Episode 3: Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone

Episode 3: Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone

Original Airdate: June 10, 1989

Written By: Terry Black

Directed By: Richard Donner

Starring: Joe Pantoliano, Robert Wuhl, Kathleen York

Carnivals are innately horrifying. Whether the traveling circus is making its way to the dirt patch in your local town or you're simply passing it by as a roadside attraction, there is nothing quite as unsettling as the purported greatest show on earth. Inside the walls of the big top, carnival barkers the world over will try to win your attention with promises of the eerie, unexplainable, and deranged. But do they outright promise you death and rebirth in the same show? This carnival does. 

Ulric (Joe Pantoliano) is the star attraction of this traveling brigade, promising the greatest performing act in history: his own death, followed by the miracle of resurrection. Billed as Ulric the Undying, the people flock from miles around to see him bite the big one, and they're paying plenty of money, too. In this terrifying stunt, Ulric is to be buried alive for a full 12 hours, thus initiating him into the world of the dead. But when they dig him up, he promises to be alive once more!

"Folks, this is an escape that Houdini himself couldn't have gotten out of!" -Barker

Burning a single candle from the inside of his comfortable coffin, Ulric recants his tale to the audience in a series of flashbacks. For you see, Ulric is more than just a man. He's a genetic mutation; a product of science gone horribly astray. Ulric was a simple, out-of-work, drunken bum who was promised fame and fortune by a mad scientist named Emil Manfred (Gustav Vintas). Manfred's plan, albeit incredibly elaborate, was to implant a gland in Ulric that matched up to that of the common house cat. 

Though seemingly trivial, Dr. Manfred hypothesized that the urban legend about the nine lives of a cat would prove true for humans if the surgery was successful. In short: he could give Ulric nine lives. Everybody got that? Ulric does, in more ways than one. The cat is offed and Ulric receives the incredible regenerative properties, first demonstrated when Manfred shoots him dead as a test of the experiment. 30 seconds later, he's up and walking again, a complete success and an affront to nature.

"But, before you stagger into the nearest bar to slurp down your money, how would you like to make 100 times more...a thousand?" -Dr. Emil Manfred

Richard Donner's directorial prowess can be felt all throughout "Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone." Little touches of gleeful enjoyment are scattered throughout what is, and always will be, a terribly grim tale. The screenplay written by Terry Black only helps to support this cavalcade of the cadaver with bits of humor inserted into each and every death. Combined, the two make death seem like late night television rather than an excruciating experience in torture. 

And that's really what all this should spell. The constant and consistent fashion in which Ulric punishes his own body for the amusement of paying customers takes shock and awe to dizzying new heights whilst only scratching the surface of the carnal desires and catharsis experienced from the viewer's standpoint. Is Ulric some kind of sympathetic martyr for the world to stand behind? Hardly. Remember, he volunteered for this project. 

"That's it. He's deader than a possum on the interstate." -Barker

And so the killing begins. Ulric finds work with a carnival barker (Robert Wuhl) in a circus that will showcase him as the feature attraction. And he dies. And dies. And dies some more. At first by water in a tank, then later via strangulation from a noose. Each stunt becomes more and more elaborate, and with this exploitation, the profits begin to pour in. Ulric becomes attracted to power, money, greed, and even his ditzy assistant Coralee (Kathleen York). Seeing all that green eventually led Ulric down the road to see red as well. 

In an effort to go solo, Ulric runs his car straight into a brick wall with Dr. Manfred as his passenger. Though Ulric wastes a life on such a venture, he's consumed by resurrection once more and back in the game with an even greater share of the gate. Even in his blind gluttony, Ulric constructs clever scams to harness more funds towards his not-so-noble cause. Tickets are sold for his execution via electrocution wherein a member of the audience can pull the switch. Then, charges to fire an arrow straight into his heart stagger up to $1000 per person. You begin to see the veil of murder somehow pulled back in favor of the indulgence of the almighty dollar. 

"But I still have one life left, and this life is gonna pay me plenty." -Ulric

Ulric falls into a comfortable position despite the fact that he's running out of time (and lives). With his increasing fortune, comes imminent betrayal. Coralee most literally stabs him in the back, costing him a precious remaining life as she heads for the hills. Left with only one more performance to retire upon, Ulric demands 100% of the profits from the carnival barker and prepares to bury himself alive. 

