If you were a kid glued to the UHF channels late at night, the Tales from the Darkside intro, with that ominous, synthesized Donald Rubinstein theme and those bleak, sepia-toned shots of the Pennsylvania countryside, was enough to give you chills before the episode even started. But Darkside wasn’t always trying to terrify you. Sometimes, it just wanted to tell a bizarre, EC Comics-style morality tale with a pitch-black punchline. Enter “The Floating Man.“

Corporal Marcia Smith (a pre-Simpsons Yeardley Smith, sporting her unmistakable voice and effortless comedic timing) and Sergeant Buzz Caldwell (the great Sherman Howard, whom you know as Bub the Zombie from Day of the Dead) are rotting away in a dusty, middle-of-nowhere Army recruiting office. It’s hot, it’s boring, and they haven’t seen a fresh piece of cannon fodder in three weeks.

Then walks in Arnold Barker (John Kasir, who would later become the iconic voice of the Crypt Keeper in Tales from the Crypt — talk about a small horror world!). He’s wearing lead-soled shoes and claims he’s being hunted by a circus troupe. Buzz wants to kick him out, but then Arnold takes off his shoes and literally floats to the ceiling. Buzz immediately smells a promotion. An infantryman who can defy gravity? Take that, Air Force!

Of course, because this is the Darkside, nothing is what it seems. Soon enough, a car pulls up outside, and Arnold claims his pursuers are Hugo the Fat Man and Olga the Killer Dwarf Lady. Instead, it’s just a shotgun-toting dad (Bill Nunn) and his very pregnant, very normal-sized daughter, Betty Ann. Turns out Arnold isn’t a circus performer at all. He’s a sleazy, smooth-talking pharmacist who knocked Betty Ann up and left her at the altar. Whenever he tells a massive, reality-bending lie, his guilt makes him lighter than air. When he gives a passionate, tear-filled apology and promises to marry Betty Ann, his weight returns, and he crashes to the floor. The crisis is solved, right?

Not quite. The second the family walks out to the car, the utterly slimy Arnold instantly turns on Marcia, hitting on her and ripping her shirt. He admits his whole speech was a total sham. The second the lie leaves his mouth, gravity loses its grip. Arnold starts floating upward again. Marcia, totally disgusted, tells him to float straight to hell and walks out. Buzz walks back in just in time to see his star recruit drifting toward the ceiling. Unfortunately for Arnold, they never turned off that heavy-duty, metal-bladed industrial ceiling fan.

What starts as a goofy, dialogue-heavy sitcom episode suddenly pivots into splatter, ending with Howard being absolutely drenched in gore. 

This episode was directed by John Lewis, who did three episodes of the show. It was written by Donald Wollner and based on a story by Scott Edelman. You have to love that the IMDb goofs page has military trivia: “The uniforms of the two Army recruiters are completely out of regulation. They are wearing no name tags or insignia of any kind other than their rank, one of which isn’t even an Army rank. Also, the Corporal has her sleeves rolled up.“

Thank you for your service.