Tales From The Crypt (HBO Series)

[thecolorsblend]

Tales From The Crypt wasn't a show I paid a whole lot of attention to back when it was on TV. But as I matured in my comic book fandom, obviously it was only a matter of time until I tumbled onto EC Comics. Thus, Tales From The Crypt.

Imagine my surprise to discover that Tales From The Crypt isn't available on any streaming service. Not even HBO Max! Apparently, there's some complicated rights issues going on with it to where it's just not possible to make the show available on streaming, iTunes or wherever else. I bought the first season when it was (briefly) available on iTunes in January 2019. So, I guess it wasn't known to be a problem then. But I felt like watching some second season stuff and this show is nowhere to be found (legitimately) on the Internet.

Too bad, rly. Because as an anthology series, it offered a vehicle for Hollywood A-listers of that time to go outside their usual genres and do something different in a fairly creative but mostly low-risk kind of way. I'm not at all surprised that the show was able to attract such high levels of talent for its first few seasons.

Anyway. Just felt like venting a little bit.

[Silver Nemesis]

I've always maintained that the two best decades for television were the sixties and the nineties. Tales from The Crypt is one of those shows like Quantum Leap and Star Trek: The Next Generation which, while technically starting in the eighties, really hit its stride in the nineties. So I think of all three as nineties shows. With that in mind, TftC can be viewed as part of the nineties comic book TV adaptation trend that also included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Flash, Batman: TAS, X-Men, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Spider-Man: TAS and Superman: TAS. It was a great decade for TV in general, and especially for comic book shows.

Regarding TftC, I'm a fan of the original EC comics, the 1972 and 1973 films from Amicus Studios and the early seasons of the HBO series. I'm less a fan of the later seasons of the TV show or the feature films produced by the HBO team. I also used to watch the Tales from the Cryptkeeper cartoon when I was a kid, but I can't remember much about it now. On the whole, it's a solid brand that hasn't been too badly tainted... yet. Time for a woke reboot, methinks.

Tales From The Crypt wasn't a show I paid a whole lot of attention to back when it was on TV. But as I matured in my comic book fandom, obviously it was only a matter of time until I tumbled onto EC Comics. Thus, Tales From The Crypt.

Imagine my surprise to discover that Tales From The Crypt isn't available on any streaming service. Not even HBO Max! Apparently, there's some complicated rights issues going on with it to where it's just not possible to make the show available on streaming, iTunes or wherever else. I bought the first season when it was (briefly) available on iTunes in January 2019. So, I guess it wasn't known to be a problem then. But I felt like watching some second season stuff and this show is nowhere to be found (legitimately) on the Internet.

Too bad, rly. Because as an anthology series, it offered a vehicle for Hollywood A-listers of that time to go outside their usual genres and do something different in a fairly creative but mostly low-risk kind of way. I'm not at all surprised that the show was able to attract such high levels of talent for its first few seasons.

Anyway. Just felt like venting a little bit.

Isn't the entire series still on YouTube? I watched it on YT years ago, and I think most if not all of the episodes are still there. The picture quality's not great, but they're watchable. Here are a few of my personal favourites.

'The Switch', adapted from Tales from the Crypt Vol 1 #45 (December 1954). Arnold Schwarzenegger directed this one, and he also makes a cameo during the introductory segment. It's one of the funniest and silliest episodes in the entire series, and the cast includes several actors that Arnold had previously worked with in his movies: Kelly Preston (Twins), Rick Rossovich (The Terminator) and Roy Brocksmith (Total Recall).

'Carrion Death', adapted from Shock SuspenStories Vol 1 #9 (June 1953). This is another really funny episode, thanks in large to Kyle MacLachlan's over-the-top performance. The ending's hilariously gruesome.

'Split Personality', adapted from Vault of Horror Vol 1 #30 (April 1953). You can't go wrong with Joe Pesci, and this episode was made at the peak of his career. This is another funny one, mainly because of how absurd the plot is. It's great.

There are many more classic episodes worth discussing, but those are just a few that sprang to mind when I tried mentally listing my favourites.

[thecolorsblend]

The part that threw me for a loop is that afaik Tales From The Crypt never had a single "original" episode. Apparently, everything came from EC Comics. By the time I discovered that, I was already starting to reappraise the show. But that little factoid probably tripled my respect for the show.

That discovery was prompted by reading the story "The Man Who Was Death", which was obviously the first episode of the show. Obviously, there are key differences between the episode and the comic. And frankly, I think the comic told the story more effectively. But the ambition was certainly there. To this day, I rly enjoy that episode.

It is true that a modern version of the show would probably be overly woke. Maybe it's best to leave the show alone and just let it exist independently of modern day mental illness masquerading as ideology? I just don't need this to done again, even if it was to be done faithfully without extraneous nonsense. There's nothing wrong with the show that a modern version could fix anyway.

(But yes, it probably is just a matter of time)

[thecolorsblend]

I'd like to reassert what a shame it is that those legal issues are screwing up the show. It would've been a lot of fun to watch some TFTC episodes during October. Alas...

Furthering my disappointment is that I just discovered Christopher Reeve guest starred in a season 04 episode. Which makes sense. Richard Donner was an executive producer on the show so it doesn't take very much imagination to see how Reeve would've gotten involved. Anyway, I'd be interested in watching particularly that episode... but I can't.

(And yes, there are probably still ways of watching the show but I'm not open to that. Legit release or nothing.)

If anything, I would imagine that the legal problems with this show are probably even more complicated now following Donner's passing.