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Strap on your Sky Monsters part 2 (with bubble sole!), and strut like a sky-walking machine down to First Eerie Savings to sing 99 Bottles of Beer with Mister Wilson. Ladies, gentlemen, ain't it good to know you got a friend? Put your white plastic cash dispensing hands together for... ATM with a Heart of Gold!
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Strap on your Sky Monsters part 2 (with bubble sole!), and strut like a sky-walking machine down to First Eerie Savings to sing 99 Bottles of Beer with Mister Wilson. Ladies, gentlemen, ain't it good to know you got a friend? Put your white plastic cash dispensing hands together for... ATM with a Heart of Gold!
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Strap on your Sky Monsters part 2 (with bubble sole!), and strut like a sky-walking machine down to First Eerie Savings to sing 99 Bottles of Beer with Mister Wilson. Ladies, gentlemen, ain't it good to know you got a friend? Put your white plastic cash dispensing hands together for... ATM with a Heart of Gold!
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It's Tuesday, so today you get a choice between two prompts. Pick one, combine both, pit them against each other - on Tuesday, you choose!

This week, your options are:

Edgar versus Mr. Wilson
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Marshall waited while Tod prepared them both a bowl of non-magical, pre-cinnamon-ified oatmeal.

"You heard about the accident with the Evidence Locker, I guess," he said, as Tod retrieved a couple of non-cursed spoons from the cutlery drawer of the BF Skinner test kitchen (sponsored by Things Incorporated, tm).

"Yeah," said Tod. "I'm really sorry. Having a cursed artefact contaminate the rest of your cursed artefacts with a different, incompatible curse must suck."

Marshall nodded sadly.

"I'm pretty sure Mister Wilson's hand is sentient now," he said. "It just keeps writing 'Simon' over and over again."

Tod patted his shoulder.

Ongoing Verse: Janet

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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Dash puts a cross through the circled apartment listing.

"So your old man's cash machine is now warning people away from slum lords?" he said. "So what?"

"He did always like helping people," said Simon. "It sounds like the perfect job for him."

"You guys are missing the point," said Marshall. "This isn't a program. Nobody's telling him to do this. The letting agent unplugged the TV and everything and he just kept going."

"So he's self-employed," said Dash.

"Or a vigilante!" said Simon.

"Or a literal ghost in the machine," said Marshall.

"Who helped us dodge a crummy rental!"

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Marshall steps into the dingy living room, the woman from the letting agency close on his heels in a cloud of expensive perfume and well-honed sales patter.

"As you can see, there's a good deal of space," she says, then stops as the clunky, old-fashioned television in one corner turns on with a high-pitched pop and a crackle of static.

"Hello, friend," says a smiling, white-toothed man who both does and doesn't look like Marshall's father. "Welcome to your guide on why you don't want to rent from these people."

The volume is up high as Mister Wilson continues speaking.

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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One of the watches on Marshall's left wrist beeped loudly, and he reached for the mouse curled sulkily on the dining room table.

"Oops," he said, slipping a loosely-looped tie on over the t-shirt he'd slept in. "Work time."

The screen of the Things Incorporated Home Working and Employee Monitoring Device slowly resolved itself into the desktop of the computer currently sat in Marshall's empty cubicle.

"What are you going to do if your boss wants a video conference?" asked Dash, stepping carefully out of the glowing red camera's line of sight.

Marshall clicked the mouse a couple of times, eliciting an outraged squeak, and then the screen filled with something terrifying.

It was Marshall in the same way that the face of a sentient cash machine had been Edgar. Not so much a resemblance as the intention to create one. Curtains of brown hair sat rigid and awkward atop a face that was one homogenous shade of fleshy pink. Unlike Mister Wilson, it didn't smile, though it did show teeth.

"That's horrible," said Dash, deeply impressed.

Marshall nodded.

"Once I put this on screen, everyone will get so uncomfortable, they'll go back to using chat," he said, grinning widely.

Ongoing Verse: First Kiss

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Creepy. Weird. Strange. Eerie! Eerie, Indiana was a cool show back in the 90s that could have been considered a teenage version of the X-Files, but it actually aired before the X-Files. The show followed a teenage β€œweirdness investigator” as he looked into the strange happenings in his small hometown. So, even though X-Files had yet to begin, the show makes you think X-Files meets Goosebumps. The show stars a teenage version of Mulder, but the content isn’t as scary or intense as it's meant more for kids. Since Eerie ran just one season, it’s sadly been mostly forgotten.

When Marshall Teller, the teenage weirdness investigator, moves with his family to Eerie, Indiana, he quickly starts noticing very strange things about the town. Elvis lives there. People disappear. Dogs are trying to take over the world, and the only thing stopping them is their lack of opposable thumbs. Naturally, he and his friends take an interest. They find that Eerie is the center of weirdness for the entire universe.

Helped along by his friends Simon and Dash, the trio investigate each of the weird events of the town. Most often, though the show does attempt to be a family friendly X-Files-type show, the episodes turn a bit comedic. For example, teenage Marshall gets turned into an old man in one episode. In another episode, an AI ATM continually gives money to Marshall, just to be friendly.

