At Whammy! Analog Media, I learned that there was an M.C. Hammer cartoon. (Photo: Liz O.)
On a drizzly, Sunday afternoon, I half-forgot about what I was looking for inside WHAMMY! I was semi-crouched in a small aisle, scooting out of the way of passersby while scanning the spines of VHS releases of old cartoons. There was the Charlotte’s Web movie that I still vividly recall seeing multiple times on TV as a kid. (Was it one of the Family Film Festivalmovies? Do anyone else who spent ‘80s weekends watching KTLA remember?) Two Care Bears cassettes were filed next to something called Buttons & Rusty, which I don’t remember at all.
Victoria Winters was fascinated with the past, so much so that she ultimately got lost in it while chasing after a guy that she picked up during an 18th century witch trial. The Collins clan of 1960s Maine would never see her again and Victoria’s story never reached its logical conclusion— that the foundling-turned-governess was actually the daughter of wealthy family matriarch, Elizabeth— during the television run of Dark Shadows.
Some might scold me for spoiling one of the gazillion plot lines that drove Dark Shadows between 1966 and 1971, but we’re talking about a daytime soap that aired more than 50 years ago. The expiration date for spoilers passed before the Watergate scandal pre-empted ABC’s daytime programming and sent housewives into a tizzy. Besides, there’s a point to this reference. Like Victoria, I spent much of 2023 with one foot in the present and one the past as I worked my way through the 1200+ episodes that comprise the original series and are streaming. Unlike Victoria, I still exist in the present timeline and am here to tell you what I learned from the past.
