The Dark Shadows Daybook: June 2

 

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1969: Episode 771

When Carl brings home his shocking true love, everyone at Collinwood needs to take a shot… probably of penicillin. Carl Collins: John Karlen. (Repeat; 30 min.)

As Barnabas and Beth plan to find the undead Dirk Wilkins to distract Edward, Carl interrupts with his vulgar, cockney fiancee, the alleged medium and music hall embarrassment, Pansy Faye. Her display of second sight ends with an accusation that one of the Collinses will be knit up in Dirk’s death. Later, Barnabas returns to the Old House where he finds her bitten and collapsed. 

Dark Shadows is about as self-contained as a pair of fishnets on the opening day of a Pritiken camp, and that makes it murder to introduce to prospective viewers. No, this one isn’t self-contained, but it comes very close, beginning with vampire-on-vampire suspense and ending in the murder of a character we meet just a few minutes before. It’s an hilarious little jewel that is inarguably pure comedy, as Jonathan Frid gets the easy job and big payoffs of doing astonished take after take. The heavy lifting is done by an especially histrionic John Karlen and then Kay Frye, as his Alfred Doolittle of a fiancee, the psychic medium, Pansy Faye. Barnabas is at the height of his swashbuckling best, with Beth at his side, as he plots to foil Edward by revealing Dirk as the local vampire (this week). With cosmic inevitability, the endeavor is halted mid-batpole by Carl, blithering of saltwater taffy and true love. It’s a great summation of a universe that encourages heroism and then mocks us with its ridiculousness. Think you’re going to help the community while your social equals look on in disgusted apathy? Don’t worry. The community you’re there to help will soon arrive to make the effort look pointless.  

Class envy is an ugly thing, and envy isn’t even the right word. Envy goes from the bottom-up. From the top-down? See: Collins, Judith. Pansy Faye is exactly the sort of figure designed, like a Xenomorph by a Predator, for her to hunt. You can almost hear the thermographic scan kick in when she catches sight of the crassly cacaphonic strumpet. The episode does a funny thing when they meet, because it allows you to see the conflict from both perspectives at once. Judith is a snobbish and intolerant prig, and it’s in response to a boorish sense of entitlement. The one that completely betrays the promise of humble, respectful good values that the working class claim when it wants to Be Offended into getting something. 

Unless a Vanderbilt were tuning in, no viewer then or now knows what it’s like to be a Collins just three generations away from Joshua. But Pansy Faye’s brash idiocy, with the jibbering Carl as ambassador, kind of inspires everyone to feel like a Collins, and it’s a subtle lesson in taste and etiquette for anyone willing to peek into the mirror. We’ve been spoiled by Vicki’s example to see female outsiders to Clan Collins as possessing a purity of spirit often lacked by the decadently corrupt residents. But that changes, too.

If you’ve seen the series before, you know that Pansy Faye’s spirit possesses Charity Trask, largely because it gave Nancy Barrett something interesting to do. That, and Dan Curtis was suffering under a curse that compelled him to make America listen to “I Wanna Dance with You” to an extent that almost -- almost -- makes us long for “London Bridge.” Under the Barrett administration, the United States of Pansy changes as drastically as it can without ushering in a new character. Was this planned? Was this a response to the writers honing the part for a familiar actress’ strengths? I have no idea, and the “why” is irrelevant. She warms and humanizes as a character, and we can credit death for that. Go down as Kay Frye, come up as Nancy Barrett. Gain a lot of nuance on the way. 

It’s not the only place this happens in the series. On Dark Shadows, death isn’t an end; it’s just a cue for transformation. The show takes the esoteric, gatekeeping mumbo-jumbo surrounding the Transformative Nature of Death and makes it literal enough that the rest of us unenlightened slobs might get some practical use out of it. Every culture kills its youth to one extent or another in the form of liminal rituals like hazings and walkabouts, where the prior identity is removed, a form of symbolic death is imposed, and an adult magically pops out the other end. This is a constant theme of Dark Shadows, starting with Liz Stoddard more-or-less killing her youthful, married identity and cocooning for a couple of decades before emerging in that smart red dress she wears to bail Carolyn outta the can. Vicki passes through death, kind of, in 1795. Adam is nothing without the death certificate he brings with him when he applies for fast food jobs. Quentin, of course. Only in Collinsport does Avis rent more coffins than cars. But the king, predictably, is Barnabas, who dies with a greater regularity than South Park’s Kenny. 

