Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites.  Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, the stars align and John Carradine shows up on Fantasy Island.

Episode 5.14 “Daddy’s Little Girl/The Whistle”

(Dir by Don Chaffey and Don Weis, originally aired on January 30th, 1982)

The plane is landing and Mr. Roarke and Julie are getting ready to meet their guests for the weekend.  But wait a minute — where’s Tattoo!?  Roarke explains that Tattoo has volunteered to spend the weekend learning how to do CPR.  When a voluptuous nurse walks by, Julie rolls her eyes and says that Tattoo only cares about learning “mouth-to-mouth.”

“Julie!” Mr. Roarke snaps, even though Julie is probably correct.

Anyway, any episode without Tattoo feels strange and that’s certainly true of this episode.  There are two fantasies, one of which was dramatically better than the other.  The lesser of the two fantasies involves Christa Ackland (Genie Francis) and her efforts to find out the identity of her father.  All she knows is that her mother (Carolyn Jones) knew her father in the Philippines during World War II.  Christa is going to be married on Fantasy Island and she wants her real father to give her away.

Three men, all of whom served in the Air Force together, step forward and claim, one after the other, to be Christa’s father.  When Christa finally confronts her mother, she learns that her father is not Gene (John Ericson), Al (Alan Hale, Jr.), or Bert (Gene Nelson).  Instead, he was a guy named …. well, Guy.  Guy was shot down while on a mission.  Gene, Al, and Bert all explain that the stepped forward and claimed to be her father out of loyalty to Guy and because they didn’t want Christa to learn on her wedding say that her father was dead.  (Apparently, they felt that information would be better received after the honeymoon.)  Christa is surprisingly forgiving.  She realizes that her stepfather (William Windom) has more than earned the right to give her away.  Christa marries George Stickney (James Daughton, the head of the evil frat in Animal House) and Julie cries at the wedding.  Awwww!

The main problem with this storyline was that Genie Francis gave a surprisingly bad performance as Christa.  Instead of coming across as someone who truly wanted to know about her real father, she instead came across as being petulant and more than a little self-righteous.  Carolyn Jones, William Windom, and the three potential fathers were all likable but none could make up for the unsympathetic lead character.

The other fantasy was a bit more fun, even if was impossible to follow the story.  Iconologist Adrian Brilles (Edward Winters) dreams of making a great discovery that will bring him fame and prove his theories about ancient hieroglyphics to be correct.  Mr. Roarke sends him to a ghost town that is also the home of a museum of ancient artifacts.  Working with curator Leila Proctor (Ann Turkel), Adrian discovers what he describes as being “the Rosetta Stone of hieroglyphics.”  He also discovers an ancient whistle that will grant him three wishes.

There are a few townspeople, all of whom take a lot of interest in Adrian’s work.  Their leader is the town’s mortician and he’s played by — YES! — JOHN CARRADINE!  And though Carradine doesn’t get to do much and was obviously physically frail when he filmed this episode, his famous voice and his piercing stare combine to make the Mortician a memorable character.  There’s also a fairly ridiculous scene where the townspeople reveal their true selves, which means dancing around while wearing rubber demon masks.  It’s silly but it’s effective.

It’s never quite clear what’s happening at the ghost town, beyond the three wishes being a set up to bring the demonic townspeople into the world and to cost Adrian his soul.  Fortunately, Mr. Roarke pops up and gives Adrian some cryptic advice about the third wish being the most important.  For his first wish, Adrian wishes for the townspeople to be their true selves.  (Cue the demon dance.)  For his second wish, he goes for fame and adulation.  For his third wish, he cancels the first two wishes and this somehow set free not only his soul but Leila’s as well.

Yep, it doesn’t make much sense but it’s got John Carradine and a bunch of horror imagery so it’s fun.  That’s all I really ask for when it comes to Fantasy Island.  The whistle fantasy makes up for the wedding fantasy and the lack of Tattoo.  This was a worthwhile trip to the Island.