Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone

"Shoot him, drown him, hang him, zap him with kajilion volts - hey, it's a living! A man who receives a surgical graft of a cat's nine lives becomes a carnival sensation with his dying act."

-- DVD description for the episode

Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone is the third episode of the first season of Tales from the Crypt and the third episode overall. The episode aired on June 10th, 1989.

Plot[]

On a busy night at the Big Top Carnival, the local barker leads a group of patrons into a show featuring “the tragedy of death and the miracle of resurrection“. ’The Undying Daredevil‘ Sideshow plans to resurrect himself after performing his biggest stunt of being buried alive for 12 straight hours. He waves goodbye to the crowd, locks himself in a coffin, and lights a candle. Talking to himself, he recounts to the audience his supernatural ability. He confidently recalls how he has gotten to this point.

Many years before, Ulric is living on the streets when he is approached by Dr. Emil Manfred. He gives Ulric an opportunity to make a lot of money by agreeing to a unique procedure. Ulric goes with the doctor to his lab, where he has been studying ”cat” scans and has concluded felines have glands inside their brains that grant them nine lives - it is not just an old wives' saying. Dr. Manfred shows how he saw a dead cat could resurrect itself until the ninth time when it stayed dead for good. He recruits Ulric to be the test subject to have a cat's gland transplanted into his body, which Ulric half-mockingly deduces will give him nine lives. Some time later, Ulric awakens in a pained daze from the surgery. To test out the results, Manfred shoots Ulric in the head — Ulric dies, but then gets back up again angrily telling Manfred he could have killed him. Manfred says he did indeed kill Ulric, but his theory was proven true, Ulric now can resurrect himself. As promised, Manfred hands over his life savings to Ulric, saying he could walk out on him forever and drink it all down, or they could go into a venture where they could make even more money; "enough to buy you an ocean of alcohol".

The two head to the Big Top Carnival and pitch a show where Ulric is killed in front of live audiences but rises from the grave. The barker gives them a shot — their first performance has Ulric resurrecting himself after being drowned in a tub of water. A perky assistant named Coralee comically asks Ulric out as the water rises. He drowns, and after another hour, the tub is drained so he can return to life. He resurrects himself and the happy crowd cheers. The act makes them rich and Ulric starts a relationship with Coralee.

Ulric performs his next stunt — a live hanging — in front of a sold out crowd. He hangs himself, but returns to life while still dangling. The roaring success pleases Dr. Manfred, who puts most of the earnings toward his research; Ulric, however, looks to boost his profit from his usual 40% take. One night, the two get into a horrible accident while driving away from the carnival. While Manfred is instantly killed, Ulric walks away unscathed but down a life.

The acts continue with Ulric now taking in Manfred’s share in addition to his. He performs two more stunts — one where a lucky raffle winner gets to pull a switch that electrocutes him, and another where spectators fire a crossbow at him for $1000 each. While he successfully rises from the dead both times, Ulric learns how unpredictable the resurrections can be — after the electrocution stunt, he doesn’t resurrect until days later, when he’s at the morgue seconds away from being embalmed. He has Coralee handle all of his post-death arrangements from this moment. The carnival has made a large amount of money and the two plan to take a vacation, but she becomes overwhelmed with greed. She fatally stabs Ulric, then runs out with all of the money before he resurrects once more.

Left with no money and two lives, Ulric vows to do one more show, but wants all of the profits, which would leave the barker and everyone else nothing. Ulric reasons that the carnival would be nothing without his success and can't help but think what the audience would do if he pulled a no-show. The barker says that's Blackmail, and relents. The final stunt is the coffin scene from the beginning — he laughs to himself about everything, but stops himself after making a fatal discovery: the cat died for him to get the gland, meaning he only had eight lives and he’s on his last one. He panics and begs to be let out, but the gravediggers above only hear groans and mistake them for a cat. Ulric permanently dies in the coffin as a cat lies on his grave.

Opening Segment[]

"Good evening, fiend fans and welcome to my crawly crypt. This little drama is about one of life's unexpected pleasures: dying, that is. Most of us only get to do it once and it's all over before you can really enjoy it. But one man did get to die again. And he liked it so much he started doing it for a living. This is the story of Ulric the Undying a sideshow performer who found death not only fun, but profitable. In fact, he's dying to put on a show for you right now."

Closing Segment[]

"There, there. Nice kitty. Get! Hope you enjoyed our little bedtime story, kids. Alas, poor Ulric, missed a bet. Though Dying for Dollars could have been a popular game show. They could have put it in between Wheel of Misfortune and the Newly Dead game. Unless they buried it in the wrong time slot."

Trivia[]

This episode is available on disc one of the Tales from the Crypt: The Complete First Season DVD collection.
The ringmaster tells Ulric that HBO has sent their check. Tales from the Crypt was produced and aired by HBO.
Director Richard Donner cameos as an audience member during Ulric's burial death and can be seen chanting "Ulric, Ulric, Ulric"! along with the crowd. His wife, Lauren Shuler Donner producer of the X-Men franchise, is sitting beside him.

Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone

Contents

Plot[]

Opening Segment[]

Closing Segment[]

Trivia[]

Gallery[]

Rating[]

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