Each time he rises, which is arguably at the crack of dusk every night, he transforms. Sometimes wiser. Sometimes more impulsive. Inevitably, a tad on the hungry side. Even if we only count his transitions between humanity and parahumanity, that’s still six ping-pongs between the worlds. On a strictly symbolic level, he simply has that much learning to do. For Barnabas, the story of Dark Shadows isn’t Dracula; it’s Groundhog Day. We see that down to the various rituals of renovating the Old House and agreeing with Joan Bennett that, yeah, the resemblance to that portrait sure is weird, and now, I need the keys to the Old House because Lowe’s is delivering, like, a metric ton of backsplash tiles, and if I’m not there when they arrive, they’ll take them back and restock them, and I’ll have to send the gypsies to Logansport to straighten it out, and I think we know how that’ll go. 

On a show that constantly remakes itself in varied cycles, this is the most primal of all, and it often smells exactly like you might think. On Dark Shadows, transformation isn’t a mandate, but it is a fact. Sometimes, as with Pansy Faye, it’s the result of a terribly unfunny practical joke. Sometimes, it’s a punishment. Sometimes, it makes no sense at all. Often, I don’t even see the characters learn from it. They don’t need to. Not as long as we learn the lessons. Sometimes, that lesson is to value the changes, like we see with Pansy Faye. Sometimes, the lesson is to hold fast to what hasn’t changed. With Barnabas, it’s a matter of knowing the difference. 

This episode hit the airwaves on June 9, 1969.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 31

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 506

Willie pulls out the stops when he tries to halt the dream curse while also discouraging Barnabas from shooting a man who may have died twice. Willie: John Karlen. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas and Willie bicker over whether or not Adam survived the fall. Meanwhile, Carolyn confesses that she felt no danger from Adam. Willie, desperate to pass on the dream curse, scales the stones of Collinwood and breaks into Carolyn’s room. As he holds her fast to tell her the dream, she bites his hand to escape.

SFX: Steampunk cpap wheezing. 

INT: Bedroom. A restless man sleeps on a disheveled, steadily leaking heart-shaped waterbed. The man’s head is in an inflating-deflating rubber hood, connected to the copper, iron, and brass cpap by massive black tubes. 

The man murmurs form beneath the hood. 

MAN:

The Spice expands consciousness. 

The Spice extends dream sequences.

FADE TO: A social microcosm by the sea. Inescapable. Old money. Science run amok. Repressed desires. Honorable fishermen. And a hapless workin’ guy named Willie trapped in the middle, born to take the easy way out, but destined to face trials of terror, bravery, and even madness. Nearly invulnerable to harm. Squaring off with muscled beasts and unnatural mutations. A misunderstood ambassador from a generation apart, but not. Once a mate to an overly confident sailin’ man, but now both are landlocked, cut off from the sailor’s life by circumstances they never could have foreseen and surrounded by women out of their reach. 

Cut to: Man wakes up and speaks from beneath the hood. 

MAN:

Okay, that’s about as far as I can drag John Karlen into the joke. While it’s funny to imagine Karlen and Dennis Patrick as, of course, Ginger and Mary Ann, it’s even funnier to imagine Bob Denver and Alan Hale, Jr. as Willie Loman and Jason of Star Command. Wait. What? Get a grip, McCray. Stop goofin’ around. This is for posterity. You’re building up to a book. You have a Rondo, for god’s sake. Fives of dozens of people didn’t stuff that ballot box for nothing. Come out of it. 

MCCRAY -- GET BACK TO WORK. EDGAR’S WRITING IS IMPROVING AND YOU GOTTA SLEEP SOMETIME. DON’T MAKE ME GET OUT THE AGONIZER. LOVE, WALLACE

Sorry. I don’t know what happened. These rhapsodies are becoming more frequent. I think it was the result of a half-waking hallucination I had as the episode became its own dream curse. So, I pass it on to you, and please don’t bite my hand.

