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Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western film and TV podcast.

My name is Hunter, and this week's episode, Dan Budnick returns and we're taking a break from gun Smoke for the month of October to discuss a few episodes of Western TV shows that dip their toe lightly into the horror genre.

First ep is an episode of Bonanza called Twilighttown, and then we talk about an episode of wagon Train called Little Girl Lost.

And we're wrapping up with a discussion on the Wild Wild West episode called The Night of the Man Eating House.

So it'll be something a little different.

This month will feature discussions on Western TV shows and a movie with horror elements.

But in November we'll be returning to traditional classic westerns, including one movie celebrating at seventy fifth anniversary this year that I know everyone will be looking forward to.

Well, let's get into it.

Here's our conversation on supernatural episodes of Western TV shows.

Welcome back, Dan, how's it going good?

Good?

How are you?

I'm doing pretty well and as always it's great to have you back on the show.

Thank you there, and can you tell us about what you've been up to.

Do you have any new Blu Ray features you can announce, or any new writing projects.

What I said the last time, As always, I'll just mention together.

My latest books are out.

When I say read read one Fellow's Journey through Doctor Who.

You get them on Amazon, ebook or paperback.

Volume one is nineteen sixty three to nineteen seventy nine.

To those of you know Doctor Who, it's an Unearthly Child through the Armageddon Factor.

And volume two is seventy nine through twenty twenty five, and it's Destiny of the Dialects episode one through the Reality War, which aired just a few months ago.

And there's that, And I'm trying to think if I feel like the most recent thing I think that was announced was in the Dan Curtis Ghosts Telefilms box set that's coming out.

Myself and Rob Kelly have a have a or doing a commentary on the late night TV movie Come Die with Me with Eileen Brennan and a guy who I forget, but it's it's it's it's it's gotta chart.

But that was the most recent one.

We've got something else, which I thought they announced yesterday, but I misread an announcement, so I can't I can't say it.

Yeah, but we got I got a couple more things on the way.

I'll just say one word, one word in description of one of them ninjas, but that's all I'm gonna say.

It sounds good.

Yeah, Now, there have been several Dan Curtis announcements, and each time I see one announced, I'm I'm I'm hoping that you're going to be included on the special features.

But I think I think they've only announced the features for one of the Dan Curtis releases.

So yes, yeah, they like the monsters one I'm I'm not on at least not that I know of.

But there's like there's one that's coming.

It's I don't know if it's called Ghosts.

I forget what it is.

It's got a great sort of image of a woman like with a crazy face or something on it.

It's like it's like a four or five of the Late night I'm blanking on what they were called now, but they were the late night movies that they used to show like after the news.

They would show like a ninety minute movie in the seventies, and a lot of we're shot on video and as as this one is and okay, gotcha, And they're a lot like sort of in the realm of like the British show Thriller like Brian Clemens, which is a show that's a lot of fun.

But but yeah, I forget the name of the set, but you you if you go look it up.

Did Dan Curtis come die with me?

I think it's Ken o' larber.

Yeah, I think, yeah, okay, so yeah, check check it out, check.

It out and and everywhere you can follow Dan and pick up his books are linked in the show notes, so go give him a follow and check out eventually Supertrain as well.

Oh yes please, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're covering we're currently doing still still doing I think the things from last time we're doing.

Bronc the mid seventies, a cop show starring Jack Plans created by Archie Bunker Garrison's Gorillas with Mitchell Hadley from nineteen sixty eight, sort of a spin off of Combat Night, Quite dirty does a meets Mission Impossible, and then from about Pardon Me eight years ago, myself and my friend Amy the Conquer are covering Ghosted with Craig Robinson and Adam Scott.

Excellent.

Now Mitchell Hadley is actually going to be on my podcast.

He's a couple of weeks after this comes out.

He's got a yes.

And you know what's funny is he had a contest where the winner would receive his new book, and I won.

You did congrations.

Oh that's awesome.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

So I should be receiving that probably in the next week or so.

Actually, so that's awesome.

I actually asked him if he would since we're good friends.

I said, hey, is anywhere you get a free copy?

And he said you have to?

He said no, And the only way he would send me a copy to sign I had to buy two copies online and send him copies of the receipts.

And he said, okay, now I'll sign a copy for you, and he lied.

He said, buy one more and then eat it on camera.

And so I had to eat a boiled copy of his book on camera before he'd signed one for me.

Wow, he's crazy.

He's pretty crazy.

No, No, that's that's a I keep telling him.

I always buy two copies of his books, one for reading, one for eating, because then you absorb it into your bloodstream.

Oh, absolutely so everybody does that.

Yeah, exactly precisely.

So, Yeah, Mitchell's a good guy in the new book.

Is it Darkness in prime Time?

I want to say it's the top of it.

Yes, very good.

But I actually started reading it a few days ago and it's nice.

It's very good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, Dan, at the time of this recording, we are getting closer and closer to October, and I know you're a big horror movie fan and I am as well.

So before we get into our main discussion, I was wondering if if you have any horror movies that you like rewatch in October or on Halloween specifically, or do you try to have like more first time watches.

What do you do.

Usually?

Uh?

Usually I I I generally end up watching either.

Uh, it's like throughout the month, I'll try to watch newer stuff.

But where right when you get to Halloween, I usually do like when we got kids come to the Door, I'll usually play the Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters or ab In Costello Meet Frankenstein, which are which are just fun to have playing if kids are at the door kind of thing.

If I don't want the kids at the door, I'll put on a Herschel Gordon Lewis movie like The Wizard of Gore, the Gore Gore Girls, or one of the French extreme films from a few years ago that get that's get the kids who go Away, like Martyrs or in Kiddy.

I don't do that, but but usually i'll do I'll do one of the first three Halloweens, the originals.

The past five or six years, it's generally been Halloween three, because I think I kind of wore myself out with the first two.

But it's generally Halloween three, like I said, Bowery Boys, abn Costello.

And usually I'll throw on something out that's Halloween adjacent, like Knight of the Demons or The Lantern, just something that's in the vicinity of Halloween.

And but throughout the month I do try to watch like like, hey, here here's a confession.

Last year I watched I'd never seen a child's play movie before.

Last year I watched my first child's play movie right before Halloween.

Nice watch the first one, and now this year I'll probably do the second.

So but yes, it's it's And also I have lots of like Halloween specials, like not like your Garfield, Your Your Great Pumpkin I have when there's a raggedy Ann and Andy want about a pumpkin that wouldn't smile.

There's a show from the late seventies with jud Hirsh and Marriott Hartley where they play a witch in a vampire and the witch is trying to take away Halloween, so the monsters have to save it.

I'll watch like Monster Squad or Groovy Goolies or oh oh geez.

I also always watch Mad Monster Party.

I forgot oh okay, Yeah, So.

Usually I keep it apart from maybe the Halloween movie, I usually keep it pretty light and silly right around Halloween.

I'm with you, like on Halloween.

I actually try to watch Avancostela Meet Frankenstein on Halloween, and that's to kind of become a tradition over the years.

But another one I do tend to watch is Scream.

I rewatched that most Octobers and then either The Beyond or City of the Living Dead.

Do you have a preference.

That's maybe City of the Living Dead?

You know what me too.

I was going to say it's so weird because I've been rewatching Full Chiese I did.

Was it Warriors of the Year twenty seventy two or whatever.

Yeah, just two nights ago.

And it's funny, like, I do love The Beyond.

I can see why people kind of considered it to be his masterpiece.

But there's something, there's something, I mean, like the Beyond, I feel like there's an ex We're not gonna go into it here, but I feel like there's an explanation.

It does not a not a really strong one, but I feel like I know what's going on in the beyond where the city.

I kind of get to the end and I'm like, I don't know what just happened.

But I loved it, and I wrote a big paper about it in college, which I was I was able to get around any of the weaknesses in my paper by just showing the class scenes from the movie.

So said, watch this scene with the maggots, or check this out, check out that drill, you know, and and then like and people forget all about what you're talking about when they've just seen like people get showered in maggots or a woman you know, you know, puke up or guts kind of thing.

They're just like even the professor, who was very storic, was like, what the hell was that, you know, and we had a so it's it's it's fun.

Yeah, but I yeah, I like I like that, Yes, throwing a good fulcie or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then another one that I've been a more recent movie that I find myself returning to in October, is it follows I follows.

Yeah, yeah, that is very good.

Yeah, yeah, Well we should get into the main discussion.

We do have our three episodes.

We have three episodes of TV to talk about, and we're starting with an episode of Bonanza called Twilight Town.

And this aired on October thirteenth and nineteen sixty three, and it's the fourth episode from the fifth season, and it was directed by John Floria.

I think Floria is right, but he directed twelve episodes of Bonanza in total, and he also directed five episodes of The Virginian, which you know, Dan, we will get to on our eventually.

The Virginian.

I don't think there's yeah, exact, I don't think there's a scary Virginia that I can think of.

Maybe maybe, you know.

There is one episode from the first season that is kind of eerie.

I can't remember specifically which one it is, but I wouldn't say it's leaning into the horror genre.

I think there's any ghosts or any hauntings or cobwebs or graveyard all, which is a bummer.

That would be the episode, I'm sure.

Yeah, that would have been great.

No Halloween episode, no Christmas episode, Come on virgin I don't remember a Christmas episode though, but come on Virginia.

Yeah.

Oh well, but uh yeah.

And then this episode was written by cy Shermack And this is the only episode of Bonanza that he's credited on.

Oh wow.

And he wrote a few episodes of The Virginian actually as well.

And he was one of the producers on Colchak The Nightstalker, which is a tremendous show.

And what I know you covered on eventually Super.

Tri right, Yes, it's the great tim s Turner and myself cover that.

Yeah, good times.

Yeah.

Oh, it's a great fun show.

Fun show.

You gotta start, start with the two movies, then do the twenty episodes.

It's super fun.

Yeah, the movies are awesome.

And I know we mentioned Bonanza during our History of Western TV episode, which was very early on in the podcast.

It was a second episode.

But I don't recall what your history is with the show.

Have you seen many episodes of Bonanza when.

I was a kid.

I did, because it was when I was a kid I did.

It was it was during the summers, I want to say, it was.

It was like after the morning TV and you get like, like I love Lucy, and then some other sitcom like say like nine to ten or ten to eleven, like I love Lucy, and say like, I know, summertime, like Gidget or something, and then from like ten to eleven or eleven or twelve, you get like they show Bonanza.

Bonanza would always show up like right before the soap opera started on some station or other.

So quite often when I was a kid, and I would just be, you know, just just sitting in the living room with my mom writing or scribbling something or doing something, Bananza would come out.

And I didn't like as much as Lucy or Gidget, but I do remember watching quite a few episodes and always always always sort of getting into what I was watching.

But then I was a little kid.

So as an adult, my wife and I have a good friend of ours who is a huge Bonanza fan and she's part of like a Bonanza fan club, and they haven't done this refuse, but they usually do like a yearly Bonanza convention where they all get together.

