User Reviews

Mean-spirited teleplay from George A Romero makes this a particularly memorable episode of Tales from the Darkside as Mable King goes full on diabolical as a gingerbread cookie chef with a little (black) magic added to her batches...voodoo dough gone horribly wrong. Vernon Washington is paying a heavy toll for his role in what Mable has become. Her fashioning cookie dough into a rat (her way of identifying pops for his lack of proper fathering when she was a child growing up due to his bouts with the bottle) is just part of her tortuously methodical, day-to-day revenge. Enter ad exec, Larry Manetti (one of Selleck's Nam buddies on Magnum P.I.), seeing prosperous opportunity in the "feelings" that derive from the cookies made by Mable, specially designed for the right kinds of customers. Manetti is actually contacted by Vernon, hoping he'd be the right kind of cruel heart able to put a stop to Mable. Mable sees through the ruse while Manetti takes home a "baker's dozen", with an embittered, insecure wife (played by Therese Pare, favoring a Depression era mom raising ten kids of bad-soil land) ready to accuse him of infidelity. The cookie itself can be used to hurt or even kill another in the same room with the person damaging the gingerbread accidentally or purposely. Every character in this episode suffers…some worse than others. Manetti and Mable have the truly heavy parts, here, as the two most corrupt souls in the episode. The camera drawing in on Mable's vengeful face, berating and mocking Vernon, is rather chilling, while Manetti's realizing that his wife suffers when he dips a cookie in coffee, only to gleefully continue to do so for kicks certainly established just what kind of cretin he is. The episode is satisfying as all get what's coming to them in grand style.

Crooked advertising agent Henry Hogan (smoothly played to the smarmy hilt by Larry Manetti) uses voodoo gingerbread man cookies made by powerful baker witch Ruby Cuzzins (a winningly robust performance by Mabel King) to move up in the world. However, Ruby's magic comes at a harsh price in the long run. Director John Harrison, working from a clever script by George A. Romero, relates the compelling story at a snappy pace and maintains a spooky atmosphere throughout. Manetti and King both do sterling work in the leads (King in particular has an absolute field day with her juicy role), with sturdy support from Vernon Washington as Ruby's cowed elderly father Aloysius and Therese Pare as Henry's suspicious wife Helen. The voodoo angle gets neatly explored right to the surprisingly bloody end -- and even comes complete with a startling surprise conclusion in which Ruby finds herself unable to escape the lethal power of her dangerous sorcery. A worthy show.

Tales from the Darkside: Baker's Dozen is set in New Orleans where Ruby Cuzzins (Mabel King) runs a bakery snappily called 'Cuzzins Dozens'. She sells great stuff & fledgling advertising executive Henry Hogan (Larry Manetti) needs some clients for his new advertising business 'Hogan's Slogan's' & thinks he could make a load of money from Ruby & her popular baking. However what Henry doesn't realise is that Ruby is using supernatural powers to help her with her baking...

Episode 9 from season 3 this Tales from the Darkside story originally aired in the US during November 1986, directed by John Sutherland one has to say that I was somewhat disappointed with Baker's Dozen. The most disappointing aspect of it is that the script was by horror genre great George A. Romero & it's as lacklustre & dull a script as he has ever written which is saying something, it uses several fairly well known horror clichés like New Orleans is place for Voodoo, that Voodoo is practised by black people from the swamps & that white people aren't aware of it, there are your typical Voodoo doll effigies of people only rather amusingly in Baker's Dozen they take the form of gingerbread men which is probably the one single original & imaginative aspect of Baker's Dozen. Then it all ends with everyone falling foul of the Voodoo black magic in an ironic & grim sort of way, it's just all par for the course as far as this type of stuff goes. As already mentioned elsewhere it's not that fun to watch either & apart from the twist ending there's nothing that memorable here.

The production values are good as usual as far as they go but also as usual there are only a couple of locations, no special effects to speak of & only four people in it. The acting is alright, I didn't think Mabel King was sinister or evil enough though. Baker's Dozen was Larry Manetti's (of Magnum P.I. (1980 - 1988 'fame') second & final lead role in a Tales from the Darkside episode after Printer's Devil (1986) from season two.

Baker's Dozen is alright, I didn't hate it but at the same time I didn't love it & I expected a lot more from an episode penned by George A. Romero at a time when he was still churning out horror classics. An OK way to pass twenty odd minutes, little else.