!! Lower Berth

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mv5bytrimddjn2itnju3mc00zdc4lwexmtutmtk1ywq1yje0m2q0xkeyxkfqcgdeqxvyntawotcxodc_v1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The first chapter in a certain someone's autobiography.]]

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' (''rocking a stuffed doll in a crib'') Shhhh! Awww... There, there. Isn't he just so cute that you '''''wanna?!...''''' (''raises a hammer to the doll; notices the camera'') Oops! Crypt Keeper here, kiddies. And speaking of "kiddies", tonight's sickening saga should be subtitled: a ''Tale from the'' '''''Crib.''''' (''places the episode's book on the doll, crushing it with a small squeak'') Yes, fear fans. I've got a real nursery ''crime'' for you this time. It's all about the humble beginnings of my favorite horror hero. So call the babysitter, and break out the barf bags, as I narrate a nauseating novella with a very special place in my heart. I affectionately call this one: '''Lower Berth.'''

Ernest Feeley's (Lewis Arquette) Fantastic Fairway of Freaks is a dime-a-dozen sideshow in Depression-era America. They have the usual exhibits; a fat lady, a family of dwarfs, a human skeleton, and so on. However, Feeley's has ''one'' exhibit that sets the other sideshows apart: a mentally ill, horribly disfigured young man with two faces named Enoch (Jeff Yagher), whose caretaker, Mr. Sickles (Stefan Gierasch), wastes no opportunity to abuse. The unfortunate problem with Enoch is that the birth defect that gave him his two faces is slowly killing him, and the sideshow will soon lose its star exhibit. Sickles has tried hiding this news from Feeley by bribing the company doctor, but Feeley found out anyway.

A few days later, Zachary Cling (Creator/MarkRolston), a shifty British doctor, enters the sideshow with a deal to make with Sickles. In Cling's possession is Myrna, a genuine Egyptian mummy he won in a poker game. Cling tells Sickles that Myrna (formerly "Mirana") was a slave girl who died at the age of 16, buried alive after rejecting the advances of the Pharaoh. All Cling asks for in exchange for letting the sideshow add Myrna to their menagerie is forty percent commission of the profits she brings in. With not much else in his favor, Sickles accepts. Myrna soon becomes a godsend for Feeley, bringing in a plethora of new customers. While she makes quite an impact on the crowd, Myrna makes more of an impact with Enoch, the two-faced man falling in love with his adjacent exhibit. After a young girl gives Enoch her doll, Sickles comes in for his usual round of abuse. Before he can go through with his torment, however, he notices something on the newspapers that line Enoch's cage: a headline about a stolen mummy.

Confronting Cling about this, the doctor confesses that Myrna is indeed a stolen treasure, having robbed her from a boat in New Orleans. It's not the mummy herself that interests him, but the necklace around Myrna's neck. The bauble he claimed was "costume jewelry" turns out to be very real and very valuable. As he explains, the necklace is cursed, as any man who tries to remove it from Myrna's person will fall victim to castration. Sickles doesn't buy his story and storms off to claim the necklace. When Cling tries to stop him, Sickles accidentally stabs him with a pair of shears, killing him. Sickles wanders back to the sideshow and plants the shears in Enoch's cage with the intention to frame him for Cling's killing so he can make off with the necklace. Enoch has unfortunately had enough of Sickles' abuse, and as he watches his longtime abuser fiddle with his mummified love, he grabs the shears and liberates Sickles of his testicles, ironically fulfilling the curse. As Myrna's eyes pop open, Enoch manages to escape with her, vanishing into the night as Sickles' corpse takes her place in her sarcophagus, shocking the crowd.

