Halloween is just a few days away. To kids, that means just a few more days and then they can go out and collect free candy. To adults, that means just a few more days to get out to the store to buy candy to give out to the kids. But I digress. Halloween used to be a time to dress up with homemade costumes and go door-to-door, or go to neighborhood or school parties, and it was a time to scare each other. Today, Halloween is second only to Christmas in terms of commercialism. Now you have to pay to get scared at one of the many professional haunted houses or other haunted attractions. Or you can get scared for free every other week like I do, when I go to the bank and see my checkbook balance. Back in the day, you could get scared on a weekly basis by watching the awesome "Fright Night" or "Twilight Zone", and if you were home during the day, you could even get scared on a daily basis by watching the scarey soap "Dark Shadows." But those days are gone. Now, the scariest TV series are on Fox News.
"Fright Night" was a local show that came on every Saturday night in the early 70's. It was hosted by the very scary "Fearmonger." The Fearmonger would introduce the movies, which was a double feature, and during some of the commercial breaks, he would tell very bad jokes. But he was scary. During this time period, a show like this on an independant TV channel was almost guaranteed to fail; it was competing with "All In The Family." But in Louisville, the show ran for five seasons. My favorite movie from "Fright Night" was without a doubt "Cape Canaveral Monsters." To this day, I still get creeped out when I remember how the aliens looked in that movie.
"Dark Shadows" was another good show, even though I couldn't watch it because I was in school. And on days when I was home, I had to watch "Days Of Our Lives" with Grandma and couldn't watch "Dark Shadows." But now, thanks to cable TV and video, I can watch it any time I want. The star of the show was a vampire named Barnabas Collins. I have to say he was probably the scariest vampire I've seen.
1 comment:
It was so scary when Fearmonger put the flashlight under his chin and the light shined up on him. I would NEVER watch Fright Night alone; only if I had a friend or cousin sleeping over. Too scary.
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