All right, listen up, Caves, I got your assignments, riga six
four three wheeler one four eight not eight oh four, and only you you
need to join host HP and fatherm Alone as they examine one of the greatest
sitcoms in television history, Taxi in Knight, Mister Walters, a taxi podcast
banda zero like your boxing record, Frank, mister Walters, we are giving
way. We deal a eight pigure, light and shine, realism, surrealism,
impressionism, edibles, storage, an interest in the d blog, a
pred of lunch toward the desire. And this place is nothing if it isn't
bizarre. There's no admission, no require membership, only a stronger the flight
of belief than the dark at the top of the stairs or things that go
bump in the night. The name of this place you would commend your accidentally
out of the rank is the Nightgown. And welcome back ourt lovers to Midnight
Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast, where we discuss Night Gallery, Rod Serling's follow
up to the Twilight Zone. I'm Father Malone and with me here in the
gallery are the projection booths. Mike White, ohay hoy and joining us as
always as the culture cast Chris Statue, and I'm joined by my daughter Jenny.
Jenny, please say hi to everybody. Oh Jenny, you're looking very
lovely today. This is probably the most celebrated, talked about, written about,
remembered episode of Night Gallery to its initial audience, syndicated as well.
Probably it is season two, episode twenty two. It aired on March the
first, nineteen seventy two, and was split into two segments. Those are
The Caterpillar and the Little Girl Lost. There are horror stories and horror stories
elements of terror that take myriad forms, but this item has a built in
terror which can refrigerate even the most dispassionate amongst us. It has to do
with a little beastie known as an earwig, a small bug that crawls into
the human ear, and while inside it doesn't whisper sweet nothings, it performs
quite another function. Over do you now on Night Gallery a brand new nightmare,
which we call the Caterpillar. The Caterpillar was written by Rod Serling from
a short story called Boomerang by Oscar Cook, which is a better title,
and it was directed by Jean Zoarc who I think this might be his best
direction of the entire series, maybe his career. This one stars Lawrence Harvey,
Joanna Pettitt. This is her third of four appearances on Night Gallery,
Tom Hellmore, John Williams this is his second appearance, and Don Knight as
a He's a professional English scumbag. This guy was on every television show including
Banichick, including Colombo. In Swamp Thing, the Trader is pricked that Australian
traders prick. That's him, But I mainly know him from abandoning three adorable
children and then just when Bill Bixby and Susan Clark have them settled into a
comfortable life, he thinks he can swoop in and rip them away for what
money? How dare you separate the Apple Dumpling Gang? Anyway, this is
a tale of jealousy and borneo and a most elaborate and simple plan with which
to woo a prospective mate, Mike, what do you think of this one?
Shouldn't it really be called the Earwig? Can we? That was really
bothering me now all the problems in the episode. That's the dumbest one.
Like Like Boomerang is a perfect title for it. Mean it means just as
much as a caterpillar, because neither feature in the episode at all. Yeah,
yeah, it would have been nice if something. But yeah, I
must have either seen this or seen one of the countless adaptations of this story
or this feels like a It's like a campfire tale, right, this whole
thing. We took out the thing, but the thing laid babies. And
I think I heard Spider when I first heard this story. Okay, cool,
but that was well done. I really like the Lawrence Harvey. I
find it very funny because Chris, we're going to be talking abou Lawrence Harvey
again this week, So like Lawrence harveying all over the place right now,
which is great. Yeah, but it was just like a blackout skit that
was stretched very long. Again, but better than most of these ones that
we've talked about lately. They're going out on a high note. How about
you, Chris? You know Father Malone. You and I used to do
a show about Tales from the Crypt, and I think that this is in
that wheelhouse. There are a couple episodes of that show that I can remember
back. I want to say one there's a woman with her head and she's
a zombie, and then there's a guy's head on a plate and they're in
like Jamaica or something, and it's to be careful what you wish for type
thing where he's a jilted lover or something. So I'm I love it.
I love the bunch of these studgy British dickens in Bonio, like I love
that. It's fantastic. The setting is great. I don't think they take
too much advantage of it because it feels rather set bound, unfortunately, because
it takes place inside of this plantation house with Lawrence Harvey just being horned up
big time, like an erection popping through his fucking pants, Like the moment
he sees her, and it's just like she to her credit, she is
like hell no, Johanna Pettit is like hell no from moment one, which
is interesting because normally in these kinds of stories, there's like this in the
air up in the airness about the female character's feelings towards the unrequited male love.
