Amazing Stories

[Anonymous]

I just saw the compilation movie Amazing Stories: The Movie III, in which two Elfman-scored episodes, “Mummy Daddy” and “The Family Dog”, are back-to-back.

The thing about the show Amazing Stories is that a vast majority of the episodes sucked. They were mostly sappy Twilight Zone rip-offs that were so campy they were barely watchable. But the rare good episodes (and there’s only four or five of them) are brilliant. My personal favorite is the Robert Zemeckis directed “Go To the Head of the Class”.

“Mummy Daddy” is about a horror film actor in a mummy costume who tries to get to the hospital because his wife is giving birth. He is mistaken by various rednecks as a real mummy (because the swamps have some sort of Egyptian curse or something) and they chase after him. This is a typical stupid episode with nothing to recommend except for Elfman’s music, one of his early comedy scores.

“The Family Dog” is one of my favorites. It’s a cartoon designed by Tim Burton and written & directed by Brad Bird (who went on to work on The Simpsons). In the early 90s it spun-off into its own TV series that didn’t last long. I’ve never seen it. Elfman supplies an excellent classic cartoon-style score.

The other two episodes featured in the movie are crap (like “Mummy Daddy”) and not worth your time.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your review BartNFink. It revives some old memories, when I was seven or eight years old and I went each week-end at my grandmother’s. My uncle and cousins lived next door, and I spent hours and hours watching horror movies. “Amazing Stories” wasn’t particularly scary, but I was a little impressed by this film at that time.

Is it in this film that a B-52 crewmember is trapped in the plane’s turret ? The most vivid image I have from this film is a cartoon-like set of wheels popping out of the hull. But I’m suddenly wondering if the sequence I’m talking about rather comes from “Twilight Zone – The Movie”…

I liked these “anthology” movies anyway. Films like “Creepshow” were fun B Movies.

– Squeezir.

[Anonymous]

i have some pictures of “family dog” in my mind but i was too young ah the time and i can’t even remember Danny’s theme; i used to like the show for it’s original tone but that’s pretty much the only thing i’m sure of.

[Anonymous]

The episode involving the B-52 bomber was Amazing Stories. It was directed by series creator Steven Spielberg and I believe it was the first episode.

It’s available in Amazing Stories: The Movie (the first one), along with “Go to the Head of the Class”. For some reason these two episodes are both an hour long.

[Author]

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