Eerie, Indiana
"...better weird than dead..."
John Connors on the highly underrated series 'Eerie, Indiana'
(with thanks to Kevin Aitchison for loan of the tapes)
Have you ever really looked at the world around you? Not just in a matter of fact way but very, very closely? If you did, you might discover that behaviour or places or traditions that appear totally normal are, in fact, strange and inexplicable. When 13 year old Marshall Teller's family move to the small town of Eerie in Indiana (population 16, 661) he soon discovers that this 'normal' place is "the centre of weirdness for the entire planet". The clues? Elvis lives on his paper round, Bigfoot looks for food in his trash, everyone mows the lawn at the same time; and that's just for starters. With neighbour Simon Holmes, Marshal sets about investigating the weirdness and cataloguing it.
'Eerie Indiana' was a series that had some unfortunate luck. Premiering in 1992, it was just a year or two early to surf the 'X Files' boom and, when they brought it back with a different cast and set in 'The Other Dimension', it was just a bit late because every US network had shows about the unexplained. Nevertheless there are over 30 episodes in total from both series which really should be released on video. The first series, especially, is a very entertaining mixture of the bizarre made plausible. Created by Jose Rivera and Karl Schaefer and with noted film director Joe Dante ('Gremlins', 'Matinee', 'Small Soldiers') as creative consultant the show gets off to a cautious start with the writers feeling they had to be almost garishly off centre. 'Foreverware' features two identical twins who have been kept at the same age for over 30 years in their mother's cryogenic containers which she also uses to sell as food storage items. The episode features an approach that was relaxed after a while; the Foreverware party is shrill and over acted, the twins are just too odd to elicit our sympathy while Marshall and Simon are way too serious in their approach. As with a few of the early episodes, the idea is better than the realisation of it; similar comments can be applied to 'The Retainer' and even 'The ATM With a Heart of Gold' though this is the first episode to make any character connection as Simon becomes the most popular kid in town when Marshall's Dad invents an interactive ATM. The machine sees Simon as a friend and gives him everyone else's money. Rather than simply placing one character in peril, this episode successfully involves everyone in the plot; Mr Teller as the inventor, Marshall worried about Simon's changing behaviour and so on. After a couple more weeks (including a rather weakly written Halloween episode) the series starts to settle down into it's own rhythm as the writers move away from simply creating weird small town happenings (already explored on 'Twin Peaks' amongst others) and concentrate on things that could really happen anywhere. The characters also relax; Marshall in particular starts to act a bit more like a teenager than a junior detective and stops getting on so well with his older sister while everyone starts calling him Mars, a little touch that suits the show. The series starts to peak around the tornado episode and 'Heart on a Chain'. The former sees Matt Frewer guesting as a madcap scientist who can hear tornados talking and literally drops out of the sky to help save Eerie from Old Bill, a particularly belligerent example which is angry because Marshall didn't attend the town's annual Tornado Day. It includes some priceless digs at silly traditional ceremonies and a very well staged confrontation with the tornado. 'Heart.....' is another excellent demonstration of the way the weirdness is mingled with the everyday in the series. Melanie is a quiet girl waiting for a heart transplant and is also the object of a rivalry between Marshall and flash kid Devon but when the latter is killed and she gets his heart, she feels a pain every time she goes to kiss Marshall and realises she could end up trapped by Devon's heart forever. Only two episodes really went for a romantic or emotional angle but both work superbly. The other is 'The Dead Letter' in which Tripp O'Connell (played by a young Tobey Maguire) appears as a ghost to Marshall and Simon and tries to get them to deliver a letter he never got to deliver to his secret love Mary 62 years ago. But at first the now old Mary won't read it. When Marshall eventually persuades her to hear the message and a meeting is set up, the resulting scene would melt all but the hardest hearts. By now the cast have grown into their roles; particularly good are Justin Shenkarow who gives the 9 year old Simon lots of little quirks that work very well and Mary Margaret Humes who makes the always tricky mother role a very realistic character despite the surroundings (and nowadays is well known as Dawson's Mum in 'Dawson's Creek'). Omri Katz is also excellent having to cope with lots of confusion and strangeness every week, he pitches his acting at just the right level of surprise and knowing. Had the series developed over several seasons, it may have tried to present the weirdness as the perils of growing up, a slightly more difficult trick to pull off and an angle that the 'Other Dimension' version fell too easily into. At around this point, presumably due to poor ratings, the show is revamped slightly. World O'Stuff manager Crawford, a regular character who's appeared in a different disguise each week turns out to have been an imposter and is hauled away to allow John Astin to appear as the real Crawford.