I love this show, and every episode counts, and now that I paid my dues with that, I’ll admit that 506 has so much excess stuffing, it belongs on a fat man’s plate at Thanksgiving in an Alka Seltzer ad from 1974. I champion the writers. They have to stretch out more material than Reed Richards’ unstable tailor. In this case, we have two, maybe three conversations that have one point each:

Yes, Willie, I sense that Adam is still alive.

No, mother, somehow I sense that the large man meant me no harm.

Stop squirmin’, I gotta tell ya this dream, Carolyn! Ouch! My finger!

Then, move on.

As is my signature, that’s a wildly unfair oversimplification. Here is a fair oversimplification: Willie Loomis really is the Gilligan of Dark Shadows, and it’s an inspiring irony that both share the first name, “Willie.” (At least, according to Sherwood Schwartz, although he spelled it with a y, as was later established in the legendary musical variety special, “Willy with a Y.”) That really comes out in this episode… not in a cloying way, but sympathetically. Both are simple, but not simple minded. Both have clear sets of objectives often overlooked by those who surround them. They put up with a lot of abuse by social “betters” who never take the time to listen to their common sense. They have to do scut work, and they gain the sympathy of the audience even if many of their deeds are questionable shortcuts. You know, like going to Maggie’s house with a gun.

I curse John Karlen’s robust career because it kinda kept him from doing even more episodes of Dark Shadows. No matter how blandly filleriffic an installment might be, there is no such thing as time wasted watching Karlen act… and watching him act the characters and dialogue he inspired from the writers. The character of Willie really is the rug that ties the room together, despite being walked -- and sometimes micturated -- upon. He is necessary in almost every episode, and his absence becomes apparent when you imagine any Loomisless episode with him woven in. It gets better. Always. John Karlen, thou art the bacon of acting. And never the ham.

The show had all of the elements but one, before he arrived. Aristocracy? Check. Kind-but-dimwitted villagers? Check. Powerful threats? Check. One realist to comment on it all, speaking for the rest of us and taking (literal) bullets as the true audience surrogate? Ecci Loomis. Willie Loomis. Because, unlike Vicky, he understands all too well. Maybe better than anyone else. Yes, he’s a coward, but it’s a cowardice that makes sense, even if it makes Willie a semi-informed expedience junkie.

In this case, he keeps Barnabas -- the man in charge WITH A GUN, NO LESS -- stymied and shouting for at least the first 40 or 50 minutes of the episode. That’s a feat. Then he manages to at least speak of few sentences of the dream despite having scaled a wall and wrestled a co-ed. And he does this as an inveterate smoker.

I was wrong to discount episode 506. Willie climbing a wall. Barnabas with a gun. And Joan Bennett as Joan Bennett, which is worth it right there.  It’s a scientific impossibility to walk away from Dark Shadows without seeing something to love, and I mean that. Don’t let the abundance of episodes and uniquely prolonged storytelling structure keep you from seeing it.

This episode hit the airwaves June 3, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 23

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 245

When Woodard needs a condemning sample, will Barnabas put the squeeze on a reluctant Willie? Dave Woodard: Robert Gerringer. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas guilts Willie into giving a sample of his blood to Dave Woodard, having stolen and swapped a clean sample some time earlier. He eventually reveals this to Willie, and warns him that he will not always be so protective. Woodard speaks with Burke and Vicki about the unholy goings on in Maggie’s blood.

Joe Caldwell had to be stopped. Dave Woodard had to be killed off. Daytime TV could have survived neither. With all due respect to St. Sam and St. Gordon, this is the best written episode of the series, and any more of it and the show would have collapsed under its own eloquence. Sam Hall and Gordon Russell had a series to write. Caldwell crafted a masterpiece, and that’s an accomplishment so situationally dependent, it would be rare to see one again.

On the basis of plot, alone, it is a tight and intense story of antiheroics and suspense, where you respect Barnabas’ realpolitik skullduggery while simultaneously admiring the incredible curiosity of Woodard. I don’t know what he saw in that microscope except for pure anti-life and the beginning and the end of the world.

