Parody analog horror meets 1970s tropes (like pet rocks, lava lamps, disco music, bell-bottom pants, mirror balls, and of course mood rings) in the web series Grave Mood Rings. It pokes fast fun at classic slow-moving Gothic soap operas like Dark Shadows and the Canadian series Strange Paradise. In addition to a vampiric Viscount, a castle is home to a groovy Doctor (a phlebotomist, naturally), a jolly housekeeper with her own laugh track, a werewolf Vicar, and an arch-nemesis riddler wearing a Sphinx mask. Corny wordplay, the occasional bizarre sing-a-long, and haunted doughnuts punctuate the proceedings, in the tradition of the sketch comedy of MadTV, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV.  This episode was written by Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.

"And the world becomes an empty void."  Today's moment of existential angst is from Dark Shadows.  In parts one, two, three, and four, we saw how Dark Shadows beat Seinfeld to be the first show about nothing. 

A still from Grave Mood Rings, courtesy of Dare-g on Tumblr.

Stills from Grave Mood Rings, courtesy of Dare-g on Tumblr.

Parody analog horror meets 1970s tropes (like pet rocks, lava lamps, disco music, bell-bottom pants, mirror balls, and of course mood rings) in the web series Grave Mood Rings. It pokes fast fun at classic slow-moving Gothic soap operas like Dark Shadows and the Canadian series Strange Paradise. In addition to a vampiric Viscount, a castle is home to a groovy Doctor (a phlebotomist, naturally), a jolly housekeeper with her own laugh track, a werewolf Vicar, and an arch-nemesis riddler wearing a Sphinx mask. Corny wordplay, the occasional bizarre sing-a-long, and haunted doughnuts punctuate the proceedings, in the tradition of the sketch comedy of MadTV, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV.

"I am that which has been, which is, which will be, and no one has yet lifted the veil that covers me."  From The Children's Newspaper, 1934.  

"No one's out there."  Today's moment of existential angst is from Dark Shadows.  In parts one, two, three, and four, we saw how Dark Shadows beat Seifeld to be the first show about nothing. 

A Grave Mood Rings homage to Dark Shadows.

A collage of stills from Grave Mood Rings, courtesy of Dare-g on Tumblr.

The soup du jour is human.  From the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' Our Dumb Animals magazine, 1872.

A collage of stills from Grave Mood Rings, courtesy of Dare-g on Tumblr.

Say it with a scythe!  "We must make the prediction in the ancient tome come true!"  From Passions episode 129.

"I managed to keep all my illusions until I was 35, at least."  From Dark Shadows episode 798.

Words are cocoons in reverse.  "At last they break up into their letters—Out of them jumps the worm that was—His hairy feet tremble upon them." —William Carlos Williams, The Great American Novel

A collage of stills from Grave Mood Rings, courtesy of Dare-g on Tumblr.

"We lend power to the things we fear."  From The Conquest of Worry by Orison Swett Marden, 1924. 

Via UFO Newsclipping Service, 2001.

Parody analog horror meets 1970s tropes (like pet rocks, lava lamps, disco music, bell-bottom pants, mirror balls, and of course mood rings) in the web series Grave Mood Rings. It pokes fast fun at classic slow-moving Gothic soap operas like Dark Shadows and the Canadian series Strange Paradise. In addition to a vampiric Viscount, a castle is home to a groovy Doctor (a phlebotomist, naturally), a jolly housekeeper with her own laugh track, a werewolf Vicar, and an arch-nemesis riddler wearing a Sphinx mask. Corny wordplay, the occasional bizarre sing-a-long, and haunted doughnuts punctuate the proceedings, in the tradition of the sketch comedy of MadTV, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV.  This episode was written by Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.