She's like, go take a cold shower, an ice your dick,
bro I wrote in my notes finally a love triangle story where there aren't two
people who are wrong right, And I absolutely loved that aspect of this because
this, honestly, Father Blah, feels like the crescendo moment of having spent
all those years watching Tales from the Crypt and they just kept doing that shit
over and over again. You have to have one of the people on the
love triangle say no at some point, and it totally works here. It
was very fresh. It was fresh, and the title is terrible. Yes,
both things we can agree on. Oscar Cook, the author of the
short story, apparently was in the military in Borneo wrote a lot of stories
that took place there, which is why it's set here. And and himself
said that this is a parable for rich White entitlement, that Lawrence Harvey's character
is just this wealthy guy who just wants what he wants and he's gonna take
it no matter what I do. Like that. Lawrence Harvey is one year
away from death here. He has stomach cancer. He's in the throes of
it here, and evidently during the scenes when the earwig is eating his brain
did not take his pain medication for that day of filming. So what you're
seeing is actual genuine torment of Lawrence Harvey that, coupled with the makeup is
fantastic. Here. If you look at his ear, you can see that
the hair all around the area has been scratched off. You can see where
his nails have gouged at his own ears, thus necessitating him being tied to
that bed. I thought that was really hard to watch and therefore really good.
Also, he's wearing some fantastic button up boots when we first meet him.
They were beautiful. The music in this episode was handled by a new
composer to Night Gallery. His name's Eddie Sauter. If you listen close in
the background, there's an electric sitar and a marimba and these electronic squeaks.
It's fantastic. Eddie Saunter used to be an arranger for Artie Shaw, Tommy
Dorsey and the Benny Goodman Orchestra, and he will be providing the new theme
for Night Gallery that we have with season three. In fact, Eddie Saunter
will compose all of the music from here on out for Night Gallery. Yeah
right. I mentioned that I think this is Juark's best segment, is best
directed segment. I agree, Chris. This is a bottle episode. It
is definitely a one location episode, but I don't think it's set bound at
all. I think it's beautifully shot, very carefully lit and photographed. There's
a shot where there's a wooden scrim on the left side of the screen and
Lawrence Harvey and the husband's heads are both floating above it, and Joanna Pettitt
steps into the frame on the right full frame, So these two floating heads
of these two characters who want her, and then Harvey has that super creepy
line that his appetite is increasing while he's staring at her. The camera slides
to the left. The husband is now gone, it's now Joanna Pennitt and
Harvey in the frame together and in the background behind them are rifles and pistols.
It's it's a beautiful shots. He should have been nominated for an Emmy
for this thing. The day after the earwig has been inserted into the wrong
ear or was it the right ear, everyone at breakfast is dressed like George
Ramira. They're all wearing the Safari jackets. It was so distracting for me
because I know George Romia is just kind of wear that as a uniform,
and I know that's exactly what everyone would be wearing in Borneo at this time
period. But it was still a bit unsettling. Okay, the Don Williams
character, I said, was it the wrong ear of the right ear?
Because do you think it's possible with that character intentionally had the earput heard the
earwig put into Lawrence Harvey's ear, like hearing his plan and what he was
doing. I thought that for a little bit, but I wondered that too.
But that scene where he's like, oh, sorry, they put it
in the wrong I paid some times, like fucking the most British guy around
everybody, he had a fucking eel pie hanging out of his mouth, for
f's sake. I love that scene. You figured that out, Yeah,
you figured it out a Britain. I am him, like, but I
but there's like in that scene shirks conventions too, because I'm expecting him to
show up at the window and be like, you know, tough shit,
asshole, but he's like, I'm sorry, So I don't know. I
don't think. I think he was genuinely an accident and he feels bad because
that scene's like now you say it's moving, but a couple that with Lawrence
Harvey just going and like making the noises like you feel for both of the
characters in the scene, which is not something I can say for a lot
of the segments in Night Gallery. So I kind of feel like it was
an accident just based on that one scene alone. What's funny is I hadn't
considered that it was intentionally put into Laurence Harvey's here until he comes up to
apologize, and then I thought, he's really contrite about this. Did he
do this? And now he feels bad because he's seeing the results of it.
I don't know. Maybe I was working overtime on this one, but
at least this particular segment begs these kind of questions and are conversation's worth having.
Also, you mentioned the lighting in some of the scenes. The scene
where they're in the bar and it's the first time that Lawrence Harvey and mister
Britton meet with his hat and it's lit really darkly except for Lawrence Harvey's eyes.
