 This is the SF Productions podcast network See back before all the video was put directly in the computer memory in the comnet people used to tape shows Let me see There's a tape already in here. Let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got Back with us to the 60s and 70s the dwelling place of the lost generation an era whose heroes role models and very lives Were molded and formed by weekly installments of favorite television programs Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand welcome to the vast wasteland welcome home Welcome to another exciting episode of vast wasteland I'm your host marks mid-bar along with Wilbert Neil and Marty Wiley And we're here on our beginning of our second season Talking about 60s and 70s television. You couldn't be more proud and pleased Before we jump into the festivities just want to tell you as usual our schedule remains the same Tuesdays at 6 Wednesdays at 10 and Thursdays at 3 here on easy TV cable 21 Also, if you want to write to us write to vast wasteland box 15 15 26 Columbus, Ohio 43 2 1 5 Well tonight on vast wasteland We go into something. We're now in October. We're Moving toward Halloween, and it's time for shows that go bump in the night The anthology series of the 60s and 70s that really were weird kind of stuff And let's go on to Wilbert with our first point for the evening Wilbert. Okay. Well by gallow To it Okay Well, there were there were quite a few of these anthology series there Maybe a couple of them really stood out, but I'll I'll go through and mention a few of the others here Why don't you go mention a few of those? I think I'll go through and mention a few of the others, okay? That'll sound real nice. Okay One step beyond actually began in 1959 but it did carry over into the 60s, and so I'll mention that I don't really remember one step beyond all that Well, I might have seen a couple episodes probably on reruns. Well, most definitely on reruns I was only Wouldn't really remember seeing the original one, but I did remember seeing some of the reruns Well, that was there was originally called how coa presents presents one step beyond okay, it was a completely different kind of One of those there was really a holdover from the 50s of the single sponsored anthology program general electric theater and craft Playhouse and so forth and some of these stories actually dealt with Real-life kind of things like you see one here the Peter Herco story. He was a an actual guy but a lot of them are just things that were kind of just slightly off-center kind of make you think you know just little a little strange and then Another one called thriller, which I really don't remember at all which was in the 60s was ran from 60 to 62 actually and By golly looks like had Vincent Price here and well not that surprise Peter lips Boris the Okay Just like Vincent Price only different. Yeah Exactly one of those Anyway, I just don't remember this one at all. Although. I know a lot of people have seen it and This this was like really weird stuff Scaredy things boys and girls. Oh, it's good But then one of the big ones one of the big ones probably one of the big ones One of the big ones we're looking at them twilight zone. There you go. I like zone Yeah, that's one of the big ones there with Rod Serling. This was Rod Serling's big one Rod had been in TV for a while there He'd been writing scripts and things and then he got together decided to do this show and I said, okay Go ahead and it just really took off. Now. This was this was off-center shows. This was scary things This was science fiction. We heard stuff. This was all of them. They're all together Watching gosh, I probably started watching Twilight Zone before I even knew what an age was This was one of the first shows I really remember seeing Twilight Zone, this was this was great and one of the Let me see if I can remember one of the first ones I ever remember on Twilight Zone. Gosh, I Can't it was just like remember the first one, but I was like young like Around in there and it was like one of those shows you snuck to watch Cuz you knew mom and dad didn't want you watching that weird stuff So for me, it was like ooh, I'm getting away with something That and Outer Limits were like that because they were on late, right? You could probably only see them on Fridays or Saturday nights when you were allowed to stay up late So it was like ooh, they don't know I'm staying of watching this Well now we have the obligatory question favorite zone episodes Hey, I Know one right off. I'm trying to find it Burgess Meredith. Well Burgess Mary He did quite a few episodes Yeah, that that one right Where is the librarian He's like a business man or something and books are his thing right and he read books all the time and He never has time enough to read books and he just reads anytime. He has a chance and What he does is he was he works in a bank. Yeah, that's right And so at lunchtime he sneaks into the vault just so he could be alone to read his books and the vault door closes and Nuclear war ensues, but he survives and he's the only one left on earth supposedly And so he so he's making this big thing He's got these piles of books in the you know in the steps of the destroyed library And I'm gonna read this pile and I'll read this pile and and then he slips and his glasses fall off And it's the only bear glasses he has Oh And it scared me boy. Oh, yeah, I was like it was like mom. I want a second pair of Ready-to-go case something like this happens I want him ready to roll Okay, let's see There's um, well bear just married if he had like at least a couple more episodes. He had one where He these um, I guess it was like Martians came down and gave him super strength And so he was able to He was just had all the super strength for like I don't know a few hours If not a full day, it was like just before he got to go on TV with it The strength was gone, but he was able to do a lot of things But then after that these venusians came down and gave him a super brains He was like he was able to figure things out and it was it was just they kept