“You will be what you were — that loathsome bird of the night!”
“Good evening, my fellow Americans,” quoth the monster, wiping the blood from his jaws with a discreet hanky. “I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this nation.”
It’s Halloween 1969, and for once, Barnabas Collins isn’t haunting the great estate at Collinwood. Instead, Jonathan Frid has been invited to the White House, to appear at Tricia Nixon’s Halloween party for underprivileged children.
Now, technically, Barnabas isn’t really a Halloween-type character. Dark Shadows isn’t an annual special like It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown; it’s a year-round daily soap opera which hardly acknowledges the passage of time at all.
And Barnabas doesn’t jump out at people and say “Boo!” He has other concerns. In fact, at the moment, he’s a mortal man, more or less released from his curse of eternal night, and he’s attempting to seduce his cousin’s fiancee, who he believes is the reincarnation of a woman who killed herself while trying to get away from him. This is not your typical trick or treat type situation.
On the other hand, he’s also a vampire who’s teaming up with a werewolf and a witch to defeat an evil wizard who lives in a basement and turns people into skeletons, so that is a bit Monster Squad, now that I think of it.
But responsible adults in 1969 don’t really know what Dark Shadows is actually like, because it airs on daytime TV, and nobody has a VCR. At four in the afternoon, grown-ups are doing important grown-up things, like writing speeches, and suppressing reports, and sending in the National Guard.
Meanwhile, the housewives and college students and underprivileged children of America have all taken a solemn vow not to tell anybody what happens on Dark Shadows, because if people knew what was going on, they’d put a stop to it. The responsible grown-ups won’t get a chance to see what the show is actually about until House of Dark Shadows comes out next year. Six months after the movie comes out, the show is taken off the air, so I guess that code of silence was probably a good idea.
So here, in the bright light of day, Frid isn’t really playing the Barnabas Collins of Dark Shadows, who makes terrible decisions and has nothing to smile about. This is the Barnabas Collins of Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein, the groovy ghoul who makes withdrawals from the blood bank and checks out books from the die-brary.
So as day falls on the great estate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Jonathan Frid is on the scene, complete with cape, cane, ring and fangs. He was featured right at the start of the event, as the kids got off their buses and swarmed towards the entrance. The kids were middle-school age, and were participants in the Widening Horizons Program, a government project to introduce students to career opportunities in Washington DC.
This is how the Boston Herald described the scene:
“Tricia, the President’s 23-year-old daughter, greeted her 250 mostly Negro guests at the north portico wearing a mask and a floor-length purple and green gypsy gown with dangling gold earrings.”
I’m sure that the part about the “250 mostly Negro guests” didn’t sound so bad in 1969. At least, not to the mostly non-Negro Boston Herald subscribers.
Tricia was flanked by Frid and a couple of witches, and they passed out masks to the children. The kids got a choice of clown, pirate, wild animal and grinning blonde boy masks, which they did not wear.
Seriously, in all of the pictures of the event, there isn’t a single kid actually wearing one of the masks. This may have something to do with the fact that half of the masks show white-skinned people. Plus, it’s not really that Halloweeny to be in a group of 250 kids where 25% of them are wearing the exact same mask as you. Also, plastic Halloween masks are super uncomfortable to wear for more than about three minutes at a time. The main activities of the event involve eating things and looking at things, and Halloween masks are not conducive for either one.
The kids also got yellow plastic ponchos, with black Halloween silhouettes on the front, I guess to protect their clothes from the ice cream. It’s obvious from the pre-poncho pictures that these kids are dressed up in their Sunday best — obviously, because they’re going to visit the White House — so it’s kind of a shame that they won’t be let in until they all put on identical plastic uniforms, and pretend to be white people.
Once inside, the kids got orange-frosted Halloween cake, ice cream molds in witch and pumpkin shapes, and orange-colored punch. There were magicians, and a fortune teller with a crystal ball, and a marionette show by the Smithsonian Puppeteers. Oh, and TV’s Barnabas Collins. It sounds like a fun time for the young set, plus just being in the White House must have been exciting.
