Friday, July 5, 2019

Night Gallery: Professor Peabody's Last Lecture

"Professor Peabody's Last Lecture." Night Gallery. NBC, 10 Nov. 1971

Moving more into the realm of television, the works of Lovecraft have made it to air a few times, most notably on Rod Serling's follow up to the Twilight Zone, Night Gallery.



Professor Peabody (Carl Reiner) begins his lecture on ancient cults. He is not exactly respectful in fact one could argue he's downright blasphemous. Students Lovecraft (Johnnie Collins III), Bloch (Richard Annis), and Derleth (Larry Watson) all point out that maybe the ancient cults had the right idea about not invoking the old ones that lurk as storm clouds gather.

Peabody, convinced the resulting weather is simply a summer storm, presses onward. Pulling out a translated copy of the Necronomicon, Peabody begins to read aloud and ignores the rolling thunder. He mocks almost every passage, but his voice grows higher in pitch as the storm surges outside, growing in intensity as Peabody begins to scream out the names of the unnamable before a horrified class...

Not terrible for a short. One thing Serling groused about the show was that at least with the Twilight Zone you could place the blame on him if things went awry. Here he was just the host yet also the face.

There would be two more adaptations of Lovecraft's work.




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