They'd all meet up and they sit around and talk about Bonanza and show episodes and things like that, and we have had like a few years ago, we had a night where she came over and we just showed all night.

We showed Bonanza at Virginian episodes.

So that was fun.

So I do know, I do know the guys, the Cartwrights.

I'm very familiar with them, but I haven't watched as much of them as an adult as I have the Virginian or as I had when I was a child.

Yeah, I've seen a handful of episodes.

I can't say I have like much history with the series.

I don't think it's one that my grandparents were really into, but I do know it's the second longest running Western series, and like gun Smoke, which is the you know, the longest running series.

It also has some made for TV movie, Yeah, made for TV movies that were made years after the show went off the air.

And yeah, there were three made for TV movies and a series from two thousand and one called Ponderosa, which I don't remember or like have maybe never heard of but well, yeah it ran for one season.

They are only twenty episodes total, and yeah, I just I don't remember ever existing.

Wow, but Dan, let's let's get into into this episode.

Can you give us a plot synopsis?

Oh?

Sure?

Yeah?

And this one.

So we got a little little Joe who's Michael Landon.

It's his birthday.

He's riding back through the desert back to the card Roid range the Ponderosa to they're getting ready to celebrate his birthday, and he's got like, I want to say, he's about two thousand dollars in cash, which this is what eighteen seventy eighteen eighty, that's a lot of money.

And he's right, and he gets he gets sort of sort of.

He sees a guy in trouble on the ground.

He goes to help him, and the guy turns out to be a jerk and takes his money.

He takes his horse, beats him up, leaves him in the desert, and as his family is waiting for him to return, little Joe stumbles into this weird uh it's a ghost town and he passes out, and when he wakes up some time later, the town is actually populated.

It's called Martinville, and there are a bunch of people there are taking care of him, including a lovely young lady, and he wants to leave.

But see, it's a tricky episode because I don't want to I want to go to a depth into the synopsis here.

But it's a bit of a weird town because first off, as little Joe saw, it was a ghost town, but now it's filled with people, and they all say they were at a funeral, and the young woman who he's kind of fallen for is it wants him to stay in.

These two sort of elder Jim and one of who was the young woman's dad, wants wants him to stay, and they're a little vague about what's going on or why they want him to stay.

He wants to get back to town.

He wants to find the guy who stole the money, and he wants to leave, and these guys keep talking about something that they want him to do.

And there's this weird old woman who keeps showing up and staring at him through windows and being cryptic talking about stuff.

And we learned that the previous sheriff of the town had just been killed.

Presumably that was the funeral they were at and after a time they basically say what he wants to leave, that they want him to be the sheriff, and they tell him the story about some outlaws who have taken over the town and that they need Little Joe to help him to help them stop the outlaws.

But the poor tends from the slightly crazy lady who's kind of running around seem to imply that maybe they just want to sort of sacrifice Little Joe for something or other, and things get weirder as they go, and I'll stop right there.

All right, Well, Dan, what do you think of this episode?

I enjoyed it.

It's mostly a Little Joe episode.

The Yes, I'm Lauren Green and the brothers just basically spend their whole time, uh looking for him, and and funnily enough, they do they do that thing they're they're sort of like they're sort of like like like cops and horror movies or some action movies where you don't you don't see the cops the whole time, or you occasionally see them throughout the movie and then they show up once the killer is killed or once everything is done, suddenly the cops show up.

It almost got Q like, right, when everything has done, the guys show up, but it is nice to see them.

The first of you get this this opening, rather harrowing scene with Little Joe in the desert.

I'm not a desert guy.

I'm a forest guy.

I'm a snow guy.

I'm a colder.

I'm not the deert.

The desert that's where cannibals live.

You don't go out there.

You don't go to the desert.

And but that opening scene is rather harrowing with Little Joe out there, and when he looks across the desert is already you could already already tell like like when the guy takes his horse that he's like he probably should have had a little sip of water before he went to help the guy, kind of thing.

He's already fading.

But then it cuts to like a shot with hass and Lord Green.

Who why am I forgetting Lorden Green's characters name.

I'm just gonna ca him LORDE.

Green.

Dad.

Yeah.

They're in the foreground and in the background is the house and it has a big happy birthday Little Joe kind of things spread out, And it's so funny because the cut from the sort of harrowing nature of Little Joe in the desert, possibly about to die to these two guys standing in the foreground of what's clearly now a studio.

I kept expecting to hear a laugh track whenever they spoke, because they're sort of acting it right, like they're facing the camera and they're just like they're not facing the house that they just decorated.

They're facing where are they facing, Like like they step out of the house that they decorated, and they just they're facing away from the I mean, it doesn't it doesn't make sense, right.

I mean if you were to like if you you know, if if someone brought you a cake set on the table before you and you turned away from the cake and just proclaimed how great the cake was and everything like that, people would be like, are you gonna look at the cake?

Are you gonna you know, something like that.

But it's kind of kind of and then luckily Prenell Roberts shows up a little bit later and he he kind of brings a little bit of gravitazed to their standing around.

But uh, but but I will say, I mean the scene where it's the next morning and uh, little Joe still doesn't come back.

It's the next one no, it's after the party.

I'm sorry.

So it's like the middle of the night.

People had a great time at the party.

Was the birthday boy there?

No, no, but no one seemed to really care.

But there there is a lovely scene with where where Dad just doesn't want to where he's like, he'll be back in the morning.

He keeps coming up with excuses and uh and hass Is just like, yep, yep, he'll be back, He'll be back, And then Prenel roberts up with the horses for them, and Dad's like, okay, I'll get some things out here, I go, I'll join you kind of thing, and there's just a really lovely scene where you know he's going to they're gonna go look for little Joe in the middle of the night, and he's trying to he's trying to say he's a he's a man, and but hosses not and go yep, yep, but you can tell.

And that's a lovely scene.

And the scenes in the town are great because there's this there's this feeling of unease throughout sort of not not quite an uncanny feeling, but just sort of a general feeling of like what exactly is happening, yeah here, And you don't learn really until at the end.

And I won't say what's going on, but you sit there the whole time going are so were these people at the I mean, here's the thing.

If they're in the middle of the desert and they're in a town and they've been away for like a day.

In the funeral, I could see tumble weeds blowing in and all kinds of crap.

I mean, that's it's a desert that just happened.

Literally literally he steps out of the desert into the town kind of thing.

So I could see that.

You know, there's you gotta do some upkeep if you're going to be on the edge of the desert like that.

And so that's almost convincing.

But then there's just so much weirdness, and you know, like like one of the guys, this older guys, is trying to be nice about well, we'll convinced it to stay there, like we have to make them stay.

And it goes back and forth, and then the daughter's put putting the smooth on little Joe and you know he's enjoying it, you know, why not.

And then that lady keeps showing up who's that crazy lady just looking at me in the window?

Oh, that's that's missus Nuttberger.

Her her husband was the sheriff or whatever, and and there's sort of a lovely and then you gradually learn why they're acting so weird, and then it builds on that, and then it kind of builds and builds, and the outlaws show up and there's some tense stuff going on, and then there's it.

Like I said, the whole episode has a real sort of uneasy kind of feeling because even when you sort of think like, Okay, I sort of know where this is going and maybe in the engine do I mean, it's not like it's it's not you know, it's it's not.

It's not a crazy twist at the end, go oh my gosh, but it it It kind of leads you on to you like, I don't even when I feel like I know what's happening, I don't quite know what's going on.

And so there's a sense like with Little Joe, where he's like he wants to help, but boy, he'd loved if someone just gave him a straight answer and told him what was going on.

Yeah, but no one quite will, and that leads to this weird I just I keep using the word uneasy.

It's not not quite I mean, in the end, it's kind of eerie too, but it's just kind of this uneasy kind of feeling of like what is happening in this?

And I think it keeps that feeling strong right up to the end when you're given sort of an explanation for what's going on and and you get you get a lovely moment at the end where it may or may not have happened.

But Dad basically says, you know what, if if you believe it in your heart, if you believe it to be true, then you don't have to talk about it.

You don't have to tell anyone or try to convince anyone you know it.

And which is really lovely, some really lovely uh, some lovely dialogue in here, and some wonderful moments.

So overall, I mean, it's not it's not the fastest pace episode.

I will say that you can kind of feel the fifty minutes of it.

But at the same time, there was just enough huh in it to keep me going to the end.

And I don't I feel like, yeah, this would in no way, shape or form would this be an episode of Bonanza that you'd start someone on, because it's it's a little too slow, and it's a little too building, calmly, calmly, building, building, until the frenzy of the end where they're tear they have this barricade, they're tearing it apart, and there they're gonna go after the outlaws and they're gonna come after them, and that kind of thing that builds to that moment and like it's justified you get there.

It works, but it for someone used to modern day pacing, this one might be a bit slow, but if you can get into the groove.

Michael Anders of course always charming if you can get into the groove.

I actually don't know if it's a good episode of Bonanza or not, because I haven't seen enough of them.

But I think if you if you're looking for like sort of like I said in Eerie Western episode, this one isn't scary, but it's just almost twilight zone.

It's more twilight zone where you're like, what is happening and why?

And I think maybe, you know, maybe it could have been a little shorter, but it couldn't have been a little shorter, because that's the length of the episodes, but overall, I give it a thumbs up.

Yeah.

I thought it was pretty entertaining.

I I mean, you see the title and you know right away it's, you know, inspired by the Twilight Zone.

Yeah, and I think and I think.

Which is great, right, which is yeah cool?

Yeah, definitely, Yeah, And I think they did a pretty good job of creating something kind of in the vein of the Twilight Zone.

And I thought Michael Landon was really good in the episode.

And the other members of the Cartwright family like like you said, I mean, they they aren't in this episode a whole lot.

So Michael Landon really just carries it and I think he does a good job.

And I did thinking.

I thought it unfolded like pretty nicely.

I do agree that the episode's a little slow, but I kind of I did kind of like the transitions going from like little Joe like looking out in the distance and not seeing anything, and then all of a sudden, it's a ghost town, and then he makes it well, he sees like the town, and then he makes it to the town and kind of wakes up I guess again and sees it that it is a ghost town, and then moments later, he's surrounded by people you know in the same town, and I thought that that kind of unfolded pretty well.

And there are some recognizable actors in this, like some of some of the supporting roles, like Walter coy is in it, and he played Aaron Edwards in The Searchers.

Who is Ethan you know, John Wayne's brother in the movie, so people will definitely know him from that.

And Stacy Harris, everyone will know him from something.

He's in a ton of a ton of shows and movies.

But the main supporting role is played by someone who I'm completely unfamiliar with, Davy Davison.

Yeah, she looks so familiar.

Yeah, I don't recognize her from anything, but yeah, she plays kind of the person that little Joe falls for, and I think she's decent in the role.

Now, the one character that you've kind of hinted at that I think is actually one of the standout characters is played by Doris Dowling, and she plays Katie.

