Not Worth Dying For, Even When Death is Cheap

Joe Pantoliano attains a talent for resurrection thanks to a cat's internal organ in "Dig That Cat . . . He's Real Gone", the third episode of Tales from the Crypt from June 10, 1989. Richard Donner directed this zany, dreamlike episode based on a Haunt of Fear comic.

The story just assumes that cats actually have nine lives and there's a rational, anatomical explanation for it. I love how it just runs with that logic. Then it assumes people at a carnival will want to stand around for an hour waiting for Joey Pants to come back to life, and not even in situations that couldn't be easily faked by a halfway talented magician, like hanging or being buried alive without even a camera in the coffin.

Robert Wuhl plays the barker working with Pantoliano. A lot of the episode is him roaming around the tent with a series of fake moustaches, his face crammed in fish bowl, wide angle shots. I haven't read the particular comic but it really captures that feeling I had when reading Tales from the Crypt of exhausted writers turning to whatever random train of thought they could come up with for a grim. vaguely ironic tale. There is something insightful in the story's idea of how human preoccupation works. I can almost believe a crowd would be interested in the show and that the main characters would believe this would work as a viable attraction. There's an emotional logic at play.

Tales from the Crypt is available on Shudder.

Sonnet 1994

The dance routine equation smashed a ham.
With stomping feet, the dancers killed a pig.
A pound of pork was worth a slice of lamb.
Inversely tasty prices fell from big.
A queue of laughing clowns collect the cash.
But money changed to lightning moths at dawn.
The bugs were made of light and something rash.
The fission needed came from hostile brawn.
The priests collected torches round the block.
But bulbs are dear among benighted souls.
So some would use a giant woolen sock.
A talking sword would fill the thing with holes.
The cruise concludes across a silver sea.
The wasps exclude the only busy bee.