Beyond that, the episode works because of its relentless and dark poetry. Most outstanding is the mind game that Barnabas plays and plays and plays with Willie. Ultimately, after an understandable background in the betrayal department, Barnabas is going to test and punish and punish and test Willie until he’s satisfied with the results, and then he’s going to do it some more. Back in the good old days, you’d just send Riggs out back to horsewhip Ben Stokes like banging a jar lid on the counter to loosen it. But, you know, you can’t do that now because “progress.” And because the cops are after you, so you don’t need extra attention. Why? Because you got your house back. And because you may get your fiance back. And because, along with it, some people are going to make their exits a little prematurely. Um, sorry. Yes, it’s a shame. It’s not like he doesn’t jump at the chance for a cure. Between here and there, it would be nice if Willie just, you know, put the seat down every once and awhile and stopped with the betrayal business. He is letting off some much needed steam here, and if he lets Willie dangle in uncertainty, it’s probably a fraction of the paranoia Barnabas suffers as he lies trapped in a wooden shell from the lethal rays of the sun while humans do Diabolos-knows-what in full view of the kids. I’m amazed that Roger is the alkie.

The real star of the episode is Robert Gerringer as Dave Woodard. It’s a human performance, both urban and urbane. The type of grownup we don’t see anymore. This was a generation of writers and actors who cut their teeth on Eugene O’Neill and have no compunction about mixing their poetry with their realism. It’s almost as if he and Barnabas get into a Flowery Introspection Duel, like a Profundity Slam as they talk about blood and the entity responsible for all of it. They share a bizarre duality of loathing and admiration. Woodard marvels at the unnatural progress of the biochemical rite. Barnabas all but confesses to the crimes. Woodard speaks with bizarre admiration that, “It’s the peculiar magnificence of the human spirit that’s required to provide the potential for such corruption.”

Barnabas adds that he must be, “at one and the same time, more than a man and less than a man.”

Woodard asks if he feels sorry for him, and Barnabas answers that he actually loathes him “very, very deeply.”

At the Blue Whale, Vicki’s take on life is at its most apocalyptically realistic. Woodard visits and rounds out the episode with a strangely aroused disgust at the unholy union going on in Maggie’s veins, and how her blood hastily accepts the corruption offered.

The metaphors run rampant, but at the core of it, there is the distinct feeling that Woodard is describing naughty sexy time, and he can’t bring himself to say it’s bad.

Mind games. Sexual metaphors. Probably homosexual metaphors. There is a bounty to unpack, all with a sense of inevitable doom for the entire town and maybe all of existence. Barnabas at this time is like a lingering rot, eating away at the pretenses of decency, and he is doing so openly compared to what the series has offered thus far. He is somewhere between a Ken Russell movie and a Prince album in his relative frankess, and although he would endear himself with a demand for mothering later on, at this point, Jonathan Frid is playing Barnabas Collins as pure sex in a world where only a Hefner would be such a thing. That openness is one world ending and another world beginning. Woodard admires it a little too much, but can’t take part.

Barnabas can. And right now, he knows it. 

This episode hit the airwaves June 2, 1967.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JUNE 2

By PATRICK McCRAY

June 2, 1967 
Taped on this date: Episode 258

Despairing that the little girl won’t reappear, Maggie is amazed to find her in her cell, visiting precisely because she was so sad. The girl recalls a time of much crying. Maggie sees her as a beacon of hope, not understanding how she enters and exits. The girl is keenly interested in the music box. The girl says she knows no one to tell about Maggie, but wants Maggie as her friend. Maggie agrees to play catch and sing “London Bridge,” but asks her to be quiet so the bad people won’t hear her. Before the can escape, the girl vanishes. Barnabas hears Maggie singing the song, thinking her happy. Barnabas again extends his proposal to her to live forever as Josette. Maggie vows escape, saying that one knows she’s alive, describing her secret friend in an almost infantile regression. Saddened, Barnabas slips and even calls her ‘Maggie.’ He leaves her, somewhat mournfully. Later, Barnabas tells Willie that Maggie is losing her mind. She’s beyond hope, and must be disposed of. Keeping her there and alive is a risk. Willie pleads for mercy, but Barnabas says that he begged for it once and was refused. He will pay that inhumanity forward, and Willie will suffer the same fate should he interfere in her disposal… tomorrow. Willie visits Maggie and she babbles about her new friend. Wille advises her to keep it straight, as Maggie Evans. No more talk of vanishing children. Willie is desperate for her to regain sanity. He leaves her alone. Only the doll remains in the cell as proof.