Now, I think in the episode they're saying Obrien, Are they saying Obrien or O'Brien?

It sounds like Obrien.

I thought it was Obrien too.

Yeah, yeah, I wrote down like ob r e o n okay so Obrien almost.

Yeah, Yeah, I thought I thought she was pretty good.

And she basically plays like the most stereotypical horror character in the episode.

Yeah, she's like warning little Joe that things aren't going to turn out well for him.

She's basically Ralph from Friday the Thirteen.

Yes, And part of the fun with her character too, is is there a moments in it where you think, why do the townspeople put up with this?

Yeah?

You know, she's just staring in the window at the sick guy.

Why would you allow that?

You know?

Is that doctor's orders.

We're gonna have to let You're gonna have to remain in bed for the next two days.

We want to have this creepy woman who's not quite Avonda Carlo ster at you from the window every once in a while.

It's part of the treatment, Yeah, part of the treatment.

Yeah.

And I do I recognize her from a couple of things.

I know she's in The Blue Dahlia, which is a great noir with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

And she's also in an episode of One Step Beyond, which I think might have come out the same year as the Twilight Zone and it's very kind of similar, and I've seen a handful of episodes of that.

But that's the show I think is pretty good.

Now, I think we should talk about the end.

I know, I think that I agree that I think you can you can see you can see it coming.

But I will admit although on a first time watch, I had kind of forgotten about the guy from the opening scene.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so I do think it's pretty satisfying when it circles back to that character.

I like the concept of I just got you off, but what were you saying though you were in an umb Oh.

No, no, you know you can cut me off any.

Time and interrupted enum not.

I just I think the thing I like about the guy showing up at the end is there's because the intimation is that there's a curse.

It's sort of it's I was going to say.

This is basically the same year as Ah she Lewis's two Thousand Maniacs, which is based on Brigadoon about a town full of about an empty town where like once every fifty years, one hundred years, twenty years, ten years, five years, something like that.

Like all the ghosts of these Confederates show up and mistreat Northerners, and so this guy kind of had the feeling of that, like it was almost a Brigadoon for Bonanza kind of thing where when a person wanders into the town, which isn't gonna happen often given its location, if it's I guess, if it's a guy, suddenly the town comes to life and there's a curse on it.

And I love the fact that when spoiler, little little Joe breaks the curse and saves the day and the end whatever, whoever is in charge of the curse brings him back the guy and his money and his horse and everything like that, sort of like here's your gift, yea for helping, for helping free these people who can't who can't break this cycle.

You you you've been and I have.

We haven't even explained it full what it is.

If you watch the episode, you know it is.

But but it's just like I hopped the head there, but.

Yeah, so but yeah, I and what was I what was I going to say?

Actually, you know you're talking about the curse.

We were talking about the d The ending is basically you want to tell them basically what's going on.

Well, so in the end, so they there is this fight between this cursed these like cursed townspeople and whoever the Is there a name for the villains?

I didn't make a note of it.

I didn't either.

The great thing about the villains is that they do give them names, and they give them big backstories, but you only see them briefly, and they're all in darkness.

Yes, so so it's almost like you watch them and think, oh, they're they're meant to be.

That makes them more threatening, yes, And they're they're kind of ghosts.

They're they're like like spirit shades, sort of like in part of this kind of sous.

Yeah, but I didn't write down their names.

Just the jerks.

These jerks.

Yeah, there's just some jerks and so the uh and so the last time, uh, this like cursed town had had somebody come who could potentially be their savior, so to speak, they they kind of chickened out and decided not to fight against these people who have been uh tormenting, I guess.

And so this time Little Joe actually convinces them to attack them because they won't be expecting that, and so they attack them, and they and they defeat them that way.

I mean, that's pretty much it, right.

Yes, Yeah, that's basically it.

Yeah, it's the theory being that this was a town where I think the just one day's these real this pack of jerks showed up and they kind of should have sent them running, thrown them out of the town, but they spend a lot of money, so they let him in and then they kept coming back, and then suddenly they realized that these guys were kind of running the town, and they were going out doing rotten stuff and then coming back and basically taking over the town doing whatever they wanted, and the and the sheriff ended up getting killed, and his wife, the lady who peers at the windows put a curse on them that they will forever return until someone brave enough to make them brave enough to defeat these forces, even though the forces aren't really there in the end.

That's one of the things I loved about.

Like when they storm the bad guys on this sort of rock cliff and everything, and they're firing, it's clearly like a little joe and like half a dozen guys, and a couple of those guys get shot and follow the ground and they're shitt with these guys up there, but in the end, it's just Joe and this guy who stole his money.

That's it.

Everything else are ghosts playing off the the ending of this curse and sort of like once I think, once they storm out there and start shooting, I think the town is probably freed from it.

Yeah, and it's really like, the more you think about it's like, that's it's actually pretty cool.

That's really nicely done.

Like, and you go back and watch it a second time knowing it, you're like, Okay, yeah, they did a really good and I will say the second time, even though I knew what was coming, it was still uneasy.

I still felt uneasy watching it.

And that's because of that thing where Joe just can't get a straight answer what exactly They give him a little bit and you think, oh, I got it, and then something else will come and you're like, now, what's that about?

And it's just but that's that's the ending, everybody.

Yeah, but no, Yeah, overall, I enjoyed it.

I do.

I do think they probably could have trimmed it a little bit, but uh, but obviously they were required to deliver a fifty minute episode.

Yeah, that's what they did.

But uh, yeah, I don't really have any other thoughts on this.

You do, you do you have any other notes?

I'm just I'm just checking my notes.

I don't not really.

It's read Martinville.

I like that it's called Martinville because I thought someone was going to say, is that a joke?

Martinville?

Martinville?

Watch why on Earth did to day?

But Martinville?

And I do like the you could you can tell that there's something where I think from from the moment where one of the guys is something like, you know, well, we got to send him, you know, to to face the bad guys and then get killed.

I guess, I mean, I guess when they send him, when they send whoever it is, comes into the town and they get killed by the bad guy, I guess they get to sort of rest a bit until it happens again.

Yeah, that's sort of the feeling I got.

So that's why they want to send him, because then they don't feel they're not awake and feeling terrible and guilty like their soul's rest until the curse is activated again kind of thing.

And you know, something's a little weird when the one guy says something like, well, we got to send that Cartwright kid in there to get killed because it's him against two hundred and sixteen of us.

Yeah, that's pretty specific that you know that, sir.

That's very good.

Sometimes I forget how many people are in my house, and you knew everybody in this town.

So so yeah, so it's yeah, that's all I have to say.

It's not I feel like, yeah, if you're if you've watched a good smattering of Bonanzas, this would be a good one to watch a first one.

Watch the first episode.

I'm sure that's probably the best place to start.

Yeah, but it's a good like I said, it's a good erie and it's very much it's in the realm of a twilight zone for Bonanza, you know, and so I yeah, i'd say give it a try.

Yeah, I think it's worth checking out.

But yeah, but now I think we're gonna move on to Wagon Train.

And this episode is called Little Girl Lost.

It's from the eighth season, and it's the twelfth episode and it aired on December thirteenth and nineteen sixty four, and it was directed by Virgil W.

Vogel and he worked as a director and an editor, and he mostly worked in TV as a director, but he edited a couple pretty well known movies.

Actually, he was the editor of Man Without a Star, which is the western starr in Kirk Douglas.

And he was one of the editors of Touch of Evil as well.

Yes, that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he directed eighty episodes of Wagon Train and that's a ton Wow, that is a whole lot.

Yeah.

And he did forty eight episodes of The Big Valley Wow.

Yeah.

So, and he worked on other Western TV shows as well.

And once you work on one, you have an open invitation to work on all of them.

Yeah.

I feel like that's yeah, that's probably that's probably.

That's probably good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was written by Leonard Praskins, and he wrote twenty episodes of wagon Train, and he wrote some episodes of Maverick.

And he also co wrote back in the thirties, actually William ay We Wellman adaptation of Call of the Wild, which I remember enjoying.

I love well I love William A.

Wellman, but I also love like mid thirties or early thirties Clark Gable and Loretta Young's in it too.

I love them from that era.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a fun that's a fun era for Hollywood in general, right there.

Yeah, that's oh that sort of space.

Yeah, climbing out of silence into sound and yeah, that's a no code quite yet kind of the or the code has just hit kind of thing.

Yeah, thirty five, I think the code has just hit.

Yes, yeah, I want to say thirty fourth or five, yeah, right around there.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, I think I've seen a few episodes of Wagon Train.

I know I've seen one from the seventh season because that's the only season that was in color, and it had a different run time as well.

It was the same minute the Virginia and yet ninety minutes.

And I've seen a couple episodes from when Ward Bond was the star.

I think he died during the fourth season.

But that's pretty much all I've seen of Wagon Train.

Are you pretty familiar with this series?

Dan?

You know, the weird thing about wagon Trade is that I'm not I don't know that that's that weird.

I tried to make it sound weird because we're talking about creepy episodes and things, so I thought if I began it with that.

No, Yeah, the thing with wagon Train is that this is one of those shows that I've seen a smattering of episodes over the years, but I've never actually never actually sat down and watched a bunch of them, so much so that when I was watching this, I was like, now, who is everyone?

What's going on?

What's happening.

I do love the fact that, like in its penultimate season, it decided to go color for ninety minutes and then went back to black and white for sixty minutes.

I like, yeah, like that, And I like the fact that what in the I want to say, sixty one sixty two, the year before The Hillbillies showed up, it was the number one show in America, which is cool.

But but yeah, my wagon Train.

I know more about the history of wagon train, and I also know that I think I probably said this.

We talked about wagon Train in the Our History episode.

The main thing I know when I think of wagon Train is what the uh the Itchy and Scratchy and Marge episode of The Simpsons where they're picketing the studio that makes sixty and Scratchy and they're all helping picket signs and Mo has one that says, bring back wagon Train.

Okay, so that's so.

Yeah, this of these three shows we're going to discuss.

This is the one I know the least about, apart from the fact that it's a wagon train, and it was kind of more I think more almost more anthology at times, because I know a lot of the episodes are like, you know, the the Lonnie West story, the Johnson Dingman story, that kind of.

Thing, right, Yeah, I know, I know.

It's definitely one of the big classic Western TV series, and I'd be down to cover episodes in the future for sure.

Yeah.

But yeah, but let's get into a little girl Lost, Dan, what's this episode about?

This episode is about the chef.

Who's Charlie, right, is a chef Charlie is that nice?

Yeah, Charlie Kloster or something like that, Charlie Weister, Yeah, yeah, yeah, So Charlie is the chef, and the wagon train is going I think it's going.

Probably it's going to California.

I feel like it's going to California.

And the premise of this one is it's a it's a it's a wagon train that has more kids on it than usual, and then one night they hear a little girl sort of crying off in the distance, and they think it's one of the kids in the in the wagon train.

