Opening/closing Sequence
The opening/closing theme to the series was performed by Donald Rubinstein (who co-wrote the theme with Erica Lindsay). Donald (The brother of Laurel Productions' founder, Richard P. Rubinstein) had worked on scores for Laurel Productions in the past, such as the films Martin and Knightriders. His previous works qualified him to try his hand at the theme for Tales from the Darkside, and the haunting composition helped define the series as a separate entity from Creepshow. George Romero wrote the narration.
As in the case of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, the series begins each episode with a montage of images—in this case, several shots of a forest and countryside—accompanied by a narrator (the late Paul Sparer) delivering a foreboding voice-over:
- Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality.
- But... there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real,
- but not as brightly lit... a DARKSIDE.
Each episode would also end with a second voice-over during the closing credits:
- The dark side is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us.
- Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.
Read more about this topic: Tales From The Darkside
Famous quotes containing the words opening, closing and/or sequence:
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)
“And if the stage-dark head rehearse
The fifth act of the closing night,
Why, cut it off, piece after piece,
And throw the tough cortex away....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)