One year later, Feeley's has returned to the town where Enoch murdered Sickles. The police approach Feeley and lead him to a nearby cave recently explored by a young boy. They find the dead body of Enoch inside, wearing a smile on his two faces and entwined in the arms of his ancient love. The disgusted Feeley and the cops leave the cave, but they turn out to have missed [[UglyCute a very ugly baby sitting in the corner;]] the unholy product of Enoch and Myrna's twisted love: [[OriginsEpisode The Crypt Keeper.]]
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!! Tropes:
* AccidentalMurder: Sickles does this to Cling, then attempts to frame Enoch for it as he goes for Myrna's necklace.
* AgeGapRomance: Enoch, who is likely in the early teens of age, is attracted to the 4000-year old Myrna.
* AssholeVictim: Sickles, Enoch's trainer/abuser, who gets castrated and stabbed to death by his whipping boy.
* BittersweetEnding: Enoch and Myrna run off together, make a little home for themselves, and spend a year living the free and happy lives they were always denied. They die in each other's arms not long after the Crypt Keeper is born.
* BrawnHilda: Fanny, the fat lady.
* BuriedAlive: According to Cling, Myrna was buried alive at 16 for refusing the Pharaoh's advances.
* ChekhovsGun: The doll that the Crypt Keeper is seen playing with in the ColdOpen. We later learn that he had the doll as a baby, and was given it by his father, after it was given to ''him'' by Elizabeth.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: The only person to show Enoch any genuine kindness is a little girl named Elizabeth.
* CreepyCircusMusic: A steamy calliope plays an eerie tune all throughout the episode.
* DeathByAdaptation: Sickles didn't die in the original comic version of the story.
* DisproportionateRetribution: The unnamed pharaoh who ordered Myrna buried alive did so solely because she repelled his advances.
* TheDogBitesBack: Enoch strikes back at Sickles when he tries robbing his undead love, getting vengeance for all his abuse by castrating him with shears.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** In his intro, the Crypt Keeper says that this episode is about the beginnings of his favorite horror hero, which we later learn is himself.
** When striking a deal to have Myrna exhibited, Cling tells Sickles that he needs to keep a low profile for a while. This is because instead of winning Myrna in a card game, like he told Sickles, Cling actually stole her from a ship.
* FormulaBreakingEpisode: The only episode in the series to go into depth about our horror host's tragic past.
* FrameUp: Sickles intended to frame Enoch for killing Cling so he could steal Myrna's necklace and flee the sideshow, but Enoch refuses to give him the satisfaction.
* TheFreakshow: Feeley's Fantastic Fairway is one, and it's the primary setting of the episode.
* FreudianExcuse: This episode explains a lot about you-know-who.
* GlowingEyes: When her necklace is removed by Sickles and Enoch attacks him, Myrna's milk-white eyes suddenly pop open and glow at the sound of Sickles' screaming, her curse having been broken.
* GoodParents: As good as a severely disabled man and a 4000-years-dead mummy in an unheated cave can hope to be. Baby Cryptie is chubby and well cared for, wearing little clothes, babbling for "mama", and in the company of the doll Enoch gave him. By all indications, he was very well loved.
* GroinAttack: The curse that Myrna's necklace carries subjects this to any man who dares to steal it from her.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Although he can't vocally express it, Enoch just wants to have a normal life, someone to love, a happy family, and to not be locked in a cage while being paraded around like a freak.
* ILoveTheDead: Enoch gradually falls in love with Myrna, who has spent the last 4000 years dead and mummified. It's somewhat excusable because she's the first woman he's seen on a regular basis for a long time, if not ever.
* InNameOnly: In the original comic book, Enoch was a two-headed corpse instead of a living two-faced man, and Feeley actually retrieved him and Myrna when they found them in the cave. Other than these changes, the episode is, for the most part, faithful to the comic book version, including the revelation that Enoch and Myrna were the Crypt Keeper's parents.
* IronicEcho: Enoch's only intelligible words are "Naughty boy!", Sickles' favorite line, before he delivers his abusive caretaker's KarmicDeath.
* JerkAss: Sickles, who abuses the physically deformed and mentally challenged Enoch with a whip. To be fair, he's an asshole partially because he's ridiculed and pushed around by the equally JerkAss Feeley.
* KickTheDog: Sickles constantly abuses Enoch verbally and physically, and stealing Myrna's necklace was all poor Enoch could take from him.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: The twist ending is the first thing about this episode anyone ever talks about. The producers and writers had no problem openly discussing the twist in the Season 2 DVD's "Making of" feature, so if you watched that first, you were really out of luck.
* MandatoryMotherhood: To the extent that ''Enoch'' is the one who wants children. Everyone just kind of assumes Myrna must have had them, and that the fact that she never had them at all is the tragic thing about her death.