They sang “When the Saints Come Marching In,” and then John Neidecker, the deputy special assistant to the President, came by to tell them the story of Halloween. And as you know, there ain’t no party like a deputy special assistant to the President party, because a deputy special assistant to the President party don’t stop. Then everybody got a balloon.
So Jonathan Frid’s role at this shindig was to walk around with his props, and bare his fangs at people. He was great at it.
Back in May 1968, Frid went on a whirlwind ten-city promotional tour, which was one of the big turning points in the history of Dark Shadows, because it permanently established Barnabas as the undead embodiment of the show. Frid had kind of a rough time that week, because nobody quite knew who the target audience of the show was supposed to be — so at different stops along the way, he would talk to kids from a high school newspaper, then host Dialing for Dollars on the local ABC station, then get mobbed by screaming girls at a shopping mall, and wind up with an appearance on Bozo’s Big Top, trying to twirl a hula hoop. It was a dizzying experience.
But today’s assignment seems to suit him right down to the ground. Tricia looks kind of dazed in all the pictures, but Frid is super engaged with the kids. He’s actually talking to them — shaking hands, asking them questions, showing his teeth, and being the happy Halloween vampire that he never gets to be on the TV show. The man was good with the young set.
In The Dark Shadows Companion, Frid said:
“I had a marvelous time signing autographs and talking to everyone. It was exciting and fun for me as well as the kids. I’d been to a lot of places and met a lot of people, but this was a particular treat. It isn’t every day that a person is invited to the White House.”
This is true, and he was right to be excited and amazed by this gig. But the White House that we’re seeing here isn’t really what the Nixon presidency was like, any more than this Unca Barnabas routine is what Frid was usually doing with his afternoons.
Both Barnabas and the White House are being extra cuddly today, but there’s some real darkness in the shadows.
Just a few days later, on November 3rd, 1969, President Richard Nixon gave his televised “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam”, which is typically referred to as the “silent majority” speech.
The speech was a response to the growing American disillusionment with the Vietnam War. America had been involved in the conflict between Soviet-backed North Vietnam and America-backed South Vietnam since the mid 1950s, and American ground forces were deployed there in early 1965. Americans were assured that progress was being made, but the Viet Cong sneak attacks known as the Tet Offensive in January 1968 had led to a growing fear in the US that the situation was hopeless.
So in November 1969, President Nixon took to the airwaves, to explain his plans. He said that when he assumed the presidency in January, he inherited a war in which 540,000 American soldiers were already in Vietnam, and he was urged to bring them home. But, he said, “I could only conclude that the precipitate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster — not only for South Vietnam, but for the United States and for the cause of peace.”
His plan hinged on the idea of “Vietnamization”, in which the government and people of South Vietnam would take on an increasing role in fighting the war and establishing a new regime, as the United States gradually pulled out. I don’t recall anyone using the phrase “Iraqization” of the second Gulf War, but it’s the same general idea, and it faced a lot of the same challenges.
In the November 3rd address, Nixon said:
I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action. Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued Vietnamization if necessary — a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom. I have chosen this second course.
It is not the easy way. It is the right way.
He acknowledged that there were demonstrations across America advocating for pulling out of the war.
One of the strengths of our free society is that any American has a right to reach that conclusion and to advocate that point of view. But as President of the United States, I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this Nation to be dictated by the minority who hold that point of view, and who try to impose it on the Nation by mounting demonstrations in the street…
If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this Nation has no future as a free society.
So, essentially, anti-war protesters were imposing their views on America, while Unca Nixon was on the side of peace and reason.
And then there was the young people thing.
And now I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this Nation who are particularly concerned, and I understand why they are concerned, about this war.
I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do.
