tv show

[Susan]

I used to (when most were aired on tv) watch all the good sci-fi horror shows. Twilight Zone, Hitchcock, night gallery, outer limits..etc. Usually I remember stories and can associate them with the show. One eludes me for i don't know for certain. The jist of it is a man is..what i think a car accident. Anyhow it's in black and white, and they find him dead. Only..he's NOT dead! He can see, hear, think (in fact the whole show you hear his confused thoughts) and he's eventually taken to the morgue. I remember a climactic ending where he wanted to lift a finger or something and nobody saw it. Then a tear rolled down his face as he was frustrated before the autopsy and someone said "look!", to which the mortician replied that it was a normal after death occurance.

The reason this got to me is years ago I heard true stories of people who were seemingly dead but their heart was just so slow that doctors couldn't detect it or chucked it up to post mortom eratic electrical impulses or some such thing. It wasn't a common thing at all..just something they were making issue of.

Anyhow does this story sound familiar and what was the show it came from? Twilight zones always had a twist ending, hitchcocks bordered on bizarre to morbid and I want to think it was between the two. But hitchcock never reruns to my knowledge so i haven't seen it in years. But it may have been another series

[Luke Bannon (too lazy to log)]

I think I know the show you're talking about, but I too forget it! Curses!

[Cullen]

Stephen King mentions this story in Everything's Eventual .  It's the one entitled Autospy Room something or other.  He mentions it in his closing remarks.  (I think it is one of Hitchcock's shows)

Also, when you do find out, tell us.  It'll drive me nuts if you don't.

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[Ash]

I haven't seen the one you're talking about but there's a Tales From the Crypt episode starring Beau Bridges who injects his younger brother with a glowing yellow serum and causes the same thing to happen.  Seen it?

[Susan]

Well i'm glad i'm not the only one. If king credits it as a hitchock story that I would have to presume it was a hitchcok show at some point. It was one of the more memorable classic shows I remember, I used to love friday nights back in the mid 80's because they had a whole slew of new and old horror movies and sci-fi tv shows lined up all evening. Now they're all scattered about and i'm lucky to even find em...cept twilight zone. I'll go do some internet hunting now, was just hoping someone here knew for "certain" to put my mind at ease. ;-)  

The same thing happened (kinda) with a twilight zone episode starring the actress (who played scout) in "To kill a mockingbird" where her and her brother jump in a swimming pool and go through some kind of dimension and end up in a happy place with an old woman who cooks and cares for kids from troubled homes who eventually come to live with her forever. (tho it reminded me more of hansel and gretel for i always had a fear of that womans real intensions in fattening them up!) Anyhow everytime that little girl was in the "real world" her voice was diffreent..it was like the voice i've heard in rudolph claymations and stuff. After much searching it turns out a completely different person DID to her voice. I think it was because there was so much traffic noise or something they all had to redub themself but she was unavailable or something.  Sometimes a show sticks out in my mind and I have to have something answered about it.

Kids today just don't realize! Back before computers were mainstream if you couldn't figure out something and nobody you knew had the answer..you could be screwed for life! Now everything is a point and click away..all your questions answered.

ash - i DID see that episode and it was awsome! Kinda cheesy as tales from the crypt could be but it was the same concept only more malicious. All I remember is the final scene and a brain saw! egads!

[Chadzilla]

Joseph Cotton played the not-dead-just-paralyzed dude, they also did it as a radio play on Inner Sanctum or some other suspense anthology show long before the advent of that telly thing.  Ironically Cotton supplied the voice for the radio play character as well.

[John]

>The jist of it is a man is..what i think a car accident. Anyhow it's in black and white, >and they find him dead. Only..he's NOT dead!

>Joseph Cotton played the not-dead-just-paralyzed dude

 Joseph Cotten is listed as having guest starred in three episodes of the original Alfred Hitchcock;

Dead Weight
Together
Breakdown

 Unfortunately, I couldn't find an episode guide that has descriptions. I did check epguides.com and there's no episode listed called Autopsy Room. Also, I'm pretty sure I saw this same story as one of the episodes of the 1985 Alfred Hitchcock show, but it was set in a south American country.