Back in the 1991-1992 season, Eerie ran for 18 episodes on NBC. Later, when re-showing on the Disney Channel in 1993, the final unaired episode 19 finally came out. The show once again re-aired in 1997 on Fox Kids where it finally got a bit of a fan following, earning it a spin-off show that was mostly similar to its predecessor.

I’m assuming the show’s lack of ratings were due to difficulties in finding a target audience. Your 18-49 demographic likely would have thought the show a bit silly. Families with kids, though, should have enjoyed it as fun, family viewing, similar to the recent Just Add Magic on Amazon Prime.

I would have thought that, had the show aired on a more kid friendly channel, it would have performed better. Unfortunately, since it re-aired on Disney and Fox Kids and still couldn’t quite cut it, maybe that’s not the case. In the show’s defense, though, airing on kid friendly channels did get a following enough for more episodes to get created in the form of the spin-off. By that point, the creative team which included Joe Dante of Gremlins fame and the shows stars were gone. The spin-off wasn’t to the standard of the original, and its failings can’t prove that the original wouldn’t have fared better as an original on a family friendly network like Disney or Fox Kids.

While the show did posthumously earn a spin-off, the real show should have had the chance to continue. It was a fun and interesting show and, given the chance to find an audience, could have made for a good longer series.
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Edgar Teller looked at the matt black plywood that covered the hole where the Friendly Automated Teller Machine had once sat. He sighed deeply and ran his hand over the uneven surface, mulling over again the possible reasons for the fatal short that had ended his experiment.

The pager clipped to his belt beeped. He glanced down at the glowing green screen, which displayed a brief message alongside his home number. Apparently his freshly-repainted garage door had gotten stuck for the third time that week.

He stared at the fading Mister Wilson sign for a long moment, and he smiled.

Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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In the small, cramped box room that served as his makeshift home office, Edgar Teller was worrying.

He'd been worrying since early that morning, when, on his way down to breakfast, he'd heard the unmistakable whir and rattle of a dot matrix printer and gone to investigate. Now it was forty minutes later, he was up to his ankles in a snaking trail of green-white pages and the bacon was surely all gone.

"Simon," said the black typeface, gradually fading to grey as the ink ribbon gave out. "Simon. Simon. Simon."

"That's inappropriate," said Edgar. "Stop."

The printer shut down.

Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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Ongoing Verse: Trusted Associates Inc

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β€œQuestions were playing tiddly winks with my grey matter...”

Most times you go back to watch a programme from your youth, it's pretty disappointing. Every now and then, however, they're genuinely as good as you remember. Eerie, Indiana is one of those special few. There are a handful of series that tried to be The Twilight Zone for kids. Round the Twist (which I'll be coming back to in another article) is well-remembered by British and Australian audiences. Are You Afraid of the Dark and Goosebumps scared the kids of the early and late nineties, respectively. None had the wit of Eerie, Indiana. So why this series only lasted for a single season baffles me.

The series was set in the eponymous town of Eerie, Indiana, population 16,661. Marshall 'Mars' Teller moves to Eerie with his family. Only he, and his best friend, Simon, seem to notice just how bizarre life in Eerie really is. Bigfoot eats out of Marshall's trash, Elvis is on his paper round, and each episode, some uncanny occurrence makes becomes the subject of Marshall and Simon's investigations. The situations the duo faced were man and varied. Some were drawn from classic horror and sci-fi, but with a twist, such as β€œAmerica's Scariest Home Video,” which drew the Mummy straight out of a black-and-white movie and into Marshall's living room, while Simon's younger brother took his place (and proved far scarier). Some drew on science fiction for their inspiration, such as the HAL 9000 riff β€œThe ATM With a Heart of Gold.” Others were barmy in their originality. β€œNo Brain, No Pain,” involved a shambling vagrant, who was in fact a genius, but had accidentally taped over his mind with a copy of The Knack's My Sharona.

While the writing was generally very good for a children's drama, it was the direction and the cast that really set Eerie apart from its rivals. While Jose Rivera and Karl Schaefer were credited as the series' creators, Joe Dante was a major creative force on the show, directing several episodes. This is the man who directed such sci-fi classics as Innerspace, Gremlins and, um, Piranha. Not the sort of person you'd expect to be working on a children's TV series for the Disney Channel. The cast were what really made it, though. The series boasted not only a solid regular and semi-regular cast, but some of the best guest actors in television. Weird old Vincent Schiavelli played the town's terrifying orthodontist, while Rene Auberjonois tried to brainwash the town. Dante's favoured actor, Archie Hann, played Mr Radford, the proprietor of the World O' Stuff, until the series' midpoint turnaround, when he was revealed to be an imposter. The real Radford was revealed, played with twinkling charm by John β€œGomez” Astin. In one fan-favourite episode, β€œThe Lost Hour,” putting the clocks forward one hour incorrectly stranded Marshall in an empty parallel version of Eerie, with only a mysterious milkman to turn to for help. That milkman – who, it was hinted, may have been Marshall's own future self – was played by the late, great Eric Christmas, an actor who was born to play the Doctor. These impressive guest spots and many clever references make the series a joy to watch for genre fans.