He talked about wanting to save the lives of the troops in Vietnam, and then this:
And I want to end the war for another reason. I want to end it so that the energy and dedication of you, our young people, now too often directed into bitter hatred against those responsible for the war, can be turned to the great challenges of peace, a better life for all Americans, a better life for all people on this earth.
So that’s the message for the unreasonable vocal minority: I want you to stop hating me, because then you can use that energy to support me. Does that work for you?
And so, tonight — to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support. I have chosen a plan for peace. I believe it will succeed. If it does succeed, what the critics say now won’t matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then won’t matter.
It did not succeed. And about ten days after the “silent majority” speech, the story of the March 1968 My Lai massacre broke, and we learned about what our soldiers had done, in the name of peace.
So that’s what’s going on inside, while underprivileged American children posed for photographs with TV’s Barnabas Collins. That big house on the great estate at Pennsylvania Avenue was filled with secrets, so much darker than anything they could possibly show on daytime television.
Meanwhile, Barnabas Collins has been making his own address to the young people of this nation, announcing the precipitate withdrawal of common sense from his television program. Dark Shadows has been drifting away from normal human reality for quite some time, and when the storyline returns to 1969 America in a few weeks, things get even more loopy and unreal.
When you look at Dark Shadows, a show that was at least partly marketed to middle schoolers, you have to ask: how did they get away with broadcasting all this murder and possession and Satan worship on daytime TV? Part of the answer is that real life was a lot scarier. The war was so horrifying that it made supernatural serial killer Barnabas Collins look like a happy Halloween spook.
Standing outside in the sun, the vampire bares his fangs with a benevolent smile, because everyone knows it’s just make-believe. The real monsters are inside.
Tomorrow: The Rape of Kitty Soames.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
At the end of Quentin and Pansy’s dance, a boom mic can be seen at the top of the frame.
Kitty asks “Petofi”, “Please — what will you call it — what will it cost you to do it?”
When he’s threatening Barnabas, Petofi says, “Hiding from the day, unable to speak, cringing at the darkness” — but he pronounces “cringing” as if it rhymed with “ringing”.
Footnotes:
Some of the info and pictures in today’s post comes from The Collinsport Historical Society, which has more pics and news articles.
And if you want more presidential Halloween facts, The White House Historical Association has a page on Halloween at the White House. There’s also a transcript of a 1972 conversation between Nixon and Haldeman about Tricia’s idea of allowing trick-or-treaters to come to the White House.
Tomorrow: The Rape of Kitty Soames.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
As a proud Canadian, was Frid tempted to burn the White House again?
Maybe it’s also lucky he wasn’t the target of “birthers.” (I guess that could could possibly happen with celebrity VISITORS to the place.)
That war went on much longer than Dark Shadows, and I drew a very low draft number while in high school (32, I think!) The only thing I’m grateful to Nixon for was ending the draft just in time. When I think about how crazy I felt as a teenager, this wacky resolution to 1897 made perfect sense at the time!
And dig that crazy music video! It took a lot of narrative zigzagging to justify Quentin/Petofi and Charity/Pansy dancing together and promoting the new hit single!
i wonder if David was using his regular, non Quentin/Petofi voice because it was a dream sequence or because he was just exhausted.
That’s the first time I’ve seen color photos of this event; they’re usually just in black and white. Thanks for finding and including them.
That dress Tricia is wearing is an eyeful in the color pics!
Purple, green and gold! It really looks like she’s ready for Mardi Gras!
But was the new single a hit? Or the other follow-ups to “Quentin’s Theme”, “Ode to Angelique” or “Joanna”?
No. Even the original Shadows of the Night was not a big hit. The Quentin’s Theme version that Charles Grean did was, peaking at #13.
When you look at Dark Shadows, a show that was at least partly marketed to middle schoolers, you have to ask: how did they get away with broadcasting all this murder and possession and Satan worship on daytime TV? Part of the answer is that real life was a lot scarier.
This helps explain why there are so many character deaths on Doctor Who these days. The body count is practically at the level of Greek tragedies!