>Anyhow everytime that little girl was in the "real world" her voice was diffreent..it >was like the voice i've heard in rudolph claymations

I never knew the reason for this, but I did notice the change and if I'm not mistaken, the dubbed voice was June Foray, the voice of Rocky on Rocky & Bullwinkle and who also did the voice for Talking Tina in the TZ episode with Telly Savalas. She also reprised that role for an episode of Weird Science where they were watching a TZ-like show and the episodes started becoming real. They spoofed several popular TZ episodes. The Talking Tina doll gets dropkicked. :)

[Susan]

>> never knew the reason for this, but I did notice the change and if I'm not mistaken, the dubbed voice was June Foray, the voice of Rocky on Rocky & Bullwinkle<<

Yeah that's it. It's been awhile since i looked all that up on the net so i forgot the details, it was an extensive search but I was glad to see i wasn't the only one who noticed. As for that show I hope somebody here finds out for sure if it was a hitchcock episode. I remember it clearly, because even as he lay there on the ground he got mugged..but it was clearly a classic (nothing made in the 70's and up)

Wow, i totally forgot weird science was a show.

I loved sci-fi shows of the day, currently I don't like any and frankly I never was into the 'x-files' ...suprisingly. I think my love of these shows died with the new twilight zone (although there WERE 2 episodes of that I did like - the guy who travels back in prehistoric time and steps on a butterfly and changes the future and the one where the guy and his wife wakes up inbetween the seconds where men appear and completely replace everything for the next second. It explained why keys and socks get lost). THo i watched I just couldn't get into stuff like "Monsters"...maybe part of it was that it was colorized. I was so used to my disturbed tv shows being black and white...plus the really good writers died or retired.

[John]

>As for that show I hope somebody here finds out for sure if it was a hitchcock
>episode.

I found it! I don't know why the epguides page wasn't linked to the full guide, but a Google search turned it up;

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

It's the episode named Breakdown. This page has a description of the remake, also with the same title;

Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1985

>suprisingly. I think my love of these shows died with the new twilight zone

Have you watched any episodes of the current Twilight Zone? I don't think it'll last very long. :(

>(although there WERE 2 episodes of that I did like

I liked a few of them;

To See the Invisible Man - A guy is convicted of being insensitive, so they sentence him to a year of being invisible. They put a thing on his forehead that he can't remove and everyone has to ignore him. At one point he bumps into a girl with the same thing on her head and begs her to talk to him, but she just runs away. After the year is over and he's welcomed back into society, he runs into her again and this time, she begs him not to ignore her. At first he starts to walk away, but then he realizes that that is exactly the kind of thing he was guilty of before, so he turns around and hugs her, even though it means getting in trouble again.

Quarantine -  A weapons designer is woken up from cryogenic suspension in the future, after Earth has suffered some disaster and many people left. It's a peaceful world where the people live without technology and concentrate on developing their mental powers. They tell him that a huge asteroid is heading toward the Earth and they need his help to destroy it using one of the defense satellites in orbit. He helps them, but at the last moment discovers that they tricked him and it's actually a ship coming back to Earth. He tries to stop the satellite, but they sabotage the equipment and the ship is destroyed in a nuclear explosion, confirming their fears that it was carrying weapons and would have brought back all the problems of the old world. Sadly this story ran longer than 30 minutes and is butchered in syndication.

The Cold Equations - Perfect adaption of a short story of the same name by Tom Godwin. A girl stows away on an emergency spaceship in order to see her brother, but she learns that the ship doesn't have enough fuel to compensate for her extra weight. It's too late to turn back and if the colony doesn't get the medicine, many people will die, including her brother. So she does the only thing she can do and sacrifices herself for the sake of others. I'd read this story a couple years before and was quite surprised to see it turn up as a New Twilight Zone episode. It was also made into a lousy movie for the SFC.

>THo i watched I just couldn't get into stuff like "Monsters"...

I liked both Monsters and Tales from the Darkside. Actually, I consider them mostly interchangable. It you took the titles and credits off them, someone who had never seen them before wouldn't be able to tell the difference between most of them.

How about Darkroom, hosted by James Coburn? That had some pretty good stories. I also liked Ghost Story/Circle of Fear.

[Susan]

Thank you SO much johN! That was it, only it's been so long since i have seen it I forgot the last details of the final twist..because it was the finger he moved they noticed that he had been working hard to do, and they dismissed it as the after-death reflex and were going to go ahead and cut him up until he cried. Thanks for doing the research on that, i'm going to actually have fun going through this site and remembering some of the episodes (since i never see the show anymore)

I don't reember the new TZ episodes you mentioned..i didn't watch the show much and I don't think it ran that long or reran later. The only other one I remember had to do with a guy...well it was JUST like "The truman show" in that he realized that his boring life was a tv show and the #1 hit. I don't know how he could be oblivious to it nor how anyone could keep him from finding out. After finding out about the cameras and such he agreed to stay on even tho he was upset about it at first. But it wasn't the same, because he became aware he was on tv all the time and kept trying to 'perform', so his ratings fell. ;-)