But then a few nights in, Charlie sees along with his assistant whose name I didn't write down, but a younger gentleman who's sort of he's he's a scout who's helping Charlie out.

I didn't mean to make rhyme, it happened, but Charlie sees like a little girl kind of all bundled up even though they're in the middle of like the desert, and she says she's cold and she's hungry.

But then she kind of he loses track of her.

And what happens is, Yeah, as the days go by, they keep hearing this little girl crying and then and he he he eventually is able to talk to her and discovers that she uh.

Well, Actually, what happens around the time he first talk to her, they actually find two weird things.

He and the younger gentlemen.

They smell snow, or they smell you know, the smell like if you're in the midst of snow falling, and some of there's a very particular feel and smell, not not like it ooh, that's snow, But do you know what when you smell it, and they're like it smelled it.

They say, it smelled like like we were going through the mountains.

That's what we smelled like during during the blizzard.

And they also find actual snow on the ground, now a chuck of ice that flew off the mountain or anything like that, actual snow on the ground.

And he goes to talk to this little girl who I believe her name is Robin, right, Is that right?

Yeah, Yes, that's right, that's correct.

She has a very long name, but her her first name is Robin.

She's a little I don't know how old she is.

I know, I can't gauge kids.

She's she's three, she's eight, she's fourteen, she's twenty three.

I don't know how old she is.

How old would you say, like eight?

I think somewhere between six and eight?

Six and eight, okay, okay, so we'll say, yeah, somewhere between like six.

Well, I'm going to say seven.

I like that.

That'll be great, all right.

So she's about seven, and she's just talking about when she talks to charge, she talks about how she's cold, and some people went looking for food and her mom was sick, and then they don't have much food and they're cold and can Charlie help?

And Charlie tries to help, but she vanishes and uh and charge.

She gives out a couple of names when she's talking, and Charlie kind of goes around to people there ask them, Hey, do you know anyone by this name and that name?

And they all say, like, why you ask it?

He says, you know, just I'm just wondering, you know, And and he's trying not to say because the guy in charge kind of picks on him, and everyone else kind of laughs a him and all that.

I think I saw a ghost of a little girl.

And but they keep hearing this crying and they think he's gonna stop, and it keeps going, and then it stops for a while, and I I will, we'll talk about where the little girl is from.

But but gradually you get you he pieces together where the little girl is from and what's going on, and again it's very Twilight tony.

Yeah and uh and but I'll just sort of stop there.

It's basically a little girl crying and sort of her cry follows the wagon train and Charlie, the chef is trying or the cook.

He's not a chef.

This isn't This isn't Gaye Perry.

This is this is the middle of the middle of the desert and in wild wild West.

Oh just the wild West.

The wild wild West is another thing.

But but yeah, he's he's the cook for the wagon train and he's trying to find and help this little girl who may or may not be a ghost.

Yeah.

I'm actually pretty curious to hear your thoughts on this Episod said, what did you think?

Dan?

Uh?

You know, it's funny.

I watched it twice, and the first time I watched it, I made me a little sleepy.

I don't know if it was after I just watched the Bonanza, which was in color, and this is the black and white.

I don't know.

Maybe I shouldn't.

I shouldn't be watching two hour long Western episodes in a row.

I don't know what it was.

It was a little sleepy, but I will uh uh.

But it was really weird.

When I went back and watched it the second time and knew what was going on, I really really enjoyed it, like more so than the Bonanza episode.

I thought it was sort of more I actually, you know, Michael Landon, is is more interesting to watch than the Charlie is I think, sorry, sorry Charlie fans, but but there's something about again this this one has the kind of it's it's it's not really eerie, but it just has this kind of what is going on?

Is this really happening?

Yeah, what has happened?

And it's more straightforward, like like you don't know until the end of Bonanza what exactly was happening.

This you know pretty early on this little girl is a ghost and she's sort of lost in time, and you learn you'll spoilers that goes on that that she is dead.

She's obviously dead, she's a ghost, but she she's dead, but she is for some reason sort of every time she sees Charlie, she's sort of reliving her life and like there's no one else there for her.

She's by herself, and it's kind of about Charlie trying to basically convince her that she's dead and she should go to heaven and and it's and it and it it's.

There are some nice little moments of humor in there where they're making fun of Charlie for for for uh, for talking about kind of ghosts and weird things, and like like one moment where Charlie, did you see something last night?

I did?

Would you tell us about it?

Nope, because you're gonna make fun of me and he will do it.

So he makes the young man tell and it's it's It's an interesting episode because, like I said, the first time I watched it, I thought, this is this is okay.

For some reason, I don't know, I was in the right frame of mine.

The second time I watched it, it really hit me and I thought the plight of little girl and Charlie just kind of going above and beyond to base.

I mean the moment in the end, like where he's digging through the ground trying to find her gravestone to show it to her.

Yeah, and then she and then he says, can you you can read?

You told me you could read, and she starts to read it.

It's just like I started forget me.

I started it well up.

I was like, oh my gosh.

And and then she goes basically to heaven, and I thought, wow, this is for for for It's like watching the Bonanza.

You don't quite expect ghosts in something like Bonanza, but you got to like, okay, but this one, like when I got to the end and like you see him him go out of out of his way and show it the grapes and all this other stuff.

It's like I found it rather sort of moving, Like I was like, oh wow, this is I I don't know why.

The first time I watched it, I was just like okay, But the second time it really struck me, and I thought, you know what, again, maybe it takes a little too long to get where it needs to me.

But again, it's a fifty minute episode and it you know, it may have worked best as like a half hour Twilight Zone or something, but I think in general it works.

And the sort of when you learn when the storytelling guy casually says what party she's a part of?

If you know your history, the moment you hear that, you're like, oh no, and you go, oh boy, okay, what is happening here?

And then gradually study the moment you hear that, you like, sit up, and then and then it gradually starts to sort of fill in the gaps and things.

So I got to say, like, I, yeah, I liked this episode of Wagon Train.

They're not I wish they were all like this.

I doubt they are.

Yeah, but I liked it.

I liked it.

Yeah, no, I My thoughts and feelings echo yours like to a t like the first time I watched it, and like you, I watched this episode twice.

I was kind of bored the first time through.

I thought the connection Now, I am going to go ahead and say what the connection is to oh?

Yes, please?

So the connection in this story with the little girl in this story is that she was part of the Donner Party, yes, which I thought was was you know, I thought it was interesting and the first time I watched it, but the execution or maybe the way the story was told was just kind of lacking.

But then the second time around, like you, it worked so much better for me.

And I do think it's really interesting to kind of pull a ghost story out of a real incident, yes one.

And I did look it up to see if a wagon train utilized kind of real historical figures and events in other episodes.

And I know there is another episode from this season that features Wyatt Arp and the Er Brothers and uh and they also did an early in an earlier season in an episode called the Jim Bridger Story, which is based on the like the Mountain Man and the guy and Jim Bridger is actually I think is connected to the Donner Party.

Actually I didn't get to research this, but I I think that he gave them some bad information about which direction they should take at some point in their journey, and that did lead them to like the awful, you know, tragedy that the party went through.

But and in this episode, they are referring to real uh members of the Donner Party, Like they mentioned Charles Stanton and William mccutcheen, and they also mentioned a name.

I think that Robin's last name is like rossiters like that.

Yeah, and I did.

I did actually look that up.

Look that name up today, and I couldn't find any information on it.

And now I'm not an expert on the subject of the Donner Party, but I did, probably five or six years ago, I read a book on the Donner Party called The Indifferent Stars Above The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Bride.

And it's an it's incredible, Like it's one of the most absorbing books I've read in recent memory.

It's it's by an author named Daniel James Brown.

And if you have any interest in this story at all, it's a pretty amazing telling of it.

It's it's it's really heavy, of course, uh, given the subject matter, but it is definitely worth checking out.

But uh, but but back to the back to this episode.

Yeah, like I said, I like the general story of this episode quite a bit.

I think if I have any issue with it still, I think part of it feels a little too much like a family show.

Like like the scene where the one character who is telling the children the story stories.

Yeah, yeah, that feels like it could be like hop Along Cassidy or something like that.

Yeah, but I think, you know, he's telling all of these tall tales and then when he is finally telling the cook like the true story of the with the Donner party.

Yes, I was kind of like, oh, well, now it's kind of worth it to hear him tell the tall tales to now hear him tell, like recite this real story.

But I wish he had been I mean, maybe he's a little more sincere, yeah telling that stuff, but I wish he had his performance had become a little more real telling that.

That's kind of but that's a minor, minor thing.

Yeah, No, I agree, I do.

I like I said, I do like the way how he's telling the story.

Oh, yes, there are people there.

Yeah, they were up there, Yeah, the part of the Donner party.

And they went up there, and you're like, what ding ding ding ding ding?

Yeah, go wait, I heard the word.

You know, it's a it'ld be like someone tellings.

Oh yeah, they were Yeah, they took that boat.

They traveled across the Atlantic boats they called, yeah, the Titanic, and they had a really great seat on there.

They would sit by, you know, and and something like that.

You go back up a little what was the name of that boat?

Yeah?

And but uh, I think the one thing I had with a the second time is it is it?

Is it the episode?

Whereas the bonanza builds, this one kind of doesn't go anywhere fast.

Even when you get up to the ending, it's now I mean when you get to the final scene with him and the little girl.

I think it's very affecting and it works very well.

But even leading up to that, there's no like, hey, where Charlie go, oh he went up ahead to do something?

You know there there's no there's no maybe because it's a ghost and and there doesn't have to be the the the sort of uh, she's not doing anything terrible, so they don't have to drive her out or anything like that.

But there there isn't there isn't a feeling of like, I know, it's a wagon train always moving forward, but the story just kind of kind of it kind of it'll hang for a minute or two and then something will happen, and then it'll hang for and then then something will happen.

And that's all I guess, part of the local color and filling it all in and stuff like that.

But that's the one thing for me as that the I don't know if meandering is the right word, but it never builds towards the ending.

The ending is at the ending where it's supposed to be, but it doesn't like it's not where do you go?

He's on the edge of this hill, oh my god, and there's a storm and what's he doing?

You know, it's like, where'd you go?

Oh?

He just went up ahead?

All right?

So you're making beans tonight, gonna make some beans, all right, beans, you know, and you know things like that.

You know, I'm gonna put on a coat, woo, you know, and then it cuts to Charlie doing doing the stuff.

But I think that the concept of I mean because in the previous episode, right, we had a people cursed and out out of time, yes, and being dragged back into our world as it were, to to uh to try to be brave and free themselves from the curse.

And this I like the concept.

This is slightly vaguer, I think, right, like sort of it's just a little girl who she's with the Donner party and they her mom gets sick, then her mom gets better than her mom dies, and then sometime after that she dies.

Yeah, and none of the other sort of ghosts are there and nothing, just she's there and she's lost, and she's, like I said, she's living through it again.

