Tales From the Crypt was a horror anthology series that ran from 1990-1996. There was also the Tales From the Crypt movie, Bordello of Blood… But maybe I’ll save that one for next year. There was also the Tales From the Cryptkeeper: an animated version of the source material that I didn’t know about until decades later. that one sucked out loud, and we shall never speak of it ever again. Unless I can find some episodes on YouTube for screenshots and enough people ask me nicely, then we’ll talk. But for now, we’re talking about the original series.
As a kid, I was aware the show existed. In large part because one of my classmates in fifth grade had HBO, and watched it all the time. However, it wasn’t until somewhere around really late 2009 and really early 2010 when I started watching reruns on FX. Reruns that were heavily edited and full of commercials, but episodes all the same. And I watched the show religiously. Partly because it made me nostalgic for the adequate old days when a classmate told me everything over the phone, and mostly because I was unemployed, academically suspended (which I didn’t realize was a thing till I flunked algebra three times in a row), woefully single, and bored to tears with all my PS2 games, so why not?
Ironically, the very first episode of Tales From the Crypt I ever saw was actually the very LAST episode they ever made: a fact I didn’t learn until a decade and a half later when watching episode reviews on YouTube that prompted this rabbit hole in the first place. And I figured that if we were going to be talking about a show that became my 1:00 PM ritual, what better place to start than with my
first episode.
The episode begins as all Tales From the Crypt episodes do, with
The Cryptkeeper himself.
If you’re anything like me, you immediately forgot about his nasty habit of communicating exclusively in terrible Halloween puns. That being said… I can’t hate the guy. For starters, it’d be a pretty boring anthology without him sandwiching each episode with his own little antics.
Sometimes, like this time, there were little microplots going on in the crypt itself. In this case, The Cryptkeeper was apparently running out of ideas and decided to outsource his story writing elsewhere. After turning down a guy who apparently has a serious boner for Son of Dracula…
SIDE NOTE: I can’t tell if this is a reference to hammer horror, or if this particular writer just really likes the Son of Dracula.
…The Cryptkeeper discovers “a brother duo! Grimm!”. And that’s how we get the untold story of The Third Pig.
Everything starts out as usual. We get an introduction to each of
the three pigs.
The first little piggy is Smoky: a chainsmoker voiced by the man, the myth, the legend, the voice of about 70% of Cow and Chicken, Charlie Adler. He built his house out of old cigarette cartons and matchbooks, as memory serves. I thought he’d also used “dirty magazines” as well, but upon rewatching… Yeah, guess not. I stand
corrected.
The second little piggy is Drunky: a fat, drunk, horny slob voiced by
Brad Garret. He built his house out of old beer kegs.
And then, there’s the third pig: Dudley. Being the one out of the three who ISN’T a total fucking moron, he built his house out of bricks. Where does a pig find bricks in the wild? Fuck if I know! Where did the other two find cigarettes and beer? Shut up and enjoy the story!
And, of course, it wouldn’t be a retelling of The Three Little Pigs
without a big bad wolf.
This particular big bad wolf is voiced by the equally legendary Bobcat Goldthwait. He’s also a world-class hurr-durr. He’s so dumb, he finds it nigh impossible to speak in rhyme like everybody else. Except the narrator, but again, shut up and enjoy the story, I guess.
As you’d expect, the wolf blows down Smoky and Drinky’s houses, and chases them to Dudley’s house. He tries to blow down Dudley’s house, but in typical fashion, bricks are a little more solid than cigarette cartons and empty beer kegs that probably weren’t even glewed together. The wolf pouts for a moment, and leaves.
Smoky and Drunky move in with Dudley, and treat him like an absolute doormat. IE: making him do all the work while they bring over hookers and binge-drink with the music turned all the way up. Smoky and Drunky convince Dudley to go get them some more booze while doing everything they can to dodge finding a job.
Meanwhile, the wolf is back in town, and if he can’t get in the old fashioned way, he’ll rub both of his braincells together, and come up with a scheme. And that scheme… Is to pretend like he’s a swimsuit model. And more embarrassing than that? The plan works!