Yeah, that's called a halo eyelight, which Jean Jean Zik here like
he uses on Lawrence Harvey at every opportunity. And why wouldn't you Lawrence Harvey's
faces. Look, I know he's sick here, but what a face,
man. He always had those cheek bones and that gaunt, stony kind of
stare. This is a guy who too often, in my opinion, got
cast as a hero in movies, and that's what kept him from getting further,
I think, because if you cast him as a villain, he's fucking
aces man, just like you see him here. That's why he was perfect
in mentoring because he didn't know is he this or is he bad? Like
everybody's fawning over him. But you know something's that right? I love his
eyebrow raises. It's the eyebrow raises. I mean it's his eyeline really,
it's that tease zone area. But those eyebrows, man, he's like he
can do like a John Philip Law eyebrow raise like he he would be the
American diabolic. That's exactly. I could not put my finger on who he
was reminding me of, but yes, John Philip Law. Holy lord.
Here's here's a fun fact that ruins the entire episode. There are no pain
receptors in the brain. But other than that, I really really liked it,
which is a fact. This is an episode I knew about long before
I had ever seen it, because Stephen King chronicles it in his book Dance
Macabre his his fiction Book of Horror from nineteen seventy nine or so, where
he kind of he kind of lays into the series as not being anything very
good, but he singles this particular episode out as even the highest level of
horror that he thought the series would ever get to. Yes, yeah,
I can see, I would agree. Well, we haven't seen the rest
of the season or the series, so that doesn't boat Will. But the
Master of Horror. There's so many books at half price, books with Ks
on them that are just even King and no other horror writer, so he
must be right. I hope not. But at the same time, I
mean, this is I guess this is scary. I don't know. I
don't to sit and think about. The ending. Is the ending of this
scary ending? He's just gonna die, that's it. Like he's just gonna
his head's gonna explode and he's gonna die. Oh is that all? We
watched him with one in his ear, writhing and not being able to vocalize
at all from the horrendous amount of pain he was enduring. And now he's
going to have at least a dozen or so more of them in there.
Yeah, and they'll kill him right. The only ending for him is a
pistol, right, just take it off of the wall. That be too
good for ye, may you'll have to sit in and do all the pain.
Here's what I really liked. He goes through this entire ordeal. It's
a miracle. John Williams shows up to tell us that the ear would came
out to the other ear, and then Laurence Tarvey immediately reverts to being a
cocksucker in the face. Miracle. Yes, oh so in this case this
come up and still absolutely genuinely earned. You're going to have me arrested at
the dock, aren't you? No, we're not oh so good? Yeah.
Yeah, there were some good bits to this definitely, but like I
said, it just felt a little long. I guess it was those writhing
and pain scenes, Like it felt like it just went on for a long
time. If you've watched the recent one, this is probably the one off
of the DVD that the episode is thirty three minutes, But that's technically like
a director's cut, because when it was originally aired, I think like six
minutes were cut out of it. So we definitely got to see the full
length of maybe had we seen the original and what ended up on syndication version.
Like a lot of our problems might have gone away with the episode.
Our next painting, A Knight Gallery, tells the story of an illusion,
an invisible specter which guides and motivates and drives. And though you will never
see her as Childish Wraith, you'll know she's there, and we venture to
suggest that you'll be chilled by the knowledge. Our painting is called Little Girl
Lost. Little Girl Lost. This was written by Stanford Whitmore, based on
a short story by Richard Matheson. Oh No, that was the Twilight Zone.
Little Girl Lost, That's what I was written by a short story written
by author E. C. Tubb. It was directed by Timothy Galfuss,
stars Tim Riley himself, mister William Wyndham, ed Nelson I, Franti Ivor
Francis and the painting, which is a beautiful painting. At the beginning of
this ethereal ghostly small girl floating in a negative space. That's Chanelle, right,
Tom Wright's daughter. She's the model for that when she was also the
model for the boy who predicted earthquakes. She had I don't even really have
a description of this story. This is a you guys want to describe this
one, Well, it's very appropriate that we started with the boy who predicted
earthquakes this season then ending with this one. It really feels if I didn't
know better, it feels like they had a plan and that these were the
perfect book ends for this whole season. But can I described the plot?
No? I really cannot tell you what the central stuff was hinging on.
Chris. I know you said he watched these three times each. What the
hell is going on with this? Okay? So we have a scientific genius
who is being tasked with developing fission or fusion I guess fission, right,
and his daughter dies, and so the guy starts losing it because he is
imagining his daughter, and another scientist is sent in to be a confederate as
it were, and say, oh, I see her. She's here.
