Season 2, Episode 12 – “Monsters In My Room” – Original Airdate: Dec. 22nd, 1985
Written and Directed by James Steven Sadwith (who also directed the 1991 TV film “In Broad Daylight” and won an Emmy for the 1992 mini-series “Sinatra”)

Seth Green (“Family Guy”, Idle Hands) stars as “Timmy”, a fairly normal, if somewhat quiet and introverted young boy living with his mother and new stepfather, Biff (Greg Mullavey – TV’s “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”). He’s more into science than sports, and although many similarly-aged boys of the era may have been asking for bikes or Transformers or quite possibly video games (The NES wouldn’t see wide release until 1986 and Atari was fairly dead at this point), Timmy’s biggest Christmas wish is for a new teddy bear… and a rather large one at that. All of this is quite to the disappointment of Biff, who feels that Timmy is a “wussy” (his words, not mine), and far too coddled by his mother. As such, Biff is determined to help the boy “man up” some, whether Timmy wants to or not.

However, Timmy doesn’t seem too bothered by the man, at least not initially. Instead, he has bigger issues to deal with… like a group of monsters residing in his bedroom! These include an octopus-like creature under his bed, some sort of pig-faced humanoid hanging out in his closet, and a giant circular saw blade that somewhat randomly spins its way around the room. Although these beings never truly seem to pose much of a physical threat to Timmy*, it’s understandable that the situation might be scary as Hell to a small child… or anyone else for that matter.

*I took a whole week of woodshop in 7th grade, which was long enough for me to learn that a spinning saw blade is never all that safe.

To be fair, the early scenes featuring interactions between the two characters don’t actually make Biff seem like that bad of a guy; just one not overly familiar with dealing with children. His more “aggressive” side, clearly provoked by numerous beers, begins to manifest when Timmy is forced to deal with the waking nightmares haunting his bedroom. The boy calls out for help, but Biff only yells for him to shut up and “stop being a baby”. Mom does eventually come into the room (which does cause the monsters to hide) to attempt to sing her frightened child to sleep, but this is soon followed by a drunken and thus over-exuberant Biff barging in to sing the boy a sea shanty.

Clearly, Timmy is not a fan of sea shanties, as this seems to be his breaking point. Okay, so the man does make a couple negative comments about the boy’s mother (and his new wife), but I choose to believe it was the sea shanty thing. Either way, he’s so over Biff’s bullshit that he no longer cares about the monsters, yelling at the beasts until they retreat in fear of him. In essence, he’s “manned up”, just as his stepfather had hoped. Well, maybe not exactly as he had hoped.

After a brief run-in with a witch in his bathroom, Timmy finally confronts Biff, his “backtalk” angering the drunken man enough to lure him to the bedroom in an attempt to “paddle” the boy. Instead, Biff meets his demise at the hands… and tentacles.. and blade(?) of Timmy’s new “friends”. Although we see these creatures converge on Biff like seagulls on a french fry, the man’s death is later attributed to a heart attack. Although, as Timmy says at the episode’s closing, the man died of fright as he was the real “scaredy cat”.

Undeniably, “Monsters in My Room” is aimed at younger horror fans. As such, it should come as little surprise that the episode was one of my favorites watching the series during its original airing, when I was only a little younger than the central character (Green is two years older than I.) Like many other kids-geared horror films and television shows of the era, the episode wasn’t afraid to be a little scary, nor was it afraid to kill someone. It also wasn’t afraid to show its child character taking at least a modicum of satisfaction, if not joy, in that character’s death. What can I say? 80s’ kids were all about that revenge.

Now that I’m a bitter-ass “grown old”, I still find “Monsters in My Room” to be quite entertaining. Although somewhat dated, I would still recommend it to younger horror fans, as well as to newer fans of the series in general. This said, it is somewhat disheartening to think that, with each passing day, life has made me a little more like Biff and less like Timmy. So, with that, I hope you are still able to watch the episode with some of that childlike wonderment (probably not a real word) that I did when first watching the episode some 40+ years ago.

