Episode
Tales from the Darkside: The Satanic Piano
Overview
Pete Bancroft is a talented pianist who has lost his inspiration, but is contacted by a mysterious inventor who gives him a piano that lets him play as never before simply by thinking of the music. Bancroft is at first relieved, but soon discovers that the piano must feed on the soul of the woman he loves to retain its powers.
Details
- Series
- Tales from the Darkside
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 6
- Air date
- 1985-11-03
- Runtime
- 22 min
Episode context
The Satanic Piano is Episode 6 in Season 2 of Tales from the Darkside. It aired on 1985-11-03. The runtime is 22 min.
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Episode 5: Halloween Candy
A mean old man harboring an intense hatred for the celebration of Halloween is left alone by his son to hand out candy to the neighborhood children. The old man initially ignores the trick-or-treaters, but later cruelly fills their bags with a mixture of syrup and cleaning fluid. Satisfied, the old man retreats to his armchair to watch television, when a goblin-like creature pays him a visit. The creature relentlessly asks the old man for candy and he eventually shuts himself inside the house to avoid it. He suddenly realizes that he is unable to make phone calls as the goblin continues to stalk him from outside the house. Finally deciding to confront the creature, the old man walks out to the porch, only to discover that the goblin has vanished. He goes back into the house and looks out the window one last time. As he closes the curtain, he is confronted face-to-face by the creature inside the house, who again asks him for candy. Shocked and frightened, he falls to the floor and passe
Episode 7: The Devil's Advocate
A hate-style radio host, Mandrake, spews out venom at anyone who calls in. He soon discovers, however, after receiving calls across all of time that he is dead but that the "Boss," has kept him on since he discourages souls and make them more prone to the "Boss'" influence. Mandrake is unable to leave his broadcast booth and finds himself transforming into a demon as he has to continue broadcasting forever, and ever.
More episodes from this season
Episode 4: Parlour Floor Front
A woman becomes concerned when she discovers that a man that she and her husband rent a room to has been practicing voodoo. Although the man is good intentioned and kind, the woman regards him as a threatening and undesirable tenant. The husband sees the man as a well meaning and harmless, albeit strange individual, a view that is contradictory to his wife's feelings. She decides to hatch a plot to expel the man from her building. When the child that she has been pregnant with miscarries and her cat turns up dead, she blames the incidents on the black magic of the tenant. Guilt-ridden, the tenant hangs himself in his room. When the husband confronts the wife about the incident, the truth soon reveals itself. It was the wife that caused the miscarriage and killed the couple's cat. Disgusted by her malicious actions, the husband leaves her. Later that night, while in bed, the woman is woken by the sound of horrific groans coming up the stairs to her room....
Episode 8: Distant Signals
A famous director is surprised when he is approached by a mysterious investor who wants him to finish up a "Fugitive"-like series that he had done twenty years ago that was cancelled before the final episodes were shown. "Mr. Smith" wants the director to put together the old cast and finish it out, for his "foreign viewers". The star, Van Conway, is a drunk but Mr. Smith mysteriously manages to sober him up. They finish up the series, where the viewers find out that the amnesiac lead character was being hunted by his jealous brother. Mr. Smith, satisfied at the symmetry, departs. It's left to Conway to explain what he believes is the truth: Smith is from a planet twenty light-years away. The aliens, which were part of a dual-planet system, became enraptured by the show and so sent their emissary to Earth to finish it so they could see the conclusion.
Episode 3: Ring Around the Redhead
As Billy is waiting to be executed in the electric chair, he relates the bizarre tale of how he came to be in his predicament at the hands of an attractive woman.
Episode 9: The Trouble with Mary Jane
Two occultists are offered $50,000 if they can rid a girl of the multiple demons possessing her, but they soon find themselves in over their heads.
Episode 2: Lifebomb
Ben Martin, a rich businessman, is contacted by a special medical firm, "Lifebomb" which offers him an expensive policy that will let him live forever. They give him an implanted device which, every time he "dies," activates and places him in a cocoon until the corporation can arrive and revive him. His wife soon leaves him and since Ben is close to death, the Lifebomb goes off constantly. Tired of life, he finds that he is trapped since Lifebomb refuses to call off the policy so that they can make money off of him.
Episode 10: Ursa Minor
When Joan finds a new teddy bear in her son's room no one seems to know where it came from. Then night after night huge claw marks are found on the walls and the sounds of something very large can be heard moving through the house. It seems that this little bear has a murderous life all its own...
Episode 1: The Impressionist
An impressionist, "Mr. Personalities," is brought in by the government to try to help them communicate with an alien. Mr. Personalities is at first stumped but finally makes "contact." The alien departs and Mr. Personalities is depressed...until the alien returns for him.
Episode 11: Effect and Cause
Kate wakes up and discovers that for unknown reasons, her life is now running backwards.
Episode 12: Monsters in My Room
A little boy, Timmy, tries to convince his skeptical parents that there is a horrible monster beneath his bed - they learn too late that he is telling the truth.
Episode 13: Comet Watch
Englebert Ames, an astronomer, is watching Hailey's Comet and is in for a shock when Sir Edmond Hailey himself arrives - he's been riding "his" comet all these years trying to elude Sarah, the woman pursuing him out of obsessed love.