* ManlyTears: In the outro, the Crypt Keeper ''weeps'' over his parents.
* MassOhCrap: Before fleeing with Myrna, Enoch put Sickles' body in her sarcophagus. An unaware Feeley later presents what he thinks is Myrna to his latest crowd, and one curtain pull later, he and the crowd are horrified as they stare at the dead Sickles.
* MoodWhiplash: The Crypt Keeper's outro alternates between him crying and being snarky.
* OriginsEpisode: For the Crypt Keeper.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The outro is one of the very few times we see the Crypt Keeper be anything ''other'' than his morbid self. While he still cracks a joke or two, he can't help but sob his heart out because his parents are long gone.
* PetTheDog: A little girl, Elizabeth, gives Enoch her doll. The ending reveals that Enoch gave it to his infant son.
* ProperlyParanoid: Sickles finds it rather suspicious that Cling went to ''him'' for his deal to display Myrna instead of Feeley. Sickles was right to be suspicious because Cling stole Myrna from a boat so he could try taking the cursed necklace she wears.
* {{Pun}}: The Crypt Keeper opens by referring to this story as a ''Tale from the Crib''.
* RealAfterAll: Cling believes in Myrna's curse of castration because it happened to a man he hired to remove her necklace for him.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: When Sickles tries to throw his weight around, Feeley reveals that he already knows Enoch is dying and proceeds to put Sickles in his place:
-->"Did you really think you could bribe the company doctor to keep it from me? Well, apparently, your freak isn't the only one with two faces, is he? No, Sickles, your meal ticket's godforsaken life is winding toward a merciful end. So please, don't tell me how much ''I'' need ''you''. We'll play it out as long as it takes--a month, a week, but as long as you own him, then I own ''you'', and we do things ''my'' way. Understand, Mr. Sickles?"
* SayMyName: Enoch can't articulate very well, but he makes every effort to say Myrna's name.
* SecretlyDying: Unknown to Enoch, his birth defect is slowly killing him. Sickles knew this and bribed the sideshow's doctor to hide it from Feeley, only for Feeley to quickly discover it anyway.
* SpannerInTheWorks: According to the police officer who talks to Feeley, a young boy was exploring the cave and stumbled upon Enoch and Myrna's makeshift home.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: An interesting variation with Enoch. In the comic (where he had two heads instead of two faces), he was dead long before the story takes place, though he and Myrna somehow come back to life and elope in the middle of the night. Here, he's alive, but is gradually dying. However, if the Crypt Keeper's comments in the comic are to be believed, he keeps in touch with his folks, while their counterparts in the show are as good as dead.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: The shot of baby Cryptie is also the only glimpse we ever get of him alive. As it turns out, he resembles his parents quite a bit. Specifically, he inherited Myrna's dark complexion and high cheekbones, and Enoch's strong chin and light brown hair.
* TimeSkip: The end of the episode skips ahead a year into the future, where we learn what became of Enoch and Myrna.
* TitleDrop: "I see you prefer a lower berth."
* TogetherInDeath: Enoch and Myrna, after escaping to the happy lives they always wanted.
* TragicKeepsake: Elizabeth's doll, which Enoch gave to baby Cryptie before he died.
* TragicMonster:
** Enoch and Myrna. The former is a severely disabled man with a horrific birth defect who spends his days caged and beaten in a sideshow, while the latter was a 16 year old Egyptian slave who was buried alive for refusing the pharaoh's advances.
** The Crypt Keeper himself qualifies, having never known his parents, and recounting the story legitimately drives him to tears.
* TwoFaced: Enoch has a second face growing out of the left side of his head, which is said to be the result of a birth defect.
* VerbalTic: Cling seems to end his metaphors in the same way, saying "if you get my meaning".
* WhamShot: After Feeley and the cops leave the cave, we pan over to see that Enoch and Myrna have had a baby: ''the Crypt Keeper''.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: When we last see baby Cryptie, he's all alone in his cave home, Feeley and the police having fled after discovering the morbid scene of his parents' bodies. Considering the Crypt Keeper we see in modern day is the corpse of an adult male, he was likely discovered, but we don't learn anything more about his upbringing.
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->'''Crypt Keeper:''' (''drying his teary eyes and blowing his nose with a handkerchief; clutching the doll Enoch gave him'') Oh. Sorry, kiddies! But that story just makes me go all to ''pieces!'' (''throw the doll aside and cackles'') I was a cute little terror tyke though, wasn't I? As for Enoch and Myrna, I guess you figured out by now where I get my ''good looks''. Old Two-Face was my daddy and the mummy was my mommy! (''cackles; then sobs)'' Oh, if they'd only lived long enough to see me become a star! We never even got a chance to play hide and go ''shriek'' together! (''sobs; turning into a broken cackle'')