Only problem is, Ulric isn't a mathematician. Let's review: Shot in the head as an experimental test, drowned, hanged, injured in a car accident, electrocuted, shot with an arrow in the heart, stabbed in the back. That's seven, with only one to afford before he's on his farewell tour. What he realizes, however, during his deep soliloquy is that the original cat died during the procedure, bringing his calculations through the roof, and his survival through the floor. The single candle burns out and Ulric is left to suffocate with his fortune just outside his grasp. 

"Somebody! I don't have nine lives! Somebody! Let me out!" -Ulric

Parallels to the EC Source Material: "Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone" was originally published in the EC Comics release The Haunt of Fear #21, though it was the Crypt Keeper's contribution to the issue. The idea is almost identical, and even has direct quotes taken from the story and placed into the screenplay. Ulric and Dr. Emil Manfred were present, though the manners in which Ulric is disposed of changed throughout the tale. 

Ulric died by going over Niagara Falls, leaping out of a plane, drowning in burlap sack, and then the same way he went during the show with electrocution and betrayal. Not that this is an all-too-important detail either, but his attendant Coralee was originally written as a man who he did not fall for.

Horror Alumni Roll Call: 

-Joe Pantoliano (Ulric) didn't do much work in the horror genre before his appearance here. Pantoliano scored roles in little-known horror picture The Final Terror and the television series The Hitchhiker before starring in Tales. He would appear in an uncredited role later in the series during the episode "Split Personality," but stuck mostly to action pictures throughout his career, including prominent plays in the Bad Boys franchise and work with director Richard Donner in The Goonies. He even made numerous appearances on latter-day HBO programs like The Sopranos and Arli$$.

-Robert Wuhl (Barker) had a lot on his plate in 1989, appearing in both this episode and Tim Burton's Batman that Summer. Wuhl hardly appeared in any other horror films, save for a one-off in 1993's Sandman. He was, however, the star of HBO's Arli$$, pairing him up again with Joe Pantoliano.

-Kathleen York (Coralee) appeared in mostly comedies before she starred in Sam Raimi's Darkman alongside previously mentioned Larry Drake. She kept mostly to television, featured most prominently in the NBC drama The West Wing.

-Gustav Vintas (Dr. Emil Manfred) actually got his start in the original science fiction television series V. His other horror credits included horror-comedy The Creature of Sunny Side Up Trailer Park and Vampire at Midnight. 

-Michael Bower (Junior) has appeared in over a dozen different television shows over his career including The X-Files. But none more prominently feature Bower than Salute Your Shorts as the character Donkeylips. He was also one of the kids in 1990 horror-comedy mash-up The Willies.

-Rick Zumwalt (Workman #1) was the kind of actor who could receive roles based solely on his appearance. See one episode of the made-for-television spinoff Freddy's Nightmares and Tim Burton's Batman Returns.

-Richard Donner (Director) had an amazing directorial career before taking the helm for three Tales episodes. In the early sixties, Donner directed a handful of episodes of The Twilight Zone before giving the world The Omen in 1976. He then cranked out Superman, Superman II (originally uncredited), and the Lethal Weapon franchise whilst also creating cult-classic The Goonies.

-Terry Black (Writer) wrote six Crypt-related episodes in total (three for HBO, and three for Tales from the Cryptkeeper) after giving the world the black horror-comedy Dead Heat.

Number of puns delivered by the Cryptkeeper: Three, all of which are strung together in the final moments of an otherwise straightforward series of Cryptkeeper scenes.

In Summation: In the end, nobody is a winner when greed gets in the way of good fun. The carnival barker will be left to answer questions about his accidental homicide (or manslaughter at the least) and babes like Coralee will eventually have to answer the call of depleting funds on the run. Isn't that the way it should be? Moralistically, the two parties that willingly and knowingly tampered with nature and science found themselves victims not of a cruel irony but rather their own dysfunction. Had they simply shared the spotlight as the team, maybe they could've avoided such a calamity. If we live in a world where everyone eventually dies, then why tamper with those dynamics to experience it again and again for the sadistic public or the reckless investor? Absolutely no one will feel sorry for you if they have to bury your corpse alongside the piles of money you swindled in your endeavor. 

Benjamin M. Benya