Beauty and the Beast is a television series that aired 1987-1990, a hard-to-categorize drama that starred Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. Linda played a socialite lawyer who was looking for more purpose for her life, and Ron portrayed a man of indeterminate origins, who as a foundling found an unlikely home beneath the subterranean subway tunnel system beneath New York City, due to his appearance.

The series was created by Ron Koslow and filmed at Republic Studios (now dubbed the CBS Studio Center), among other places. The opening and closing theme song, and the soundtrack for the first episode, were composed by Lee Holdridge. Dan Davis composed the background music for the remainder of the series. The series was produced by Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas, who had previously produced Designing Women and went on to produce other television series such as Golden Girls. An amusing tidbit: some of the costumes that originated on Designing Women were recycled for use in Beauty and the Beast, and subsequently recycled once more for use in Golden Girls. Speaking of costumes, Judy Evans is the designer of the original, distinctive, earth tone “tunnel togs”, among other pieces. Rick Baker is the special-effects artist who brought Vincent’s face to life with the creation of an original, custom latex appliance; Margaret Beserra-Prentice applied the prosthetic appliance and makeup to Ron Perlman’s face throughout the series.

The series garnered fans, of course, and conventions became an annual occurrance. In the beginning, such specific Beauty and the Beast conventions were highly commercialized, grand gatherings featuring heavy merchandising and appearances by many of the principle actors and award-winning people behind the scenes. After the original airing, interest waned and the companies sponsoring these events stopped. The fandom itself began taking over the roles of organizing these gatherings, and now, each year, established fan clubs in major cities in the United States and Europe volunteer their time and money to the effort. Beauty and the Beast conventions have become family reunions for many of its fans, some of whom have been meeting annually for twenty years.

Beauty and the Beast fandom enjoys a solid, online presence, with fanclubs throughout the world, online and offline, producing their own newsletters, fan-made zines, crafts, art, products, and other items that pertain to the television series. There exist a number of personal websites, such as thetunnels.com, that display a specific fan’s or group’s artistic efforts.

thetunnels.com, the domain, was purchased in 1999, and has been in continual use ever since. It was hoped that the site would become a community site, with features and content of interest to all fans of the television series. Instead, it continues to be one fan’s offering to the rest of fandom, the homepage for music videos, original music, and fanfic.

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