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Terrror 50 Years Removed

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Being at heart a simple man with simple pleasures and desires I am easily contented. I have wanted certain things from my childhood to be reexperienced or completed and over the years most of these goals have been met.

For instance: Have read all 20 Bomba the Jungle Boy books.

Have read all 325 Shadow pulp adventures.

Have read all 181 Doc Savage pulp adventures.

Have read all of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op stories no thanks to him and Lillian Hellman keeping them out of print until they died.

Have read all 14 RiderHaggard Allan Quatermain novels and the four short stories included. That quest was well over 30 years in duration but I am a patient man in some areas. She will call she will call. Only been four years. She will call.

Read all the Mac Raboy Flash Gordon Sunday strips I read as a kid thanks to Dark Horse comics reprints.

Finally saw old Ruff and Reddy cartoons thanks to Youtube.

Also thanks to Youtube saw some old Yancy Derringer westerns. Sigh -- pleasant but tame by today standards and too much set pieces. Yet after 50 years I still remembered the deadly phrase "The dancing rats--the dancing rats." Amazing what the memory retains.

Sadly Bat Masterson doesn't hold up as well either.

A pleasant surprise has been seeing old Cheyenne episodes. Expecting little I was pleasantly surprised they hold up pretty good for old fashioned westerns. Still Rawhide and Have Gun Will Travel are heads above in more serious fare though Rawhide has the clunker every now and then and Have Gun with over 200 shows only had about three I could have lived without.

Only the loyal ones are hanging in for the title justification and they will drop the subscription if it's tied in with Logos. No fears--see above for the usual homage to a well regarded mod.

I'm down to two cultural desires left. And the one was fulfilled yesterday.

The DVDs of Cheyenne starring Clint Walker for Season 1 apparently did not sell well as it's been about three years waiting for season two.

Someone had access to the remaining seasons and supplied them to a friend of mine who knew of my interest in the character and passed them along to me.

And hereon hangs the tale. I have certain memories of being scared out of my wits by watching TV as a young child. For instance the end scene from Boris Karloff's Thriller TV series with their adaptation of Robert Bloch's The Cheaters. A fellow sees his true face in a miror and it is ghastly. Or so my mind keeps telling me. That series is beignreleased soon and I'm thinking of looking that up and see how time has treated it.

Now as a series Cheyenne was fairly routine and I could not describe a plot from nay of them except ONE. This episode lived with me for the past 51 years as I was probably six or seven when originally broadcast.

The child remembers people being watched by a THING in the woods with two bright and glowing eyes. Then savagely killed. No one seems to know what this monster is. I remmeber Cheyenne up in a tree with a fire blazing away when the THING appears and he destroys it. But those eyes and the fear of the cast lived on and I know I had nightmares about it.

That was what the child remmebers.

Yesterday I loaded my pirated prize n the DVD and sat down and informed the Long Suffering Spouse that only more TV show was needed to complete my childhood and I could die a happy man. She sat with me and honesty demand sthta YES I jumped at the first sighting of the EYES.

Ruth smirked. Then left the room.

Amazing how time shifts and the imagaination makes htings grow and manifest themselves bigger and bigger. The eyes weren't glowing. They were just there on the screen like a two flashlight bulbs suspended in air. Only one perosn is killed during the episode but three others are mentioned as having been killed prior.
So much for bloodbath my kid memories kept ading to the collection. I keep count of the eye appearances, Six in all---the last three all involved when IT confronts Cheyenne at the end.

Yes I did correctly remember the fire and Ceyenne in the tree if not the overall plot--involved rustlers taking advantage of the creature's presence and a cast member who may or may no be the secret puppet master.

But for the ending he gets out of the tree to get some water to help hm stay awake when the creature strikes.

Now kindly realize I knew all along what it was that was out there but wanted to see if I was still afraid of it. Especially after reacting to the first sght of its eyes watching it's next victim.

Oldtimers I have met over the years also recall this episode as it was so unlike any of the others having the horror element to it. So I believe it spils nothing since so few will se it in this day and age.

For maybe 10 seconds I'm treated to a sight of the worst man in a grizzley bear outfit that would make Godzilla suits from the 70s look like high tech. I gently laugh and put a ghost to rest once and for all.

Now if only that killer whale form Keith Larsen's old Aquanauts series is still gigantic. I saw the previews for it but my brother tortured me by making me miss it. He has never been forgiven for that.
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Comments

  1. applepie's Avatar
    :lol: I love watching old movies, but I don't think I've ever heard of this. If it makes Godzilla look high tech, I know it is long before my time. Actually Godzilla is too, but I grew up watching the old black and white versions.
  2. Virgil's Avatar
    Well, Rich, I'm happy you've gotten a chance to reexperience all of this. So, you're down to one left? Why not just get it over with and do it? Of course that still means you have to live a whole lot longer for some other new experiences.
  3. mtpspur's Avatar
    I seriously doubt any company will put The Aquanauts on DVD since NO ONE seems to have heard of it or remember ot let alone Keith Larsen. Became Malibu Run with Ron Ely mid-season. Sigh
  4. motherhubbard's Avatar
    This is what scared me as a child. I still don't really enjoy listening to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sogKUx_q7ig It made me cry.
  5. kiz_paws's Avatar
    Eh?! How did this Queen vid scare ya?