Need help with old sci/fi type show

[Ash]

Yeah I remember Darkroom!

I remember that the opening sequence of that show always creeped me out.
I don't remember any of the stories though.

[Dave Munger]

There was one called "The Inner Sanctum" about which I remember nothing. I probably just heard of it and never saw it. Might have been a TV version of an old radio show, or maybe they just used the same name. Amazing Stories was a little dissapointing for me, because I like that magazine and thought it might be like that. I think the episodes were a little too long and cute/sentimental/orange for me. The blocky handed aliens episode sounds kind of like the one where the aliens came here because they liked our TV shows like Lucy. Could they take pictures with their heads like an instant camera? It was funny, but too similar to the great Tales From The Dark Side episode "Distant Signals". Another great opening (TFTDS). One time in high school I noticed  a girl muttering to herself and I listened, she was reciting the opening to that show. In retrospect, I probably should have proposed. Another Amazing Stories I remember had this high school kid working on a chemical to bring porn to life (?!?!). Kind of seemed to be part of the zeitgeist at the time, like Weird Science.

[peter johnson]

Inner Sanctum was indeed taken from old-time radio -- short-lived on TV 'cause it didn't have the vision of the radio show.
Of course I remember the Hitchhiker, The Dark Side (George Romero anthology series!  Great stuff, a lot of it.), and I'm shocked . . .shocked!  that noone mentions Night Gallery.  "The Sin Eater" is a fantabulous episode, ditto "The Messiah on Mott St."(Edward G. Robinson).
The new Outer Limits TV syndicated series can be brilliant or not -- check out the episode where Joel Grey builds himself a new "son"  -- creepy as all getout.
peter johnson/denny crane

[trekgeezer]

I remember the old Outer Limits, especially one called the Galaxy Being . Cliff Robertson accidently brings a  being down from another planet by radio wave.  Anyway I was only eight and  it scared the crap  out me.

There was another series, not really scifi, called  The Storyteller on HBO back in the late 80's. It starred John Hurt as the storyteller and it was made by the Jim Henson company. I think most ot the stories were based on European fairy tales.

[JohnL]

>Never heard of Thriller...will definately have to check it out! If you have any more

Thriller is an older show hosted by Boris Karloff. SciFi used to show it, before they got rid of all the old shows (except Twilight Zone and Outer Limits)

>you know of, I would be grateful. :)

Besides the ones already mentioned, There's also the 80's version of The Twilight Zone. TNT shows it occasionally late at night, but the first season has been butchered to make it fit a half hour format.

Then there's the recent UPN version which wasn't bad.

A while back there was also Night Visions, which was a little darker than the Twilight Zone versions. Only lasted one season. SciFi airs it occasionally.

>For some reason I have been trying to purchase many of these old episodes
>from various ...hmmm, what would the right name for these type of shows be?

An "anthology" is the proper name for something which contains individual, stand-alone stories. I've seen this term used for series of this type, movies like the original Tales From the Crypt and books of unrelated stories.

>The best one I can remember was called "The Well" or something like that.

David Carradine was the owner of the farm, and not a very nice person. While working on the well, he lowers something (I forget what) into it and when he pulls it up, there's some coins or jewels and a note. He investigates more and lowers a flashlight into the well, which is also replaced by treasure. So he decides to lower a whole bucket of flashlights, but they just come up ruined. Apparently whatever lived in the well didn't need any more. He gets mad and decides to go down and teach them a lesson, so he has his wife/girlfriend lower him into the well. When she pulls him up, his suit is empty and treasure spills out along with a note. Somewhere along the way the creatures also learn to write English and the note says something like "Thank you for the food."

>There was also "Darkroom" with James Coburn as the host. The short-lived
>series ran somewhere around '81 or '82...anyone remember this one?

Yup! The episode I always think of when someone mentions this show is the one about a young Helen Hunt stalking a guy that she thinks is a vampire responsible for a series of attacks in the area. Or the one where a condemned man gets his girlfriend to poision the executioner because according to local custom, if he dies before carrying out the execution, the next man to be executed goes free. It looks like he got away with it, until the executioner staggers into the courtyard carrying the guillotine blade.

>Inner Sanctum was indeed taken from old-time radio

There was also Tales of Tomorrow, which SciFi used to air.

[nobody]

You can buy all those storyteller episodes on one DVD for very, very cheap (under $20) on Amazon.com. It's a great buy.

[Ozzymandias]

The opening of Inner Sanctum on radio was the sound of a door to a crypt being opened. The door was a creaking steel door. Stephen King's theory about it's failure on TV was "They couldn't find a door that looked as nasty and horrible as the one on radio sounded."

Inner Sanctum inspired the Tales from the Crypt comic book.

[twsmith]

And then there was the Freddy's Nightmares anthology, which while it didn't last long, was interesting watching.

[Dave Munger]

I always liked Freddy's Nightmares WAY more than the Elmstreet movies. It was probably about the closest thing I've seen to The Twilight Zone besides the actual TZ.

[RMikeH]

Well how old r u, first of all? I am 33 and the series that comes to mind for me is : CBS 1980 "Cliff Hangers"   NBC 1983-84 "Dark Room"

[loyal1]

I am 28, but I figured out what it was I was thinking of-amazing stories.  However, I would like to buy some of the old shows of the like no matter when they were made.

[racdrums]

There were so many good sci fi shows I loved.   A couple were Tales of Tomorrow and Lights Out from the 50's.   Tales of Tomorrow has an episode where Lon Chaney jr. plays Frankestein.  The thing that is sad about this one is that Chaney was drunk while live on the air and thought it was a rehearsal.  When he is supposed to have a mad fit and destroy furniture and other items he gently pics them up and goes through the motions and just sets them back down.  If you ever get a chance to see that one you'll get a kick out of it.

[JohnL]

>Tales of Tomorrow has an episode where Lon Chaney jr. plays Frankestein.
>The thing that is sad about this one is that Chaney was drunk while live on the air
>and thought it was a rehearsal. When he is supposed to have a mad fit and
>destroy furniture and other items he gently pics them up and goes through the
>motions and just sets them back down. If you ever get a chance to see that one
>you'll get a kick out of it.

If I'm not mistaken, that's one of the three episodes on the Tales of Tomorrow DVD I bought (I still haven't watched it).