XPost: alt.tv.dark_shadows, rec.arts.tv

�Again, fate took a hand in the form of a woman.�

Have you ever tried to describe a childhood toy to someone, and
realized halfway through that time is real, and mortality is real, and
you have become super mega tragically old?

Well, if you haven�t, then listen up. This is what it sounds like.

View-Master! It used to be a thing.

It�s part of our centuries-old cultural obsession with squinting at
something and pretending that it looks cool. This fundamentally
unsatisfying tradition began in the 1850s with the lenticular
stereoscope, and has continued to plague us in the form of Stereo
Realist cameras, 3-D glasses, Magic Eye posters, Muppet*Vision, Avatar,
Oculus Rift and whatever the hell they come up with next.

So you may recall View-Master as the one version of this technology
that doesn�t actually make your head hurt. You insert a cardboard reel
into the plastic View-Master toy, hold it up to the light, and what do
you get? Well, a face full of Care Bears, probably, but you never know.
Next time you might get lucky.

The image shown to each eye is slightly different, so you get a gentle suggestion of depth, and everything from there to Avatar is pretty much
a lateral move.

For the discriminating child of 1968, the View-Master catalog included Fantastic Voyage, Star Trek, Land of the Giants, Mission: Impossible,
The Love Bug, The Mod Squad, Rowan and Martin�s Laugh-In, Daktari,
Tarzan of the Apes, Birds of the World and Lassie Rides the Log Flume.

And Dark Shadows, obviously, because the adults of 1968 really did not
have a very good sense of perspective. The show was popular with the
young set, and the fact that it was apparently created by a team of
practicing Satanists didn�t seem to bother the General Aniline & Film Corporation, so what we have here is a hot slice of the craziest show
on Earth.

Each View-Master set is three reels, for a total of 21 pictures. That�s
not a lot of content space, so in general View-Master focuses on
representing the basic essence of a show, which can then be repeated indefinitely.

For example, the Star Trek set tells the story of �The Omega Glory�, a
second season episode that has just about everything you�d want in a
standard Star Trek episode. It starts on the deck of the Enterprise,
where the crew responds to a yellow alert. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and some
redshirt named Raintree beam down to a planet. Spock says science
things. McCoy cures a disease. The redshirt gets killed. Everyone gets
captured and locked up for a minute. Finally, Spock does a neck pinch, everybody shoots at everybody, and Kirk makes a speech. At this point,
you can just loop straight back to reel 1 and do it all over again, for
as long as the entertainment value holds out.

But Dark Shadows is different from View-Master�s other licensed
properties. It�s a soap opera, a long-running serialized narrative, and
it doesn�t have a basic formula like Star Trek or Mission: Impossible.
There isn�t a beginning, middle and end that fits neatly into three
reels of snapshots.

And the View-Master people couldn�t come up with their own story,
because the GAF photographers just showed up during dress rehearsals
and took pictures of whatever the cast was doing at the time. So if the
show happened to be in the middle of an impenetrable, continuity-heavy
five car pile-up story disaster, then that�s what ended up on the
reels.

Luckily, the set comes with a booklet, which helps to fill in some of
the context. The packaging calls it a �16-page folio printed in many
somber colors,� which is delightful.

The text begins with �Dark were the shifting shadows that waxed and
waned among the turrets and gables of the great house of Collinwood,�
and then there are these scratchy, somber illustrations, which launch
the reader straight into a different and a dreadful world.

One thing that I love about this whole set is that they know this show
is violent and unhealthy, and they don�t shy away from it one little
bit. If illustration #1 is supposed to be the hero sneaking into a
woman�s bedroom in the middle of the night to stab her to death, then
so be it.

Another thing that I love is the concise text on the reels. Each
picture has a short caption, which is displayed in a little window.
There�s only room in the window for about 60 characters, so these are
basically fortune cookies. Try adding �in bed� at the end of each one:

Barnabas found Joe, stabbed, and showing fang marks, too.

Still mesmerized into the past, Eve was rejected by Peter.

�Buried alive� fear ruled life of Victoria at Blair House.

Prince of Dark drove hard bargain with Nicholas.

See what I mean? These are fantastic.

Here�s how the story starts:

It was fear, and a desperate necessity, that drove Barnabas
Collins to leave the house in the dead of night to make his
way to a lonely dwelling by the sea. Asleep in the house was
Eve, a strange being whom he must destroy before her evil
genius could destroy Adam, her hapless mate within whose man-
made body pulsed the life-force of Barnabas himself.

He didn�t know that behind this reasoning was Angelique, who
wanted Eve killed to thwart the warlock Nicholas, who had
great and terrible plans for Eve and Adam.

So there you have it. Five character names, and at least three of them
want to destroy or thwart the others. And we haven�t even gotten to the
first picture yet!

This explanation isn�t quite accurate � Angelique didn�t want Barnabas
to kill Eve, and Nicholas actually set up this whole scenario � but
nitpicking over details would only distract us from the magic and the
wonder that anybody thought it was a good idea to even attempt to
explain this particular story point to children.

I�ve been trying to describe this ridiculous story every day for the
last two months, and it simply can�t be done; all I can do at this
point is wait until it blows over.

I think the fact that this booklet exists is proof that Dark Shadows
really was that popular in fall 1968. All you have to do is drop a few character names, and everybody can fill in the details themselves. The
little caption says, �Barnabas fell into trap set by Angelique to kill
Eve,� and apparently that�s enough.

