13 Days of Tales From The Crypt: Dan Aykroyd in "Yellow"

Welcome boils and ghouls to Spook Central's 13 Days of Tales from the Crypt: Ghostbusters Cast Spotlight. For the next two weeks, I will look at Tales from the Crypt episodes featuring cast members from the entire spectrum of the Ghostbusters franchise. Tales from the Crypt, for those who don't know, is a horror anthology series that ran for seven seasons on HBO from June 10, 1989 to July 19, 1996. Inspired by the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name, the show revels in nudity, gore, strong language, camp, and twist endings; taking full advantage of its premium cable home. Each episode is hosted by the Cryptkeeper, a wisecracking corpse performed by several puppeteers and voiced by John Kassir.

Given the nature of the series, I would be remiss if I did not give a HUGE CONTENT WARNING and a HUGE SPOILER WARNING if you continue reading this article. I will not shy away from any graphic gory imagery if warranted, and I am highly likely to go into plot details, including the twist ending.

Tonight's dead-time story is "Yellow", which aired on August 28, 1991 as the 14th episode of the third season. Directed by Robert Zemeckis; and written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, A.L. Katz, and Gilbert Adler; this twisted tale stars Dan Aykroyd (Ray Stantz in Ghostbusters and its sequels) as Captain Milligan. It should be noted that "Yellow" was not originally a Tales from the Crypt episode. In 1991, the Fox television network aired a pilot for Two-Fisted Tales, a spin-off based on the 1950s EC action comics of the same name. When Fox passed on the pilot, Crypt Keeper segments were added to the three stories - "Yellow", "Showdown", and "King of the Road" - and HBO ran them as Tales from the Crypt episodes. That is why this is not a horror-themed episode.


The year is 1918. During World War I, somewhere in France, it's the 49th day of continuous battle on the front lines. Lieutenant Martin Kalthrob (Eric Douglas) doesn't want to be in the army anymore. Sergeant Ripper (Lance Henriksen), to the agreement of Captain Milligan, tells General Kalthrob (Kirk Douglas) that his son is "yellow".


True to his reputation, Martin asks his father for a discharge. The General refuses, but says that he will transfer him to the rear if he leads a patrol to the German front lines to fix a broken communication line. While out on the mission, Ripper gives Martin a whistle to blow to warn of approaching Germans. He sees the Germans, but fails to blow the whistle, as doing so would reveal his location. As a result, Ripper and the rest of the men are slaughtered, while Martin runs back to base claiming "ambush". He blatantly lies about fighting them off, which his father believes. "Now you've shown them what you're made of," says the elder Kalthrob.


Just then, Milligan brings in the wounded Ripper who tells everyone what really happened, even with his guts literally hanging out of his chest, looking like a creature had burst out of it. Martin insists that he shot at the Germans, and that Ripper is delusional. With his dying breath, Ripper calls Martin "yellow". The General looks at the pistol that Martin claims he used to shoot the Germans and sees that it has never been fired, thus proving his son to be a liar. He is arrested and a court-martial will commence in one hour.


At the court-martial, Martin is found guilty of dereliction of duty, desertion under fire, and cowardice in the face of the enemy. The penalty for these crimes is death by firing squad. "You're a disgrace to your uniform," says the General. The younger Kalthrob replies, "I never wanted to wear it. You wanted me to." Captain Milligan urges the General to reconsider the penalty. "I won't have cowards in my army!"


Later, the General visits his son for a little heart-to-heart chat. Martin tells his father that everything he's ever done in life was to please him. "I wasted my whole life." Going to military school, West Point, and now being a part of this war was nothing that Martin ever wanted to do. It was all to make his father happy. All he ever wanted in return was just a little pat on the back. Now, as a result, he is going to be put to death. "That's what I'm really guilty of, isn't it, father? That the whole world knows that the son of the great General Kalthrob is afraid to die!"


