Vampires, maniacs and sweet transvestites

Collinsport is always pretty weird, and when you spend as much time working there as I do you begin to take that weirdness for granted. I probably spend too much time pouring over the traffic statistics for this website, as well as it's various social media accounts. Considering I can only count to "11" because of that extra thumb on my left hand, making sense of these numbers isn't always easy. When you take into account the bizarre variety of content that readers respond to, it makes things even messier.

That being said, here's a rundown of the most popular items shared by The Collinsport Historical Society this week. I think some of them will surprise you.

Read the screenplay to the DARK SHADOWS pilot
Nobody was more surprised than I was to see a post about the 1991 DARK SHADOWS "revival" series was the best-read story this week. Earlier this week, I stumbled onto a PDF scan of the show's pilot episode, credited to Steve Feke and Dan Curtis, and shared it. It's easy to forget this series still has a loyal following. You might not hear much from them these days, though, because its fans tend to get shouted down online by people I call "Dark Shadows Fundamentalists."

THANK GOD IT'S FRID-DAY: "Too much indulgence in blood," 1970
It's worth noting that the occasion of Jonathan Frid's birthday this week pushed an archival post (a scan of a 1970 interview with the actor from Women's Wear Daily) into the #2 spot.

I've got a lot on interests, which means The Collinsport Historical Society has a lot of interests. I try to keep things on topic whenever possible, even when my disregard for dogma confuses the ultra-fanatics. I'm not the only one who thinks STAR TREK, Universal Monsters, the '60s BATMAN series and TWIN PEAKS all share DNA with DARK SHADOWS, am I? I guess not, because this UK print ad (above) for THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW was the most popular post at our MONSTER SERIAL tumblr feed this week. LINK

Post by The Collinsport Historical Society.

Meanwhile, over at Facebook, an image of Darren McGavin from THE NIGHT STALKER was the most popular post. It's difficult to gauge the relative success of anything at Facebook, because they cheat. The social network has a bad habit policy of punishing users for posting links that take people away from Facebook, so photos are always more successful than links. Still, it's interesting that a photo of Darren McGavin managed to trump any of the DARK SHADOWS content shared this week.

Photos from the 1964 auditions for #TheAddamsFamily. Is this Julie Newmar? @SilverAgeTV http://t.co/RewoBn8hKu pic.twitter.com/0irzcZz46r
— Barnabas Collins (@CousinBarnabas) December 2, 2014

To go even further off topic, a link relating to THE ADDAMS FAMILY was the most popular item over at Twitter this week. This link took people (again) to the MONSTER SERIAL Tumblr feed, where they could see ten photos of various actors auditions for the lead roles on THE ADDAMS FAMILY back in 1964. These are some pretty special photos, and I suggest you check them out.