Dark Shadows

By Jon Caroulis Johnny Depp can make any film he wants. So why is he playing a 200-year-old vampire in a movie based on a gothic soap opera that's been off the air for 41 years? Such is the power of Dark Shadows. I was 10 and my brother was 7 when we watched on television as a young boy broke into the house where the vampire lived. The sun was beginning to set as the boy opened the door to the basement, where the coffin was hidden. I have no idea what happened next, because my brother and I ran screaming out of our house into the protective sunshine.

Say what you will about low voter turnout or public apathy over world events. Take a pot shot, even, at TV-addled couch potatoes. But some people still care enough to take a stand, thank you very much, and they aren't above grabbing a poster, waving a sign, and chanting for what they believe in outside the offices of the powerful. Democracy in action. It happened yesterday afternoon outside KYW-TV headquarters at 5th and Market streets. There, 50 of the faithful gathered to protest the likely demise of their favorite TV show, "Dark Shadows.

Like the vampire Barnabas Collins lurching out of his coffin after a 200- year sleep, "Dark Shadows" has come back to life. The late-1960s soap opera about a weird Maine family of vampires, witches, ghosts and innocent bystanders has been updated and expanded, and now moves to prime time with a two-part movie that begins 9 p.m. Sunday on Channel 3. Part two airs Tuesday night at 9. "Dark Shadows" continues as an hourlong weekly series, beginning...

Jonathan Frid, 87, the man known to fans around the world as Barnabas Collins, the suave vampire from the cult hit soap opera Dark Shadows , has died. The Hamilton Spectator, of Hamilton, Ontario, reports the Canadian actor died of natural causes in his hometown of Hamilton at the Juravinski Hospital last Friday. Mr. Frid's final screen role was a cameo in Dark Shadows , the soap opera's big-screen revamp directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas, and due out next month.

If you've been watching college football on Saturday afternoons, you may have seen RCA's new commercial for its ProEdit camcorder. It's a series of pretty scenes of friends and family enjoying a weekend at the beach, played out to the whimsical music of the 1970 pop hit "In the Summertime. " But if you weren't paying close attention, you may have missed a startling fact: The commercial was made entirely with the camcorder that's being pitched, RCA's Model CC360. In the last shot, the cameraman turns to face a mirror, camcorder on his shoulder.

Bowing to public pressure, the New Jersey Network (NJN) will re-examine its decision to drop the zany, slapstick Uncle Floyd Show from its fall television schedule. The politically appointed New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority, which oversees the state-owned public-television network, voted in June to drop Uncle Floyd and two other programs, Dark Shadows and People, Pets and Dr. Mark. But authority chairman Stephen Adubato said yesterday that he had been flooded with letters and phone calls protesting the decision to cancel Uncle Floyd and that he had asked the NJN staff to take a second look at the show.

Marion Ross only found out three days after the fact that Andy Warhol had died. She was stunned. It seemed only a year since she shared an Egyptian mummy case with him. Actually it was about a year ago that Warhol - the avatar of Pop Art who died last week of a heart attack - made one of his rare, totally-out-of-left- field television appearances on an episode of "The Love Boat" that featured Ross, the one-time co-star of ABC's "Happy Days....

Light is an important element in establishing a mood in photographs. Control of light is a technical as well as a compositional skill, and the use of light is one of the photographer's creative tools. Outdoors the photographer can control light by changing camera angle, carefully regulating exposure, supplementing sunlight with fill light or simply by waiting for a more appropriate time to shoot the picture. Indoors, photographers have more control over light for, in most instances, they are responsible for the intensity, direction and duration of the light source for their pictures.

NBC, in what one of its top executives calls a "rebuilding stage," will play the winter-spring substitution game conservatively, launching only four entertainment series during the second half of the 1990-91 television season. They include a family sitcom, a jazzed-up remake of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows, a weekly drama in the mold of thirtysomething and a comedy- variety show about TV. In addition, the network has scheduled a half-hour investigative-news series. "We didn't want to go crazy mid-season . . . with a lot of change," Warren Littlefield, president of NBC Entertainment, told writers assembled here for the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour.

KYW-AM (1060) went off the air for more than three hours yesterday because, sources say, an engineering operator in the newsroom had to be restrained by police. KYW general manager Roy Shapiro says "an emergency medical situation" involving engineering operator Margo Barnes, 23, forced the all-news station off the air from 1:50 to 5 a.m. "We were more concerned about the medical situation than whether we were on or off the air, particularly at that hour. " KYW officials won't give any details, but others at the station say Barnes, who was working the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift, suddenly began screaming, tearing at equipment, and frightening anchor Harry Johnson and reporters Susan Heath and Ron Corbin.

