This Weird ’90s Show Had a Tornado Hunter Long Before ‘Twister’

In 1991, the pilot episode of a brand new sequence centered on a housewife who used particular life-sized Tupperware containers to induce everlasting youth in her and her twin boys. It was one in every of many absurd mysteries in Eerie, Indiana, an NBC present that ran for one season between 1991-1992 earlier than getting canceled. The younger grownup present gave direct nods to The Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks, and basic horror movies, having Joe Dante because the sequence inventive advisor and the director of some episodes. Whereas Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Darkish? turned influential younger grownup horror exhibits, Eerie, Indiana appeared to have taken a one-way journey into the mythic Bermuda Triangle, and it deserves to be rediscovered.

Indiana isn’t a stranger to being the house of monsters and conspiracies. A number of episodes of Supernatural are set within the state, and extra lately, it’s the Demogorgon hub in Stranger Things. Coming earlier than both of these exhibits, Eerie, Indiana had an episode that confronted a twister a couple of years earlier than 1996’s Twister was launched on the large display screen and helped skyrocket curiosity in meteorology and storm-chasing. Eerie gave an absurd twist that had a funnel cloud contact down with a motive that wasn’t merely the senseless agenda of Mom Nature. No, this vortex of wind and particles had a thoughts of its personal.

It is One other Unusual Day in ‘Eerie, Indiana’

Marshall Teller (Omri Katz, Hocus Pocus) has moved from New Jersey to Eerie together with his household. However solely Marshall and his neighborhood good friend Simon (Justin Shenkarow) can see via the nostalgia of Fifties Americana hanging over all the pieces on the town, and see the weirdness that abounds. A nonetheless alive, older Elvis lives on Marshall’s road, the trash will get eaten by Bigfoot, and in Episode 12, “Twister Days,” swirling winds descend from the sky to goal themselves on the teen boy. Marshall learns the city holds an annual picnic to have a good time the return of a tornado named Outdated Bob. Usually, individuals hurry to take shelter, not head to outside public occasions to attend for the climate phenomenon.

“Again in New Jersey, we had blizzards and the occasional hurricane,” Marshall narrates within the episode’s opening, “nevertheless it was equal opportunity weather. It went after everyone. However right here in Eerie, Indiana, I couldn’t assist feeling that unhealthy climate was after me, personally.” Understandably freaked out on the city’s picnic, Marshall stays again at residence, the place he meets Howard (Matt Frewer), who’s out to thwart Outdated Bob’s injury path. However he proves to be an atypical meteorologist, as Howard is a twister hunter with a Captain Ahab complicated.

Earlier than Invoice Paxton and Helen Hunt, There Was This Obsessed Storm Chaser

After intense winds hit, an enormous metallic object crash lands outdoors Marshall’s residence and when Simon and Marshall hurry outdoors to analyze, they uncover it to be a touring capsule for Howard. Typical of an episode in Eerie, Indiana, Marshall is the rational character thrown into the orbit of kooky figures, and this episode is not any exception. There is no such thing as a doubt Frewer’s storm chaser would get alongside fairly nicely with Tornado’s Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and her merry band of chasers, however he additionally brings a hands-on, confrontational method worthy of Jaw’s Captain Quint (Robert Shaw).

Howard has constructed a Twister Rider to take flight in Outdated Bob for what’s a extra specialised car than any truck seen in both Tornado or Twisters. However his mission isn’t over but, not when Outdated Bob lurks within the distance. Howard sends out a message to entice the unhealthy climate to get nearer. As a substitute of throwing chum into the water to draw a Nice White, Howard mocks Outdated Bob to ensure the episode doesn’t get too scary for its youthful viewers, “Your mama was a mud satan, Bob!” Film audiences in 1996 could be blown away by the CGI results in Tornado when the chasers have to hurry away from an F1 or when a nighttime tornado strikes a drive-in theater. And not using a Hollywood finances, the TV present needed to be inventive to place Outdated Bob on the small display screen.