doing okay. Mr. Dingle the strong That's that that was that episode and then there's um Gosh, I cannot find this that way anyway was one where Bill Moomey was um, this kid who could make things happen He like made He just makes scary things like when they did Twilight's on the movie They did that but and actually they had Billy Moomey in in that episode But um this one they was he was just a little kid and he was he lived in the country and I remember the last thing He did was he made his uncle or somebody into a jack-in-the-box and he was just real scary And they told him to wish it out into the cornfield or wish it away So they wish it out into the cornfield and you never got to see it But you saw the shadow of it now that one scared me usually this shadow of a jack-in-the-box out in the cornfield It's like a big jack-in-the-box and it used to be his uncle So you know, it's a real guy and it's it was just scary Oh, oh, we're being we're being told it's Billy Billy mummy mummy even though he only has one M in there I always thought it was Moomey myself We'll discuss hobbits later. Yeah, that's it's hobbits, but right. That's a that's a whole that's a whole another hole in the ground Okay, before we certainly before we leave zone we have that friend of mine said you have to mention this or Uh, is I can't remember the name of the episode. I don't know. I'm not a kill me. I don't know Uh, the episode where the uh, the guy gets the book and uh, the aliens are like Aliens show up and they're like, uh, he's like a uh Translator and he's trying to figure out what this book means the episode is called to serve man Yeah, that I should have remembered that and uh, it turns out that yep The name of the book is to serve man and no, they're not gonna help man. They're gonna cook man It's a cookbook I think gonna get the who was it. Um, it wasn't Ted Cassidy. It was the other guy Richard keel I think was the it might have been Ted Cassidy one of those interchangeable One of those interchangeable tall guys Who was the alien and he's he's laughing and the guy's trying to say it's a cookbook It's a cookbook and he's closing the spaceship. Ha ha ha. He'll never get out now because everybody's like Going because this this is a great deal and everything's wonderful and they're gonna help us so much and it's like no you bulls You're gonna And it's like they took this they took this episode and they turned it into a whole series v Was actually probably based on this series Because they they put all the people in the spaceship and they took them away Pretty much the same darn thing all from this one episode Of course, there's the nightmare at 20,000 feet, which is one of my favorites William Shatner Well, you got William Shatner in one of his multiple appearances on Twilight Zone and he's he's a guy who's he doesn't like to fly Anyway, but yet he's got to fly and he's in there and he's nervous anyway. He looks out the window and here's this ugly gremlin looking at him Got his lip all turned up All this fuzzy hairs fuzzy body and he's out there ripping up the wing on the airplane And he's like nobody believes it. Right. And so he finally gets a gun and shoots the thing William Shatner can't act They get a gun and shoot him and it's like they had to wheel him away and it's like uh That one you don't really well you did get to see the wing and there was like some damage But when they did the movie it was like there was a lot of damage on the wing Well, this is true, but anyway And certainly one more the Episode eye of the beholder Almost what you could use as a typical zone episode pretty much, you know of the weird twist at the end It's this it's this beautiful woman. Well, actually, you don't you don't know. It's a beautiful woman. It's this It's all from her Viewpoint under the bandages and these bandages and so you see these shadows and people think oh, she's horribly disfigured And they're gonna go on and and they try one more operation And it doesn't work But they take out the bandages and she's a fabulous babe And they and there was like what's the deal and then they switch angles And other doctors are all these horrible looking pig creatures and it's on another planet That's like, I don't know if you can see this This one the Michael Jackson zoom in is there any way to zoom on that picture? It's Or not Oh, they're scary. Look at them There it is. Oh, aren't they terrible. But these were the beautiful people. Yeah on this. Yeah, and I think um, Donna Douglas or somebody was like the babe Yeah, it was Donna Douglas. Yeah, it's ellie may come ellie may She was the babe and it's like she's the horribly disfigured one But they send her away with all these other horribly disfigured people who are just like normal people to ask, you know Then she frequent she sees herself. Oh, yeah, she freaks real bad and she does and they're all like, what's her problem? You know, they're like, well, okay. Well, we'll send her to these people because they're all horribly disfigured too And it's just like normal guys, right? It's okay. And then he realizes That was one of my years. I thought that was all just perspective That's right Well, yeah, I mean if you go back and look at it, sure, but that first time you see it Excuse me. So you guys were scared by twilight zone. You were it had some it had some scary things So that was my big you gotta look I'm like four and five looking at this show Until I was older Exactly. I was like, eight or nine Here's Richard keel with his big head and that deserved man episode Pretty exciting. Whoa, look at that. Oh Whoa, there's big head the big head in the episode deserved man The big headed tall alien Not that he wasn't tall this head as an extra six or seven inches to us He needed it too. Yeah Oh, let's move right along here. They that's right. Okay. Let me see. There were ones like, um Well, okay, you ought to move right into the big one the outer limits I used to believe they were taking over my tv As they had that gradient do not attempt to adjust your television. Oh, I wouldn't love such as knots anyway horizontal We can make it