It’s not false advertising, believe it or not. Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) played herself in a Fall Guy episode called “October the 31st,” which premiered on Halloween, 1984. From what I remember, she and Colt are doing a Halloween special in a haunted mansion owned by a demented old man played by John Carradine. Will they survive the night?
Speaking of Carradine, I just watched him ham it up in another winner called Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966). Think you know the best way to knock down a vampire? Think again.
Midnight Lace (premiered February 9, 1981): A remake of the 1960 film of the same name, Mary Crosby (Bing Crosby’s daughter) plays a TV reporter harassed and stalked by an unseen psycho. Is she going insane, or is her assailant for real? I found the Time review of the 1960 version interesting:
Another of those recurrent thrillers in which a dear, sweet, innocent girl is pursued by a shadowy figure of evil who threatens her with all sorts of insidious molestation… Like its predecessors, Midnight Lace is not very interesting in itself, but it is uncomfortably fascinating when considered as one of the persistent fantasies of a monogamous society…
The fantasies of an entrenched monogamous society in the early sixties give way to anxiety over the seeming breakdown of that monogamous society in the eighties.
Midnight Offerings (Premiered February 27, 1981): Melissa Sue Anderson, trying to shed her good girl image from Little House on the Prairie, plays a Satan-worshiping witch wreaking havoc on her ex and his new girlfriend (Mary McDonough), the good witch. Anderson, who appeared in a nifty horror movie called Happy Birthday to Me the same year, is a really good bad girl. Otherwise, the movie is rushed and bland. Marion Ross (Mrs. C.) has a short part as a psychic. Watch the movie (lower quality) here.
The Midnight Hour (Premiered November 1, 1985): This one is a fun horror-comedy. It’s Halloween, and some mischievous high school students unwittingly release an ancient curse upon their New England town. The dead climb out of their graves and wander into the big Halloween costume party, where the head witch-vampire starts biting the living. There’s an extended, somewhat arty vampire seduction scene set to the The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now?”, likely the first time anything by the band was introduced to a mainstream American audience.
Peter DeLuise and Levar Burton play two of the students. Both of them would land the shows that made their careers two years later: 21 Jump Street and Star Trek: TNG, respectively. Kevin McCarthy (from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers) plays a drunk dad who gets what’s coming to him. Watch the movie (good quality) here. Here’s the dance scene. The gorgeous young witch is played by Shari Belafonte, Harry Belafonte’s daughter.
And the dad from That ’70s Show (Kurtwood Smith) as Captain Scanlon!
The Renegades originally aired as a TV movie in August of ’82. It was spun off as a series in March of 1983 and lasted for six episodes only. It’s a Mod Squad (1968 – 1973) reboot, but without the social conscience or hip vibe that made the first show so awesome. The premise was tweaked again, with better results, for 21 Jump Street (1987 – 1991).
Here’s the Renegades intro. Pay special attention to Scoggins’ dramatic head turn, ‘Dancer’ running his hand through his feathered hair, and the uncomfortably long time the renegades stand staring at the cops. The music rules.
The Babysitter (November 28, 1980): Shatner being Shatner about sums this one up: “You know nothing about her. It’s kerAAAzy! Bringing a total stranger. Into your house.” Enter gorgeous, creepy Stephanie Zimbalist (Remington Steele) giving him the googly eyes. Enter the tawdry I-do-believe-I’ve-just-been-instantly-seduced music. Shatner’s face at the end of the clip is must-see bad TV.
Blinded by the Light (December 16, 1980): Girl (Kristy McNichol) tries to rescue brother (Jimmy McNichol) from religious cult, but in the process begins to swallow the Kool-Aid herself. The terrible art makes Kristy look 40, but she was only 18 at the time. I can’t find a clip, and you don’t want to see it anyway, so check her out with Matt Dillon in my favorite scene from Little Darlings (also from 1980).
Honeyboy (October 17, 1982): One of the more important steps to becoming a responsible adult is accepting the fact that CHiPs made everyone dumber on a weekly basis, largely because Eric Estrada had no business being in front of a camera. As for Morgan Fairchild, I can’t even say the name without disintegrating into a puddle of adolescent sexual desire. Watch the trailer for Honeyboy, if you must.
Hotline (October 16, 1982): That dark, shiny, curvy hair. Those eyes. Those lips. That voice. God, I had such a crush on Steve Forrest from S.W.A.T. (Sorry, I can’t find anything on Hotline. I talk about the psycho-stalking-young-women genre here.)
Real, yes. Good? No. Wizards and Warriors was developed and produced by Don Reo, a comedy veteran who had previously worked on M*A*S*H and Private Benjamin. He describes the origin of the show in a 1983 issue of Cinefantastique:
“I think the problem that most people have with fantasy is that so much of it is very grim,” said Reo, who got the idea for the show when his kids introduced him to Dungeons and Dragons. “I’ve gone to see films like EXCALIBUR, CONAN and CLASH OF THE TITANS, and those pictures were really somber. There just were not any lead characters that had a sense of humor, and when they tried it on NBC with FUGITIVE FROM THE EMPIRE, the show was so grim and boring that I was lost after the first five minutes.”