The Twister in ‘Eerie, Indiana’ Is a Monster With a Grudge

Archival footage of actual tornadoes is used, with Howard and Marshall being put in opposition to the actual footage moderately than a bodily impact like in The Wizard of Oz. Completely different funnel shapes are proven to depict Bob’s rising anger as a result of this isn’t your common funnel cloud. If Tornado bought too campy for some viewers, with Jo believing that an F5 personally focused her household and killed her father, the surreal tone of Eerie, Indiana means it could play this concept out with out seeming too over-the-top. “You’ve got by no means seen it miss this home, and miss that home after which come after you!” Jo yells out. Within the city of Eerie, nevertheless, Outdated Bob will resolve the trail of destruction he desires to take.

From first-hand accounts within the 2024 natural disaster docuseries Within the Eye of the Storm, the formidable sound that comes from a tornado is usually described to be just like the roar of a freight practice. In Tornado, the sound design helped to separate every twister from one other, just like the shrill whistling noise of the waterspouts. In Eerie, Indiana, Howard’s arrival has the meteorologist exhibiting Marshall the audio translator that may choose up the winds rotating inside Outdated Bob and translate what it says. The raspy voice that’s heard calls out to Marshall, feeling disrespected that the boy didn’t attend the picnic.

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The Cosmic Horror within the “Twister Days” Episode

“Massive storms have large egos,” Howard warns, and the present makes this clear by treating Outdated Bob like an Eldritch deity, an inhuman power that extends from the skies. The cosmic horror affect just isn’t as bleak as in motion pictures and exhibits for older audiences, however there may be even a similarity between the cults that worship Lovecraftian entities to how the city of Eerie holds the annual picnic to appease Outdated Bob and keep away from struggling injury to their houses. Marshall’s older sister is even picked by the locals accountable for the festivities to be dressed with a tornado-themed headpiece and act as a pageant queen-like determine on the picnic.

Characters or conditions might get foolish, however “Twister Days” and different Eerie, Indiana episodes weren’t afraid to convey a darkish edge to its tales. Because the city fears the celebration isn’t sufficient to calm Outdated Bob down, they’ve a passing considered utilizing Marshall’s sister as a human sacrifice. What makes the monstrous risk from Outdated Bob all of the extra fascinating are the connections Eerie has to the surreal-horror-soap opera that modified the TV panorama in 1990 from the inventive minds of David Lynch and Mark Frost. There are numerous references to Twin Peaks, with two large nods in “Twister Days.”

‘Eerie, Indiana’ Is an Underrated ‘90s Horror Collection

The tornado’s identify “Outdated Bob” wasn’t accidentally. It’s taken from Frank Silva’s long-haired, supernatural monster named Bob, that brings distress and loss of life. Alumni actor, Harry Goaz, even has an look. In Twin Peaks, he was the candy however dim-witted Deputy Andy, and he performs Sgt. Knight in Eerie, with a extra severe face however remaining a supply of comedian aid resulting from Knight’s ineptitude. The absurd storylines in each one of many episodes of Eerie, Indiana ripped into the real-life darkness that existed, regardless of the healthful facade offered in Eerie or the Pacific Northwest city of Twin Peaks. Seeing these numerous references in a younger grownup present helped it stand aside from Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps.

The mysteries-of-the-week formulation in Eerie, Indiana even predated The X-Information when that iconic sci-fi sequence aired its first episode in 1993. Just like the investigations FBI brokers Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) regarded into, lots of the mysteries that Marshall bought concerned in have been left with open endings, giving viewers an ominous lack of closure. Whereas Outdated Bob isn’t defeated, Howard doesn’t cease on his mission to take action. Of the numerous onscreen depictions of twisters, what Eerie, Indiana did may be essentially the most distinctive model of a tornado that has but to be overwhelmed, even by the bonkers Sharknado motion pictures.

Each a part of “Twister Days” that aired in March 1992, from the oddball meteorologist to a twister with a mood, to the archival footage used, and the horror influences, made it a humorous and unusual precursor to the mainstream reputation that may erupt from the 1996 blockbuster. It wouldn’t have appeared attainable earlier than figuring out about this episode, however Eerie, Indiana could make Tornado look tame and nuanced when Jo’s vendetta in opposition to the F5 and the love triangle impressed by His Girl Friday is put alongside Outdated Bob’s grudge with Marshall and Howard’s try and defeat the enraged tornado.

Eerie, Indiana is streaming on Tubi within the U.S.

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