I just realised we got books on tape in lieu of VHS copies.

I got stuck on a channel that’s made a handful of video essays on Disney movies and their cultural significance and historical relevance or allegorical importance. I appreciate the way people can marry historical education within the framework of pop culture, you’ll never find this stuff on network TV unless some station took it and chopped it up. It’s why Netflix trying to do this with the Toys that Made Us was such a bad idea. You ain’t no Defunctland, baby.

I saw very few Disney films before the Little Mermaid. I think I was supposed to see Snow White once and saw Charlie Brown and the Wizard of Oz instead. I never saw it on home video, nor did I see Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (which I actually would like to see now). Best I got was Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast and Lion King, the really good ones. But there were a handful of less popular ones, like the Rescuers, Robin Hood and the Fox and the Hound, that I had as a book and tape version, that were popular and cheaper to buy for your kids. I don’t even remember asking for them, I think because we didn’t own a VCR and sat in the car on long trips out of town, it was better to just inundate us with these. Even at five, I sat in my dad’s van with the key in the ignition just to run the tape player and listen to our books. Or we’d be on a single foam mattress pretending to be sicker than we were in a warehouse while my dad did his work. I carried my little black radio with me for ages.

So my memories of those Disney films is reduced to whatever the abridged book on tape version was, along with pictures which were just stills from the movie, of course, so they would’ve been much cheaper to make than VHS. Now I’m seeing clips from these movies and I’m remembering what I saw in the book but there’s nothing from the movies themselves. I’m not so bummed, seriously if you’d given me a book on tape adaptation of the Last Unicorn, I’d have still loved it. I technically did it myself by recording the whole thing onto a cassette tape, like I did with multiple movies, contenting myself with listening to it, which is apparently something a lot of kids did. I think buying VHS tapes was cost prohibitive, video rental stores didn’t start selling whatever wasn’t being rented or what was removed to be replaced with new stock. I bought a bunch of DVDs from the local rental place who were closing down and I don’t know why I got them, I haven’t watched them, I was sick and spending money I didn’t have. But I have a stockpile of DVDs now, some of which turned out to be damaged despite me rarely touching them, I still wound up buying the final episode of Six Feet Under off YouTube since my disc was unwatchable. So I used to settle for listening and building the movie in my head as best I could, either from pictures or memory. But it’s odd to have a nostalgia for movies I never actually saw.

American Gothic - That devil’s the pesky one, ain’t he?

I remember Lucas Buck being so much more malevolent than mischievous. He’s really just an irritant while he gets what he wants, so whenever Caleb thwarts his temptations, he’s more of a cartoon villain who’s thinking, “I’ll get you next time, kid.” He and Caleb’s angel sister Merlyn are in a tug-of-war over Caleb’s soul, his cousin Gail brought back to town once he’s orphaned, only for her to be seduced by Buck.

The show’s about as good as I remember but I had no idea Sam Raimi was involved at all, the fact Bruce Campbell shows up for one episode was absolute evidence of this but I blanked on that. Bruce is a good sport too, he’ll get in makeup for a shot. Even the score is a little noir mixed with Twin Peaks. A lot of basic horror tropes pop up in egregious Dutch angles, montages of fire overlayed with that film negative style shows and movies used at the time to make a normal image somehow scarier. The violin stings come in often. But there’s a charm to it the way Raimi likes to be a little campy and overblown. That’s the tone I’m getting this time around, sappy one-liners, cheesy editing and quick closeups. This was another show that moulded my brain in terms of how I approached fiction, that and it had a certain seductive quality to it, it wasn’t so horrific I wasn’t allowed to watch it but it was on late at night so we had to tape it like a lot of shows. I don’t even know how I discovered these shows before the internet other than TV commercials.

I think the show did a good job of making sinners out of angels while the devil manipulates already maligned townsfolk into further strife more to get back at them for their slights against him. If anyone happens to benefit without being in debt to Lucas is a fortunate byproduct of Lucas’s revenge. Merlyn commits selfish acts out of a sense of unfairness, she’s malevolent in her own way to punish Trinity and Lucas, but he has the upper hand over Caleb. The doctor saves Lucas from a potential gunshot wound when he could’ve easily let the lady shoot him. But he doesn’t report her.

I get why Buck is “ever-present” but it’s a bit comical when he just appears behind people. I like Selena stands up to him more and tells him to shove it. Lucas’s “mother” comes back to town to get Matt to kill him. Gary Cole gets to mack on alotta ladies.

