For the Twilight Zone fan on your Holiday Gift list, this box set of all 156 episodes is perfect. This package lists for $49.99 but you can find it much reduced online. I watched The Twilight Zone as a kid until my sister, Eileen, watched the Pig People episode (while hiding behind the couch) and freaked out. Eileen couldn’t sleep for weeks! My angry parents banned The Twilight Zone from that point. Fortunately, I caught up on the episodes I missed on Late Night TV. What is your favorite episode of The Twilight Zone?
I wasn’t a regular watcher of TZ. I remember watching some, specifically the one with Wm. Shatner in the plane. I also remember one of a man who finally was able to get access to a library, then lost his glasses in a calamity. I watched even less outer limits. I probably watched more Alfred Hitchcock’s, though none come to mind.
I have over 300 shows taped, so really have to catch up on those. (probably have 150 Johnny Carsons)
Maggie, our DVR is at 64% because we recorded plenty of programs during the THANKSGIVING holidays. But many of our regular programs are going on “Winter Break” starting next week (they’ll be back in February) so this will allow us to catch up.
Winter break? TV shows go on winter break? They really don’t give a hoot about anything but money for commercials, do they? The viewers? No.
Oh and I have to enter my name and other information again, now.
Rick, the TV networks and cable networks know audiences wants “Specials” during the Holiday Season. They put their regular series programs on “hiatus” until February, the next Sweeps Month.
my dvr is still only at 22% as I have a lot of storage space It’s taking the time to watch!!
Maggie, we have about 100 hours of TV shows recorded on our DVR. Too much! We need to chip away and get the percentage down below 50%!
Maggie, the Alfred Hitchcock one I remember – the one that totally freaked me out as a kid – was the one with the nurses in the house with an escaped lunatic in the area (An Unlocked Window). And The Roald Dahl story, Lamb to the Slaughter, with Barbara Bel Geddes. And (another Dahl story), Man From the South, with Steve McQueen as the guy who bets a finger he can light his lighter ten times in a row. (I’d thought that was Twilight Zone but it was Hitchcock.)
I read the story of that nurses in the house one recently, though I can’t remember where as I was reading a lot of short stories then.
It’s A Good Life based on a Jerome Bixby story. Watched the show every week when it first aired. Also watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Outer Limits. A lot of these are disappointing to watch now because of low production values, plus I have seen them way to many times over the years.
Steve. “It’s a Good Life” is a great story and the TZ version is memorable. Good choice!
I read the Bixby story a few years ago. I agree they did a great job with the Billy Mumy episode.
Jeff, Jerome Bixby is an underrated writer. I’ll have to do an FFB on one of his books.
I have the collection on VHS – complete – but haven’t viewed it for a few years now. I kinda hang on to them for nostalgia sake and in reverence to the amazing show that it was (like I do all my Hitchcock VHS movies). Many great ones, some turkeys. One of my faves of the general day, and me thinks it might have been a Hitchcock show, was the wife serving her carved up husband to detectives who were at her house to investigate the disappearance of her husband. I surely loved too that one Maggie mentions with Burgess Meredith as the bookworm left behind “after the bomb” with the endless supply of books before the cruel and ironic ending.
Roy, that Burgess Meredith episode shocked me when I first saw it as a kid.
That’s my cringe-worthy favorite, hands down.
Oh, and I just thought of Serling’s later show, “Night Gallery.” Wasn’t bad, and I wonder if that’s around on DVD or something, anywhere? I haven’t seen the Twilight Zone movie of years later in a very long time, but recall thinking that it was decent too.
I fondly remember the one with Agnes Moorehead, “The Invaders.”
Jerry, I loved “The Invaders”! I’m pretty sure Agnes Moorhead never speaks a word in that episode. A masterful performance!
Just saw The Invaders last week. The Invader looked like a $10 toy robot. Can’t believe anyone would have been scared of that.
Steve, back in the early 1960s, that was “State of the Art.”
I missed “To Serve Man” when it was first shown, but I still remember the surprise it gave me when I did see it–circa 1980. Many of the shows have now been seen and parodied so much–especially on The Simpsons–that they’ve lost some of their punch, but I still enjoy “To Serve Man”, “The Hitchhiker”, and the one where competing groups of aliens are stranded with a group of bus riders at a diner. Also, every time I see the one with Bill Mumy as the boy who terrorizes the whole town, I keep hoping someone will finally bring a brick down on his head!
Deb, Damon Knight’s short story, “To Serve Man,” shocked people when it was published. The TZ version based on the short story still possesses the power to surprise.
There was many a night when I had to have every corner of my room checked out before going to sleep. And I sometimes wonder if my insomnia began then.
Patti, after my six-year old sister watched that Pig People episode she was freaked out for years! Bad dreams and insomnia! THE TWILIGHT ZONE had the ability to stay in your mind after you watched some of those great episodes!
Of course, the “ugly” woman in that episode was the gorgeous Elly Mae Clampett, Donna Douglas.
Jeff, I knew that and told my parents I wasn’t to blame for my little sister’s freak-out, but my pleadings fell on deaf ears after nights of my sister’s scary dreams and crying. THE TWILIGHT ZONE was banned in our house after that incident.
I really can’t understand why that episode would have scared her so much.
Rick, my sister was 6-years-old with a vivid imagination. She hid herself behind the couch and watched that episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE with the Pig People. That triggered scary dreams and waking up crying for months. My parents were not amused. They blamed THE TWILIGHT ZONE and, indirectly, me.
The one with Burgess Meredith is my favorite.
Bill, the horror on Meredith’s face at the end is burned into my memory. A powerful episode!
As a kid, the one with Burgess Meredith (Time Enough at Last) was my favorite too, but I also love Richard Matheson’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (with Shatner). Also The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and The Invaders (the Agnes Moorehead, also written by Matheson) and A Stop at Willoughby and the spooky Living Doll (“My name is Talky Tina”) by Charles Beaumont.
Jeff, I think the secret to THE TWILIGHT ZONE’s success was the great stories many of those episodes were based on!
We looked at the box in Costco, by the way, and even though we didn’t pull the trigger we will probably get it.
Jeff, I’ve seen this package reduced by 50% of the list price. A bargain!
Jackie mentioned The Invaders and the Burgess Meredith.
Jeff, Jackie has impeccable taste!
My favorite is probably the Willoughby episode: a stressed commuter falls asleep on the train and “wakes up” when the train stops at Willoughby, a town still in the early 1900s. After just viewing this idyllic burg a couple of time, he decides to get off.
If I saw Willoughy from my train window, I have gotten off in a heartbeat.
Beth, no Trump signs in WILLOUGHBY!
And there’s that great little moment at the end (SPOILER) after the man dies and his body is loaded into a hearse bearing the sign of Willoughby & Sons Funeral Home.
That episode has the late-fifties rat race vibe where the guy just can’t hack his advertising job any longer. Shades of Made Men?
Mad Men
Was it Gig Young in that episode?
No. I checked and it was James Daly, father of Tyne and Michael. Gig Young was in the somewhat similar “Walking Distance.”
Oops, that is Tim Daly.