And that's why I did the whole intro the way. I was like,
Hey, Jenny's here, because that's the girl's name in the segment. And
then it turn guess I could just say what happens, And then it turns
out that he is telling them the wrong thing intentionally because he wants to literally
fucking destroy the world. So that he can die and maybe not the world
but himself at least in a sizable portion of people around him, so that
he can die and go be with his daughter and his wife, who he
knew weren't actually there. And he did this all on purpose because he felt
guilty and he was stalling to come up with a way to make it intentionally
bad. Wait. Okay, wow, that was the way I read it.
Okay, here's my synopsis of the story. A scientist is working on
what could potentially be a doomsday device and has gotten so to the formula that
the military champion at the bit to get it. His daughter dies, he
has a psychotic break. He still sees his daughter and will not deal with
the military at all. So they send in this psychiatrist guy to convince him
that he should go back to work and finish the formula and that he'll take
care of the daughter, and then that he does finish it, and he
figures out the formula is a doomsday thing that if they use it at all,
it's going to kill everything, and that snaps him back to reality and
then and then the world ends. That's what I thought happened. Aw,
Mike, what'd you think happened. Let's make us a rondelais a triptych synopsis.
Like I said, I really wasn't catching what they needed him for For
some reason. I just went in one ear and out the other like an
earwig or had a pillar. Ah. I still so mad about that.
I just knew that they had to humor this guy, and he was going
to give them something at the end. So then when the world blew up,
I was like, oh, is that what they wanted? That's probably
not what they wanted, but just the whole pantomiming of taking care of a
little Jenny, Oh my god, that gets old very fast. And especially
I wanted the one scientist who can see Harvey. I wanted him to be
like, no, Harvey's not there, Harvey's sitting over there. That's what
I wanted to fuck with the other guy. But the other guy just picked
up and went with it. Oh what a lovely red dress you have.
And I wanted the other guy to be like red, that's green. It
really has that nice cabin in the woods ending to it where we start panning
up and something just destroys everything in there. Oh my god. No,
Yeah, I wanted a giant rabbit foot, just squish them. It's just
it's I don't know, like it's a gag that goes on and on and
on and on. At least it's not forty minutes. I guess this one
is seventeen minutes, right, Yeah, And it is filled with cinematic pit
peeves of mine, like the missing rear view mirror in the car when they're
driving together. I fucking hate that. Just come on, do a little
extra work. Another was the constant brushing of the girls of the little girl's
hair, like I know, like god, it's to establish the physical presence
of the girl, like, we get it, But that big old,
chunky brush, and how fucking long is that girl's hair anyway? Stop brushing
her hair. That's another thing. That's another pet peeve, like the over
attentive dad in movies's constantly brushing the girl's hair as if that's making up for
the lack of their mom or something. I don't know. It always bothers
me. This is a like the segment had the opportunity to do something interesting
and it attempted it, I guess, but it just again, it reminds
me of the segment that we were just talking about the one with the robots.
Like the ending just oh, the ending is like absolutely insane. It
makes very little to no sense. And I'm not saying the segment is good
in spite of it. I'm not saying that the ending ruins the segment,
but it doesn't help it. Let's just put it that way. No,
it's a mash up. It feels like it's either about this crazy man and
his potential ghost daughter or something or something to do with that, or it's
about this guy who figured out a formula for the end of the world and
has gone insane. Like they don't show us what the psychotic break. I
guess the daughter dying was the psychotic break to begin with, But is the
moment where he snaps back to reality when that guy is rude to him at
the restaurant he wants the chair because there's no one sitting at the table.
That's what it felt, right, Yeah, That's kind of what it felt
like to me too, And I was like, why that? Why was
that the thing? Like has this just never happened before and it had to
have. He's been out in public with his daughter for how long? Like
you know, right, why didn't they buy at one point, the attendant
says, oh, let's go buy her a doll. He's trying to stall
William Wyndham when he knows that he's getting suicidal and such. And that's a
scenario that I wanted to see play out, like going to the toy store,
picking out the doll, taking it out of the package, holding it
out to the air, and just dropping it to the ground. Like right,
I guess one thing to have the brush in your hand, but like,
how real is she if you like, let's go, I heard that
doll? Does she want a lollipop? Here you go? Crack? I
Yeah. I feel like they should have done that right, Like I feel
like they should have gone all the way because like the gag with the brush
is just overdone. Like at some point you're just like, can you do
anything else other than brush her hair? Yeah, it didn't like read to
her or something, just do any other sort of activity that doesn't involve her
hair. It's sort of weird. Yeah, it was very disturbing, and
that's how they introduce it, and then they just keep doing it, which
yeah, like again if that's if that factors into the story somehow, but
it doesn't even factor into the story, it doesn't serve a purpose at all.
