Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

Mimes are evil!

Episode 2.7 “Silence Is Golden”

(Dir by Charles Braverman, originally aired on November 19th, 1989)

“Here’s what on my mind tonight!” Freddy Krueger tells us as this episode starts.

Our first story is about radio DJ Rick Rake (Jeff Yagher), who has a mullet, a leather jacket, and a bad attitude.  “I say what I think and I think what I say,” Rick says.  When he’s visiting the park with his wife, Sheila (Sherry Hursey), a listener attempts to pick a fight with Rick.  Rick throws a punch and accidentally hits a mime (Abie Selznick).

Eh, who cares?  We all hate mimes, right?

Unfortunately, The mime carries a silent grudge and soon, Rick is haunted by visions of the mime everywhere.  When Sheila is sucked into the ground and buried alive, the police say it was a sinkhole but Rick knows that it was the mime.  Rick goes on the radio and announces that all mimes should be hunted down and killed.  Rick sees the mime in the studio and, going after him, ends up taking a literal rake to the throat.  Rick survives but he can no longer speak …. JUST LIKE A MIME!

In the second story, we discover that the mime is named Kip and he’s also a professional burglar.  He steals to keep his girlfriend (Kim Morgan Greene) happy but he’s haunted by nightmares involving mistakes and death.  When he learns that the last two people he robbed have turned up dead, Kip worries that he’s being set up.  And, of course, he is.

At the end of the episode, Freddy reminds us that he’s dead so he can never be a mime or a DJ.  Sorry, Freddy.  You kind of brought it on yourself, though.

The first story actually worked fairly well, just because mimes are creepy.  The second story was basically a noir with nightmares.  I think it might have worked a bit better if Kip had just been an ordinary guy as opposed to a mime.  The show never really explained if he was the same mime who killed Sheila and silenced Rick or was he just another mime in Springwood.

How many mimes are there in that town?  No wonder Freddy went crazy.