Old Infomercials!
At its core, Dino Drac After Dark is a tribute to those lost, lonely nights of youth, when I’d grab at whatever was available to add a little noise to the silence. In a world without the internet, the pickings were slim!
Case in point: I used to treat infomercials like “real” TV shows, and came to count on their hosts as surrogate friends. Every weekend, or perhaps even every single day during my summer vacations, I’d spend the late hours watching pitches for fad diets and psychic hotlines, not so much “entertained” as merely comforted by the fact that I had something there to make lights and sounds.
I only “half-watched” them most of the time, using the infomercials as background noise as I putzed around in my bedroom. Still, I saw some infomercials so many times that I ended up memorizing every single line in them. Here are a few that I remember most:
Ronco Showtime Rotisserie!
Richard Simmons’s Deal-a-Meal Program!
Anthony Robbins: Personal Power!
Jack LaLanne Power Juicer!
Watching ‘em again now is such a trip. I need my old blankets and flannel shirts, and a sleeve of Ritz crackers, and maybe some well-worn issues of Wizard Magazine.
Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me.
I know I’ve been overdoing it with the horror anthology episodes this week, but if you’ll indulge me, I have one more.
(Well, ten more, but let’s say one.)
Actually, this particular episode wasn’t from an anthology series, but it may as well have been. From 1998, it was a 2nd season episode of Millennium, and I only found that out today. It took serious Googling for me to track down this scary television show that I absolutely remembered watching back in the late ‘90s, and lo and behold, it was part of a regular series.
I can’t tell you much (or really ANYTHING) about Millennium, but it’s immaterial anyway. From the little I’ve read, this specific episode — Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me — acted a oddball standalone.
Four adorably cranky old men gather at a coffee shop, and it’s soon revealed that they’re actually DEMONS, who exist solely to fuck with humankind in whatever ways they see fit.
While they look like biblical devils in their true forms, the demons can assume human disguises, which they use to subtly encourage people to do terrible things.
I originally caught this episode midway through, and even that one single half-viewing managed to stick with me for the better part of 20 years. Trying to recall the specifics in the years since, I would’ve sworn it was an episode of The Outer Limits or something. Between its horrific imagery and cynical attitude, it feels like what might’ve happened had Tales from the Darkside gotten a late ‘90s reboot.
I know that few of you will drop everything to watch some random episode of a random TV show at this precise moment, but if you look back over this week’s Dino Drac After Dark posts, there’s enough for you to have a nice little horror marathon this weekend. Give this stuff a shot, if only for curiosity’s sake!
Perversions of Science!
Guess it’s anthology week on Dino Drac After Dark!
I recently gushed about some of my fave episodes from Tales from the Darkside and The Outer Limits, which got me to thinking about other anthology series episodes that used to rule my world.
The well ran deeper than I’d remembered! For instance, did any of you watch Perversions of Science? It ran on HBO in the late ‘90s, and though I don’t remember this part, Wikipedia says that it was directly spun from Tales from the Crypt. (Course, for this show, we traded the Crypt Keeper for a foxy robot.)
I literally only remember one episode, which I happened upon accidentally back in ‘97. Fortunately for me, it appears to be the only Perversions of Science episode that people seriously liked!
I don’t want to spoil what happens in The Exile, though you’ll probably be able to guess the ending from a mile away. I will tell you that it’s set in the future, where criminals are dumped in the past.
(Also note that the episode stars Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame, and David Warner of “guy who mutated Tokka and Rahzar” fame. Ron Perlman, too!)
Enjoy! Cheesy as hell, but there’s a reason I’ve remembered it for 20 years.
The Outer Limits: Sandkings!
The ‘90s reboot of The Outer Limits is another one of those shows that really captures the spirit of Dino Drac After Dark.
As I recall, it aired on weekends in an odd time slot. If you were home to see it, you were desperate for entertainment. A lot of those old syndicated weekend shows were like that. We didn’t necessarily count them among our favorites, but when we were bored to tears and totally without prospects, even a show we kinda sorta liked meant the world to us.
I could count on one hand the number of times someone’s mentioned this series to me in recent years, which is a shame, because so many of the episodes were creative, weird, spooky and surprising. Course, the show did kind of peak in its first episode:
The Sandkings kicked off the series in March of ‘95. Based on George R. R. Martin’s same-named novelette, it stars Beau Bridges as a guy who raises little martian creatures in a big glass tank, and becomes so obsessed with his research that he refuses to call it quits even after his cute little martian bugs — the “Sandkings” — display a certain bloodlust.
(Cute? I think so.)
I LOVE THIS EPISODE. (Well, it’s technically two episodes, but the point holds.) The effects were pretty good by mid ‘90s TV standards, and the adaptation is gripping. Someday I gotta read Martin’s original story to see how it compares.
The video is a bit fuzzy but still watchable. Try this one out, guys. It’s been a fave of mine for decades.
