I swear that man would pour it into a bowl of Super Sugar Crisp cereal); sometimes I got to watch the ghost of Quentin threaten nubile virgins.  But my mom finally gave up and that time slot was mine, all mine.

Fortunately, my mom never made anything she saw being baked, broasted or fried on The Galloping Gourmet, otherwise we would've been a household full of people getting potted on the pot roast.  But I'd run around wearing a big ring, holding a cane (one of the bamboo things you'd win in a carnival side show game where you knock over bottles with a ball) and sticking fangs made out of cardboard in my mouth.  The neighbors probably thought I had been dipping into the cooking sherry and saying the darndest things.

Gerard

[Raineypark]

Goddess, I love your posts......you always make me laugh. 

You're STILL saying the darndest things!!

[Birdie]

LIke a few of the other posters I don't remember how I got started watching DS the first time.  I do remeber it was at the time Quentin had first appeared.  Luckily, we had more than one TV so no problem with the Mother who would never watch that crap as she called it.  This is the woman who was glued to the O.J. trail. She did watch just about every other soap.  What I think happened is someone was watching The Edge of Night and than the channel got changed and low and behold DS.  The fog in my brain is starting to part.  My two best friends in grade school we would run to my house to watch.  My house was closer.  Dark Shadows was never mentioned at school.  I don't think most of the kids were allowed to watch.  We were not the "in" kids anyway.   The other girls at our school were very goodie, goodie.  At the time we never would have known if the boys watched or not there was still the social thing of girls and boys hating each other at the time.

I got rehooked , I know I have told this story before sorry for those who have heard it already, our cable had just gotten upgraded and my daughter was home sick and I found the show Mommie had loved so much and thought she might like it.
She did and asked me to tape it when she went back to school.
We watched for about a two years together bringing in her younger brother.  She got to busy with school and dropped DS.  Now it is the family past time to kid me about it.

Birdie

[sheenasma]

OMG, "Where the Action Is"...   you can bet it was shown in L.A.! 

....and its so neat to meetcha baby where the action is.

n

[Julia99]

History keeps repeating as Shirley Bassey sang . . .i thought i knew .. well i kinda know but after i moved to NYC and got all my life belongings in once place.  . . i found a notebook/journal i wrote in 1982, when i was 14. ..  Grayson Hall 's name is penned on the cover and my first several entries are about enjoying a wacky show on PBS and Grayson in particular. . .I always thought it was a few years later, closer to college that "i" not my Mom (womb story) got into Ds. . .but my stepdad confirmed, he used to watch it with me in 1982 in the summer. .and that I loved the skinny redheaded doctor, which he just didn't get at all. . .It was my first bonding experience with my new dad I guess. . .

[Misty]

  Well I remember exactly how I got started on Dark Shadows, although it certainly is a bit awkward. Actually, my DAUGHTER (omigod, am I that old!!!) who was 7 at the time, flew home from school every day to watch this program. After a week or so curioslty got the better of me and I decided to join her. Of  course it was Dark Shadows, which had just made its debut, so I really got in at the beginning---and I fell, hook, line, and sinker in love with this show. My daughter is now a Mom and her daughter is also hooked. I share my DVD's with her.
                             Long live Dark Shadows!!   
                             Misty, who will remain a DS junkie at least as long
                                       as the brain is functioning!

[denise]

I first discovered it during the 1795 period when Jeremiah with his bloody bandages was looking in the window at Naomi. I new this series had possiblities.

[Barnabas101]

I discovered it in 1998, I think they were showing episodes 620 and 621 that day.  I suddenly got hooked!

[Barnabas]

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.

I was 4 also when I started watching DS back in 1966. My mother used to watch it right after General Hospital. I have to say that I found General Hospital alot more frightening that Dark Shadows! I mean those nurses were always having a crisis of some kind and we never got to see them at home (my question, "did they LIVE at the hospital?"). Contrast that with Dark Shadows which in 1967 started color broadcasts and had all those great sets and costumes. On General Hospital we only got to see the cafeteria and the nurses' station. And so, it became one of my life's phobias that I would grow up and find myself working at General Hospital. Well, you might say that couldn't happen as there really IS no General Hospital, but I was recently informed that the General Hospital of the 1960's in the opening sequence was actually Stamford Hospital (in Connecticut) which is where I work now. EEEEEEEEEE!

[coterie-mc]

After reading the 3 pages of how we discovered DS,  i might be one of a few that was attracted first by the music only, i remember my older brother back in 1971 use to play the stereo soundtrack album over and over and very loud. my dad would get upset and yell at him to lower it down.  well 5 years later, i discovered that one of the local channels was airing DS at night, same time as the 11 o'clock news. again my dad wasn't too happy to have me standing there each night  ready to change the channel from his nightly news to DS. 1976 was when i first watch DS.  on the other hand, my mom loves DS and is even reading "dreams of the dark" and she is 70 years old!  -robert

[IluvBarnabas]

I wasn't even born during the time DS aired on ABC....I discovered the show on reruns on channel 62...my mom was a fan during the Barnabas episodes up to the time Quentin was on. (This is gonna come as a shock but my mom lost interest in the show when the ghost of Quentin came on! ) She stopped watching altogether just before 1897 started.

Not me....I started watching the reruns where Barnabas just arrived and watched up until 1970 Parallel Time...unfortunately channel 62 pulled the plug on it....it wasn't until years later on videotape I was able to watch the rest of the show.

So in retrospect I have become a bigger DS fan than my mom was. But I as so glad she introduced me to the show. And I am so glad they kept tapes of the show that all of us DS fan can discover or rediscover the show.