See The Walking Dead If It Took Place In The 1990s
Hey, did you know that somewhere, someplace, in an alternate universe or dimension, AMC’s The Walking Dead actually first aired all the way back in 1995?
Okay, well, not really. The Walking Dead isn’t a franchise with its own alternate timeline (yet). But what if it had? That’s the exact scenario behind this video, imagining the opening credits as a period piece, of sorts, back to a simpler time of longer music montages and very corny shot cuts. Check it out The Walking Dead from the 90s:
Doesn’t this make you nostalgic for the days of 90s yore? We don’t necessarily get a sci-fi or horror vibe from this faux The Walking Dead introduction, though. For some reason, we can’t help but think of a domestic family drama with a zombie twinge to it. These were the 90s after all, so there’s a definite sense of suburban angst going on here. Or maybe it even trends a little earlier to a mid-’80s buddy detective show, like Jake and the Fatman or Simon and Simon.
I love that the guy behind the video, who goes by the Spinal Tap-lovin’ moniker goestoeleven on YouTube, went through the effort of cropping the whole thing as well. Out of everything else—the color, the music, the gritty video feel—that feels like the touch that really sells this. It makes you feel like you’re watching The Walking Dead as a late-night rerun on USA or TBS, or maybe one of those weird channels that only some cable providers carry, the ones that show episodes of Mannix and Knight Rider.
Maybe somewhere, when we finally have the technological ability to jump from dimension to dimension and back and forth in time, we’ll get to visit a world where a 90s The Walking Dead is part of the pop culture landscape of days past.
Can’t you also imagine that there were at least a couple of made-for-TV movies thrown into the canon near the end of the run? That feels like a standard practice for the era, and I’d certainly like to get a look at those.
In reality, we didn’t hit peak zombie culture until the mid-2000s so the 1990s really weren’t ready for The Walking Dead on the small screen. Again, all of the angst would have made the walkers seem like no real threat at all. Heck, 90s kids were half zombies anyway. Maybe that would have been the real The Walking Dead.
