HorrorFAIL: Who Else Remembers When G4 Aired NIGHT OF THE TRIPPING DEAD for 4/20?

On Friday, April 20th 2007, the defunct cable channel known as G4 aired a truncated, redubbed, and recut version of George A. Romero’s classic horror film Night of the Living Dead. A special version championed by Kevin Pereira of Attack of the Show as being “the perfect nightcap to a day of 4/20 partying.” and was called “the undead like you’ve never seen before” by co-host Olivia Munn. It’s titled Night of the TRIPPING Dead, and it is terrible. “The undead have never seemed so alive.” says Pereira.

Night of the Living Dead is the mother of all zombie flicks. Barbara and her brother Johnny take a trip to a cemetery to lay flowers on their mother’s grave. Almost immediately they are attacked by one of the undead. Barbara survives the attack and seeks shelter in a nearby farmhouse. Traumatized and confused, she is befriended by Ben and others who barricade themselves inside the farmhouse to keep out the bloodthirsty zombies and try to form a plan to seek help. Simply put, the movie is a classic. One of the greatest of all time.

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Night of the Tripping Dead begins the same way “Living Dead” does but with Johnny renamed George, and Barbara now going by the name Timber. We are treated immediately to poor jokes about drugs and meat beating, all of which are dubbed in by a few untalented voice actors. First, Barbara (or Timber) has been redubbed to sound like a transgender stereotype while everybody else is dubbed to sound like a failed comedian. The Cemetery Zombie is now struggling comedian Nick LaDuca who is looking for gigs. We eventually meet Ben who is now Jamal Seinfeld, the world’s greatest black Jerry Seinfeld impersonator. If this sounds terrible, don’t worry, you’re right.

There is a plot in this mess. We are supposed to believe now that the zombies are actually comedians waiting to audition in the farmhouse. Ben (or Jamal) isn’t barricading himself in the house, but is actually building a set for the comedians to perform their act. Barbara is no longer traumatized by the death of her brother, but is now actually experiencing a bad trip from the drugs she is taking. The rest is too terrible to even mention.

The biggest problem with Tripping Dead is that it isn’t funny. It’s not funny to middle school kids, and it certainly isn’t funny to any stoner tuning in. If the creators had more time, perhaps they could have included at least one clever or funny joke. The delivery of every line feels effortless and lazy. The other problem is after all the heavy editing and dubbing you are never convinced that the plot has changed. The attempt to convince the viewer they are being told a story that is anything but Romero’s classic zombie flick falls flat. The end result feels extremely poorly assembled. It still feels like you’re watching Night of the Living Dead, just a badly edited down version of it with awful commentary.

I do not have much info on who was involved in the making of Night of the Tripping Dead. There are no ending credits, but the hour long short ends with a Soup2Nuts logo. Soup2Nuts was an animantion studio owned by Animator/Writer/Producer Tom Snyder. Synder is best known for his Squigglevision animation used in the TV show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist and for the use of improvised voice acting. Soup2Nuts would go out of business in 2015.

Tripping Dead would air once more on Halloween the same year. I doubt many watched it or remember it. G4 would surprisingly stay around in the land of television for 7 more years before finally biting the dust on December 31st, 2014. Although Night of the Tripping Dead is most likely gone from television forever, it lives eternally on the Internet. You can check it out in the video below, but I warned you.