Tag: DragonKingDark
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DragonKing Dark: The Johnny Lewis ‘Sons of Anarchy’ tragedy
Karl Stern examines the sad end for the young actor. This week’s dip into the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history focuses on an actor from one of the more popular cable shows in recent memory. Johnny Lewis played the fan-favorite character Half Sack on the popular Sons of Anarchy TV series, portraying the…
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DragonKing Dark: The Michael Richards/Kramer comedy club scandal
Karl Stern’s 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series rolls on. On this week’s DragonKing Dark, my series on the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history continues with a very popular individual in pop culture. Michael Richards played the quirky character Cosmo Kramer on the megahit TV sitcom Seinfeld. Kramer was a fan…
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DragonKing Dark: The death of Edgar Allan Poe
Karl Stern’s look through the darkest moments in pop culture history continues. My ongoing spin through the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series continues and this week, it is dark in many ways. The master of dark literature, Edgar Allan Poe, died under the most mysterious of circumstances. The famous writer was found…
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DragonKing Dark: The death of Ernest Hemingway
Karl Stern’s darkest moments in pop culture series continues. Ernest Hemingway literally changed the entire genre of popular literature. Preceded by the flowery and verbose language of the previous era, Hemingway wrote in a more straightforward style, often holding back and allowing silence of action to speak loudly in a story. His novels are still…
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DragonKing Dark: The story behind Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’
Karl Stern’s run through the darkest moments in pop culture history continues. In this week’s installment of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history, I take a look back at the March 20, 1991, death of classic rock legend Eric Clapton’s four-year-old son, who died from falling out a high-rise window in New York.…
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DragonKing Dark: The Payne Stewart plane crash
Karl Stern’s path down the darkest 100 moments in pop culture continues. In 1999, television viewers tuned into the story about an out of control jet plane flying across the country from Florida toward Canada. The unresponsive plane was tailed by military jets across the country, failing to make contact with any ground control. Military pilots…
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DragonKing Dark: The Auburn University tree killings
Karl Stern’s Dark 100 rolls into the new year. The latest edition of my 100 darkest moments in pop culture history takes a look at a football rivalry gone too far in my home state of Alabama: the Auburn University tree killings. Why does the killing of a set of trees in downtown Auburn rank…
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DragonKing Dark: The 7th Heaven controversy
Karl Stern’s Dark 100 lands on the strange stories around an actor on the popular TV show. I continue with my Dark 100 series on the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history with a stop at 7th Heaven — a sappy, moralistic drama series which ran for ten seasons (!) on the CW Network.…
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DragonKing Dark: The 2000 Paralympic Games basketball cheating scandal
Inarguably, one of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history took place at the 2000 Paralympic Games where, brace yourself, Spain competed in basketball with players representing themselves as intellectually disabled who weren’t. Yes, you read that right. They also won the gold medal and outed themselves once it hit the newspapers. The International Paralympic Committee…
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DragonKing Dark: The 2000 Paralympic Games basketball cheating scandal
Karl Stern’s run through the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history continues. Inarguably, one of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history took place at the 2000 Paralympic Games where, brace yourself, Spain competed in basketball with players representing themselves as intellectually disabled who weren’t. Yes, you read that right. They also won the gold…
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DragonKing Dark: The sports trading card bust of the 1990s
Continuing my 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series, I examine the sports trading card bust of the 1990s. Generations of sports fans, especially with baseball, collected trading cards. In the past, these cards often also increased in value, especially for rookies who eventually became big stars. Enter the speculators who were then fed…
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DragonKing Dark: The 1972 Olympics
My 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series on DragonKing Dark continues as I examine the terrorist assault and murder of eleven Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, Germany. Germany, wanting to put the stain of the past behind them, had strongly pushed the “smiling Olympics” and despite warnings, failed to…
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DragonKing Dark: The Lindbergh baby kidnapping & murder
On March 1, 1932, one of most sensational crimes ever to grip America occurred: the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder. The son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, aged 20 months, disappeared from his crib and was, apparently, held for ransom, which was paid. However, just over two months later, the child’s body was discovered in…
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DragonKing Dark: The tragic death of pro baseball player Ray Chapman
The only Major League Baseball player to be killed during a game was Ray Chapman and it happened in 1920. The story is tragic, even beyond what was likely an accident. “Likely” because, well, the player who threw the pitch had a reputation for hitting batters, on purpose. And after hitting Chapman with the fatal…
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DragonKing Dark: The 2022 Halloween special
It’s time for the 2022 DragonKing Dark Halloween special, hosted by Dirty Dawg Darsie. On this 90-minute episode, the Dawg is joined by Kid Zombie & The Desert Rat of When It Was Cool, and Joe Drilling & Eric Allen of On The Stick to talk all things spooky! Wrestling Halloween stories, UFO encounters, a Roanoke Dogman encounter…
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DragonKing Dark: 1988’s Beetlejuice
It’s the ghost with the most! This week on DragonKing Dark, we continue our month-long celebration of Halloween as Tonya and I take a look back at the 1988 horror comedy Beetlejuice. An all-star cast battles with the afterlife in this late 1980s classic, fun for everyone on your Halloween playlist that has actually aged…
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DragonKing Dark: 1982’s Poltergeist
We continue celebrating Halloween all month long and this week, myself and Tonya from WhenItWasCool.com discuss the classic 1982 horror movie Poltergeist. Into the pop culture lexicon entered the eerie phrase: “They’re here!” And beyond the storyline itself, the movie was followed by the tragic death of its young star. Poltergeist gave birth to multiple…
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DragonKing Dark: Reviewing the Jeffrey Dahmer Netflix show ‘Monster’
On this week’s DragonKing Dark, we take a look at a real-life monster. A new and controversial Netflix series called Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is currently one of the most popular streaming series of the year. Myself and Tonya from When It Was Cool have watched it and this week’s show is our review.…
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DragonKing Dark: 1984’s ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
I interrupt our 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series for the month of October as we are celebrating Halloween all month long. For this kickoff, I am joined by my wife, Tonya, from When It Was Cool to discuss one of the most iconic horror movies ever: 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.…
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DragonKing Dark: The Fatty Arbuckle scandal
Who was Fatty Arbuckle? Besides having a hilarious name, he was the center of the first big Hollywood scandal. Yes, the sad tale of Arbuckle is a cautionary tale for the movie industry still to this very day. He was a silent movie era star until his career was destroyed by an allegation that he…