Anyway, Angelique vampire-bites Barnabas, and sends him back to the Old
House to tell Julia and Professor Stokes that he failed. At least this
picture offers some scope for the 3-D effect, thanks to the zillion
candles that Barnabas scatters around his home.

This image is kind of thrilling, because Julia�s only in two pictures
in the set, and this is her only scene with Barnabas. It�s also Stokes�
sole contribution to View-Master history. They manage to squeeze
fifteen different characters into these twenty-one slides, which is
basically the entire cast except for Carolyn and David.

The warlock Nicholas is actually the character that appears the most �
he�s in eight slides, followed by Barnabas with seven, and Angelique
with six. Nicholas is at the center of all of this storyline madness,
although he doesn�t actually do a lot directly, so most of his pictures
just show him speaking sternly to people.

I have a particular fondness for this slide, because it features my
favorite prop, the Ralston-Purina lamp. And it�s smack in the middle,
too, so take that, portrait of Barnabas and colorful �60s afghan. The Ralston-Purina lamp reigns supreme.

You can tell that these photos were taken during dress rehearsal,
because there are a couple places where they haven�t bothered to do the actresses� hair yet.

This was a long project for the View-Master people � the episodes
represented here took place over about five weeks, so I imagine they
must have come back regularly to set up the shots. They couldn�t have
staged these specially for the photo shoot, because there are lots of
different sets and costumes, and the Dark Shadows production is already
living fairly close to the edge, just getting the show made every
single day. They don�t have extra time to dress a bunch of sets just
for View-Master.

Because this is Dark Shadows, there are some bloopers to enjoy � like
this picture of Barnabas spoon-feeding Joe some poisoned medicine,
where Joel Crothers is clearly struggling not to laugh.

There�s also this thrilling shot, which I have to assume was not the pulse-pounding pose they were hoping for.

View-Master takes a bit of license with some of the story details,
especially in the Peter-Danielle-Jeff-Eve relationship, which is so
complex that it hardly even makes a difference. Here�s their version:

The workings of implacable fate lay behind Eve�s confrontation
with Jeff on the terrace. In the Collinsport of Colonial days
grim tragedy parted these star-crossed lovers at the very foot
of the hangman�s scaffold. Jeff, whose name in that earlier
incarnation had been Peter Bradford, saved Eve�s life by
confessing to a murder that she, not he, had committed.

Condemned to die on the scaffold, Peter heroically rejected
Eve�s pleas to save himself by surrendering his soul to the
powers of witchcraft which she herself had embraced long ago.
Thus an innocent man died in ignorance of the fact that Eve�s
powers would work on him even in death and that the two of
them would meet again after long centuries had passed.

So that�s entirely make-believe, but if you think about it, it�s just
as good of an explanation for what�s going on as anything else is. This
might actually be a better version of the story.

And for a lot of kids in 1968, this is actually the canonical version.
The episode that was broadcast on television was gone after half an
hour, never to be repeated again. The View-Master version is right in
front of you, in living color and three dimensions.

My favorite slide is the big irresponsible action sequence, just
waiting to be imitated on your unsuspecting brother.

Joe emerged at last from his death-like sleep just in time to
hear Julia say the medicine was poisoned, and that Barnabas
had tried to give it to him. Enraged, Joe seized a cord, and
prowled the darkening house until he found Barnabas dozing in
his chair. Whipping the cord around the defenseless neck, he
jerked it tighter � tighter. Barnabas� eyes bulged � the world
turned black �

Again, fate took a hand in the form of a woman. Mrs. Johnson
appeared and, with a scream, hurled herself on the panting
Joe, and loosened his grip on the murderous cord. Barnabas
slid lifeless to the floor.

So how awesome is that? This is toy store material in 1968.

I�m not going to quote the whole thing, as fun as it is, because you
can read it at this View-Master blog � but here�s a few more favorites.

Obeying, he caught sight of something that turned his blood
to icewater.

While Eve�s retreat to the past was going on at Blair House,
fear permeated one of the rooms at Collinwood like a tangible
thing.

In another room of the great house, time was running out for
Joe Haskell who hadn�t quite succeeded in killing himself.

The evil miasma of the Netherworld curled around the golden
head of Angelique and the hooded figure spoke in awesome tones.

For this she must pay with her life � and the only way to take
the life of a vampire was to drive a silver stake through her
breast as she lay sleeping in her crypt�

A silver stake! You have to be pretty committed to vampire slaying to
keep one of those on hand.

Anyway, it ends in Hell, as these things always do. Nicholas faces his
Master and is accused of allowing Eve to die, which apparently happened sometime between slide 10 and slide 20, when the View-Master
photographer wasn�t around.

They never quite get around to explaining how Eve died or who killed
her, but that�s what happens when you try to catch a falling star, and
press it between the leaves of a book. Dark Shadows cannot be contained
in 16 pages, no matter how many somber colors you use.

As the man says, �The episode ends, but not the tale, for as long as
men and women live, there will be dark shadows.� Amen.

Tomorrow: Vicki Ruins Everything.


Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

Julia tries to reassure Liz about Barnabas being at Windcliff: �He�s
getting the best � proper care.� Liz urges Julia to bring Barnabas to Collinwood instead: �You�d be here to see � take care of him
personally.�

In act 1, there�s a little pre-knock clatter before they do the
�knocking on the door� sound effect.

Julia protests: �Yes! I believe there is some reason you can�t � or
won�t, or can�t � use your powers!�

The Dan Curtis Productions credit is crooked, and says 1966.

Tomorrow: Vicki Ruins Everything.


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