The father opens up to his son about how he wasn't a great parent, and that all he ever wanted was to see his son continue the family's military legacy. He now realizes that it was wrong to foist that upon his son. However, he's going to make it up to Martin. When he stands in front of the firing squad, they will all shoot blanks. The General will personally load the rifles to guarantee it. All Martin has to do is play dead when they fire. The division will move out almost immediately, so they won't be around to see that Martin is still alive. The only thing the General wants in return is for Martin to "face that firing squad like a man". To show everyone that he has courage and is not afraid; that he died with some dignity.


The day comes. "Looks like a nice day to die, father." Martin stands on the death plank, and sees the pack - containing a new identity and rations - in the ditch behind him that his father said would be left there for him. He is now happy to face his "death". Captain Milligan reads a proclamation stating the result of the court-martial before offering Martin a cigarette and a blindfold, both of which he declines. Martin has some final words. "I tried, but I'm not the man my father is. I'm sorry and I apologize. My fear of dying got in the way of my responsibility to my men and the obligations to my commanding officers. I know now what Shakespeare meant: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.'"


A priest gives a blessing, and the firing squad takes their positions. At the very last second, Martin notices that his father looks away. He immediately knows that something is not right, but before he can fully comprehend the situation, he is shot to death. The General never loaded all of the rifles with blanks. He only told his son that he would in order to get him to face his death with courage. As Martin lies in the ditch dying, he looks up at the General and the Captain. Milligan says, "He died like a man." The General responds, "Yes. My son is not yellow."




Now this is where I would normally give you links to buy Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Series on DVD, but the series is no longer officially available to own. Warner Brothers, whom I always believed to have owned the HBO-produced series, originally released the seven seasons individually on DVD from 2005 to 2007 in Digipak packaging (fold-out paperboard with plastic disc trays inside side-loading slipcases). A decade later, in 2017, all 20 of the discs from those individual season sets were repackaged in a "Complete Series" box set, as well as in plastic case repackagings of the individual seasons. It's possible that an official "all discs in one thick case" repackaging was made a year or two later. Unfortunately, the original 2005-2007 season sets were produced at a time when Warner Brothers was using a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania who was not manufacturing the discs correctly. As a result, all dual-layer DVDs produced at the plant are now unplayable, as I detailed in this article. The original 2005-2007 discs have photos of The Cryptkeeper on them, while the 2017 discs have plain colored labels on them. The 2017 discs have no issues, but the original discs do. Since Warner Brothers is now aware of the problem, they have been replacing discs where possible. Unfortunately, when I inquired about having my unplayable original discs replaced, I was told by WB customer service (whv@wbd.com) that they "no longer have the rights" to the show. The copyright on the show belongs to "Tales From the Crypt Holdings", but which individuals and companies fall under that umbrella is unknown to me. I assume Warner Brothers is one of them, but I could be wrong.

Making ownership of this series on physical media even more problematic is that there are A LOT of counterfeit "Complete Series" DVD box sets out there. Since the box set is officially out-of-print, you can no longer buy a legit set from Amazon, Target, Walmart, etc. You have to buy a copy from the second-hand market, which could be legit old stock, but is more than likely to be a well-produced counterfeit. As I noted in my Identifying Counterfeits article, in June 2025 I bought an "all discs in one thick case" counterfeit, which I wrongfully assumed would be a legit set due to the crappy Epik Pak case (which I thought only the major studios used). The problem with counterfeits, besides lesser print quality on the packaging and discs, is that they often take the original dual-layer discs and recompress them to single-layer discs. So the video and audio quality will be POORER than the originals. That's why they should be avoided.

Of course, with there being no official options, and with a flood of counterfeits out there, there is no good recommendation to give as to how to own this series on physical media. The ideal situation would be for Warner Brothers to get the rights back, do new transfers from the original film negatives, and release a "Complete Series" Blu-ray set; carrying over all of the original DVD extras and (maybe) adding more - such as all eight episodes of the "Seeing Ear Theatre" audio plays. I doubt that will ever happen, so there's always Youtube.