The Bright Legacy of Dark Shadows

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Next year marks the 60th anniversary of Dark Shadows. The gothic soap opera wasn’t originally intended to include a vampire, but when creator Dan Curtis introduced the character of Barnabas Collins in a last-ditch effort to avoid cancellation, he inadvertently launched a cultural phenomenon. As portrayed by actor Jonathan Frid, the character of Barnabas sparked a never-ending debate among horror fans as to whether vampires should be depicted as pure predators or tragic, misunderstood outcasts. I talk with Danielle Gelehrter (host of the podcast Terror at Collinwood) and authors Mark Dawidziak and Jeff Thompson about why the show had a meteoric rise and fall, what the series reflected about the 1960s, and whether Dark Shadows can have eternal life as a form of IP. This week’s episode is sponsored by Hims and Remi Get your free online visit at hims.com/IMAGINARY. Go to shopremi.com/IMAGINARY and use the code IMAGINARY to save up to 50%. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend or disbelief.
0:05.6	I'm Eric Malinsky, along with my assistant producer, Stephanie Billman.
0:09.2	Hello.
0:10.2	So you came to me with this topic.
0:12.4	You said, we should do an episode about Dark Shadows.
0:15.3	And I had heard of Dark Shadows.
0:17.6	I'd always heard that there was this daytime soap opera in the 60s,
0:21.2	which had a vampire in it, which always seemed really weird to me. And I also remember there was
0:26.5	a Tim Burton movie of Dark Shadows like over 10 years ago, which bombed. And that's pretty much
0:32.2	all I knew. So what was, what, what interested you about Dark Shadows? Well, I don't think you
0:37.2	really knew this until we started talking about wanting to do this topic.
0:41.9	But I've always been fascinated by vampires since I was a little girl.
0:46.5	Like the first time I read Brom Stoker's Dracula, I was five at the most maybe six.
0:51.4	And that kind of like, no pun intended, sucked me into the world of
0:54.8	vampires. And for me, while I understand and I appreciate the scary vampire, the monster, the
1:03.7	predator, what I've always been fascinated by are the emotionally complex portrayals of vampires.
1:10.1	So those who are conflicted about the fact that
1:13.4	they've basically lost their humanity, they have to feed on other humans to eat, those who,
1:19.1	you know, also have to like watch their people that they love die. So for me, those have always been
1:23.9	the juicy vampire roles. And one day, a couple of months ago, I was sick. And as you know,
1:31.3	when I get sick, I like to watch pop culture documentaries. And I came across one about Dark Shadows.
1:37.5	And that's where I learned that Barnabas, Collins, who was the vampire you were talking about, and Dark Shadows helped establish that
	...

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