Hindsight’s 20/20, but I wonder if Frid thought about publicly boycotting the event. No doubt he would’ve wound up on Nixon’s ‘enemies list’ and the show would have been cancelled shortly thereafter.
The complete absurdity of the petoffi/Quentin pansy/charity dance number begins to make sense in light of the back-log episode pressure on the writers. I can just picture it “ok, so we have all these events we’ve written and shot out of order- now we have a day where we didn’t plan for plot points, the actors are a bit tired and confused- I hear you declare us in need of any emergency dance number. One paragraph in a script- 5 or so minutes of plot time gone already!”
It’s my firm belief that every show needs an emergency dance number every once in a while.
(We had this really cute tap routine worked out for a production of Julius Caesar I was in, but the director wasn’t having it.)
The other part of the answer of why Dark Shadows got away with the content they had is that among the “responsible adults” who had no idea of what went on with the show were those who managed ABC.
There’s an interview with Leonard Goldberg, head of ABC daytime (the “bonus interview” on disc 53 of the coffin box), who tells of the time he was meeting with affiliates, and one day he’s with the ABC president and also the chairman of the board, who decide that because they’ve got an hour to kill that they’d like to watch some of their ABC daytime lineup. One of the shows they watch is Dark Shadows. Barnabas is seen on the terrace with a young woman and then bares his fangs. The chairman says that Barnabas has a strange face, which Goldberg denies. But the president agrees, commenting on his unusual teeth. Then Goldberg explains that Barnabas is a vampire. Dumbfounded, the chairman and president then cut the meeting short and leave abruptly without another word.
Before reiterating this story, Goldberg tells of how the show had gone from a 4 share to a 19 share in 1 year, and then indicates that this meeting with the president and chairman took place “2 years later”. So, as of 1969, the very people who ran the network had no idea what went on — they missed Nicholas Blair, Diablos, even zombie Jeremiah. They left Goldberg alone, and Goldberg trusted Dan Curtis to do what he wanted and to not violate broadcast standards.
Just one more reason why a phenomenon like Dark Shadows could only have happened once.
Thank you, Danny, for reminding us of the death and destruction that human monsters in the White House have caused the world in the past. It’s especially timely now, as one very scary orange monster is at the gate.
I do know that Grayson Hall was part of a Soap Opera Actors for Peace group that demonstrated against the Vietnam War. Someone blogged a pic of her at a demonstration. And in the fan mags of the time there’s a lot of significance placed on “love beads” and “peace” at it’s most Woodstock level.
Yeah, and I believe Selby Protested too.
Buzz Hackett was probably the lone voice in Collinsport protesting the war…
This is Nixon’s first year in office, he’s still on his Honeymoon. It wasn’t really until his second term when we learned of the many bizarre and mind-boggling plot twists taking place, in Washington DC.
Can’t remember when the nickname “tricky Dicky” Nixon appeared, but I do remember that Ronald Reagan was dubbed Ronald “Ray-Gun” around this time.
Tricky Dick was started in 1950 by Helen Gahagan Douglas because of all the dirty tricks he pulled in that election. Watergate was NOT an aberration, it was who the guy was at his core.
Thanks, I thought it had been around for a while. i never liked Nixon, I wanted Pat Paulsen in ’68.
I was ten in 1969; my mother was 40. We watched Dark Shadows together–we had from the beginning–so she knew perfectly well what was going on. It just wasn’t a problem. Television was a somewhat safer place than it is now, but we weren’t protected from it the way you’re apparently supposed to protect your kids now. Of course, growing up my mother walked to the movies by herself or with friends, and the only limit on what she saw was what came to the neighborhood theatres. There was no rating system.
Before the rating system, there was the Motion Picture Production Code.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
All movies were considered “safe” because there were heavy restrictions on how certain things were allowed to be shown at all.
True, all movies were considered safe, but most movies were also for grown ups.