By Jon Caroulis Johnny Depp can make any film he wants. So why is he playing a 200-year-old vampire in a movie based on a gothic soap opera that's been off the air for 41 years? Such is the power of Dark Shadows. I was 10 and my brother was 7 when we watched on television as a young boy broke into the house where the vampire lived. The sun was beginning to set as the boy opened the door to the basement, where the coffin was hidden. I have no idea what happened next, because my brother and I ran screaming out of our house into the protective sunshine.

By sheer numbers, the caped crusaders, masked crimebusters and spandex-ed superheroes lining up at the movie box office for the summer season — which begins Friday when The Avengers opens — has to be the largest gathering of comicbook-spawned dudes (and dudettes) in the history of summer movies. In The Avengers alone, there are, of course, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Thor, brought together by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to save the world from a demented Norse god (Thor's evil sibling, Loki)

Jonathan Frid, 87, the man known to fans around the world as Barnabas Collins, the suave vampire from the cult hit soap opera Dark Shadows , has died. The Hamilton Spectator, of Hamilton, Ontario, reports the Canadian actor died of natural causes in his hometown of Hamilton at the Juravinski Hospital last Friday. Mr. Frid's final screen role was a cameo in Dark Shadows , the soap opera's big-screen revamp directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas, and due out next month.

PHILADELPHIA RULES our ears in this week's tune parade. Worth celebrating - a soul-stomping "comeback" album by Betty Wright, masterminded by the Roots; plus a frisky collection from legendary Philly-billy Charlie Gracie, and two juicy jazz sets by homegrown talents Robin Eubanks and Christian McBride. THE CLEANUP MEN: Producer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson and his Philadelphia-based playmates in the Roots did wondrous things for Al Green three years back, refocusing his scattered nature and nonsectarian R&B chops on the long player "Lay It Down.

Remember the days when a child was described as "a twinkle," as in "I knew your parents when you were just a twinkle in your father's eye"? With Roe v. Wade in 1973, the twinkle in a father's eye became the choice in a mother's womb. As a result, these specks of life might be aborted or wind up as waste in fertility clinics' Dumpsters. The freedom to choose has encouraged a mentality of disposability when it comes to life. Consider the surrogate mother now suing the prospective parents of her bundle of joy. A California couple, Charles H. Wheeler and Martha A. Berman of Berkeley, agreed to pay British surrogate mom Helen Beasley close to $20,000 in a contract signed in February.

He is tall, Gothic and handsome. His entrance reduces the stature of a mortal man by at least 25 percent. He mesmerizes women with his dangerous eyes. He is the vampire. He's in books (start with Bram Stoker and work your way up to Anne Rice) and movies. More than 600 vampire films have been made worldwide, and television's series include "Dark Shadows," which ran from 1966 to 1971, to the currently syndicated "Forever Knight" and Fox's brand new series, "Kindred: The Embraced.

Quick - name a local historic site with strong associations to a woman. And, no, the Betsy Ross House doesn't count. (Because, for one thing, historians aren't positive that she ever lived there.) Stymied? Here are some hints: What local, family-owned department store grew out of a woman's hat shop - even though the name suggests it was founded by men? Who wrote the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and struggled unsuccessfully for 54 years to get it ratified?

Allan Erush wears Halloween underwear - all year round. "He just bought fraidy cats with glow-in-the-dark eyes," says his wife, Sarah. "He's very proud of them. " Erush's visible wardrobe is black, black and more black, from his boots and jacket to his own jet-black long hair. "For somebody's wedding," admits Sarah, "he might wear gray. " He owns three cats - black, of course - and a pet rat. His answering machine greets callers in Dracula's voice. He converted his Volkswagen Beetle into a hearse.

Say what you will about low voter turnout or public apathy over world events. Take a pot shot, even, at TV-addled couch potatoes. But some people still care enough to take a stand, thank you very much, and they aren't above grabbing a poster, waving a sign, and chanting for what they believe in outside the offices of the powerful. Democracy in action. It happened yesterday afternoon outside KYW-TV headquarters at 5th and Market streets. There, 50 of the faithful gathered to protest the likely demise of their favorite TV show, "Dark Shadows.

Spring's here - time to begin planning summer travel. Following is a rundown of some of the many special events and activities that will make the summer of '91 an especially memorable travel season. Some are rare (a total solar eclipse), some are milestones (Switzerland's 700th anniversary, Vermont's 200th), and some are designed to entertain and inform us about our past. Any mere listing of such events would more than fill this section of the paper so choices had to be winnowed to a manageable number.