Tales from the Darkside.

I’m a broken record with this, but MY GOD do I love Tales from the Darkside.

It’s hard to get new people into the series, since it was so damn slow and admittedly hit-or-miss. If you didn’t grow up with TFTD and you’re more able to stay objective, it’s just “another one of those anthology shows,” and I guess it is less exciting than, say, Tales from the Crypt.

For people like me, though, Tales from the Darkside was a quiet introduction to horror. I have such fond memories of watching it late at night in my childhood bedroom. Just me, a bag of Wise’s Crazy Calypso chips, and crazy spooky shit on my half-broken television.

…and here’s my favorite episode, Anniversary Dinner.

Many TFTD fanatics rate it as one of the worst, but it’s among the few that I can recall experiencing as a child with crystal clarity.

I wouldn’t say that I was scared of it (it’s one of the least scary TFTD episodes, frankly), but I think it captured the show’s central theme — that there’s a darker underside to the sunny world we’re all living in — as well as any other episode.

Questions for tonight:

1) Were you a fan of Tales from the Darkside? Any favorite episodes?

2) If not TFTD, were you into any of the other horror/sci-fi anthology shows? (For the record, I may have not religiously watched all of them, but I did love all of them, from Tales from the Crypt to The Outer Limits and beyond.)