Then there’s a little series that came on HBO in 1989 and opened it all up into a bloody mess… Tales from the Crypt.

The original brain-seed for the series was one of a set of comic book series from the 1950s; Tales from the Crypt ran 27 bi-monthly issues from 1950 to 1955 that broke rules even back then. In fact, Bill Gaines (The publisher, who ran EC Comics, the imprint under which the horror comics were produced) was among those called to testify in the highly-publicized 1954 Senate Subcommittee hearings that resulted in the Comics Code Authority we know today. While gone, the comic was far from forgotten, and had a lasting influence on a generation of future storytellers. Publisher Russ Cochran has overseen several reprints of the original EC line, and EC itself eventually doubled down on another title in its repertoire… MAD Magazine.

This is the issue where Crime Patrol went completely out the window and starting being about werewolves and shit. History, needless to say, was made.

It’s worth noting that, in 1972, Amicus Films produced a Tales from the Crypt movie. While it isn’t incredible, it’s still pretty good, and stars Peter Cushing, Joan Crawford, and has Ralph Richardson as the Crypt Keeper. The film was a modest success; it spawned a sequel (named after another EC horror title, Vault of Horror) in 1973. For a good while afterward, the crypt was quiet. The dead slept.

Cushing as the undead Mr. Grimsdyke, Richardson as the Crypt Keeper, and the typically cheesy 70s-style titles of the 1972 film.

Then suddenly, in mid-1989, commercials began to air on pay-cable channel HBO…

I still remember these commercials chilling my young blood. My first sight of the undead host had me both horrified and fascinated… I could barely stand to look into his perfect blue eyes, but I had to know more.

On the left, you have the Crypt Keeper as he appeared from 1950 to 1955 in the comics. On the right, you have him in 1989 on the TV show. Clearly, 34 years can do a lot.

The Crypt Keeper was designed and built by Kevin Yagher, a special FX artist famous for his work on Nightmare on Elm Street 2 though 4, Child’s Play, and other horror blockbusters. The puppet required a team of puppeteers to operate, including a rig to handle the intricate facial movements that made him seem all too real. The voice of the undead storyteller was provided by John Kassir, a talented voice actor whose work you’ve definitely heard if you’ve ever watched cartoons. Kassir adopted a high, rich but reedy tone for the Crypt Keeper’s speech, providing an odd touch of class while remaining insidious. The end result had long lasting psychological impact on me as a kid; I found the Crypt Keeper both terrifying and fascinating due to how real he seemed, how lifelike the movements of his dead face and body looked.

Left to Right: Puppeteer Brock Winkless showing off the electronics used for manipulating CK’s ghastly facial movements; a diagram showing how his body was animated; and his creator, Kevin Yagher, creeping in for a selfie with the decayed horror host.

This isn’t to say the content of the show itself wasn’t also amazing. There are plenty of episodes that come off as corny, but even those have value; what truly stand out are the episodes with all-star casts that tell memorable stories and contain innovative film work or FX. I’d like to note that while the ones I mention are my favorites, they are far from the only ones worth seeing; I advise anyone who hasn’t had a look to seek out the DVDs or Blu-Rays… and a little bird told me some episodes might be on YouTube… there are few episodes that don’t have something to like.

My man was a big star for a while. He had his own TV show for 7 seasons, rubbed elbows with celebrities, and even had an action figure made in his likeness. But stars have the farthest to fall. Still… that is a killer tux. Unknown Hinson either loaned that to him or is envious of it. I’ll bet anything on that.

Season 1 starts off slow, with a few real clunkers, but two episodes deserve notice. One is actually the very first episode, “The Man Who Was Death.” It stars William Sadler as the man who pulls the switch in a penitentiary’s Death Row; he loses his job due to the repeal of the death penalty and decides to keep doing his work freelance. The episode is excellent not only for Sadler’s top-notch performance, but because it sets the tone for many tales to come; Without spoiling too much, the executioner gets his just desserts in a truly ironic twist of events. “And All Through the House” is another noteworthy episode, starring Mary Ellen Trainor (the mom from Goonies) as an unscrupulous wife who kills her husband, with the legendary and late Larry Drake (Dr. Giggles) as the psycho Santa who interrupts her insidious plan. These two episodes set the bar for the series moving forward.