And there there is there is a great moment where two guys from like another wagon train show up and are like, you know, do you did you get did you find that girl or whatever?

The one she was crying where I forget if they said they saw her or not.

I just heard her.

I think he said they just heard her, but I got not a sure.

Yeah, almost like like like she was going from space to space looking for someone, not knowing why, but looking for someone who could help her and could I don't I don't I feel I feel like maybe she was too young, but that she's not too young because she's been for decades, I guess, but looking for someone who could help her bring the closure of the realize.

I like the concept that she died and her her body's in the ground and there's a gravestone, but her spirit.

I don't know if it's because she was too young.

I know it's because it was too sad.

I don't know if it was because it was Christmas time, right or something that that her spirit is lost, her spirit has not gone onwards.

And I liked that.

There's something about that that's just kind of a cool concept, like that she hasn't done anything wrong.

She's not in purgatory.

She's just a little confused girl who like like when when she died and they shone the light on her, she got distracted by something over to the left and went and checked it out, and the lights shut down, and she's like, where am I now?

And because she's you know, she's kind of stuck in her time, her sort of temporal spot.

She's still she's still cold.

But I'd like the fact that she's sort of living through her life, Like she doesn't keep showing up and asking for this same thing, like what the last time she like, I think that there's like the second or like I think the third time she shows up, she's like, oh, Mom's better and stuff like that.

So she's moving through a timeline too, and which is kind of which is kind of a weird.

But but and it doesn't I don't know if it makes sense.

But I don't know that it matters in the end, because she she goes to and it's really lovely the way they do it too.

I mean, when she the moment she realizes she's dead, she goes to heaven.

Right, Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's really I think it's a nice and it's it's sort of like nicely done.

I mean, I mean I would say, like if they did something like that today, it would probably be like you get a lot of people going, what was that?

Well, what was that?

But I think it's like sixty three sixty four, you could do that and people will go, people will will accept it more just be like, of course, of course that's what's going to happen, you know.

Yeah, I agree.

I even thought about that.

I was like, is somebody watching this now?

I might find it to be kind of cheesy, but I'm with you.

Like I the ending, I think is is very poignant.

And I think that even if it even if you can't make sense out of the story or kind of like the way this unfolds, it has like some emotional impact to it.

And I feel like that if you can achieve that that will like overpower any flaws with the story.

And it works well like emotionally with for it.

It's like it's an emotional storytelling rather than strict stories.

I don't know what to call it.

Yeah, like like you know, when you see the little girl and him talking to her, you know, it doesn't what the things I said about the timeline is that that doesn't really matter.

It's just kind of like, huh, you know.

It's like and and the theory being that like Charlie doesn't understand really what's going on.

He kind of does, but at the end of the day, if pressed, he'd be like, I don't know.

It was a little girl who died and then forgot to go to heaven and now she's alone and I helped her, uh you know, And and and if I asked him, well, what about the timelines and everything, he just give me a plate of beans and tell me to eat them right.

And it is weird, Like I said, that final scene when he's like he's trying to talk to her and she's kind of getting mad at him.

Yeah, because he's he's trying.

He's trying as delicately as he can to say, I'm sorry your mom has passed, but you're dead too, sweetheart, You're you're dead too.

And then he has just says to the moment he goes, wait a minute, and he jumps on the ground and is rummaging around the dirt for a couple of seconds.

You're like, what's he doing?

And then so they're like, oh, yes, And like I said, the moment where you told me you could read read this and she reads the thing and it's just like, oh, just I thought, like, like I said, if you can get I want to say, if you I'm making this up when I say this, but I want to say that if you watch a bunch of wagon trains, all the in between stuff in between the actual story, like talking about how great that kid was making dinner when Charlie wasn't there, and you know, discussing all the kids who were there and stuff like that.

All that stuff would just be part of the show.

That's just what happens in the show.

Every episode.

There's a main storyline and then there's all this interstitial stuff that goes out of the way.

The wagon train is alive as the story is going on.

So I feel like if I was more of an expert on wagon train all the intercision, that would just be part of the fun.

Right.

But yeah, Frank McGrath, he's the actual that played Charlie Wooster, and I thought he was pretty good and I really kind of bought like his obsession with kind of helping like the ghost of this little girl kind of move on.

Yes, because it does become an obsession.

Right, absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, I think I think it's an episode that some listeners would probably like this episode.

I can also see people thinking that it's boring, cheesy, or or for a bit of both.

That's sort of too much.

The spiritual aspect of it in the end might be a little little too much, But I think it were I mean, to me, it.

Works, right, I mean, oh, it worked for me absolutely.

I mean, here's here's the I mean, it's like I was, I was going to say, it's like when and I'm not going to say what happens here, But if you've ever watched the show The X Files, it was a big at one time.

No, it's still pretty pretty beloved show.

But one of the running through lines through that was what happened to Moulder's sister Samantha.

And throughout the show the first like six and a half seasons, we don't get all kinds of different things.

But then in the in the middle of the seventh season, there's a two parter the second part is called Closure, where you learn what happened where she is, what happened to where she is, And to some people it's laughable.

To me, I thought it was gorgeous.

I thought it was a beautiful ending.

I thought it was perfect what it ended.

I was like, it was just like that was that?

I love that?

That was great?

And that's sort of what like this is.

You know, you're gonna if if if you, if you watch Closure got to the end and laughed and said, what a pile of do do you?

You might watch this and have a similar feeling.

Yeah, because she's not gonna she's not gonna suddenly become like the ghost at the beginning of Ghostbusters and leap up and become a monster and attack Charlie or anything.

No, she's just she's like the like the episode is tight, A little Girl lost.

So yeah, it's a it's a like I think.

I think so far it's two winners.

I think, very different types of episodes, yes, but two winners.

Don't watch them in a row, no sleep, or maybe watch a black and white then the color one.

I don't know, Yeah that that could work or maybe uh yeah, I don't know.

Or maybe maybe start with this episode and then the bonanza or something.

Yeah, yeah, I think maybe do that.

Yeah.

And it's so weird too to have a show that was black and white then color then wrapped it up in black and white.

That's got to be interesting because so many shows this was the time when they all went for black and white to color, and then to have one kind of go ah, we tried it, We're going to black and white.

Yeah.

I wonder if the seventh season, if they saw like a big drop in ratings or something.

I feel like possibly just because they got I mean, what was it the season?

Was it the season before?

Two seasons before they know we number one?

You know, so the fact that the I mean it was eight seasons too, and that yeah, at that time, that was pretty long for a TV show.

U.

So, but but I do feel like, maybe, yeah, that that ninety minute color thing may have hurt them somewhat.

I don't know for certain, but I just feel like the fact that they just they just were constantly building building, and I think they were like like behind Gun Smoke for a couple of seasons or something like that, like number two or number three or something like that, and then they hit number one.

Then a year or two later they went color, and then the next year they went black and white and then they were gone.

Yeah.

So yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I guess we're gonna got our wagon train.

But eventually wagon train we will hop on.

It'll be awesome.

Yeah.

I like the so like, yeah, you had made a joke.

I think the last time we recorded about doing eventually the Virginian, Yes, And I had the thought like if that was a podcast, the idea of going through the longest running Western series and then eventually we'll get to the Virginian like we did all twenty seasons of gun Smoke, and then we did what is it, fourteen seasons of the fourteen Yeah, of Bonanza.

That would be Now, that would be a tremendous podcast that that somebody should start.

If we don't, that would be great.

Well you can have Oh yeah, oh go ahead.

Oh no, I was I was just going to make another eventually, the Virginian joke.

But I thought I think we're good.

I think we're good.

I don't need to make another.

All right.

Well, I was looking at my notes.

Yeah, do you have anything else on this one?

I don't think so.

What did he say?

Does Charlie have a line where he says, I'm like, I just have it written down.

You're looking at that like you hated them?

What it was that?

That's the beginning?

Is it like someone looking at his food or something.

You're looking at that like you hated him or something?

God could Why did I only write down half the line?

That doesn't help anyone?

Okay, Well, at the beginning everyone someone says the line and you're looking at that like you hated them or something like that, And I thought it was good.

So if you can figure out what it is, you know right to us, and you know you win an evening with Hunter.

Oh wow, I hope nobody wins.

Well, I guess I hope somebody wins it.

Maybe it depends on who the winner is.

I wish I should lots of kids.

Why did I do that?

Oh?

God?

Okay, but yeah, I didn't write a lot of notes on this one because to me, it was like as I was watching and it was like it was it was just it was self evident.

So so I didn't I didn't write a lot.

Yeah.

Well, no, it's it's a good episode, and I'm definitely glad I gave it a rewatch because this would be a very different conversation if I'd only seen Hyeah first.

Same here.

Yeah, yeah, all right, So well let's get into the last episode we're talking about, which is from uh it's the twelfth episode from the second season of The Wild Wild West.

It's called The Night of the Man Eating House and it aired on December second in nineteen sixty six.

It was directed by Alan Crossland Junior, and he directed twelve episodes of the series in total, and Dan he actually directed an episode of Garrison's Gorillas.

It was episode twenty one.

It's called Ride of Terror.

Have you have you gotten that far yet?

Now?

Yet?

We are?

I think as we're talking about it, this right now episode seventeen is about to go up, so.

We ok, you're pretty close.

Yeah, yeah, all right.

And he also directed twelve episodes of Adam twelve.

And I actually, I actually I mentioned this on a recent episode, but I'll say it again.

My dad loves Adam twelve, he says.

He says, he says, if there were ten thousand episodes of Adam twelve, he would never watch anything else.

You know.

Yeah, it's it is a fun show.

I mean I've said that, like with Doctor Who.

You know, there are some days where I'm not going to watch anything ever again, but Doctor Who, because there are eight hundred episodes, you know, but yeah, I would.

I could see that with Adam twelve.

You get.

It's a it's a really good show.

It really Yeah, yeah, it's very good.

And this episode was written by John Nuball and he wrote eight episodes of the Wild Wild West and worked on a bunch of other shows, and Wagon Train being one of them.

Actually, and I don't know this for a fact, but I feel like this is a series that you're pretty familiar with, is that right?

Yeah?

The I finally after years of almost buying it, like about three months ago, I finally bought the complete series on DVD and I finished rewatching season one a few days ago, which is the black and white season, which is a lot of fun.

And I feel like the show gets crazier and maybe more fun as it goes into color, unlike say, like The Man from Uncle, which as it got more color, it got more camp and people hated it more.

But yeah, Wild Wild West was the show that Saturday evenings when I was a kid, we would go to church because that's when my mom liked to go to church, the five o'clock mass.

We were Catholic between and we get home by six and then my mom would make us dinners.

We were watching The Wild Wild West and we would eat dinner on TV trays watch The Wild Wild West sometimes Star Trek because that was onto.

I prefer Wild Wild West, and we would watch that and then you know, later in the evening, you know, while everyone else was asleep, I you know, at the age of eight or nine, I'd be up watching Mystery Monty Python and Doctor Who, which would go on to like the middle of the night.

