Frakes: “Caution, the show you’re about to say is headed for disaster…”
Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and I am pretty happy with today’s topic.
I love tales of the strange and bizarre - curiosities and oddities as conveyed in shows like Unsolved
Mysteries, or on the fictional side, the Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.
But what if we combined the intrigue of Unsolved Mysteries and imagination of the Twilight
Zone, what would we get?
We would get Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, starring Jonathan Frakes.
You may be somewhat familiar with this show because about a year ago, it became subject
to internet memes.
The video “Jonathan Frakes telling you you’re wrong for 47 seconds” now has over 2 million
views.
And you know why?
You know why that many people watched it?
Because this show is GREAT; it’s no wonder it became a cult classic.
Frakes: “Would you display this as a trophy?
Was it really the crow that killed him?
Observe!
A perfectly shaped square.”
I can watch Frakes talk about bizarre things and ask me invasive questions all day long,
so this video is dedicated to Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction - let’s talk about why it’s
so captivating, so charming, and so… bad, actually.
The show ran from 1997 to 2002, though episodes were released sporadically over the five year
span.
Even though all of the memes feature Jonathan Frakes of Startrek fame, the first season
was hosted by James Brolin, also known as Barbra Streisand’s husband.
The next 3 seasons were all Commander Riker.
Frakes: “Patrick Stewart.”
The format is really simple; you are told five stories, all that are meant to “defy
logic” and test your suspension of disbelief.
Some are based on actual accounts, and some are fabricated.
At the end of each episode, Frakes will go over each story and tell you which ones were
“real”, and I say that word VERY loosely, and which ones are made up.
Pretty basic stuff, we’ve seen shows like this before, with the dramatic reenactments
and intense voice over.
Don LaFontaine: “We live in a world where the real and the unreal live side by side.”
But this one was especially addicting - I think I watched all 4 seasons in just a few
days.
Every episode starts with some terrible computer graphics, followed by Jonathan Frakes strutting
onto the set.
He then typically presents us with a visual illusion - sometimes they’re pretty cool,
and sometimes they are this.
Well my mind is blown, how about you?
Also, this one one of the illusions.
I love this trick, even though Frakes’s face is terrifying.
After the illusion, BAM!
Right away, we cut to Frakes asking a question that correlates to the theme of the episode;
for example, there’s an episode dedicated to things that happened on Friday the 13th,
there’s one about technology, illness, monsters, disasters - you name it, there’s an episode
for it.
(Frakes plays guitar badly.)
Oh for goodness Frakes.
I do wish the transition from the illusion presentation to giving us the theme of the
show wasn’t so jarring, but sometimes it’s worth it to see Frakes feign excitement about
some of these lame novelties, and the way he hosts this show is everything; he is so
charming and engaging.
I didn’t really enjoy season one with James Brolin - he was a little too laid back and
seemed uninterested in the stories being told.
Frakes comes across like he REALLY WANTS YOU TO THINK about these tales.
After he lays out the theme of the show, we get into the stories, each ranging from 5-7
minutes, give or take a few.
If you like the dramatic reenactments in the old Unsolved Mysteries show, you will probably
like how they’re done here; they’re hokey, dramatic, the acting is questionable, and
the stories are OUT there.
In fact, I really like the fictional stories contributed by author Robert Tralins - they
remind me of a slightly more serious Are You Afraid of the Dark, and a LESS serious Twilight
Zone.
Though I must warn you, Tralins was kind of a weird character and I don’t feel comfortable
recommending his older work for obvious reasons.
He did have a particular interest in the supernatural and wrote a lot of sci-fi stories, some of
which were adapted for the show, and he also conducted interviews with the people who were
involved with the real events.
The fictional episodes are WILD - the point of the show is to deceive the viewer, so the
stories need to be slightly believable, even if the premise itself is a stretch, but sometimes
there isn’t ANY NUANCE, and those are my favorite entries.