There was also the Catholic Legion of Decency movie ratings. During this time period they had 3 ratings A=morally acceptable for everyone B=Morally objectionable in part and C=CONDEMNED. I had it on good authority that Catholic teenagers going out on a date would check the ratings and then go for the Condemned films. It was practically a rite of passage. Among the films that got the condemned label were Rosemary’s Baby (I understand that one) The Odd Couple (no clue) and Mel Brooks original version of The Producers (WTF!). Note, this comment might well get a C because of the F!
Also, a 1969 movie that is one of my guilty favorites – “The Damned” – made the condemned list. But, then, you knew from the title that it would, right?
I saw “The Producers” shortly after it came out (within 3 years) on tv. What it was doing on the afternoon movie program, I have no idea. My sister and I laughed so hard our mother actually asked what we were watching. There might have been parts that were slightly racy, but the first 20 minutes of that movie are the funniest scenes I have ever seen on film. Perhaps they were offended by the whole premise. There were some outraged reviews when it was released, I believe. They obviously didn’t get it.
Probably because of the openly gay characters.
“But responsible adults in 1969 don’t really know what Dark Shadows is actually like, because it airs on daytime TV, and nobody has a VCR.”
I’m sorry, but with all due respect, that is just sheer nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. You weren’t there in 1969. I was. My parents knew exactly what Dark Shadows was. So did the parents of my friends. My best friend’s Mom was an avid fan of the show – we used to watch it together. My Dad never saw an episode, but he knew what the show was about because he used to tell me about the Universal Monsters and encouraged me to watch those movies on the local TV’s “Creature Feature.” My parents made a cape for me for Halloween, I I could go “Trick or Treating” as Barnabas Collins. My parents knew exactly what the show was about.
You have repeated this fallacy over and over again, and frankly, I find it insulting. You must think parents like mine were sheer idiots and fools – that they let their kids watch the program, buy toys, and games, and bubblegum cards based on the show but have no idea what’s it’s about. Well, I’m calling B.S. on that ridiculous idea. They all knew exactly what it was about – they just didn’t have a problem with it because they understood it was just a TV fantasy show.
Good grief!
Okay, fair enough.
Completely agree, Sean – my Mom had the TV warmed up and was sitting on the couch waiting for me to get home from school so we could watch it together.
Same here. We were a Dark Shadows family. Mom and Dad loved it, and my younger brother and I watched with them. My dad was blue collar, so he got home by 4 most days, and that enabled him to see the show a lot when it moved to the 4 pm time slot. (My sis and baby brother were too young at the time—my sis was six when the show ended, and my brother was born in 1967. My sister only remembered a werewolf (Quentin) from the day.) I clearly remember the four of us watching together when Barnabas walled up Trask and all of us cheering! My parents totally knew what was going on! They even took us to a drive-in to see House of Dark Shadows! They had complaints about the movie (like it was so dark it was hard to see the action), but it had no effect on continuing to view the show because they knew the difference. My parents only had a high school education, and they are smart enough to be aware of everything that went on on DS. Mom was changing my baby brother’s diapers during the run, yet she was smart enough to understand it all as a stay at home mom. I’m sure many parents were just like them! Even parents who didn’t watch saw all the magazine covers and other publicity about the show and had some idea of what it was about. Only the fanatically religious or whatever had a problem with it and didn’t get it (like my husband’s mom and grandma—he had to sneak watch it).
Parents of the 1960s were not stupid and unaware!
I must strongly disagree with your blanket statements here, Sean. In the case of me and my sisters and friends, we raced home and went up to Grandma’s room and sat in there watching with the door closed while she sipped whiskey and smoked cigs till the air was blue. Our parents had no idea what Dark Shadows was until some time after the movie came out, just as Danny said. I’m glad for your positive experience but there’s no way the Catholic school kids like me could let on that we watched DS, much less dress up in costumes and get comics etc. for presents. Older siblings would buy those mags and we’d borrow or steal one, hiding it under the mattress or in a notebook and passing it around till it was in tatters. My BFF’s sister got a bunch of us into the movie, and I’m so glad I was able to see that before it all got shut down for us.