Just when the story can go no further, the writers open up the entire DARK SHADOWS universe again with the appearance of Sarah. Now, all times are open to them. Was this the point they decided to keep Barnabas around as a character?  When I wrote the Collins Chronicles, tying the story together with Barnabas’ inner monologue, the only explanation I had was that he truly believed that Maggie was Josette, and that he was acting as a kind of cult deprogrammer. To see him implode in his failure -- with Maggie’s descent into madness -- added a layer of complexity that no vampire story could touch. Is it too far to call it Shakespearean? Certainly, the irony is of that size. And what cosmic mechanism guides this?  Why does Sarah appear now?  These are the largest questions in the Collinsverse, and that mystery is one of the elements that both elevates the series and keeps it fractally expanding and contracting with unending complexity. What a key episode. How sad. How joyous. And how ripe with transformation (even with Willie) and complexity.

(Episode 245 aired on this date.)

June 2, 1968 
Taped on this date: Episode 510

Tony, under Angelique’s control, goes to assassinate Stokes under an assumed name. Over sherry, Stokes leaves for his night cheese (yes, night cheese), and Tony takes the opportunity to poison Stokes’ drink. Stokes, of course, switches the glasses and Tony collapses. The professor phones Julia at Collinwood, reporting that he’s killed a man, like the stone-cold badass he is. Julia revives the victim and explains that he’s Tony Peterson, not “Arthur Hailey.” Stokes knows that it is Angelique’s work. Stokes will fight back by discovering someone she cannot control… a ghost! Reverend Trask is the man. With Ben’s memoir, he has the key to reviving Trask. He also notes that Barnabas’ transformation into a monster is a missing chapter. Via automatic writing, Stokes completes the book in Ben’s hand. But where is Trask? He continues writing, now the location of Trask -- in the north wall of the coffin room. Julie knows the location. Tony comes to, his old self. Stokes explains that Cassandra is behind it all and draws Tony into the fight. The method? Tony is to tell her that Stokes is dead. In Collinwood, Cassandra’s chess lesson with Roger is fruitless. She’s too distracted. Roger complains of her distance and lack of honeymoon. She again demurs. They are alone so seldom, and fight when they are together. Her attention is always elsewhere. She shoos him upstairs to continue his drinking. At midnight, Tony enters the drawing room and reports Stokes’ death, and then leaves when Roger enters. In the basement of the Old House, Stokes prepares a seance. Tony enters and joins the ceremony. Tony becomes possessed by Trask, calling Stokes ‘Ben.’ Stokes tells Trask that ending Angelique will grant him the peace he desires. The candle goes out and a crashing is heard from behind the wall concealing Trask’s remains.

I guess Angelique reads a lot of trashy novels. Why else would she have Tony use the pseudonym, “Arthur Hailey”?  This is another installment in the classic Stokes cycle, where he struts, conjures, brags, and makes a mess of the dream curse in the name of reason. After so many misguided and ineffectual heroes on the show, it’s as if the writers could take no more. In many ways, he’s like a primetime character come to life. He and Tony Peterson would have made a team I’d have readily watched, and in many ways, this episode allows me to.  Stokes: women want him, men want to be him.

(No episode airs on this date.)

June 2, 1969
Taped on this date: Episode 771

1897. Barnabas intends to deliver Dirk to Edward as the vampire he seeks, thus securing his own identity, but Dirk has vanished. He died and rose sooner than Barnabas planned. As they begin the pursuit, Carl minces in fraught with panic. He brings taffy from Atlantic City, and insists that he open the box. It’s empty -- his betrothed has eaten it. It’s Pansy Faye, a garish music hall performer, and needs Barnabas to put her up in the Old House. She wants a church wedding and wants Barnabas to be the best man. Barnabas, eager to hunt Dirk, agrees. She enters, singing “I Wanna Dance with You.” Barnabas truly wonders what the hell has happened. Carl insists that her mentalism will detect Dirk. Barnabas leaves Pansy with Beth, and when they leave, Pansy insists on booze, not coffee. She’s clearly a gold digger. At Collinwood, Judith insists that Dirk be found. Barnabas ditches Carl with Judith. Carl rhapsodizes on Pansy Faye’s mentalism, and reports that she’s on the estate. Barnabas returns to the Old House, empty handed. Judith arrives with Carl and introductions are made. Using Dirk’s cufflink, she insists on her music and the dimming of the lights. She calls for Dirk and faints. Then she murmurs that he is dead and that his murderer is in the room. Pansy comes to with no memory, and Judith storms out when she learns that Carl and Pansy are engaged. Her lack of memory is new to her. They leave, and Pansy goes off in pursuit to give Judith what for. Barnabas and Beth go off to wait for Dirk. A bat attacks Pansy in the woods. Meanwhile, Barnabas and Beth find the grave that is Dirk’s sleeping place. Barnabas returns home to find Pansy bitten and unconscious.