But that that was like the start of our tuesdays after church was a Wild Wild was and I love the music I love I love the fact that Jim West did all these great stunts.

I loved Robert Conrad's pants.

I still do.

Artemis Gorn, of course, is one I think one of the great characters around.

I loved how nutty the show was, and I loved I love the theme music.

I love the when it would ever would go to a commercial and you get that final image going into the sort of like the puzzle pieces of the of the opening credits.

I always love that, and they would fill them up.

And I like the fact that all the episodes are the night of something or other.

I love doctor Loveless.

May the man who removed my wisdom teeth when I was about eighteen was named doctor Loveless, and he was a very nice guy.

He was a very nice guy.

And I will tell you getting four wisdom teeth removed one of the crunchiest experiences of my life.

They were all impacted, so he had to kind of break them all out of there.

And there's nothing like sitting there and all you can hear is people, doctor Lovelace.

Is everything going all right?

Oh?

Dan, it's going great.

Oh it's going great.

Can I get some more sponges here?

Yeah?

It's going fantastic, Dan.

Yeah, but I do remember when I met him, I sang like doctor Lovelace, you know the uh there there was a character in the show The Wild Wild West, and he nodded to yes, I know, I know, and I said, okay, all right, cool A couple of times yeah, yeah, so but but yeah, it was a show that when I was a kid, it was one of my I didn't watch a lot.

I've said this so many times.

I didn't watch a lot of hour long TV when I was a kid.

I had a tough time getting into it.

Mcgiver was one of the shows I watched for about two years until it stopped being kind of adventury and he started like helping out inner city kids.

I thought, I'm not that's Welcome Back Cotterer.

I don't want to see Welcome Back Cotter with macguiver in it and as mcguiver.

And then a couple of and then a couple of the short lived shows like Shadow Chasers and stuff.

But Wild Wild West was one I used to watch pretty I'm gonna say religiously because we watch it after church.

Yeah, and so, and it was I just loved and randomly throughout my life, I watched it again and when I caught up on it, and then and I've been I've been meeting to buy the DVDs for what like the fifteen years they've been out.

That finally around my birthday a few months ago, I bought the set and like I said, I really love the show.

The show.

I will say this, the show is one of those sixties shows where I do not recommend watching more than one episode of sitting.

You can do one a day, one a week, which is the way it's meant to be watched.

But if you do, if you do two in a row, the show is very formulaic and it it there's no bones about it.

Knows it's formulaic and it and that right there on its sleeve, you know, the night of this, the night of that.

It's very formulaic.

So if you watch one today, one a week, it's a joy.

If you watch like two in a row, like You'll get halfway through the second episode to be like whow, I feel like I'm watching sort of the same thing you're not, but it all feels so similar.

So I recommend the show.

HI adore the show is.

It's one of my favorite I hate to say, but at the end of the day, I feel like the nineteen sixties in America might be my favorite decade for television.

Yeah, just because like there are so many shows that I appreciate during this decade, and My Green Acres, of course, is one of my top two or three favorite shows.

But it's just like, when I look at the shows of the sixties, there's so many there's so much imagination, there's so much variety, and it's gotten over the hump of the primitiveness of the early fifties, and it's and it's sort of and it's not quite at the seventies thing where everything becomes so relevant that six months later it's dated that like the sixties, like there's this wonderful space and there's but rewatching Wild Wild West.

Especially this episode we're going to talk about a couple of times, just just reminded me that it's it's such an imaginative show and they pull from so many different sources to make it.

It's just like it's it's very good.

I think it's a very good show.

And I'm not going to say what I think about the episode until we get to it.

I might have liked it.

There I spoiler.

But that's how I'm saying, what about you?

No, you say that to yourself?

Yeah.

Now, So this is a series that I own as well, and I've been very slowly making my way through it.

I haven't seen a ton of episodes at this point, and this was actually my first time seeing this episode.

So, and it's not very far into the second season, but I know I've completed the first season.

I've watched maybe a handful of the second season, and I agree this is not a series that I can binge watch, and actually, just any show that has a fifty minute runtime I think makes it harder to watch multiple episodes.

But yeah, but I do enjoy the series for sure, and I agree that it's definitely imaginative, like the the cast, even even though the even though the makeup can be a bit much on one of them, we'll get into.

That little yeah for sure.

But uh, but Dan, this is the final plot summary of the night?

What is the Night of the Man Eating House About?

I struggle to try to come up with a way to tell this in some way that will take forever, but I'll do my best.

So they have the Jim and Artemis are are helping they're in Texas and they're taking a gentleman named I want to say, list listen, listen, Lawrence Day.

Does that sound right?

Does that?

Yeah?

I think so.

Yeah, I'm gonna call him mister Day.

Yeah, taking this guy named mister Day, who who Jim doesn't describe at the beginning, but he compares him to Benedict Benedict Arnold of Texas.

Yes, and this guy has been in prison for like twenty years, thirty years in solitary confinement, and he I believe it's he's very, very set.

And they're taking him to a doctor in Beaumont, Texas who can help him, and then they're taking him back to the prison.

Although when we see this gentleman, mister mister Day, he he's Artemis pretty quickly says something like he's got swamp fever.

He's not gonna last longer.

He doesn't.

He's very old, he doesn't look great, and uh, it's it's artemissus, Jim, it's mister mister Day.

I'll can call mister D.

It sounds like I'm gonna do a little rolling Stones.

They're dancing with mister d or something like that.

I'm not but uh, mister and a sheriff, and the sheriff.

Most of what the sheriff does is says stuff like, well, that can't happen.

What's going on over that?

That's that kind of sheriff.

And what ends up happening is it's nighttime and they they reach this old looks like a deserted house.

They go inside the house and the house is clearly very deserted.

I mean, there are more cobwebs in this house than a house called Cobweb House down Cobweb Lane in in cobb Web, the city of Cobweb in the United States.

There are a lot of webs in this house.

And they stay in the house.

And I don't want to say too munch of it because I I just but but they're in the house and they kind of get to get mister Day comfortable and he's not doing great, and they're just going to kind of bed down there for the night, and then weirdly enough, they start hearing a female voice echoing through the house.

Now, I know this is tying you with the previous one, right, And in the one before that, there's a woman who's a ghost who tries to put the make on little Joe.

So, so we got all kinds of tie ins here, and Hunter did this on purpose.

Trust me, trust me, trust me.

And so they hear like this the sound of this woman laughing, and and and what begins to happen is they sort of realize that this woman seems to be the house because they bust some windows and they hear her moaning and moaning away occasionally that I wouldn't have thought you would be able to hear on TV in nineteen sixty six.

But but this is a year or two away from laughing, where you know, we shed all our inhibitions.

So but but and and like like, there's one point where Artemis kind of stambs the wall and you hear like a groan of pain.

Yea, And they sort of and then they get trapped that all the doors shut, they see a little like willow the wisp thing floating around a chandelier almost drops on Artemis.

And and basically, mister Diaz, oh, I gave gave the game away there, mister Day.

Sorry, don't listen to that thing I just said.

Mister Day, the crazy prison guy.

At one point, he breaks in hysterical laughter and takes off running up the steps into the the the recesses of the house.

Yeah, and and things get really weird when the sheriff follows him.

Artemis a gym follow him a minute later, and the sheriff is on the ground, having age to death in the course of about one minute.

And after that things get weirder.

They go deeper into the house.

They discover the source of this laughter, this female laughter.

They learn whose house it was, they learned the history of the house, and they end up in a in a dungeon cell with I was going to reference an HP Lovecraft story with rats in the walls and things go kind of crazy, and uh, I'm just gonna stop right there.

They're in a crazy house that seems to be possessed.

Yes, yeah, So what did you think of this episode?

I loved it.

I just thought it was so nutty.

It's so screwball from beginning to end.

They do a really well we'll talk about we'll talk about what happens at the very ending later, But it was the second time I watched it, I saw how they planted the ending and I thought, oh, is that fair?

Did you do that right?

And I'll talk about what I mean later, But this is just like, I don't know because of the very ending, I don't know if this is a great one Archer Wild Wild West with because it slightly hedges its bets, but then it also kind of doesn't.

And the thing about the show is the show goes nuts.

The show does all kinds of crazy things that doesn't apologize for it.

And so this one just like the deeper you get into it, the weirder it gets.

And you know, you've got you've got walls that moan, You've got these cobwebs everywhere, you get a sheriff aging to death in like thirty seconds.

Yeah, you you get the spirit of a woman who opens and closes doors and reveals hidden passages.

You get thousands of rats in the walls infected with the bubonic plague.

I mean what yeah, what I mean?

You know, like again, this this episode, like if you're expecting like an MCU film or something like that, this isn't pace like that.

It's it's it's it's more, it's it's a slower pace, but it has so much crazy stuff happening that you just kind of a weird thing happens.

And then as you're sitting there taking that in two minutes later, another weird thing happens, and then something happens and you think, where are they going to go from there?

And then they do something else that's weird, and it's just like and the whole time, Gym and Artemis are there.

You know, Gym's in his tight pants and your Artemis is looking slightly confused, and they're just trying to figure out what's going on.

And just just the way it goes from like this one thing to another thing and then another thing, and it's just like it's so packed with stuff that I just got a real kick out of it.

I mean, this is this is this is basically like, like I said, not a first time wild wild West to someone, but this is like this is the wild wild West to me.

Like this is wild and I just I just had a good time.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

I think it's a really fun episode and definitely out of everything we watched, maybe it has the most like horror essents.

I mean, there's a graveyard, there is a haunted house, so many cobwebs, and.

By the end, there's like I'm dying to say this in high death because by the end, like as as mister Day is like holding them up with a gun.

You see Artemis a Jim and they're like covered with cobwebs, like all over their clothes.

Yeah, this is one series now that we So far there's only been a handful of like Western TV shows that have gotten a Blu Ray release.

But I would love for The Wild Wild West to get a Blu Ray release because it would it could really benefit from a nice HD scam although the DVD I think looks looks pretty.

Pretty good overall.

Now, now, the one thing that I do sort of wish is that there there is that it wasn't a dream.

Yes, that's what I was gonna Yeah, yeah.

I mean it's it's It's easy enough for me to overlook, but I do wish that that element wasn't there.

Now, I think the the actor who plays uh Liston or mister Day or.

You can whatever you like, Okay, uh he is.

A heard hat feet And this is kind of an obvious thing to point out, but there are like similarities to the picture of Dorian Gray in this and herd A.

Hatfield actually played Dorian Gray in the nineteen forty five adaptation of Wow, That's a Wild Story.

But I think he's pretty good.

I do think he's good.

I mean he gets pretty over the top and you do kind of feel like when he's monologuing, he thinks that he's doing Shakespeare.

Yes, but in an amusing way.

I thought it was funny.

Yes, it's very he's I mean, he's one of those crazy guys who who who laughs constantly at stuff, Yes, who finds the world very music.