Some of these are just so debunkable right away, but I can’t get enough.
This episode is about MANNEQUINS, and it was a TREAT.
....why does this one look like Danny Elfman?
Two men working at a high end store have jobs setting up mannequin displays.
Gerald has been with the company a long time, and Craig works under him, studying to become
a chief decorator.
Craig has ulterior motives though (zip) wait, there’s a pun in here somewhere…
I can feel it…
INTERIOR motives?...
no, forget it - he goes to their boss and tells him Gerald isn’t ready for an important
event and claims his displays are prehistoric and need modernizing.
I have never seen so much drama about window dressing.
Gerald gets fired because why trust an experienced designer when you can just trust some random
punk?
Gerald is angry when Craig starts dismantling the mannequins.
“What are you doing to my troops?
”He tells him he’ll be sorry for taking his job and hurting his family.
His family as in his mannequins.
Yeah.
When Craig goes to show his new display to the boss, it’s not there.
He thinks Gerald sabotaged it even though he had been out of town at the time.
And then…
THIS happens.
(Comical punching sound) Oh my GOD, the mannequin parts are attacking him!!!
CALL OFF YOUR MANNEQUINS, GERALD!!!
CALL THEM OFF!!!
It was meee.
So why was the fashion designer afraid of the mannequin?
‘Cause it was armed.
(Smack)
There are plenty of episodes about technology, and those are always wonderful because they
can be disputed so easily.
A woman buys her husband a new used computer for his birthday and he sets it up right away.
He is intoxicated by the magic of… Excel.
I just wanna make SPREADSHEETS.
After shutting it down for the night, the computer comes back on by itself and an image
of a pharaoh appears on the screen.
Honey, Encarta is possessed egain.
The computer keeps turning on by itself, and while a PC repair guy is examining it, an
email pops up, despite the fact that the modem isn’t set up.
He checks the message, sees a buncha hieroglyphics, then one fades into a message that says “help
me.”
They reply, and get an email back right away from Dr. Statler, who is on a dig in Egypt
and is trapped in a tomb.
Woman: “I’ll call the state department.”
HOW is this her first instinct?
Who in the world knows what to do or who to call when you get an email from a guy saying
he’s trapped in a TOMB?
Here’s the kicker - when they ask the Dr. How much battery is left on his laptop, he
says…
“I have no computer.”
Wait, can we just look at this screen for a second?
What happens when you hit read on this email?
I doubt it’s a marked as read button.
And why is the send button not grayed out, what are you gonna send?
LIES, FICTION.
Yeah, this one is so demonstrably untrue, it doesn’t test your imagination at ALL.
The UI is fake, they didn’t have access to the internet, and the main character passes
up sex to look at formulas.
I don’t buy it.
Frakes: “Does the mind have enough power to send out a signal that can be received
through cyberspace?
Is there a such thing as ESPmail?”
UUUUUUUGH.
This show definitely adheres to the “truth is stranger than fiction” theory, and for
the most part it checks out.
The weirdest stories don’t tend to be made up, because who in the hell would write some
of these?
You CAN’T make this stuff up.
Here’s an example of one of the Factual stories - I’m just gonna come out and say
it: It’s about a haunted bucket.
Every week, a dairy farmer named Gus delivers milk in an old, dented bucket to a small family.
Suddenly, on a dark and stormy night, the bucket starts shaking violently and making
weird noises.
The bucket is empty.
Dad blames it on the storm, which makes no sense but it’s either that or bucket gremlins.
It stops for a moment and the family has a good laugh, but then.
Oh god, here it comes!
It’s… it’s gonna get us!
Just… look out!
I know, I’ll just put this in my truck.
Put on your seatbelt, now.
Dad drives the bucket back to Gus; he finds him unconscious on the ground, he had a stroke
that would have killed him, but thanks to that crazy bucket, he found him and saved
his life.
