“He’s the one who made the raven rave.”
I’m away this week, probably in Bangor or Boston or someplace. But if I leave you alone for too long, you’ll probably invite clumsy occult experts over and let them wander about the house, waving their hands in the air and talking about the letter M.
So in lieu of actual episode posts this week, I’m filling in with selections from Paperback Library’s novelty joke book, Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein.
“Barnabas’ sheets are made of…”
I’m away this week, but I don’t want you to think that I’m dead, so I’ve prepared some posts in advance. Please do not bury me alive. Or if you do, at least put me in an open casket with a little doorbell next to my hand, just in case I want something.
But honestly, I would prefer it if you just didn’t think I was dead at all. Is that really too much to ask?
“Because that’s where the blood is.”
I’m out of the country this week — it’s one of those “He dropped out of school, alienated all of his friends, started going off to the mountains for weeks at a time” type situations. But if I leave you all alone, you’ll wander off to the west wing and start talking into broken telephones, so instead I’m going to leave you with selections from the February 1969 Paperback Library effort, Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein.
My theory is that this is better than nothing. That theory is looking pretty shaky already.
“Dig the groovy new humor craze that’s sweeping the country!”
I have to take a week off, I’m afraid, because I’m out of town at a conference. Plus, I’ve finally moved past the “writing about Ron Sproat” phase of my life, so it’s a good time to take a moment and reflect.
But I can’t just leave you with nothing to read all week, so instead of episodes, I’m going to post excerpts from Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein. Allow me to explain.
Continue reading X1: What Does Barnabas Say After He Bites a Girl?
“It is tragic that your Greta is so deformed, for she really could play the role of Josette to perfection.”
It’s a Ron Sproat script today, which means that Carolyn’s still stuck in the root cellar, and so are we. So I’m going to invoke my executive privilege to ignore a filler episode, and talk about something else instead.
It’s time to start looking at the Dark Shadows merchandise, because this is the period where it becomes a real factor in the audience’s experience of the show. While this episode was being taped, Jonathan Frid was on a completely insane ten-city publicity tour, where he was besieged by literally thousands of screaming teenagers who were desperate to get closer to Barnabas, and the show. Recognizing that these kids have allowances, ABC started to tap into that market, with some success.
The first piece of Barnabas-related merchandise was released in May 1968, just in time for the publicity tour. It’s a 155-page book called The Curse of Collinwood, and it’s the fifth in the series of Dark Shadows-inspired romance novels published by Paperback Library. The Curse of Collinwood has a picture of Barnabas on the cover, and it sells spectacularly well.
Unfortunately, Barnabas isn’t actually in The Curse of Collinwood, which is about Vicki and therefore not worth discussing, so we’re going to talk about the next book instead.
Dark Shadows Every Day 