And that's actually a way they trick him to get out of the cell.

In the end is Artemis starts laughing, and you don't want to laugh hysterically near someone who's crazy and laughs hysterically because they're gonna get jealous and like, what are you laughing hysterically at?

Yeah?

Over look?

Yeah.

And the other that actually plays the sheriff is William Tomman, and he isn't given a whole lot to do in this.

He's definitely like, you know, like you said, he's like, what's going on over there?

Why is this happening?

You know?

But he everyone will recognize him.

He played Hamilton Burger and Perry Mason.

Now, now he never won a case, did he In Perry Mason?

I think I think if I remember correctly, because I've asked Mitchell Hadley this several times, Okay, and he says, I think there was one case that he won, but then it was thrown out or something at the end, So so that was as closest they got.

So, but hope Spring's eternal.

For Hamilton Burger, he always thought he'd win.

Yeah, and he's in Uh.

He's also in The Hitchhiker, the Idelippino director noir that I remember enjoying, and I actually thought that his character's corpse is actually pretty cool.

Yeah, and I do like the idea.

Now, Actually this is something that we should we should talk about because they they do say that the blood his blood has been completely from his body, right is.

And the episode is not the House the man eating House.

So does the house suck his blood or is this something that mister Day did to him?

I don't know.

I thought it was great though, I mean it was, like I remind it.

It reminded me of a much calmer version of the Japanese film House or HOUSEU or whatever it's called from late seventies, which is where the gals go to stay in the house and it's crazy.

But this is this is sort of like a Calmber version.

It's sort of like the production design is sort of via Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe.

But yeah, small, a little smaller, a little little smaller, but still the the with with that, with with the with when you're in a TV thing and you only have a few rooms, you have to it's the promise of large beyond that, I think that that makes it work.

And I think pretty much like that entrance room with the staircase and everything.

I think I feel like once you go out that that doorway, I feel like the world's in front of you kind of thing.

So so so I bought it.

But but yeah, the yeah, I love that moment with his you know, his bloodspen drained.

What I don't think it really comes up again be like what, Yeah, I don't what.

And it's just like, yeah, I like that.

Yeah I can't explain it.

But yeah, I can't explain it either, but I I I like that it's there.

Oh one thing, Oh when I just think of now one moment when they first get to the house.

Oh, actually back to the po thing.

So I definitely, uh, the aesthetic that it is definitely drawing from, like the uh Corman post like.

Fall House or USh or something like that.

Yeah, and I don't know how you can, uh you take from that and then not have the house burned down at the end.

That's what's the one thing, right, that was the one.

Thing that's missing.

Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure Roger Corby would have sold them some footage.

Yes, real cheap you know is yeah, yeah, the uh yeah, it's it's a great to.

It's a great to sort of the production design.

It's it's a fun haunted house.

I mean, do they go overboard on the cobwebs maybe, yeah, I don't know.

I mean that the cobwebs give the whole thing kind of.

I mean, you keep expecting to see a scene where like the two like Artemis and Jim are talking and then in the background, like a giant spider lowers into the frame or something, you know, a lah like Catwoman of the Moon or Dungeon of Harrow or something like that, where you're like, ah, but it doesn't happen like these these were little spiders just working overtime.

Maybe just working overtime.

And yeah, it's really like there's so much that happens in the episode.

It keeps like it it it like it starts off just like a regular like we're hauling this jerk from one place to another.

Then you get in the house and things get weird, and then you learn the backstory of the family, and then all of a sudden, the rats and the like.

It's just it's like it keeps, it keeps sort of at the moment when you think it's gonna like maybe like it's gonna run out of energy, it kind of like revitalizes itself.

Yeah, again, which I which I really appreciate.

I mean, that's was one of the wild Wild West.

The things with you know, is that there's there's not just one thing going on.

There's like there's a lot of little things going on that accumulate into I'm going to release a thousand rats when this, when this, when this grandfather's clock strikes midnight, a thousand rats infected with bubonic playing from the ants are going to flood the countryside.

Wow.

Wow, yeah, Wow, that's I I wouldn't you know, thirty minutes ago, I wouldn't have seen that coming.

You know, at the end of the episode, the old guy died a swamp fever.

Wouldn't have seen that coming.

Nope, Nope, Yeah.

It goes to a pretty wild place.

But I do think it's it's it's definitely a lot of fun.

Now, one thing I did want to mention when they first get to the house, they obviously the door opens on its own.

They go inside and it's it's very brightly lit.

But for some reason, Jim asked the sheriff to please hold the lantern up and it doesn't change the lighting in the scene at all.

But uh, these are minor things that it probably would have happened in any TV show from this era, but it is kind of it might not play well to somebody who isn't familiar with watching TV from this era.

We are still like this I think is the second year of more or less all color, so we are like I think maybe we're still I mean, I think the makeup is probably it's someone overdoing it.

Do you want to talk about Jim's makeup real quick?

Yeah?

We should describe.

I mean, like, what color is he?

I don't know.

At first, I thought, am I am I becoming complicit in some sort of racist thing as I'm watching this because I'm looking at him and I'm like, what color are you?

Jim?

Because he's you know, he's a white guy.

Yes, but he looks like there were occasional moments where it looks like he's kind of, forgive me, almost burnt, like like badly sun burnt or something like that.

But then there are other moments where it looks like he's almost the color he they should be putting on him.

I'm not going to say it, but it looks.

It just looks you look at it going away, And all I could think of was, this is the first season when they were in color, so maybe, like I always go to, like, at this time, TVs were smaller and the definition was low, so I think probably a lot of people will still have seen this in black and white.

I would bet when it aired.

Oh okay, I didn't even consider that.

Because I was I was going with that because like for forgive me bringing up Doctor Who, but like Doctor Who went to color in nineteen seventy, for the first like three years, they would do it in color and black and white to show it in certain areas in the UK that just didn't really have color yet.

And so even though this went to color, that doesn't mean everyone.

I mean, my Polish grandmother had like a black and black and white TVs in her house until like nineteen eighty eight, Like it was like a suppose we bought her a color TV and she like fell off the easy chair, you know, it was so I mean, I think part of that might be that, like, not everyone would have had color yet.

And also I think with like the lower definition of the lower number of lines and things on a TV back then, in the smaller TVs, I feel like it probably would have looked, i mean less egregiously strange than it does right here, because like you seem in the opening scene where they're like doing the telegraph and everything, and every time they cut to a close up of his face, I think, handsome man, and I'm a little uncomfortable looking at his face with that What is that color?

Could we look at something else?

And yeah, it's it's it's straight there.

There's some some moments, some two shots and things like that throughout some longer shots, but whenever they do a close up of him, I don't know, Yeah, too much, too much makeup, too much dark in makeup his face.

Yeah, and it's it's too dark, like nobody is that tan?

Yeah, at least at least I do not that, at least from what I've seen of people in the world.

Yeah, he could also almost be like almost the color of like like if you shaved the bark off an oak tree, he could almost be that.

Yes, yes, I would agree.

I would agree.

I wish we should try doing people do that?

Do that?

Yeah, it's it's it's I think by the time I got about halfway in the episode, I was used to it.

Yeah, but it is slightly distracting in some of the close ups early on because every time it cuts cause you're getting into it and it's weird and you're like, how weird are they going to get?

You know, there's that like I mentioned earlier, there's like a willow, the wispy type thing that flies around in the front room that the sheriff shoots at, and you're like, how weird are they going to get?

And then it cuts to a close up a gym and you think, oh, it's going to get that weird.

Okay, that's a different vary.

That's a variation of weird that I feel a little weird about looking at.

But but yeah, so so but but but the rest of it though, I mean the colors, like you said, see this in high def.

I imagine it would be great because the colors are it's there are a lot of colors.

It's a gorgeous, gorgeous looking sets and everything like that.

So yeah, it's a I'm looking at them now right here there.

They just pulled the diary out from behind the uh the painting, and they're covered in cobwebs.

Yeah, come yeah.

Yeah, I'm trying to think if I don't know, oh well, one thing that that is kind of interesting is there is that little floating uh what is it a wisp?

I call it a willow of the wisp, exactly what it's supposed to be.

Yeah, But outside of that, they you know, this is a kind of it's kind of interesting that they have a haunted house without showing a spirit or anything like that.

It's more like a mechanical sort of opening windows opening like like yeah, like if Doctor Lovelace were here, you'd go under the house and there'd be like huge like wooden gears.

It'll be like a cyber like like like a not not a cyberpunk, the the steampunk kind of thing like under the house or something like that, like turn this swetch and the painting flies open.

But this seems to actually be like this ghost of the the mother doing all this.

Yeah, and I and I do like kind of the how Jim and artemists kind of kind of experiment with what will affect the house, like the idea of stabbing the walls.

It just kind of it's kind of fun just to see what happens.

But uh, but yeah, I'm trying to think of I have anything else?

Did you have any other I was just going to mention the dream portion of it, because we learn at the end that that it is a dream.

But then they do several weird things with it.

First off, normally when you when you do like it's a dream kind of thing, like it's a moment of like fear or terror, you know what I mean, Like, oh my god sort of thing.

Like the other day I rewatched Berto Lenzi's Nightmare City.

Oh yeah, and that one is just a dream one where the where the lead guy, the reporter, and his wife who's a doctor, are like a rope on a helicopter flying away from the zombies or whatever.

They are above a roller coaster and the wife loses her grip and falls to her death.

The moment she hits the ground, the reporter wakes up from a dream and then suddenly goes into the first few minutes of the film where the zombie guys are about to fly out of a plane, leap out of a plane, you know everything, It freeze frames and says the nightmare becomes a reality.

And that's usually like a dream ends there in a movie, and and and normally two you get this thing where like when a when a dream ends, like saying on someone screaming or whatever, when you cut back to a movie like Last Slumber Party, which is also a big chunk of it, as a dream does this, where whereas Nightmarre City, when he wakes up from the dream, he basically goes through what we saw at the beginning of the movie, the exact same thing.

So when the when the plane door begins to open, you're like, okay, is this this is going to be the exact same thing we just saw, but now he's dreamt it, so maybe he could do something to figure about the movie ends, there's no sequel.

Whereas Last Slumber Party, when Chris gets killed in the pool by the by the crazy guy, what we see to the end of the movie is different from what we saw in her dream.

Wild Wild West does the former they wake up from the dream, and it ends up with them approaching the house that we were in during the entire episode.

So when the episode ends, you think, are they about to just live through what he dreamed?

Yeah?

Or or that's what it kind of feels like to me, like they almost the writers maybe someone was like, you know, this is a little too crazy.

Make it a dream, but end it with them about to apparently live out the dream, and then just end the episode.

You know, it's not a two parter where the second part will then be them living.

Did you ever see that Lavern and Shirley episode?

I'm sorry what am I talking about here?

Did you ever see that Lavernon Cheurlely episode where they they're in there is when they're in living in Hollywood where they send a letter to their boss.