Season 2’s most notable episode is “The Switch,” directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. William Hickey plays an old millionaire who is deeply infatuated with a beautiful young lady (played by 80s-90s bombshell Kelly Preston). He has a doctor replace parts of his body with those of a young man named Hans when the young lady claims to like fit men; Once he’s bankrupted himself to gain the bodybuilder’s form, she decides she’s attracted to money instead… and walks off with the now-shriveled bodybuilder, who has the millionaire’s body… and his millions. Schwarzenegger makes a cameo appearance in the Crypt Keeper segments, starting a trend that would continue as stars occasionally hammed it up with the old corpse. Episode 14, “Lower Berth,” tells a tale of circus freaks, love, violence… and the origin of a certain famous horror host… It isn’t particularly innovative or memorable on its own, but “Lower Berth” is still noteworthy for more great FX work.

Yes, that’s a baby Crypt-Keeper. Yes, this one’s based on a story from the comics where they find a baby Crypt Keeper. And yes… this was a choice they made.

The series began to hit its stride in Season 3, and three episodes immediately came to mind that show how versatile Tales from the Crypt was becoming in terms of the stories told. “Carrion Death” features Kyle MacLachlan as an escaped convicted killer, an unusual but well-played role for him. He and the police officer who tries to bring him in (George DelHoyo) are the only characters seen onscreen… unless you count the vultures in the desert that serves as the episode’s grim setting. “Yellow,” one of my favorite episodes, could well be considered one of the best in the entire series. Set during World War I (Specifically 1918), this episode is less horror than it is a wartime morality play. Kirk Douglas plays a general whose son (Eric Douglas) is a lieutenant under him during some of the war’s worst trench fighting. Sadly, the apple has fallen far from the tree, and the general must face the humiliating truth that his son is a coward. Lance Henriksen and Dan Aykroyd play supporting roles, and I don’t need to tell you that the acting is superb throughout. One could even consider it supplemental viewing for the WWI drama Paths to Glory, also starring Kirk Douglas. “The Reluctant Vampire” stars Malcolm MacDowell as a bloodsucker who gets his fix by working as the night watchman at a blood bank. The episode also stats George Wendt (Cheers) as the blood bank manager and Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes) as Dr. Rupert van Helsing. It’s a bit more of the black humor than the horror, but the episode is charming and hard not to enjoy.

Season 4 continues the hit parade, and its sixth episode, “What’s Cookin,” stars Christopher Reeve, Judd Nelson, and Meal Loaf in a story about a restaurant owner’s quest to find the perfect dish… at any costs. “Split Personality” features Joe Pesci as a con-man who pursues a pair of knockout twins by pretending to be a pair of twins himself. Let’s just say it doesn’t work out for him, and he finds himself torn between the lovely girls! “Werewolf Concerto” plays out a lot like a good mystery, eventually pitting a monstrous lycanthrope (Timothy Dalton) against a clever vampiress (Beverly D’Angelo) at its conclusion. This episode also stars Dennis Farina, Reginald VelJohnson, and even Wolfgang Puck as the other guests at the resort where the monster battle goes down.

The fifth season has less to offer overall, but contains two episodes worth discussing. The first, “Death of Some Salesmen,” is a testament to the versatility and talent of an actor some of us may be familiar with… one Tim Curry. Curry plays all three members of a deranged family who kidnap and eventually serve twisted justice to a crooked salesman played by Ed Begley Jr. Not only is the performance by Tim Curry the stuff of legend, but the camerawork is excellent as well, deftly maintaining the illusion that these are three separate people and not one amazingly talented actor. A cameo by Yvonne DeCarlo (The Munsters) caps this off as another of my favorites in the series. Also notable is “Oil’s Well That Ends Well,” a crime story about a set of swindlers who really have it in for each other over a bit of bubbling crude. One of them has a distinctive laugh you may have heard in the series… in fact, you’ve heard it often.

Season 6 and 7 are when Tales from the Crypt began its decline; there were still episodes worth watching, but they became fewer and further between. One is Season 6’s “You, Murderer,” which stars John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Sherilyn Fenn… and Humphrey Bogart. The FX crew didn’t need a shovel or a necromancer to put Bogie onscreen; the episode was an experiment in then-blossoming digital video technology. We see Bogart’s face through reflections in mirrors, glass, and elsewhere… but barely do we ever see things outside his own point of view, which is how the story is framed. It’s all done very skillfully, and remains an excellent example of good digital film work to this day. Lastly, Season 7 contains the only animated episode, “The Third Pig,” a much more… well, adult retelling of the classic “three little pigs” story. The antagonist, the Big Bad Wolf, is voiced by none other than Bobcat Goldthwait.

