Tales from the Darkside S2E1: The Impressionist

Thanks to everyone who voted on what horror anthology I should get to next. I only finished the first season of Tales from the Darkside, so that seems to be a good one to cover. 

Let’s just say that the U.S. government has taken Hoffgosh (Claudia Templeton, whose career is a mix of acting in low-budget movies and being an accountant on them), an alien who holds the secret to nuclear fusion and can’t communicate with him. Who would you get? How about nightclub impressionist Spiffy Remo (Chuck McCann)?

The interesting part of this episode is that, after failing so many times to impersonate the alien’s language and build a bond, Spiffy finally does. That comes at the cost of caring about his stage material, as after you meet an alien and pull off a miracle, doing hack jokes for drunk gamblers just isn’t the same.

Jack Andreozzi, Tony from Lady In White, is in this as nightclub owner Pudgy; Bobby Di Cicco and Gene Borkan play the government scientists. This was directed by Armand Mastroianni (The ClairvoyantHe Knows You’re AloneThe Supernaturals) and written by Haskell Barkin (who was on this, Monsters and the 1980s Twilight Zone) and was based on a story by M. Coleman Easton.

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