No, I don't think so.

It's so what happens I'll just say real quick, and you're gonna think, Dan, what are you talking about?

Just bear with me for a moment.

Everybody you heard me talk about gun smoke, you know, but I'm just talking about sort of dreams and imagine everything and something that.

So in this episode, they send a letter their boss because they didn't get a promotion.

They didn't get something.

It's a nasty letter and they mean to him and they say, we quit.

And then at the very end of the day they discovered they didn't get the promotion.

So they rush like to the top floor of the building or whatever, and they see their boss like in his office getting a stack of letters with their letter on top, and he's about to read them when he gets like a phone callers, I haven't seen the episode in a while.

He gets like a phone call or something and he has to leave.

So they see him set the letters down on the front of his desk.

He has like an alarm in his office.

He sets an alarm for his office, locks the door, and leaves.

Then it cuts to Laverna, Shirley Lennyd squreing and Carmine doing a Mission Impossible style break in, breaking into his office.

They can't touch the floor because the alarm will go off.

They steal the letter, they get out of there, get out to the parking lot, like tear up the lighter or something like that.

We did it, And then the moment they do it, it cuts to Laverne in their apartment with everybody and she's pointing it like a poster board or something that has arrows of things, and she says, that's the way we're going to do it, and then it says to be continued, and the next episode is them doing the heist that we saw them pulling imagine in an imaginary version in the first one, except they get it all wrong and it keeps going screwy.

So if you've watched the first episode, you base it's like the first episode is like the dream we see here, and then if there were a second episode to this one, it would be them going in the house with our knowledge and their knowledge of what's happening.

And so that's a great fun the virtue.

But I felt like, you get to the end of this one and it really, to me it feels like, like I said, a producer said, you can't do that.

That's a little too crazy.

But pretend like it's going to happen, and then end the episode, yeah, which I kind of which I kind of like.

And then and then the last thing I'll say is they they did you notice the way we go into the dream?

Yes?

All right, so would you like to say the way we go to do the dream?

Yeah?

So the way it goes into the dream is they are there in the middle of they're in a graveyard and uh, and it shows Artemis uh laid down.

I think Jim is going to watch Yes, mister Day Uh.

And the sheriff has already fallen asleep and Artemis Uh, I think he tells Artemists that he should go to sleep too, or maybe Artemist is asleep and he tells the sheriff it's one of the other.

And then it cuts to a shot of Artemis and it does the kind of waving.

Dream world.

And one thing that's kind of interesting about the dream is it's and I and I guess dreams are are like this, although I don't think you see them in movies or TV as much like this, But it isn't from Artemis's You aren't really seeing it from Artemis's point of view for a little bit where you see, uh, mister Day go over to his wife.

Uh tombstone or headstone or whatever.

Yes, yeah, and there's that mom the mom's right or is it someone's head the mom's headstone or is it.

Oh, yes, or the mom's headstone.

That's right, Yeah, it doesn't matter.

A lady's headstone, Yeah, lady's headstone.

But I think I think you're right.

I do think it's it's it's the mother.

And there's actually a really cool shot of like a really slow push in on the name that that that that definitely felt like a shot from a horror movie.

But yeah, but that that is how it kind of how they how you enter into the dream.

And and I'll say the thing that makes it weird is that this is pre credits.

Is pre credits scene and you see Artemis and he goes all dream thing, and then you see mister Day through the graveyard and they he kind of bows down before the statue helped me, help me, and then they grab him and drag him back to the campsite, and then you kind of get a slow pull in on the statue's face, which is really nice.

And then you get the opening credits.

And then when the opening credits end, do you remember the first thing we see?

And it's okay if you don't, because I just wrote it down a few minutes ago.

It's the house, Okay, it is the house.

Okay, So the first thing you see is the house that they're about to go to, which actually exists that Artemis has never seen.

And then it goes to a shot of them kind of like like picking him up, moving him around, trying to get him on the horse, and then taking him to the house.

And I realized when I was watching this the second time that because they have the opening credits there, and because you see the establishing shot of the house, and because when cuts back to them, they're kind of they're all woken up and wrangling him back onto the horse, I didn't realize it was a dream anymore.

I lost track of the fact that it was a dream because now they were away, and because we saw that house, and because of several other things, like and I wonder about this.

We don't learn the history of mister Day or mister Diaz and what he did until the dream.

So I'm wondering if that is even what he was.

If I'm wondering if all of that.

I mean, like, obviously it's a dream, so I don't know if they go in the house, if everything will replicate.

But I'm wondering, like all we know about this guy was that he was a trader.

When we hear the story, we learn about his family.

That's all in the dream.

So I'm wondering if that's all like Artemis coming up with something in his head or something like that.

But it's I think, and I'd love to know if there's anyone listening who thought the same thing.

When you see the little of the dream, but then the moment it goes to the credits, you see the house and then you see them waking up, picking them up, putting them on the thing.

I thought we were like out of the dream.

I'd forgotten the dream was happening.

And then then when the episode ended and it became a dream and they went to the house, I went back to the beginning and so where's the dream start?

And they thought, Oh, it's before the credits.

Is that fair?

Because that the the establishing shout of the house doesn't feel like a dream thing to me.

It feels like something And I thought, huh, that does seem like a wild wild West to do something weird like that.

But uh, but yeah, it's it's it's And this is probably just I mean, everyone listening is probably like, you, dope, Yeah, of course he's in a dream.

But it was I I legitimately thought that it sort of reset itself after the credits and we were in real land, real world again.

Oh, gotcha.

So yeah, so that didn't happen for me.

I I k you the whole time it was it was a dream.

I wish, I wish, I I I don't know why I forgot that.

I really don't.

I mean, like I said, I just gave the reasons why I think I did.

But I like, as like I said, when he woke up and it was a dream, I was like, what, oh wait a minute.

But I kind of like the way I watched it because I thought it was all real until that happened.

Yeah, you know, I actually, I mean, one of the worst in endings in in uh movies is it's all a dream.

I mean, it's it rarely.

I'm trying to think of an example that that even works.

I mean, I guess, well, in the end, it's not.

I guess there's post dream sequences in Yall Hall and Drive True.

Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, and yeah mulhun Drivers.

Yeah that was pretty well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like like here, like I said, I truly believe that they're actually about to live out that adventure in that house, because that's the thing, right, is that, Like I said, normally you cut the dream ends at a moment of crisis.

Or something crazy happening at this moment.

The dream ends.

They've won.

They won, they did they they got out of the house, the the the the the trader has died, the rats are not going to be released.

Everything is great.

And then he wakes up from the dream.

What an odd spot to wake up from the dream.

I mean, normally you're interrupted.

Yeah, And it would it would almost make more sense to have the dream in the episode if you had Artemis wake up and say, hey, actually this guy is innocent and and like and I I can't tell you why right now, but that would have been and then you it goes from there.

It almost makes more sense to include the dream if you have that yes in the episode as well.

If you were to like storm into the house and like go directly to the room and Billy, yes, it's behind here, it's behind here.

Something like that.

Yeah, Because the thing about is the moment he wakes up from the dream, the episode's over, right, you know, they've already saved the day.

And to have him have it be a dream just I don't know, maybe maybe I I I don't know.

The episodes that come before it, maybe they were a little dull and artemists just wanted some excitement or something.

But but yeah, it's a it's a dream, everybody, and some people catch that it's a dream all the way through, and some people apparently aren't paying attention.

Well, hey, I mean I I mean in the Bonanza episode, by the end of the episode, I had forgotten about the guy.

And the true So we all have we all have our foibles here everybody.

But I mean, it's I think it's a fun episode regardless of what it is.

Yes, it's it's it's fun to watch and and is it.

I think if they hadn't had an ending, the dream would have made me go.

But they actually get to the ending and then it becomes a dream and you're just like, huh.

It's a different kind of disappointment because the episode gave you the dramatic closure and then it says, oh, that actually hasn't happened yet.

Hmm, you're huh Okay, So I'm gonna stop talking about why I should pay attention to things more.

All right, Well, I think, uh, well that is all I have for U for this episode.

Did you have anything else?

I feel like I think we covered it pretty good.

Yeah, I mean, I could probably ramble on for another ten minutes.

Like I said, I mean, I mean, it's got everything.

I mean there's one point right where like mister Day is walking down a hallway and he's suddenly like deaged by like thirty years.

Yeah, and he stops and like presses on the wall and like it pops open and there's a switch covered in cobwebs, and he throws the switch and of course there's a switch there, you know, and they drop and as as the guys are trying to they drop through a trap door in the ground.

Of course there is, of course there is Grandfather clock go off at midnight, rats everywhere, of course there is.

It's it's it's got It's like they're throwing everything at you, and I think it works.

Yeah, Now the de aging thing is almost it almost makes me think even though the title is about the uh you know, the man eating house, that kind of makes you think that he actually drained the blood like yes, for himself.

But it's also a dream, so we're dealing with dream lone.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's one one more interesting thing.

And just when they when they leave the house in the end, before the dream is is I was gonna say revealed, but some of us already knew it was a dream before.

Before the dream ends, there's a great moment where they're like, they're they're like they they come out of the house and they're they're holding him up, holding mister Day up, and then it cuts to a long shot of them setting mister Day down against a pillar and Jim is on one send an Artemis is setting him an Artemis is blocking him and they walk a few feet.

Then all of a sudden, mister Day jumps up with a gun and he's like aged back into an old guy.

Yes, But the the cool thing is that for a split second, as Artemis is turning around in the long shot, you can see that they've already he's already deaged.

He's already become old again.

And I like to think maybe he goes grows old again in like a second, like he was old when Artemis set him down.

As Artemis is turning, he ages thirty years rather than he'd age and they had noticed this huge beard and everything like that.

But that was a fun moment.

I was like, oh, you can see his aged already.

Yeah, but that's all I got.

It's a fun episode, yo, Yeah, Yeah, it is definitely a really really entertaining episode.

All right, well, Dan, I think, gosh, this was this was tremendous.

I actually I'm very happy overall with how these episodes turned out, because, yeah, they they could have been.

This could have been a disaster, this.

Could have been Yes, I was hoping wild Wild Wiest wouldn't be, but I was unsure about the other two just because yeah, just because yeah.

But overall, yeah, the writing was solid and you know, and any pacing issues are mostly our own issues with you know, our what we're used to.

So I think, yeah, yeah, but no, I think, uh geez, I think we we do need to bring this to an end.

I'm I'm uh and I'm getting a little exhausted at this point.

Sorry.

All right, well, Dan, this was tremendous.

Thanks so much.

Thank you as always, as always, I.

Hope you enjoyed this episode.

It was great to have Dan back on the show.

And he'll be returning soon and we'll be getting back to Gunsmoke when he does.

We'll be back in two weeks with a new guest and a really fun topic.

We're talking about Western episodes of the two Twilight Zone.

I love the Twilight Zone, so I'm really looking forward to talking about a few of their Western episodes until then.

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