Dark Shadows Changes Daytime Television
A soap opera about vampires, time travel, and an alternate universe becomes a hit.
June 27, 1966
The daytime television series Dark Shadows debuts on this date, a completely original, and highly unusual American soap opera with a Gothic flair. The show was the brainchild of the very talented Dan Curtis, a Hollywood film director, television producer, and screenwriter who claims the idea for the series came to him in a dream. Curtis would later create the television series Night Stalker (1972) while also directing the television mini-series Winds of War (1983) a decade later.
Pitching the idea to ABC, (who were truly desperate for daytime success, lagging well behind both CBS and NBC in the genre) Curtis found a captive group of excecutives that greenlighted the project. Dark Shadows followed the wealthy Collins family, where members routinely experienced supernatural occurrences, including ghosts, werewolves, zombies, witches, time travel, and a parallel universe. While the series began with a less than stellar 4.1 rating, it developed a loyal, cultish following right away. As the ABC brass pushed Curtis to increase the ratings he came up with the idea for a new character, Barnabas Collins, a vampire played by Jonathan Frid. The introduction of Barnabas pushed the show to the top ranking in its time slot.
In 2012, Tim Burton took the idea of the television series and made it into a highly entertaining movie of the same name starring Johnny Depp and Michel Pfeiffer.
The "Night Stalker" was one of my favorite shows as a child. I'd like to go back and re-watch those shows today.