I’m envious and happy for you and others who were supported, or at least not denied this pleasure. But please don’t presume to speak for our entire generation. In strict Roman Catholic families like our community, there was zero tolerance for ANY mention of vampires, witches, zombies, or psychic anything, even astrology. And an evil clergyman? Get the hell outta here. The fallout was tremendous when it all came to light, as it were. That was MY personal experience and it’s a well documented fact that it was true for a great many others.
My parents were occasional viewers, but I know they were aware of the content. I remember DS was the 1st show that aired on our newly delivered color! (console!) tv. Joshua opened his son’s coffin in the secret room. My father laughed and remarked, “Barnabas needs new boots!” The soles of his boots looked a bit worn.
I know my 3rd grade teacher was aware of the show. She started calling me Barnabas after seeing my drawings of the characters, whom she recognized instantly.
I remember buying Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein, and being very disappointed. The jokes were very stupid, corny, and childish, even to my third grade sensibilities. What passed for humor in the Burton-Depp-Smith debacle brought back the same feeling, only worse. It was bad enough being ripped off for the 50 cent book; they wasted millions bringing it to the big screen!
Right on! 😊
Whether anybody cares or not, my one-sided and losing war with the team of closed-caption writers heats up with recent episodes. One or more of the captioners is riffing on Pansy’s signature song, “I’m Gonna Dance with You” and making up their own lyrics instead of reporting what is actually sung. This continues in today’s episode in which the show came up with new, squeeky-clean lyrics. At least the new lyrics sung by Quentin and Pansy rhyme. Can’t say the same for the lyrics the captioner made up to go with the audio!
See what I did? I conflated the two titles, “I’m Gonna Dance For You” with “I Wanna Dance With You.” For an example of how the captioner screwed up the rhyme, “Wanna dance my cares away” should rhyme with “In your arms I’ll always stay,” but it is instead transcribed as “In your arms I’ll always dance.” Now there is a good thing that could turn into a nightmare a la the “Red Shoes” or “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”
I noticed this, too. The audio quality of that scene was terrible, but in my opinion that’s no excuse! Why would they think ‘dance’ instead of ‘stay’? It doesn’t even rhyme! Perhaps these caps are at least partly rendered by speech recognition software, but I’m more inclined to believe it’s someone young and dumb who doesn’t really care. There have been a few episodes–a very few mind you–in which the captions were so perfectly on point from beginning to end that I noticed that, too, and said to myself, okay who transcribed this one and why can’t they be the one to do it all the time?
Forget about magic hands and mirror-born doppelgangers- the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen on DS was that “Dance of the Meissen Figurines” bit. Complete with the “psychedelic” effects, I was expecting more deconstruction of this aberrant fugue state in today’s episode write-up. For one thing, Petofi is a Mozart man; this dancehall tune cum sentimental waltz is pure schmaltz.
Fifty years on, I now realize that “1897” went off the rails just like some of the other arcs did.
Since the first two days of this week made a big hullabaloo about the date October 28, 1969, we should mention that October 29, 1969 was not only the original airdate of this episode, but was also the date of the first electronic message sent between two remote-networked computers. Little did anyone know how important such messaging would prove for the afterlife of Dark Shadows!
It’s actually “When the Saints GO Marching In”, not Come Marching In. Perhaps your source wrote it incorrectly.
Very interesting about Barnabas’ visit to the White House especially with such a terrible President. I like that you made mention that nothing happening on DS could compare to the evil going on in the real world.
That dream of Pansy’s was so strange! I wasn’t sure I understood what all the effects were about other than just an opportunity to use them.
This was a good episode for girl power. Kitty tells Barnabas to pack up his romantic fantasies and hit the road and Pansy just walks out on Petofi’s hand.