Tales from the Darkside

Tales from the Darkside is an American horror anthology television series created by George A. Romero.<ref name="sagar">Template:Cite web</ref> A pilot episode was first broadcast on October 29, 1983. The series was picked up for syndication, and the first season premiered on September 30, 1984. The show would run for a total of four seasons, until its cancelation on July 24, 1988.

The series spans various genres of speculative fiction, including science fiction and fantasy in addition to horror, and many episodes have darkly comic elements.

Production

Template:More citations needed section The movie Creepshow was released in 1982. It was based on the EC horror comic books of the 1950s, such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. In light of the film’s moderate success, its producer, Laurel Entertainment, decided to explore the potential for a television series based on the feature. However, Warner Bros. had the rights to some elements of Creepshow. Laurel chose to move forward with a series that omitted aspects of the movie that were owned by Warner Bros. The result was Tales from the Darkside, which explored the same themes as Creepshow, but discarded the framing device and other elements that were based directly on the comics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Some episodes were adapted from the works of well-known authors, or written by the authors themselves. Stories or teleplays by Frederik Pohl, Harlan Ellison,<ref name="sagar"/> Clive Barker,<ref name="sagar"/> Michael Bishop, Robert Bloch, John Cheever, Michael McDowell, and Fredric Brown were used over the course of the series. Two episodes, "Word Processor of the Gods"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and "Sorry, Right Number",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> were based on short stories by Stephen King. The latter was adapted for television by King himself.

The show had a low budget, and often utilized only a single set or location throughout entire episodes, similar to a stage play.<ref name="news"/> It was a bi-coastal production, with some episodes being shot in New York and others in California.<ref name="news"/>

Opening and closing sequences

In the vein of previous anthology series The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, each episode opens with a montage and an unseen narrator. Several bucolic scenes are shown, followed by a slow pan through a forest filled with barren trees, which in turn yields to a fence-lined path through a meadow. This last shot fades into a black-and-white negative image as the series title appears.

The closing credits are displayed against the final, negative image of the opening.

The narration is performed by Paul Sparer, and was written by Romero. The opening and closing themes are performed by Donald Rubinstein, who co-wrote the music with Erica Lindsay.

The entire opening sequence of the show was filmed outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, not far from where George Romero filmed most of his movies in the 70s and early 80s. Romero was familiar with the area because he had lived there for many years and scouted numerous filming locations when he went into producing the Tales From the Darkside TV series. The bridge location used to be called Deihls Bridge, but is now known as Turner's Bridge. Some of the forest footage and the creek flowing over the rocks was filmed in Clear Creek State Forest just north of Pittsburgh. Other filming locations such as the farm, the fields, and the road with the old wooden fence were filmed in or around Boswell, PA and Ligonier, PA. However, much of that area has changed dramatically since the opening was shot in 1983.

Episodes

Season		Episodes	Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
	Pilot	1	October 29, 1983	October 29, 1983
	1	23	September 30, 1984	August 4, 1985
	2	24	September 29, 1985	July 13, 1986
	3	22	September 28, 1986	May 17, 1987
	4	20	September 27, 1987	July 24, 1988

Broadcast and rights

In its initial run, LBS Communications distributed Tales from the Darkside in first-run syndication through the barter deal method. It aired on both independent stations and local network affiliates, typically being shown in late night timeslots.<ref>https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/146384011/</ref> Despite being a low budget syndicated show with little promotion, it managed to outperform higher profile network anthology shows from this period. These include Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories and the 1985 Twilight Zone revival, which both debuted on major networks in primetime while Tales from the Darkside was airing in syndication.<ref name="news">https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/09/arts/success-of-tales-from-the-darkside.html</ref>

Distribution rights later passed to Worldvision Enterprises after Aaron Spelling Productions acquired Worldvision Enterprises and Laurel Productions in 1989. The rights are currently held by CBS Media Ventures, a subdivision of Paramount Global, due to CBS's absorption of Aaron Spelling Productions in the latter part of the 1990s. Paramount had handled the theatrical distribution of the 1990 Tales from the Darkside movie (which was one of Laurel Entertainment's last productions), although this was still several years before they inherited the rights to the show through CBS's absorption of Aaron Spelling Productions.

Home video

The series was released on VHS with the episodes' original music. Later DVD releases altered or omitted some of this music.

Paramount Home Entertainment, through CBS Home Entertainment (sister company to Spelling Television, the successor to Laurel), released the series on DVD, beginning on February 10, 2009. The company rereleased the complete series on Region 1 DVD in 2018. British company Revelation Films sublicensed it from CBS/Paramount, and released the entire series on DVD in Region 2 in 2013. In Region 4 (Australia) the show was released on DVD by CBS/Paramount, in association with local distributor Shock. The series has never been released on Blu-Ray, likely due to the poor quality of the footage from the original master tapes.

Title	Episodes	Release dates
		Region 1	Region 2
The First Season	24	February 10, 2009	November 21, 2011
The Second Season	24	October 27, 2009	February 20, 2012
The Third Season	22	April 27, 2010	May 7, 2012
The Final Season	22 (2 unaired)	October 19, 2010	August 6, 2012
The Complete Series	92 (2 unaired)	October 19, 2010	October 28, 2013

An audio commentary by Executive Producer George A. Romero on the pilot episode, "Trick or Treat", as well as two unaired eplsodes, "Akhbar's Daughter" and "Attic Suite", are cited on the cover of the DVD.

Awards and nominations

Young Artist Awards

Year	Award
1987	Exceptional Performance by a Young Actor, Guest Starring in a Television, Comedy or Drama Series – Scooter Stevens – nominated
1987	Exceptional Performance by a Young Actress, Guest Starring in a Television, Comedy or Drama Series – Tanya Fenmore – nominated

Writers Guild of America, USA

Year	Award
1988	Anthology Episode/Single Program – John Harrison (as John Sutherland) – nominated

Subsequent series and movie

Tales from the Darkside executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein and his company Laurel would go on to make the horror anthology series Monsters, which premiered in 1988 and ran for three seasons,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as well as Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, which was released theatrically in 1990.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A sequel to the film was announced, but never made.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In November 2013, it was reported that Joe Hill, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci were developing a reboot of the series for The CW, with CBS Television Studios.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2014, Hill said that he would serve as creative director, and guide the show. Added Hill, "Darkside is a loose reboot ... It tells stories about different characters. It also tells an ongoing story. I love the original Tales From The Darkside, The Outer Limits, and The Twilight Zone, but I think in a post-X-Files world there's really no room for a straight anthology show. There has to be more. I like stories that work like puzzle boxes, every episode is turning another facet. We have something a little like that in Darkside ... every episode is a different story but three or four episodes in, you're going, 'Wait a minute, these parts actually all go together, don't they?'"

In February 2014, The CW gave the reboot a pilot order. Shooting began on March 19 and wrapped on April 4. The CW did not pick up the series, however. It then was offered to other networks unsuccessfully.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In other media

The book Tales from the Darkside: Volume One, published in 1988, consisted of stories and episode novelizations.

Scripts written by Hill for the proposed reboot were adapted into a four-issue comic book series published in June 2016, followed by a collection of scripts in book form in October 2016. Both the comics and the book were released by IDW Publishing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• 1984 in television
• Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
• Tales from the Crypt (TV series)
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• Goosebumps (1995 TV series)

External links

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