Wow. Can any more happen in a single DARK SHADOWS episode?  This may easily be the intentionally funniest episode of the show. Barnabas is the one character in the midst of all of the Collinwood chaos who must maintain a very serious cover, so his strained, indulgent politeness to Carl redefines brittle. And Karlen and the writers just lay it on and on and on. From taffy to Pansy Faye 1.0 -- who goes from being a vulgar singer to a psychic -- the distractions from, you know, a vampire on the loose, just keep mounting.  Pansy Faye was played by Kay Frye, whose career ranged from Max Reinhardt’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (with James Cagney and Victor “The Shadow” Jory) to SHAMUS, with Burt Reynolds.

(Episode 766 aired on this date.)

June 2, 1970
Taped on this date: Episode 1031

1970PT.  Behind the door, Angelique finds a woman under a sheet. It is the source of her life-force, one who constantly tries to call her life force back to her own body. If her body is destroyed, both might die. At Collinwood, Quentin shows Barnabas the goodbye note from Maggie. Barnabas doesn’t believe its verisimilitude. Quentin asks for Barnabas to cite an enemy of Maggie’s. On cue, “Alexis” enters and protests. Quentin leaves, and Barnabas is a man alone, with Angelique gloating. He demands to know where Maggie is. Barnabas will not rest until Maggie is safe and Barnabas has the proof to destroy Angelique. In Main Time, Julia sees Angelique tell Hoffman that Barnabas must be destroyed. Back in Parallel Time, Stokes visits Quentin to see Alexis. It’s his first visit in ages.  Alone, Angelique asks Stokes to leave. He’s always been too seedy for Collinwood. He wants to live there when she is mistress of Collinwood. She tables the discussion as Stokes greedily enjoys the drink of Collinwood. She has no interest in his remaining there. In the great hall, Quentin still insists that Maggie left of her own accord. In the stasis room, Stokes conducts a ritual to teach Angelique a lesson. When discussing a trip with Quentin, Angelique feels her strength draining away. She goes to Stokes, demanding an answer. He’s drunk and very much in control. He’s been a loser for most of his life, and now he finally feels himself the victor. In Angelique’s room, Barnabas searches for more clues. He jimmies a locked desk drawer open and finds Angelique’s diary, where she says that “he knows a way to circumvent death.” Barnabas is on the cusp of victory when he finds himself in Main Time yet again. But he has no joy as long as Maggie is in danger.

Chris Bernau and Mary Kay Adams.

When Barnabas returns to Main Time and his only thought is to save PT Maggie? This is where his heroism reaches Homeric heights. He’s like the Tom Joad of the supernatural… wherever there is a need, he’ll be there. By 1970, when television began giving itself permission to wallow in the grit and grime of “reality,” DARK SHADOWS was the most unlikely place for America to find a hero… a genuine, ruthless hero whose heart was as golden as it was cold.

Today is also the birthday of Chris Bernau, aka, Philip Todd.  Tall, dark, intense, and genuine, he was very much the “Curtis Type” of leading man. However, he didn’t last long on the show. That could be because of intense stage obligations or because his arguably affected manner of speech gave him an odd kind of Lucille Bluth quality. Either way, his characterization was likable and sympathetic. On TV, he found greater success as the first Alan Spaulding on GUIDING LIGHT, which he played for four years until his death in 1989.  Quite a man of the theatre, Chris was also seen on Broadway and Off Broadway, memorably in THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND with Ted Danson and William Bogert.  Bogert is a favorite character actor for me. He was the wacky neighbor on SMALL WONDER and Matthew Broderick’s dad in WAR GAMES, where he has the ingenious method for buttering corn.

(Episode 1027 aired on this date.)