Tag: DragonKingDark

DragonKing Dark: The story of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez

Posted on by Karl Stern

Our next installment in our 100 darkest moments in pop culture history involves the story of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.

Hernandez was an elite level football player whose off the field exploits landed him in prison and later dead. 

Despite being one of the best players on his national championship winning team in college, the coach didn’t want him back for his senior season so he entered the NFL draft where many teams wouldn’t touch him. The Patriots finally did but a few murders later, they regretted that decision.

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DragonKing Dark: How ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ went after the comic industry

Posted on by Karl Stern

Free speech. Censorship. Right thinking. Moral policing. 

All of these terms are hot button topics to various political and social groups. The more that things change, the more they stay the same as in 1954, a holier than thou psychiatrist took on the comic book industry with his infamous book, “Seduction of the Innocent”. 

No matter what segment of pop culture they are after, be it video games, TV shows or books, the morality police are dangerous to the free thinking. But, it’s a double-edged sword.

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DragonKing Dark: The video game crash of 1983

Posted on by Karl Stern

Continuing our 100 darkest moments in pop culture series, this week’s DragonKing Dark takes a look back at the video game crash of 1983. 

It was a moment in time where subpar games were being produced en masse as a cash grab during a home video game boom. Juan Nunez wrote a tremendous article about this crash (and the one that preceded it) for When It Was Cool and this is that story.

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DragonKing Dark: How ‘The Death of Superman’ almost killed comics

Posted on by Karl Stern

We pick back up our ongoing series in the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history and in doing so, we travel back to the early 1990s.

Comic books and trading cards were booming. Speculators were buying both in bulk with hopes of one day owning something valuable. But, the bubble was ready to burst when DC Comics came along with a publicity stunt that almost killed the comic book industry: The Death of Superman. 

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DragonKing Dark: The death and mysterious life of Jayne Mansfield

Posted on by Karl Stern

Continuing our look at 100 of the darkest moments in pop culture history, I am joined by Tonya from When It Was Cool to discuss the death of starlet Jayne Mansfield who was killed in a 1967 car accident.

The events leading up to her death are quite dark and mysterious including her stint in the Church of Satan and possibly a romantic fling with the Black Pope himself, Anton LaVay. Poor career choices, comparisons to Marilyn Monroe, and more make for this sad but captivating story on this week’s DragonKing Dark.

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DragonKing Dark: Julius Obsequens and the Greco-Roman UFOs

Posted on by Karl Stern

On today’s show, DragonKing Dark host Karl Stern continues his series of podcasts looking at UFO activity in antiquity. We examine the reports of Julius Obsequens, an AD 400 era writer who reported on unknown objects in the sky in the period leading up to the birth of Christ.

Can he be trusted? Do his writings really suggest UFOs or perhaps something else really interesting?

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FREE DragonKing Dark: Charlemagne and his UFOs

Posted on by Karl Stern

On this episode of DragonKing Dark, host Karl Stern continues his hunt for UFOs in the era before airplanes and balloons. He continues to scour history for reports of unknown objects in the sky to see if any pan out to be truly unanswerable.

This week, Karl takes a look at Charlemagne, King of the Franks, who supposedly had help from fiery wheeling shields during a middle-ages battle. Does this story check out? On today’s show DragonKing Dark — now FREE — we discuss Charlemagne and his UFOs. 

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DragonKing Dark: Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Posted on by Karl Stern

The countdown to Halloween continues on the DragonKing Dark show with host Karl Stern.

On this episode of the show, Karl takes some questions from the mailbag, including more horror movie suggestions. Karl also talks about his latest haunted house attraction visit, this time in Tennessee with the Doomsday Haunted Trail walk.

Karl then revisits one of the all time classic horror movies, and a movie with just one single jump scare, the frightening Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974. This movie captures fear and horror with surprisingly little in the way of actual on-screen gore and startling cheap heat jump scares.

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