And yeah, I again it goes back to this idea in my mind
of the show just does the same thing a couple times too many. And
I do appreciate the circularity with a boy who predicted earthquakes being the first segment
of the cition of this one being the last. If that's the story they
were telling, It's just feels like they went, hey, you know,
it would be cool if we ended this one just like we ended the first
one of this season. Just put it on there. Like every episode ends
the same way, with the world blowing out, no matter what episode it
is. It's just that's what happened. Season three is all armageddon. This
season was all revenge. Don't forget. We're missing an opportunity here to mention
our one of our favorite segments ever from Night Gallery, the last time we
saw William Windham. Oh yeah, they're tearing down Tim Riley's barbie. Yeah,
father, that's how fatheram alone introduced him. Yeah, and we somehow
have slipped under the for he's a jolly goodfellow radar once. Yeah, boy,
doesn't it feel good? We made it through the whole season. There's
no way we can have any in the next season, right unless William Windham
returns. William Windham returns, Oh God, we're gonna have to bring it
up one more time. I'm pretty sure we're gonna get one more Honestly,
when you're talking about the new music for season three, I'm hoping it's a
play end for He's a jelly. Oh wouldn't it be great if that was
the opening titles? Now, God, and they did it enough and they're
tearing down Tim Riley's bar. They did enough times there, God, And
that wasn't there tearing down to Mariley's bar. Wasn't that a forty minute long
segment or something like it was? Oh dear God, I have re recularity
here now in that that was the last season ender and this is this season
and they both have William Linda, but this one's seventeen minutes as opposed to
that forty minute slog. Yeah, a breezy comparatively, and he's a jelly,
good fellow, Honest to god, thought that was Twilight's on nineteen eighty
five. That's how long ago that feels like when we did there tearing down
Tim Riley's bar, that's like because that was the I mean that would like
you mentioned that was end of the last season, so it's been an entire
season since. It's good that we've put the trauma that far behind us prepare
for season three. Exactly, we're going to play a preview for our next
episode and we'll be right back to wrap things up. On display, here
is a painting showing the natural habitat of this species of black eyed practitioner,
dark alley, murky light, a few sundry skulls, and the gentleman himself
on the right of the picture with the upraised hand and the funny little goat
horns. Yes, indeed, this is a sorcerer, and for those of
you who disbelieve his existence, we invite you to check this out for a
little while. Our painting is called the Return of the Sorcerer, and we're
a better place for him to return than right here in the Night Gallery.
Our number one painting in the Night's exhibit is intriguing portraits of a young lady,
curiously photogenic and pointingly formid. Year recall seeing this face. You've seen
it on billboards and magazine ads, on television commercials. Oh yes, you've
seen it. But there are people who having seen it which they hadn't.
Our painting is called The Girl with the Hungry Eyes? And should I have
failed to mention it? This is the night Gallery. That's right on the
next Midnight Viewing we're taking a look at season three, episode one and episode
two. Those are the return of the Sorcerer and one of my favorite titles
of all time, The Girl with the Hungry Eyes. Who can it be?
It's Joanna Pettit again. Midnight Viewing is a proud member of the weirding
Way Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP. Until next time?
What are you working on? Chris Dashue podcast, Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.
But don't just listen to my show. Listen to Noise Junkies, which Bottom
Malone hosts with the aforementioned HP and Mondo. Heather's Teather Drain or Eighties TV
Ladies hosted by one of the hosts of Rankin On Bess Richard HadAM, his
wife and her co host talk all about you guessed at eighties TV shows featuring
who Ladies check their show out? Check all those shows out Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.
Folks, Yeah, sorry, you know what they say, you got
to lay the red carpet on thicks so people have something nice to walk on.
What about you, Mike Me, Oh, not a whole lot,
you know, just been kind of hanging around and stuff and working on the
Projection Booth podcasts. New episodes every week, sometimes many. This is going
to be the thing for a little while. A lot of bonus episodes,
so go on and check those out. Had a nice interview with mister Eddie
Deason today, so that was fun. It was a lot of fun to
talk with Eddie. Check it out. Listen to all the archives over there
at the Projection Booth podcast. As for me, you want to see some
of my nonsense, go to Fathermalone dot com. If you want to hear
all of my nonsense, go to Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Thank you all for
joining us here at midnight view. The gallery is now closed.