It would be wrong to overlook the core cast, however. Omri Katz was the star of the show. Fifteen at the time of filming, but playing it a little younger, Omri was perfect as Marshall, representing the many young boys who were just entering puberty and being torn between silly kids' shows and adult life. Omri gave Marshall a wide-eyed wonder at the weirdness of the world, with just enough snark to make the character snappy, but never obnoxious. Stealing the show, though, was Justin Shenkarow, four years younger, as Simon Holmes. Justin dominated every scene he was in, despite being the youngest member of the cast. Simon was an outsider in Eerie, and became close friends with Marshall, only to find himself take a backseat to the teenager's problems. Popularity, school, and above all, his burgeoning interest in girls, threatened to take Marshall away from Simon, but at the end of the day, the two were inseparable. There was a lot for young boys to relate to.

Marshall's family were equally as important to the setup, forever oblivious to the strange goings on around them. Frances Guinan was just the right side of eccentric as his father Edgar. Possibly named in association with Edward Teller, inventor of the hydrogen bomb, Edgar tried to keep afloat with his career as an inventor for Things Incorporated. His inventions were often a main plot point in the series. Marshall's mother, Marilyn, was played Mary-Margaret Humes, who I only now realise was quite impossibly sexy and wasted as Edgar's housewife. As Marshall's older sister, Syndi, Julie Condra provided the boys watching with the twin interests of an irritating sibling to run rings round, and a beautiful young woman to gaze at.

It was something of a boys' show. Marshall had a new crush every other week, and while the girls were often strong, impressive characters, there was less for the female members of the audience. That changed in the thirteenth episode, which began a process of revamping the series by introducing Jason Marsden – that guy who's in everything, these days – as Dash X. A mysterious, amnesiac with grey hair, Dash X didn't know his real name or where he came from. He became the amoral antagonist to Marshall's hero, sometimes helping him, sometimes out for himself. He might possibly have been an alien, and was even seemingly aware that he was part of a television programme. He was also, importantly, the one all the girls watching had a crush on.

Dash X threatened to steal the series away from Marshall, something that the producers were fully aware of. In what was surely intended as the final episode of the series, but actually aired as the penultimate instalment, Marshall woke up to find that his name was really Omri, and his entire life was, in fact, part of a TV show. β€œReality Takes a Holiday” was an ingeniously postmodern episode, and saw Dash X – the only character referred to by his fictional name, and not his actor's name – attempt to oust Marshall as the star. Genuinely clever, it was a high point for the series.

My favourite episode, however, was β€œHeart on a Chain.” Marshall and a previously unmentioned classmate, Devon (played by another Dante favourite, Cory Danziger), both fall for the new girl, Melissa. When Devon is killed in a road accident, his heart is transplanted into the desperately ill Melissa, who begins to display some of Devon's personality traits. Marshall and Melissa's burgeoning romance is sabotaged by Devon's restless spirit. Apart from the fact that I had a huge crush on Danielle Harris, who played Melissa, this episode really touched me as a kid. Watching it again now, it's still affecting. It's a genuinely sweet, sad, creepy little ghost story, just really fine television.

For all the silliness, references and naff monsters, Eerie, Indiana was quite a dark, subversive series. The strangeness of the town and its supposed ordinariness was a metaphor for the harsh realities that are so often kept behind closed doors. While Marshall had a strong, loving family, Simon was from a broken home. He was able to spend so much time with the Tellers because his mother was rarely home, and his father was often β€œentertaining.” Other characters' lives were rarely anything to celebrate. β€œWho's Who” revolved around a young girl whose mother had abandoned her, and who was neglected and exploited by her father and brothers. Even the pilot episode, β€œForeverware,” hinted at the dark secrets behind so many supposedly perfect families.

For some reason, Eerie, Indiana never took off on its initial 1991-2 run. It sank without a trace, with certain episodes not even airing. It wasn't until 1997 that Fox bought the series and it was given a new lease of life. It was then that the series made it overseas, onto the Saturday mornings of my thirteen-year-old self. It became successful enough to spawn a spin-off series, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension. The concept was rather clever: in a parellel version of Eerie, life is perfectly normal, until a crazy cable guy opens an interdimensional rift. This lets the weirdness of the β€œprime” Eerie through to the Other Dimension, and threatens to destroy the Eeries of all realities. Marshall and Simon even appeared in the first episode to help out their younger equivalents, Mitchell and Stanley. However, although the effects had improved over the years, the scripts hadn't, and the weaker sequel series lasted only one season itself.

Eerie, Indiana amassed something of a cult following in its brief renaissance, but has little legacy. Even much of its cast are no longer acting. Omri Katz made the occasional film up until about eight years ago, while Justin Shenkarow now does mainly voice work. Julie Condra no longer seems to be acting. Of course, many of the more legendary guest stars are no longer with us. On the other hand, Jason Marsden is a familiar face on American television, Danielle Harris has become something of a modern day scream queen, and some kid called Tobey Maguire, who played a ghost boy, did quite well for himself. Still, I doubt any of these roles will make me smile quite as much as Eerie, Indiana.
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