Again, I want to reiterate that this is one of the stories marked as fact.
Frakes: “A similar story did take place.”
That’s it?
No explanation?
How am I supposed to cross reference or read about the original story??
We just end abruptly with FACT: Bucket Went Wild.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the stories labeled as fact are fluffed up to
be a little more dramatic; just because they are labeled as true doesn’t mean every detail
was accurate.
A good example is this story about a woman who was in a terrible plane incident where
part of the roof is ripped off.
This did actually happen on Aloha Airlines Flight 243, there was one fatality and the
plane did land.
Though that isn’t how the story is told, there’s some added absurdity; the woman
telling it says that she was protected by an angel disguised as a stewardess, and I
suppose someone COULD feel that way and tell that story but there’s no way to prove that
it’s true.
A lot of the ghost stories are like this; they are labeled as fact, but only because
someone said it happened, not because it really did, so it’s hard to take these “truthful”
ones seriously because they don’t really match their source.
That’s why Frakes doesn’t go into much detail at the end and there is NEVER a reasonable
explanation on the table, even though some of these stories COULD have one.
Instead of asking practical questions like “is this a coincidence?
Maybe the person thought they saw a ghost but was mistaken or high as fuck”, it goes
more like “What could have caused this strange incident?
Was there an alien?
Maybe telekinesis, or NINE GHOSTS that caused this guy to find Elvis Presley’s motorcycle
in his farm shed?
Let’s talk about the show’s main host, Jonathan Frakes.
While the tales are pretty fun, some even bordering on spooky, his presentation is what
REALLY makes this show fun to watch.
He’s always walking onto the set between every tale, his stories are broken apart by
these cheesy lighting effects and sound effects, and the editing is kind of a wonderful disaster.
The camera stays on Frakes just a FEW FRAMES too many and it’s delightfully awkward.
After every tale, Frakes ends on a pun related to the subject, and there are times where
I swear he is smiling so damn hard he is literally STRAINING HIS mouth.
I think…
I think HE thinks these puns are funny.
Sometimes I think his reaction is so genuine, that he MUST be reading them off the prompt
for the first time and that’s why he’s so amused.
Either that or Dad jokes just never get tiring to this guy.
The set design is also lovely, even though it’s limited.
I always manage to spot a lamp that I fall in love with, there’s some cool candles
and desks, and look at this!
Welcome to Golden Girls Game of Thrones.
God it’s so bad, it’s like the perfect crappy anthology you can just watch when you’re
feelin’ a little blue, or just want to be told some creepy and hilarious stories about
ghosts, mannequins and Doctors trapped in tombs.
I can’t recommend this series enough, if only to see Frakes charm the camera.
I can’t think of a better way to end this than with a pun montage, or puntage as I like
to call it.
Enjoy some friendly interrogation, and until next time, stay spooky…
Frakes: “Are we telling you a story of substance?
Or are we just barking at the moon?
Is this story an admiral retelling of an actual event?
Or is it nothing to crow about?
Are we giving you a straight deal here?
Or do you think we’re really bluffing?
Did we program the truth in this tale?
Or is it merely garbage in, garbage out?
Do you think this mysterious tale of the grave marker a fleeting lie?
Or is it carved in stone?
Guy getting smacked: “How did that happen…?
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my video on Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction - I hope
you enjoyed my commentary and passion for bizarre mystery series.
I have more videos to suggest, but first a huge thank you to my patrons, who continue
to support me even when my video topics get a little weird.
Consider supporting my channel by donating a small amount of money, but if you can’t
or don’t want to, likes, shares and comments are totally free and they make my day.
If you want to see more videos by yours truly, here is a suggestion: On the right we have
an episode from one of my flagship series, that time on Murder, She Wrote, and on the
left I have a parody of this show from Neil Cicerega’s YouTube channel, I think you’ll
really enjoy it.
Thanks again and as always, I’ll see you in the next one.