TFTC also put its name on a trio of films; two are pretty decent and one is absolutely terrible. Demon Knight, released by Universal in 1995, features William Sadler as a good guy this time, a nearly-immortal soldier keeping a sacred vial of blood safe from demons who want to rule the Earth. Billy Zane plays the human-seeming leader of these evil creatures as they lay siege to an old hotel Sadler’s character has been cornered inside of. Jada Pinkett plays the young woman who eventually inherits the guardianship and ends the demon problem… for the time being. While it isn’t a classic at any rate, Demon Knight is worth a watch, and has some great FX as well as a few solid scares.

Billy Zane as the most charming demon you’ll ever meet. Zane easily steals the show, as evidenced in this supercut of his performance for the film.

Bordello of Blood (1996) is about vampire whores, and stars Dennis Miller as a private investigator trying to get to the bottom of a young man’s disappearance. Erika Eleniak, Corey Feldman, and Chris Sarandon also star in the bizarre black comedy film. Aubrey Morris plays a secondary role as the mortician whose business conceals the bloodsucker brothel, and the vampires are led by none other than 90s model-actress Angie Everheart. Everheart’s performance is decidedly wooden, but everyone else does a fantastic job making this one fun. Miller’s style of comedy is admittedly not everyone’s taste, but his co-stars make up for him by playing decent foils to his constant referential comedy. All said and done, this one bombed at the box office.

This shot typifies the movie. Angie Everheart delivers some flat-as-a-board line in her best “sexy” voice and Dennis Miller replies with something… very Dennis Miller. There is a badass vampire-destruction sequence (NSFW – TITS) in the middle and the FX are better than okay, but audiences didn’t care for this one.

Ritual (2002) started off not even bearing the TFTC imprint. RKO’s final film, it stars Tina Grey (Dirty Dancing) and Tim Curry in a clumsy jaunt through medicine, money, and the supernatural. Grey plays a medical professional who loses her license and takes a job on an island as a young man’s nurse. She comes to suspect, over time, that he is under someone else’s influence. Universal and Miramax bandied back and forth about who would own and release this movie, and if the Tales from the Crypt dressing would even grace it… the end result is a set of endcaps hosted by an incredibly shitty version of the puppet. He looks horrible, moves horribly, and even sounds horrible because of the affected accent. It’s an atrocity. It makes me sad that this was the note RKO died on.

All I’m going to show you is the cover of the DVD release, and even that’s a goddamn disaster. If you insist on hurting yourself, I’m pretty sure this one’s on YouTube, and the owners of the intellectual property don’t give a shit because they know they created a masochist’s playground.

In July of 1996, TFTC was canceled. It was felt, perhaps rightfully, that the show had run its due course. The franchise lingered on for a while; there was a childrens’ version of the show (and an accompanying line of action figures), a Nickelodeon-style game show, and even a radio show in 2000 for Seeing Ear Theater. The Crypt Keeper hosted a couple events, notably 2013’s New Years Eve celebration on FEARnet (warning, pathetic)… but he wasn’t his old self. The wonders of the original puppet were lost, replaced by a cheap and toylike mannequin that barely moved.

Speaking of toys… this guy’s been with me since I was 11. When I go places, sometimes I pack him for good luck. And oh boy… has he been places. Also, shut up, the bathroom has the best lighting for shitty photos taken with a cell phone.

But let’s not remember that. Let’s remember the music video that shows him ogling a woman’s ass and using turntables.

Left to right: CK and Tom Hanks wonder what it must be like to be Tom Hanks; Whoopi stops in on CK’s talk show to set him straight; Arnold tries to put some meat on those old bones, to no avail.

Let’s remember one of CK’s trademarks: His terrible, awful puns.

Thanks for reading, Fright Fiends! October’s still got plenty of chills and thrills for the RetroMonster in all of you. Beware the full moon…

The primary reason that some critics are responding so negatively to Fuller House is that they simply don’t remember how bad Full House was 98% of the time. The former TGIF slotted sitcom was a cultural phenomenon, almost more from reruns than original airings, but it was never the show to push the envelope in terms of television comedy. It didn’t smash convention and test boundaries like Seinfeld. It didn’t codify the misadventures of a bunch of angsty white twentysomethings like Friends. There was no universally likable lead like Will Smith who would go on to dominate film screens, and the show was never going to be as smart as Frasier.