 

 

Season 2, Episode 13 – “Comet Watch” – Original Airdate: Jan. 12th, 1986
Directed by Warner Shook (best known as”Richard Grantham” in the “Father’s Day” segment of Creepshow)
Written by author Harvey Jacobs and Jules Selbo (who both penned a few other scripts for the series)

 

Englebert (Anthony Heald -“Dr. Chilton” in The Silence of the Lambs) is an amatuer astronomer, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Halley’s Comet. However, his long planned evening of watching and documenting the phenomena is about to be scuttled when his wife, Charlene (Kate McGregor-Stewart – Scrooged, School of Rock), informs him that he’s supposed to be attending a business dinner with her father, who’s also Englebert’s boss, and a group of investment bankers. He attempts to back out, but to little avail. Charlene is far more assertive than he, so Englebert offers little fight. She departs to get ready for the evening, while Englebert returns to his, albeit antiquated and abnormally large, telescope for one more glance.

However, instead of celestial bodies, it’s a human body that Englebert sees through the eyeglass; a young woman calling for help.  In something similar to a gush of wind, the telescope pops open and the woman spills out onto the floor of his study. The woman, Laura (Sarah Rush – The Nude Bomb, 1978’s Dr. Strange TV movie), discloses that she’d been trapped riding Halley’s comet across the galaxy. She’s initially shocked to find Englebert in what she claims to be her house. It comes as an even greater shock when she discovers that she’s been gone for the last 75 years.

In discussing how she found herself in such a predicament, Laura states that there is a “window” in the universe, one that only opens with the comet’s approach. Laura happened to be looking through her own telescope, the one still present in what is now Englebert’s home, at the precise spot at exactly the right moment when… WOOSH! She’s pulled up the telescope and through the “window”, finding herself floating in space. Per her story, Edward Halley had also discovered this same window and used it to take a ride upon the comet named for him. Halley happened upon the young woman and pulled her aboard for the ride. This decision would prove much to Laura’s dismay as she quickly discovered that the famed astronomer and physicist is not only pompous and arrogant, but also an insufferable bore.

Charlene returns and is none-too-pleased to find another woman in her house. In anger, she smacks the telescope, busting it open again. Another gust of wind ensues, and Halley (Fritz Weaver – The Legend of Lizzie Borden, Creepshow) himself tumbles out, landing atop Charlene. After some not-so-pleasant pleasantries, the man demands that Laura return with him, to which Charlene wholeheartedly agrees. Naturally, Laura doesn’t want to spend the rest of her days trapped in space… especially not with this tiring old windbag.

As “Comet Watch” is very much a silly, romantic fantasy, one should expect the episode to conclude with an upbeat, happy ending. One should also expect to be asked to massively suspend disbelief or scientific facts as “Comet Watch” doesn’t even know the meaning of the term “grounded in reality”. The only thing that might be considered as such is the timing of the comet, which did become visible to us here on Earth in early 1986. As I was quite interested in science and space as a young child, I also eagerly awaited the arrival of Halley’s Comet. If fact, in addition to sitting outside to watch the comet myself, I even built a replica of the thing for a school project. It had a light bulb in it and everything. Anyway…..

While I’ve frequently admitted to not preferring the lighter hearted episodes of the series, I must also admit to having always been something of a fan of “Comet Watch“. Maybe it’s because the episode reminds me of my own one-time fascination with Halley’s Comet. Maybe I’m just a bigger sucker for a love story than I like to let on. To be fair, it might be closer to the truth to call “Comet Watch” a “lust story” as our romantic leads truly don’t know each other well enough to make anyone believe that their relationship will even work out. Not to mention that Englebert is already married. Sure, Charlene is a tad domineering, but that doesn’t exactly mean that she’s an awful person, or even wrong in her opinions of her husband.

Then again, it’s not like “space strange” falls into your lap every day.