Series 1 Episode Guide
| TITLE | WRITER | DIRECTOR | WEIRDNESS |
| FOREVERWARE ** |
KARL SCHAEFFER JOSE RIVERA |
JOE DANTE | Everlasting plastic containers keep twins and mother the same age for decades. |
| THE RETAINER ** |
KARL SCHAEFFER JOSE RIVERA |
JOE DANTE | Retainers pick up dog's thoughts and they're planning revolution. |
| THE ATM WITH THE HEART OF GOLD *** |
MATT DEARBORN | SAM PILLSBURY | An interactive cashpoint befriends Simon and gives him everyone else's money. |
| THE LOSERS **** |
GARY MARKOWITZ MICHAEL PERRY |
JOE DANTE | Marshall & Simon discover an underground place where things that go missing end up. |
| AMERICA'S SCARIEST HOME VIDEO ** |
KARL SCHAEFFER | SAM PILLSBURY | At Halloween, an old film's scary Mummy emerges from the TV into Marshall's home. |
| JUST SAY NO TO FUN ** |
MICHAEL PERRY | BRYAN SPICER | Weird school nurse brainwashing pupils during eye tests. |
| HEART ON A CHAIN ***** |
JOSE RIVERA | JOE DANTE | A literal case of a jealous heart gives Marshall problems. |
| THE BROKEN RECORD *** |
JOSE RIVERA | TODD HOLLAND | A rock record starts to have a strange affect on one of Marshall's friends. |
| THE DEAD LETTER ***** |
JAMES L. CRITE | TIM HUNTER | A ghost tries to get Marshall & Simon to deliver a love letter - 62 years late. |
| WHO'S WHO ** |
JULIA POLL | TIM HUNTER | A girl draws what she wishes for - and it starts to come true. |
| THE LOST HOUR **** |
VANCE DE GENERES | BOB BALABAN | Marshall puts his clock back - and wakes up in a deserted Eerie. |
| MARSHALL'S THEORY OF BELIEVABILITY *** |
MATT DEARBORN | BOB BALABAN | A travelling museum of the parabelievable arrives in town, but just how real are its exhibits? |
| TORNADO DAY **** |
MICHAEL CASSUTT | KEN KWAPIS | A tornado is upset when Marshall misses the annual Tornado Day picnic. |
| THE HOLE IN THE HEAD GANG *** |
KARL SCHAEFFER | JOE DANTE | The ghost of a useless bank robber and an unnamed stranger spell trouble. |
| MR CHANEY ** |
JOSE RIVERA | MARK GOLDBLATT | Werewolves in Eerie? Look at the title again. |
| NO BRAIN, NO PAIN *** |
MATT DEARBORN | GREG BEEMAN | Genius scientist has scrambled his brain on purpose - but why? |
| THE LOYAL ORDER OF CORN **** |
MICHAEL CASSUTT | BRYAN SPICER | Marshall & Simon find strange goings on at corn cob hat wearing secret lodge. |
| ZOMBIES IN P.J.'S *** |
JULIA POLL | BOB BALABAN | Hypnotic salesman causes townsfolk to go sleep shopping. |
| REALITY TAKES A HOLIDAY ***** |
VANCE DE GENERES | KEN KWAPIS | Marshall finds himself in a TV series called 'Eerie, Indiana' and everyone's calling him Omri. |
Another regular is also introduced; a grey haired teenager who doesn't know who he is or where he comes from. Devious, sneaky and played with relish by Jason Marsden, he provides a much needed recurring meddler which gives the plots better focus. In a particularly strange episode titled 'The Loyal Order of Corn' he finds out he may even be an alien and decides to name himself after the cross and dash which is inexplicably inked on his hands; hence Dash X becomes his name. This episode, incidentally, is a spot on send up of masonic sub cultures. Dash is also the instigator of the series' most post modern instalment entitled 'Reality Takes A Holiday' in which Marshall finds a script of that name in his letterbox and suddenly finds himself in a studio set with actors playing his family and he's about to be written out of the show. The cast have fun doing (hopefully) send ups of actors while Marshall can't understand why everyone is calling him Omri! It's a very well played conceit and you almost wish they'd run with it for more than one episode. As well as the plots there were recurring motifs during the show none more so than milk floats!. Twice, someone is killed by being knocked down by a milk float, in 'The Broken Record' another character steals one and causes a crash and in 'The Lost Hour', Marshall meets his future self as a very old milkman. Other characters re-appear like the two brothers from the first episode, Elvis and Bigfoot while Dash X 's arc runs through the latter episodes.