Actually, that grimness is precisely what drew us to fantasy. There was enough fluff and meandering optimism in the ’80s. Surely Reo knew how hugely successful John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian had been. Was he unfamiliar with the popularity of Robert E. Howard and Frank Frazetta, the godfathers of the grim, bloody, Romantic fantasy hero? Even The Lord of the Rings, the cornerstone of the fantasy genre, is an epic adventure as well as a sobering work about the nature of evil and the horror of war. The good-hearted humor in the series was not comedy but comic relief. Tolkien, Howard, and Frazetta were and are the main inspiration for D&D.
It takes a stroke of genius to make the fantasy-comedy combination work. The only screen example I can think of is The Princess Bride. Yes, Monty Python and the Holy Grail gets more brilliant each time I see it, but it’s pure satire. Maybe satire is what Reo was shooting for on Wizards and Warriors. He missed. (Today, he’s a writer and producer on Two and a Half Men.)
Reo mentions a show called Fugitive from the Empire, a pilot that premiered in April of 1981. The full title was The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire, a.k.a. The Archer and the Sorceress. From what I can tell, this was the first attempt at a feature length, live-action sword and sorcery movie produced for TV. The first post-D&D feature film in the same genre was Hawk the Slayer (1980).
As of now, you can watch the first episode of Wizards and Warriorshere. Fugitive from the Empire is here.
Calendar Girl Murders premiered on April 8, 1984. So as not to offend friend J., I’ll mention that the guy who played the commander in Space Camp gets first billing. The woman on the bottom right with the poofy hair is Sharon Stone. Robert Beltran (Chakotay in Star Trek: Voyager) and Alan Thicke (Growing Pains) also star.
The Night the City Screamed premiered on December 14, 1980. “A massive blackout plunges an American city into a night of terror.” Raymond Burr is the Mayor. David Cassidy plays somebody. I’m not taking the bullet on this one.
Deadly Lessons premiered on March 7, 1983. The young lady staring out of the window is a pre-Bad Boys, pre-War Games Ally Sheedy. Many movies and TV episodes in the early ’80s featured young women being stalked and killed—“knocked off, one by one”—by various psychos. It’s a variation on the slasher film, and I think a case can be made that the sub-sub-genre was an expression of male anxiety over women becoming increasingly independent. The Howling (1981), adapted by John Sayles, is a brilliant send-up of the morphing sexual politics of the time.
The Demon Murder Case premiered on March 6, 1983. It’s based on the Demon Murder Trial, “the first known court case in the United States of a lawyer claiming his client was innocent due to demonic possession.” The “possessed” killer is played by Kevin Bacon.
This might be a new regular feature. Made for TV movies were a big, big deal from the late ’60s through the mid-1980s. Even after cable was introduced, most people couldn’t afford it, so we depended on TV fare and older theatrical films that could be purchased relatively cheaply by the networks.
The Bermuda Depths premiered on January 27, 1978. Carl Weathers is the only name I recognize in the cast.
The Ivory Ape premiered on April 18, 1980. Jack Palance plays the big-game hunter hired to dispose of the escaped ape.
Maneaters Are Loose! premiered on May 3, 1978. Man-eating tigers terrorize a small California town! Star Trek‘s and Star Trek: TNG‘s Diana Muldaur plays “the frigid wife.”
S.O.S. Titanic premiered on September 23, 1979. I’m 100% certain that the two-page spread is more exciting than the movie.
The World Beyond premiered on January 21, 1978. I put this one in my YouTube queue because of the IMDB description: “A golem made of mud terrorizes a couple on a remote Maine island.” Sign me up. There’s a “Special Announcement” at the top right of the page warning of a possible preemption of normal programming due to the Republican response to President Carter’s State of the Union address.
1980 was a rough year for Scott Baio characters. If you recall, Chachi burned down Arnold’s as well!
I desperately want to watch these Afterschool Specials again, but only under the condition that I have too much to drink beforehand. Such is the legacy of moralizing fluff.
The Grinch premiered on Sunday, December 18, 1966.
I’d completely forgotten about the TV Guide layout itself, and check out the shows listed on just these pages—Mission: Impossible, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Walt Disney’s World (full title: Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color), Wild Kingdom, and the always invaluable Your Astrology Guide. You will never see a description like the following for any TV show ever again:
The Seaview becomes a den of terror when a virus again transforms Admiral Nelson into a werewolf.
Instead we get shit like this:
The murder of a local military academy’s first female cadet is investigated after her body is discovered in a buried foot locker.
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