Source-Paramount DVD
Right before X-mas in 1984 I saw my first episode of Tales from the Darkside. Airing Saturday nights at 11pm on ABC,this 30 minute syndicated horror anthology show was pretty much Creepshow the tv series.
The first episode I saw was "A Bad Case of the Stubborns". Starring a teenage looking Christian Slater and a pre Star Trek Next Gen and Night Court Brent Spiner,this is a well done dark humor tale. Christian plays a teen who lives in a small rural town with his mother and his grandfather. One day the grandfather dies. But before the local mortician can come get the body,Grandpa sits up and goes down stairs. He doesn't believe he is dead. Even after confronted what lots of proof. So after a few weeks,in which Grandpa has started to rot and smell,the mother sends Christian to see the town witch. The witch gives the young man a powder. Tells him to put in in Grandpa's napkin and it will solve their issues. Like most episodes of Darkside we get a well done humorous ending.
In this first season there is a few other episodes that stand out for me. Like "Word Processor of the Gods", This episode is based on a Stephen King short story that was first published in Playboy magazine,see people there really is decent stuff to read in Playboy. And then later on published in the King short story collection Skeleton Crew. Our lead is married to a horrible wife. And has a hellion of a son. His brother on the other hand is married to a great woman and has a smart and caring son. Sadly the brother and his family all die in a tragic car accident. After their funeral our lead finds out that his now dead nephew was making him a present. This was back in the early 80s. When people used word processors instead of computers. So the nephew has Macguyvered together a word processor for his favorite Uncle. The Uncle doubts it will even work. By looking at it he can tell some of its parts come from a Lionel Train set,btw I never got the train set I asked Santa for when I was 5. He turns it on and is surprised that it does indeed work. After messing around with it for a bit he learns that it quickly overheats. So he turns it off. It isn't until later that he learns it has special powers. When every you use the insert button it causes whatever you inserted to become true. So he types something about their being a bag of gold on the floor near him. He hits insert and the bag appears. Of course he wonders if the opposite will work, Do he deletes his message about the bag of gold. Which causes it to disappear. Once again the machine overheats and he shuts it off. All this time his wife and son are treating him horrible. He wonders if maybe he can use this so called word processor of the Gods to replace his horrible wife and kid with his dead brother's wife and kid. And in one of the rare occasions we get a happy ending to an episode.
The first season has 24 twenty odd minute episodes divided over 3 dvds. I heard reviews when this set came out about how bad the picture is. It might just be my eyes,but watching these episodes they look decent to me. I am pretty sure this series was filmed on video. So there is only so much cleaning up they can do. The only extra on the set is a commentary from the Godfather of the modern Zombie movie George Romero. He talks about the first episode which he directed. It would be nice if there was more extras. And when this came out it was kind of expensive. That and the reviews talking about how bad the picture is are the reasons why I didn't buy it until I found it for $10 back in 2008. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 DVD set gets a B-.
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