Tales From the Darkside (1 Viewer)

[bigshot]

I picked up the complete series set of Tales From the Darkside at Amazon when it was on sale. The image quality is pretty terrible, but I'm guessing it was shot on 16mm and finished on tape. But the show itself is fantastic. Great scripts and amazing actors. It reminds me quite a bit of the British series Tales of the Unexpected. I wonder if that was the model for the series?

 

[Alf S]

That show always amused me back in the day. I didn't watch every episode that I recall, but did tune insemi-regularly.


Side note, this show is how a buddy of mine got his first big Hollywood break back in the day. On a whim one college break summer while we worked at some blah summer job he started dabbling in writing for TV (was studying cinema at college) so he came up with a silly idea for a story for this show and submitted it in as I recall a black envelope to distinguish his mail from others in the script pile (LOL) and before he knew it, the show contacted him and said they liked his story and were going to create an episode out of it. He said it was a of fun and he was able to keep some of the props as a soveneir (sp) and from that point on he forged on to make a really great career writing for Disney and other companies out there.


His epsiode was the one in which a woman who is desparate to lose weight orders special glasses from some mail order company. She puts them on and realizes that she can now see that all the food is alive and none of them want to be eaten so she slowly freaks out and pretty much decides she can no longer eat because she doesn't want the food to "die". LOL

 

[Lord Dalek]

The concept behind Tales from the Darkside was "Creepshow: The Series." Basically a way for George Romero to make his own original versions of those old EC Comics he read as a lad. Even the title and original logo is meant to evoke something like Tales from the Crypt. The most unnerving thing about the show is, of course, the infamous opening title sequence in which shots of serene rural Pennsylvania are made eerily unpleasant by a scary narrator and THAT MUSIC (tm). More often than not, the intro was scarier than the episodes themselves (which could be pretty silly at times).

The DVD set is rather unfortunate. Few episodes have their original background music intact due to CBS' poor licensing habits of the time. The video quality is also pretty awful, but that's more of a vintage production issue than the fault of CBS Video. TftD looked terrible even in 1983-1984.

I'd love for another company (like Shout!) to put out the original uncut versions of these episodes but it doesn't look like that'll happen any time soon. Oh well.

 

[Darby67]

A complete series release is possibly coming on 9/20/16: http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Tales-Darkside-The-Complete-Series/22389

 

[Dave Lawrence]

I recall reading reviews of the individual seasons that the music was replaced on many of the episodes, as referenced in Joel's post above. Since it sounds like this will just be a repackaging of the same material into one set, this new set would still have the replacement tracks.

Does anyone know if the music was also changed on the Region 2 set from Revelation Films?

 

[AndyMcKinney]

I recall reading reviews of the individual seasons that the music was replaced on many of the episodes, as referenced in Joel's post above. Since it sounds like this will just be a repackaging of the same material into one set, this new set would still have the replacement tracks.

Does anyone know if the music was also changed on the Region 2 set from Revelation Films?

I suppose that rather depends on what kind of masters were supplied to Revelation, whether they got a set of original studio masters to do their PAL set from, or whether they just did a standards conversion of the US DVD dupe masters.

 

[Darby67]

More info on the complete series release: http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Tales-Darkside-The-Complete-Series/22421

 

[Lord Dalek]

Once again Paramount goes with the less iconic original logo and the monster from In The Closet. Well can't say they aren't consistant.

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

TALES from the DARKSIDE

Complete Series

Some online listings out there list a recent re-issue released in August

Anyone know if it comes in a new style case? Or just the same with a possible big slipcover?

Thanks for any info

 

[jcroy]

TALES from the DARKSIDE

Complete Series

Some online listings out there list a recent re-issue released in August

Anyone know if it comes in a new style case? Or just the same with a possible big slipcover?

Thanks for any info

(Not TftD specifically).

ViacomCBS has re-released some of their older complete series sets, with slightly different packaging. I suspect it might be the actual giant case itself.

Awhile back I picked up the re-released Streets of San Francisco complete series set, which was relesed about a year ago. It was a giant box which had "pages" with two spindles per page. Each spindle could hold as many as three discs stacked on top of one another. (The Madam Secretary complete series set also used a similar giant box of this type).

The older giant cases used by Paramount, had pages with two sides. Each "page side" held two discs.

 

[jcroy]

If ViacomCBS is using this "newer" case design for this re-released verison of TftD complete series set, then I suspect they will be using a smaller version which holds two discs stacked per spindle. (IIRC, TftD was a 12 disc set).

I encountered this smaller version case in the Suits complete series set (released late last year by Universal). It had two of these cases.

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

UPDATE:

I ordered from Bullmoose the set listed as August 2020 release (about 25.00ish)

It is smaller than the previous complete set.

this set, slipcover is shrinkwrapped and contains to standard clear DVD size cases with 2 seasons within each case. So tighter and less bulky than the previous thicker set that usually caused issued with broken hinges etc.

 

[jcroy]

UPDATE:

I ordered from Bullmoose the set listed as August 2020 release (about 25.00ish)

It is smaller than the previous complete set.

this set, slipcover is shrinkwrapped and contains to standard clear DVD size cases with 2 seasons within each case. So tighter and less bulky than the previous thicker set that usually caused issued with broken hinges etc.

If this newer version of TftD is legit, then I suspect ViacomCBS has been getting back too many returns of defective copies (ie. too many scratched discs, missing/wrong discs, etc ...).

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

If this newer version of TftD is legit, then I suspect ViacomCBS has been getting back too many returns of defective copies (ie. too many scratched discs, missing/wrong discs, etc ...).

It’s legit. The discs are identical to the single season sets a friend has. Its just a smaller repackage.

 

[jcroy]

These most annoying thing about these Paramount/CBS ViacomCBS complete series sets in these giant cases, is how the quality control has been less than stellar.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

Just picked up the complete series set and am having a blast going through it, haven’t seen it since its original run when I was a teen. Watched the first disc of season 1 so far. Such a gem of a show, holds up wonderfully. So glad I picked this up.