In all fairness, Full House never wanted to be what any of those shows became. It was a show content and secure in itself. It may have had a generic shtick, but it was a consistently delivered shtick. While 98% of Full House was admittedly not that good, neither was 99% of the non-notable sitcoms of the same time period. Full House is a show that is fundamentally about family and stability, and the appeal it still holds is largely based on this longing and nostalgia. What could exemplify this better than a show that never tried, nor pretended, to be something more than what it was? While Boy Meets World has had a reboot of its own, it was a show that had too much ambition to be the gosh-shucks-violin-hug that Full House has become in the American zeitgeist.

Anybody criticizing Fuller House (by the way, that title has enough plays on words to be airing on USA, right after Suits) for being predictable in terms of plots and jokes is clearly remember the original through rose-tinted glasses and not paying attention to literally the first line of the theme song (delightfully covered for the new series by Carly Rae Jepsen). Whatever happened to predictability? Well, Full House lived by it, and now Fuller House is tapping your shoulder to show you that it can live by it too.

No seriously. If Fuller House could physically touch you on the arm it would. As much as Full House new what it was artistically, Fuller House knows what it is in terms of being a product. It knows that it is cashing in on its own nostalgia. It is well aware of the idea of catchphrases, relying primarily on resurrecting and recontextualizing old ones.  That’s what makes it postmodern, and I mean genuinely postmodern. The hipster counterculture of post-2010 has utterly ruined the word “meta”, and in doing so has trivialized the concept of something being postmodern. Fuller House is not a postmodern sitcom simply because it addresses that the characters are actors playing roles (highlighted most brilliantly with a few Olsen twin jokes and a blink-and-you-miss-it about the meaning of “You Oughta Know”), it is a postmodern sitcom because it plays the notion of a late 80’s / early 90’s sitcom completely straight, while fixing that against a world and toward an audience that has aged 25 years. The juxtaposition of an archaic structure on a modern world, being deliberately addressed to a modern audience, and being aware that the structure is archaic while with an uneasy balancing act between idealism and cynicism, all while understanding that this is a product based on nostalgia is what truly gives Fuller House its postmodern edge.

The show is far from faultless. Some of the jokes should not have made the final draft of these scripts. A few of the returning actors are clearly going through the motions and collecting a check, and Becky as a character has been mostly ruined. Also, when are the Tanner’s going to start being decent to Kimmy? The jokes at Kimmy’s expense tend to fall flat, and while her husband is a funny character, there never quite seems to be resolution to the fact that he has cheated on his wife multiple times. It creates an odd bit of cognitive dissonance when the show seems to want her to forgive him. There’s also an egregiously cringey moment of cultural appropriation (Indian-themed retirement party complete with a sacred cow).  It’s more than a misstep. It’s watching somebody fall on their face.

As far as performances go, Andrea Barber is the real MVP here. She’s able to at once capture the essence of Kimmy from the original show while also showing how that character can be an insightful business owner. Jodie Sweetin’s Stephanie, being a younger character than D.J. and Kimmy, was more or less a blank slate for the writers to work with. Ultimately, they took her character a direction that works. There’s a scene in the pilot where Joey is paired with Kimmy, Jesse with Stephanie, and Danny with D.J. It’s a rather quick sequence of events, but it provides the audience with an understanding that those archetypes have been passed to these women. The child actors are harmless for the most part. Jackson, the oldest of D.J.’s brood, and Ramona, Gibbler spawn, can get annoying in their Disney channel-esque level of histrionics, but Max, played by Elias Harger, saves it by being the funniest part of any scene he is in. D.J.’s competing love interests are also highlights of the show. The way that they display such a level of respect to both D.J. and each other is refreshing. The show could have made a weird macho thing out of it, but these are professional adults in their mid-to-late-thirties. They handle it well. 

It becomes pretty clear early on that John Stamos served as a producer to the series. I think this was a misstep that tends to hurt television shows. When an actor is the writer’s boss, and not just coworker, things can get complicated. Some of his lines feel like either re-writes by someone who is not a writer or like they were written by someone carefully trying to not offend a superior. Stamos’ character And I swear, if I hear “have mercy” one more time I’m going to cancel my Netflix subscription. I would like to see less Uncle Jesse in the second season. The show would benefit from it, not necessarily because his character is irritating, but the way the writers are forced to handle him is.

Fuller House is an old sitcom that was made in 2016. If you forget that, you will hate it. It is also not for children in the way that the original was, though I’m not certain why you would assume that. It’s worth at least a watch, but you made need to refresh yourself with an episode of Full House to remind yourself that it really didn’t have much to work with.