NIGHT GALLERY / "The Dead Man" - 1970

In today's creepy story, at his home, Dr. Max Redford is experimenting on a young man, John Fearing, that can mimic the symptoms of any disease. Unfortunately, him and the doctor's wife Velia are having an affair, and that creates some problems...

Rod sets the story up for us. This one stars Carl Betz, Jeff Corey, Louise Sorel, and Michael Blodgett. Carl played Dr. Alex Stone on THE DONNA REED SHOW in the fifties and sixties among other things and died of cancer at age 56. You will remember Jeff (with 237 acting credits) as Mr. Lomax in THE OUTER LIMITS episode, "O.B.I.T." Louise was on a ton of  TV dramas, usually playing a villainess and meddler, and did many daytime soap operas. Michael was in movies like THE TRIP, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and THE VELVET VAMPIRE.

Dr. Redford calls his friend Dr. Talmadge to show him what he's been up to. His patient can change from healthy, to having symptoms of many different deadly diseases.

John has been hypnotized to respond to taps with an object and can change back and forth depending on the tapping patterns. 

The doctor finally brings John out of the trance, and viola, he's back to normal. And he's as handsome as ever!

At dinner that night, Dr. Talmadge remarks on how vibrant Velia was looking.

Max doesn't seem that thrilled about his wife's change, and it shows.

Velia and John go for a walk after dinner, that's when Max tells Talmadge about his wife's affair with his patient. He's in a pickle and does not want to upset John and lose him as a patient, it could be a tremendous breakthrough in medicine and he wants credit for the years of work...

The next day, Max calls Talmadge in to show him a new trick. The doctor confirms that John is actually dead! Max laughs and taps his pattern... No response!

Talmadge screams, basically... KID, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!

Now the train goes off the rails, for real. Max is in panic mode and is trying to get an injection ready for John, when...

Velia comes into the room to discover her lover, dead!

Ho boy, Velia watches as a bevy of doctors and nurses parade out of the house, meaning, they tried everything they could to save John, but alas. And after the burial, Velia walks by herself back to their place, through the graveyard!

Months later, Max asks Talmadge to come over and take all of his tapes and notes to review, and see where he went wrong. Talmadge listens to some tapes and discovers what went wrong...

Max had (for some unfathomable reason) tapped three times and then once, but should of tapped three times and then twice! Holy freaking scheiss!!!.. Ricky!!

And guess what?! Right! Velia walks in while Talmadge was drilling that point into Max's thick skull! She runs through the graveyard to John's tomb. She pounds the correct pattern out on the coffin lid. Boy, don't you think something bad is about to happen?

Max chases after his wife while Talmadge grabs a flashlight before following, but he has trouble finding the tomb in the dark. But when Talmadge does find it, he pans the room with the light. First, he notices that the coffin lid is open...

And then finds Velia in shock, against a wall.

Max is dead on the floor, choked to death, he's been attacked by John's corpse.

At least John still has a nice head of hair! So, I guess we'll be back Wednesday, we'll just have to wait and see. Just kidding, we'll be back no matter what, even if it's the end of the world!!

And, we want to say goodbye to Sean Connery, the Real James Bond!! He freaking hated to wear suits, I'm with you Bro ~

THE MUPPET SHOW - "With Alice Cooper" (1978)

 Well, it looks like we're gonna make it, so let's finish this Countdown To Halloween off in style with a Saturday Night Special going back to 1978 and "The Muppet Show" again, but this time with special guest star, rock & roll horrormeister Alice Cooper!

 

Of course Alice makes his first appearance on the show coming out of a coffin!

 

"Welcome to my nightmare, I think you're gonna like it!"

“Alas, poor Yorick!"

 

Alice is looking good in this vampire outfit, and does a routine with this ghost!

Alice channeling his inner Lon Chaney in "Phantom Of The Opera."

This shot looks like it came straight out of a Salvador Dali painting, and speaking of Dali, if you don't know about Alice Cooper and Salvador Dali's encounter in 1973, and Dali's creation called "Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper’s Brain," then by all means, you can read Alice's accout of the whole story, by going right HERE!

 

One of the bits they do on this show is Alice tries to get Kermit to sign a contract, virtually selling his soul to the devil! The funniest thing is that to my knowledge, these days Alice is a devout Christian!

But you know what, he's got a good sense of humor!!

I don't know what the heck these singing things are!

The name his parents gave him was Vincent Damon Furnier, but he had it changed legally to Alice Cooper in 1975! Another krazy thing about Alice is that he is a scratch golfer. If you don't know what that means, it means he's REALLY good!!

There might have only been five episodes of "The Snoop Sisters" made, but just like "The Muppet Show," Vincent Price and Alice Cooper were both in one. Also in 1975, there was a TV Special called "Alice Cooper: The Nightmare," and Vincent Price was on it as The Spirit Of The Nightmare.

This touching moment proves there really is somebody out there somewhere for each and every one of us!

They did have enough time for a short segment of "Pigs in Space."

Little did they know............................

........................That some 48 years after they wrote the words "School's Out Forever"..................

...................In the year 2020, it would all come true!!!

If you just can't get enough of Alice in Monsterland, there's always "Monster Dog" to watch.

And if that's still not enough, another fun thrill ride is "Diary Of A Mad Housewife!"

 

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!! 

HAVE FUN but BE SAFE and STAY SAFE!!!

MERRIE MELODIES / Porky And Daffy In "Rocket Squad" - 1956

For my last HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN 2020 post, I chose this hysterical WB cartoon from 1956. It featured Porky and Daffy in a parody of DRAGNET, only, it takes place in the future!

Love the disclaimer! Chuck Jones teams up with writer Tedd Pierce this time, Tedd worked as a writer on a few POPEYE cartoons in 1940 and 1941 besides the massive work he did at WB.

Here are our crime busters, Sgt. Joe Monday and Detective Shmoe Tuesday.

They are on patrol, making sure everything is crime free in the future... You can barely see their little police cruiser puttering through the city skies.

They get a call to head back to the Interplanetary Police Force building for further instructions.

The boys have to take a cylinder on a ride through an insane tube maze. After their jolting ride, they have to get their injuries treated at the Repair Station! 

The Chief talks to Daffy, he needs to see him immediately! After he begs Daffy to step in and bring the 'flying saucer bandit' to justice, Daffy agrees to track him down.

So, the boys go to the evaporators and evaporate to the crime scene.

At the scene, the Acme clue collector is hard at work...

Back at the crime lab, Porky dumps the clues into the Ajax Crypto-Analizer. It spits out a computer card that is then played on the Univac machine. It plays the song "Mother Machree."

Porky looks through the massive file cabinets and finds what he's looking for...

Here's their man, George "Mother" Machree! But, it also says that he hasn't committed any crimes recently, and he's clean!

Anyway, they locate him at Elsa's Blast-Inn.

He orders a pastrami on rye with mustard, he gets his sandwich and splits. Of course, Daffy and Porky miss him by a minute.

So, a chase ensues but the boys lose the crook in a smog cloud bank.

They stop 'Mother' and prepare to take him to jail. Daffy narrates, saying... Like all criminals, he had an elaborate alibi prepared...

'Mother' says... I didn't do nothing... I didn't do nothing, like I said, I didn't do nothing!

The case ends up in the Ultra-Superior Court.

The boys are sentenced to 20 years in prison... Porky says... 30 years. Daffy replies, like I said, 30 years! That's it for me this month, Eegah!! will have a special Halloween treat for us tomorrow, so, like, try and have a good one!