Overall the first series shows tremendous promise and delivers that in at least a dozen episodes. However, American television is a ruthless place and it was cancelled. And that seemed to be that until a few years later when the show was revived under the title 'Eerie Indiana – The Other Dimension'. Obviously the original kids were now too old to return to the roles of Marshall and Simon but rather than re-cast, the new production team (which did not include Schaeffer, Riveira or Dante) set the series in an alternative dimension. Two new kids Mitchell and Stanley, who look similar to their predecessors and live in an identical Eerie (they seemed to use the same sets as the original), are warned by Marshall and Simon (using old footage) that weirdness is oozing into their version of Eerie in the opener 'Switching Channels'.
However the second series proved to be a diluted version of the first. The two leads were far blander and the family mostly anonymous, except for 'Perfect' featuring Mitchell's sister. Almost all the plots revolved around visitors to the town and seemed structured to provide a little moral which was voiced over for us at the end by Mitchell. While the original series was not immune from this trait, the writing on the second series was broader and less layered, probably with a slightly younger audience in mind. Some good episodes did emerge though; one was about a boy who became invisible because everyone ignored him ('Buffy, the Vampire Slayer' used the same premise in an episode too) while 'The Newsroom' was a stylish departure. Set mostly within a 1930s style newspaper office were they had a machine to make sensational news to sell the paper; no doubt some tabloids would love access to such a device. 'Mr Lucky' was an amusing look at how luck isn't always a good thing while Time Flies' saw the citizens of Eerie being able to buy time and ending up speeding through their lives. One of the few episodes that invoked the spirit of the original was 'Send in the Clones' in which Mitchell and Stanley accidentally create a clone of Mitchell's Dad – when he was about thirteen! The subtle approach missing from a lot of other second series plots is evident in the dining room scenes and the way such a bizarre idea is developed to make it seem, well, reasonable. 'Nightmare on Eerie Street' saw the Sandman keeping people awake because he couldn't sleep; this episode features the most boring man in Eerie!
The same ratings problem dogged the new series which ended on a rather upbeat note on 'Jackalope' concerning the search for the titular animals (first mentioned, fact fans, in the original series).
Series 2 Episode Guide
| TITLE | WRITER | DIRECTOR | WEIRDNESS |
SWITCHING CHANNELS |
JIM HENSHAW PETER MOHAN |
BILL CORCORAN | Weirdness is seeping from one dimension of Eerie to another due to a strange cable salesman. |
| THE GOODY TWO SHOES PEOPLE ** |
JIM HENSHAW | DON McCUTCHEON | What is the secret behind the Eerie Junior Executives Club? |
| STANDARD DEVIATION ** |
TONI DI FRANCO | JOHN BELL | Mad Bureau of Statistics woman tries to force the Taylors to become more 'normal'. |
| TIME FLIES *** |
PETER MOHAN | FRED GERBER | Coffee machine speeds up Eerie by stealing time. |
| THE PHANTOM **** |
DENNIS FOON | GRAEME LYNCH | Mitchell discovers a classmate who's become invisible because nobody noticed him. |
| THE YOUNG AND THE TWITCHY ***** |
JEREMY HOLE | DON McCUTCHEON | A soap opera character's visit to Eerie leads to melodramatic behaviour all round. |
| LAST LAUGH *** |
TIM BURNS | JOHN BELL | A gag writing genius helps Stanley become a master comic. |
| THE NEWSROOM **** |
TERRY SALTSMAN | DON McCUTCHEON | Local paper has a machine that creates bad news. |
| LITTLE BUDDY BEEP BEEP ** |
TONY SCHEER | GARY HARVEY | Microchip toy fad hides sinister goings on at toy factory. |
| PERFECT * |
ESTER BEHARDL | JOHN BELL | Beauty treatment is cover for, yes, sinister goings on at factory. |
| NIGHTMARE ON EERIE STREET *** |
JANET McLEAN | RENE BONNIERE | The legendary Sandman can't sleep so is keeping Eerie awake with nightmares. |
| MR LUCKY ***** |
PETER MOHAN | JOHN BELL | Mitchell gains continuous good fortune but there are unexpected results. |
| SEND IN THE CLONES ***** |
LUCIANO CASIMIRA | JOHN BELL | Mitchell accidentally creates a clone of his Dad when he was 13 - and has to stop him blowing up the school with a giant po-ta-to. |
| I'M OK: YOU'RE REALLY WEIRD * |
JANET McLEAN | FRED GERBER | A salesman promises to free the 'inner goofball' of Eerie's inhabitants. |
| JACKALOPE *** |
JANET McLEAN | MALCOLM CROSS | Mitchell & Stanley try to find the mythical jackalope. |
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