Welcome to Misty Dawn, the fictional small Texas town where nothing is as it seems, and it's never safe to walk the woods at night.

In 1965, a television event took place... an event that would change network history. But we're not going to talk about that. Let us now focus on Misty Dawn, the long-forgotten gothic soap opera created by Carl Balch-Springs, founder and president of the TBQ (Toxic Broadcasting -- well, no one was ever quite sure what the 'Q' stood for).

Audiences had become tired of the standard formulaic soap operas that dealt only with sex, greed, murder, mistaken identities, love triangles, and the like, so, in the now-infamous words of Carl Balch-Springs, "what could one more hurt?" Thus began the downward spiral of Misty Dawn. After such TBQ flops as Treehouse 90 and Give It to Otter, viewers whose television dials were broken and stuck on the TBQ were in for NO big surprise when Misty Dawn made its television debut on September 21, 1965.

The audience for the first episode was almost insignificant. But by the time the second episode aired, they had both stopped watching.

Misty Dawn ran from September 21, 1965 to May 30, 1971. All 1204 episodes had disappeared until Shawn McCarthy, Jr. found the tapes in Waxahachie, Texas, on the site where Scarborough Faire now stands. Shawn's father, Shawn McCarthy, Sr., was a cameraman on the show. "I remember puking my guts out on the set one day after a night of heavy drinking," he fondly recalls.

McCarthy managed to salvage 78 of the episodes. But first, proper legal clearances had to be obtained from Scarborough Faire, who at first refused to release the tapes (not for monetary gain, but because -- in the words of General Manager Coy Severe, "There's more?? I thought we had set fire to them all!"). These tapes have been restored and are now airing temporarily on Google Video, soon to be available on DVD.

Although not intended as a comedy, the low production values, flubbed lines, convoluted storylines, and cheap sets made it a favorite among future comedy writers and stoned draft dodgers everywhere.

Attempts were made to contact the reclusive Carl Balch-Springs, but sadly, we were informed that he passed away in 1983 in the arms of his loved ones... three prostitutes from Angleton.