Also the way I’m watching it was not the intended network order since they cut four episodes from being cancelled but then didn’t release them in order for DVD and syndication. So I say I’d never have seen them on TV where I was since it never aired again where I was (far as I know). And tacking these onto the original series like they’re supposed to be in this order is jarring and makes you disinterested in them as they were probably removed for having the least amount of through-line that wouldn’t wreck the ending. They’re filler episodes anyway so why bother unless you’re a completionist. Plus the Potato Boy one is way too “after school special”, even the closing credits are saccharine. Dr. Mike’s suddenly back, Lucas is acting like Caleb wasn’t totally possessed last week, Merlyn’s same as always.

Next episode Gail’s lamenting over leaving Trinity, the key she found in the car is suddenly significant. I don’t even think she’s fucked Lucas and gotten pregnant so if this was supposed to set up her sudden infatuation with him, it’s annoying they took it out. More so for the scenes where she finally investigates Lucas, it’s like they just didn’t care to develop her relationship with Lucas so it’s weird she’s suddenly all over him. And she’s trying to convince Caleb to go with her. Her ambivalence keeps her there. And Lucas manipulates her further tempting her with the truth. Matt picks on her about Lucas, so does everyone else, but he’s the fuckin’ devil, that’s the point. (The Mayfair Witch show seems to have borrowed somewhat from this but in truth, that thing looked so bloated with derivative shit it’s impossible to tell). Plus Gail’s mother might’ve been carrying a baby, the fact Lucas is so evidently around when people were younger and he’s not aged a bit doesn’t seem to bother anyone. I don’t think they even cared about developing Gail’s past properly for how much they made a big thing about her coming back for answers not just Caleb. Suddenly she’s finding cigarette burns on her wrist so it’s implied Lucas is messing with her to think her dad deserved to die. She finds the box for the key she got earlier in the series.

I think the next missing episode was a Ben-centric one so these all look like earlier episodes that would’ve fleshed out a lot of shit that feels so out of nowhere if you don’t have them. It also establishes Merlyn was haunting him a lot too, not just Caleb. And one of them had the scene where Gail’s joking about Lucas to her recorder only to get in bed with him. IMDB thankfully has everything in order since AI on google doesn’t. If I were in charge of the Internet Archive I’d have uploaded them based on IMBD’s listing. I’d do that as a career, just upload shit to a website, but you need coding skills from what I can see. This particular episode has a terrible scene with Lucas’s voice “echoing” to gail, it’s corny AF, the rest of it’s fine but again, I don’t know if this is Raimi camp or meant to be taken seriously. Ben gets way too much dirt on Lucas now he has to go over every “accident” or mercy killing Lucas happened to be around. Merlyn knows she can’t implicate Lucas she can only prevent more bullshit. Again, would’ve been nice to have that context for how often Merlyn doesn’t get Buck in the shit for his wrongdoings. As long as Lucas can bend all the truths into pretzels he’s fine. Plus Caleb has another moral conundrum so he’s showing Lucas’s “teachings”. He’s more complicated than a Damien character since he’s using Lucas’s moral ambiguity to “punish” bad people. Caleb has to learn free will sometime, but leaving this whole episode out again denies the audience a chunk of character development for him.

The other one was the ghost of the Boston Strangler coming back to “kill” Merlyn, I guess this must’ve been the most redundant besides the Potato Boy episode, that really had nothing going for it. Merlyn’s supposed to be Caleb’s spiritual guide so she can help him do kind deeds, it gives her more importance than if she was just dissuading him from Lucas’s influence. It’s a very big argument for nurturing the devil’s son to avoid any supposed nature. The Strangler tries to make a deal with Merlyn to double cross Lucas but she goes against him. I liked Merlyn was presented with the problem of evil if it meant Lucas’s undoing, then it was justified. It’s a clever show, not brilliant but clever and could’ve had a bigger audience. Caleb ends up thwarting the Strangler before he obliterates Merlyn and she’s scared Caleb’s about to succumb to the darkness, so this had a decent amount of story in it too and they still dumped it. I got through them all and I’m annoyed I didn’t do my own control the way it was set up online, it would’ve been a pain in the ass hopping around. The fact you couldn’t trust network TV to deliver on late night, low rating shows, they didn’t really care how you felt, you could write the network and bitch but unless you sent avalanches or had fanbases like Twin Peaks did, which was a feat to organise, mobilise and execute a campaign to keep it on TV without the fucking internet, there were no avenues to complain. Your favourite show might’ve just been filler if a broadcast schedule had an unexpected lull in programming.

Anyway, I got sidetracked and really wasn’t watching this at all by the end, it was very much on in the background, again because it was out of order and those episodes were slower anyway. I would say it’s still worth a watch, I can see the potential and it’s something maybe a reboot could save, it has a bit of a Goosebumps/Who’s Afraid of the Dark? feel but for adults.