Didn't like monsters, but I too liked "tales from the darkside". I used to have the opening line memorized, i enjoyed saying it when the show came on...just like the twilight zone theme...lol. The problem with the 80's shows is that there were quite a few of them so when i remember certain episodes I sometimes get them mixed up and don't know which belonged to which show. Mostly i can associate classic b&w's with the right show. I don't remember "Darkroom"? I sorta watched "Friday the 13th" but only because it was on that friday night lineup we had here of sci-horror fest. Any show that might have come on after 1990 I don't believe I watched, not many even aired but if they did on sci-fi channel or whatever i didn't have anything to do with them. They just weren't the same. I'm just suprised i never got into x-files since i always liked weird shows with the twist and darkside, every once in awhile now I catch a rerun. Some are good, some aren't.

[Dano]

In Victorian times when embalming wasn't all that common and doctors lacked some of the competencies they have today, it apparently wasn't unheard of to hear someone suddenly shout "HE'S BREATHING!!" at a wake.  Some people even went so far as to design coffins with little breathing tubes sticking out from the ground and flags they could raise from their tubes just in case they weren't really dead and suddenly woke up while buried alive.  Don't know whether this ever actually came in handy to anyone, but if I had been a teenager in Victorian times, I sure as hell would have tried the old fake flag in the breathing tube trick.
: )

[John]

>Thank you SO much johN! That was it,

 No problem. I like tracking down things like this. Well, I do when I can find them, when I come up empty, it's just annoying. :)

 I also know how annoying it can be to partially remember something and not be able to place it.

>I too liked "tales from the darkside". I used to have the opening line memorized

"Man lives in the sun-lit world of what he believes to be, reality. But... There is, unseen by most, an underworld. A place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit. A darkside."

Yes, it's true, I can remember trivial facts about a TV show from years ago, but I have trouble remembering what I had for dinner the previous day. :)

>I don't remember "Darkroom"?

Each episode started out with a camera zooming through a house at floor level until it came to the darkroom. Then James Coburn would introduce each story (I think there were two per episode). One had Helen Hunt convinced that a guy was a vampire, but it turns out that he's a werewolf instead. Another had the girlfriend of a man about to be executed seducing the executioner and poisoning him. Seems if he dies before he can put the blade in the guillotine and carry out the execution, the prisoner goes free. He dies but when they check his pulse and drop his hand, it hits the release lever. Another one had a couple taking in a homeless guy to replace the uncle (or whomever) who had just died so that they could keep getting the disability checks. Only problem is that the uncle lost his legs in a train accident and the imposter has to be able to pass the monthly inspections.

>I sorta watched "Friday the 13th"

I originally passed on it fearing it would be stupid, but then I caught the episode with the killer scarecrow and I was hooked.

>i never got into x-files

I was a huge fan, but the show got a little too carried away and left lots of plot threads hanging. I hear they're planning another movie.

[Susan]

>>"Man lives in the sun-lit world of what he believes to be, reality. But... There is, unseen by most, an underworld. A place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit. A darkside."<<

lol! Wonder if the guy who did the voice ever did anything else noteworthy

That darkroom show sounds pretty morbid. Did it run that long? I thougth I used to watch all those types of shows.

Oh and re: Friday the 13th, I remember I quit watching when they replaced the main character with a cousin or something. But by then I think i had it with "new" sci-horror shows.

the "x-files" probably will have another movie. Everytime i see the movie on cable I only can get a quarter through it before losing interest. I guess it'll be like the star trek next generation..going on and on where no sci-show has gone before..sequel hell. I liked TNG but only the first few seasons..after that it wasn't good. And the movies always feel like an extended version of the show...like it wants to be a real movie but it's just a pinnochio.

I was a pretty big fan of "night gallery", one of the few i'm sure. I think it was a chance to see the darker side of rod serling...because we knew he could go there.

And he did

[John]

>lol! Wonder if the guy who did the voice ever did anything else noteworthy

 A few things;

Paul Sparer

>That darkroom show sounds pretty morbid. Did it run that long?

There were 7 episodes from 11/27/81 to 01/15/82. You can read brief descriptions of the episodes here;

Darkroom

>Oh and re: Friday the 13th, I remember I quit watching when they replaced the
>main character with a cousin or something.

Ryan reverted to a child and they replaced him with a friend, Johnny.

>I was a pretty big fan of "night gallery", one of the few i'm sure. I think it was a
>chance to see the darker side of rod serling...because we knew he could go
>there.

Me too. I've read that Serling wasn't really happy with Night Gallery. He didn't have that much control over it. In syndication they added in episodes of an unrelated show, The Sixth Sense, and chopped all the episodes up into 30 minute segments.