The wolf breaks into the house, and while he can’t help but notice that there are only TWO pigs, he decides it’ll do. And so, the wolf brutally devours and murders the shit out of the two pigs. So brutally so, in fact, I once again have reservations about posting pics. Though I’ve heard some of my contemporaries insist you probably saw worse if you were a regular on Newgrounds way back when.
Dudley comes home, and finds the horrific remains of the wolf’s
rampage. He calls the police…. But…
Yeah, turns out the woodland police force are all wolves. And if you think he’s going to get a fair trial after taking the fall for the
gruesome murders…
Yeah, turns out the judge is also a wolf. Also, he’s voiced by Jim Cummings.
SIDE NOTE: man, a lot of A-list talent appeared on this episode.
And just in case that wasn’t bad enough…
Yip, turns out the JURY are wolves too. Ever get the feeling someone was making social commentary on the American justice system? I’m just saying, 1996 wasn’t that far away from the Rodney King trial. Not to mention pop culture moved a lot slower back then. You’d hear tired celebrity jokes for years back in those days… But I digress.
It takes the court system all of five seconds to conclude Dudley is guilty. The judge sentences Dudley to death by frying pan, effective immediately.
As Dudley laments his fate, he’s visitted by ghosts.
The ghosts of Smoky and Drunky pay Dudley a visit. Dudley can’t resist the urge to ask: is it as hot as they say it is in hell?
“Yeah, it’s pretty warm, I guess,” says Smoky, “but we have shit to do.”
So, through the cartoon magic of squash and stretch that ignores the fact ghosts are intangible and therefore can’t interact with solids in the world of the living, they take Dudley to a mad scientist layer they happened to know about. Even better, an ancient grimmoir on how to raise the dead just happens to be within reach, and the mad scientist’s unused lab happens to also have all the material one would need for making their own monster. And I feel like if it were any other series but Tales From the Crypt, I’d be calling bullshit right about now.
Time passes. Dudley robs the graves of the newly deceased, stitches them altogether, and pumps it full of electricity. And thus,
his monstrosity comes to life!
He orders… Frankenpig, I guess we call it. He orders Frankenpig to find the big bad wolf, and kill the shit out of him. Which he basically does.
Unfortunately, Dudley finds himself having second thoughts later on. Why? Seriously, the monster only kills the big bad wolf, and just about every woodland creature agrees the dumb bastard deserves it… But I guess Dudley didn’t know that. Or, more likely, they didn’t have time to animate the massive rampage Frankenpig went on prior, killing dozens in the process. I also haven’t dismissed the possibility that this is where the writing staff may have written themselves into a corner.
Frankenpig returns, an epic final battle is fight, and Frankenpig explodes. Only for the big bad wolf to pop out from inside his guts, and end the cartoon Looney Tunes style. By making Dudley into a sandwich and eating him. Again, if it was anyone else but Tales From the Crypt, I probably would’ve called bullshit on that one, too.
The story ends, The Cryptkeeper informs us that the writing position has been filled… Which is ironic, considering the show got canceled immediately following this episode.
So yeah, I like this episode. Again, it was the first one I’d ever seen, so the standard pretty much didn’t exist yet. But even now, after seeing some of the other, potentially BETTER episodes of the show, I still like it. Admittedly, it did kind of fall apart towards the very end, but I still thought it was a fun little idea. Very Fractured Fairy Tales meets 2000s internet humor, if you know what I mean.
I’ve heard some say that this particular episode’s one weakness was that it really didn’t bring anything new to the table. I can definitely confirm that there were already dark parodies of The Three Little Pigs that were funnier in the longrun. But for what it’s worth, it’s not the worst version of the story I’ve ever heard.
Make no mistake, it is an EXTREMELY bloody cartoon. The only reason I probably didn’t lose my lunch watching it was probably because I didn’t see it when it originally aired. By the time I DID see it for the first time, , I was already subsisting on a diet of Saw movies, Hellsing, 4chan, and Angry Video Game Nerd reviews. All of which were equally violent and disgusting, if not more so. There are probably better episodes to start your binge-watching session on… But I’ll always remember this one as my first.
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