A significant portion of Tim Burton's output over the past decade has been concerned with slipping the "Burton treatment" to susceptible texts: Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—and now, Dark Shadows.
A supernaturally themed daily daytime soap, Dark Shadows aired on ABC from 1966 to 1971, ruling the after-school time slot. Its story revolved around the family life of vampire Barnabas Collins, a figure of purposeful aristocratic bearing and seductive decadence played by Jonathan Frid, who died just weeks before the premiere of Burton's film. Shot one-take live-to-tape, with all the attendant imperfections of blown lines, wobbling candelabras, and uncooperative stage doors, the show can be reduced to camp, merely the sum of its shoddy elements—but it also provided a generation of young Americans a glamorously gloomy antidote to the mainstream televised entertainment of the day, personified by Love, American Style and the Carpenters.
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