off fuzzy blur or bring it into our crystal clarity For the next hour, we'll have control over your whole darn life So yeah, it's better watching because we are the outer limits and there was an episode on there that That used to just let me see if I can find a picture. It was one about, um These darn giant ants it's called the zady misfits and they landed in this, uh, this southwestern, um base kind of place and I think it was like a rocket base almost anyway It was like a ghost town and there were these big ants that had like faces And they would come around they'd come around their eyes would bow around and then go They'd get on people they'd be all over these people And you find out and so the people all got together at the base and they pretty much killed them They'd stomp on them. They'd shoot them whatever they did to kill them They'd set them on fire or whatever and so and you they get a message from a space saying Yeah, we knew you'd do it by golly you darn earthlings you kill everything that you get a hold of these were our prisoners We couldn't get rid of them. We sent them to you We want something destroyed. We'll send it to her because we knew you could do it you darn earthlings Okay, which one you think's creepier outer limits or twilight? Oh, um outer limits without a doubt. Yeah, because they tried to be creepier. Right. They were creepier I mean there were there were a lot of episodes twilight zone. They were almost there were like humorous. Yeah Oh, yeah, I mean and you really didn't see that in our limits at all. It was like We had to have the freak you out the week and there's and there's something interesting about our limits is the fact that that When abc and it is abc, right? Yeah who uh When they accepted the show it was on the premise that We want to see monsters and we want to see a monster within the first five minutes And that's how even if you watch the episodes most the episodes There's a monster in the first five minutes because they said oh, it's a monster show. We can get away with that Yeah And so a great deal outer limits in zone I saw rerun, you know, it was total rerun time for me I you know, I wasn't conscious I guess during those Early years when they were actually on I think that's what added to the creepiness though that they were on late at night Yeah, and they were kind of in my household. It's kind of forbidden Forbidden viewing No, not stay up and watch that young lady have nightmares and keep the rest of us up all night Well, by the way, I just want to tell the columbus audience that uh until recently zone was uh The exclusive rights for this area were owned by uh channel 28 But that just recently lapsed so when 43 in cleveland if you have cable and if you don't have cable You can't be watching our show. So, uh, we're gonna soon be able if you're watching our show and uh So 43 when they start showing zone and they do everyone so while we will we'll actually be able to see it And they won't black it out. So we couldn't be more pleased about that. Hey, it couldn't be happier All right They were just my goodness those zany myth is they they just they just kind of stick there That's like one of my episodes. I could just remember and then when they showed it again. Um channel 34 had it for a while Um making the early 70s or so they had them and I'd see those airs those hurt zanties That was just great. All right, gonna says just one of my favorite episodes on um outer limits Well, should we like chug into like one of my real favorites and I saw when it was done I guess I saw when it was done. I guess we all did. Yeah Night gallery That was like the show. Um rod serling's second venture into doing the um, but what did you kind of think? 60 no no 70 I was a little older when that one was 70 to 73. I was allowed to watch it Now the thing about that was that uh rod serling uh wanted to do another series But the network started screwing around with all the scripts And he said I don't have anything to do with the series and the network said no We have a contract with you to do the openings. So despite the fact he detested the series most of it He would he had to come on each time and do the opening Yeah, had neat pictures too, and it had some great stories. Yeah, a lot of them were like, um, let me see they would do like a long one And sometimes it would be a long one that would last for the whole show Or then they'd have like let me see was it was like a I guess it was an hour show And so they would have like maybe two somewhere hour and somewhere half hour or some sort of deal right Let's say like there was always a couple of stories Yeah, or somewhere like in that so they'd have like a long one maybe a couple long ones And then they had the little short quick ones which were some of my favorites Yeah, I like the short ones were a lot of the short ones were good like there's one about um Well these this um Couple they're sitting down there. They're like going to bed or something and here it is wasting about daddy I want to drink the water And the guy's trying to ignore it, you know and the wife says daddy Come on. He's your child. Oh, all right So he goes into the kitchen gets some water goes in and gives it to the kid The kid's this giant frankenstein monster, and he's in the crib. Thank you daddy takes the water splashes it over his face Because he misses his mouth. That was just one of the quick funny ones Hmm I don't remember that one That one was just one of my favorites. Uh, they were just a lot of real good ones. It's like they had the one about the um Let me see it was like a A nazi war criminal was trying to get away And he'd go to this art gallery and he'd see this picture this picture of somebody fishing And he just loved this picture. He'd like he'd think about it He'd think about it think about it and he would be into the picture and he'd be in there He'd be fishing he's um peaceful quiet. There's nobody chasing him or anything He's just real quiet and peaceful and then he finally got to know down to the time where they were Actually people chasing him because they realized who he was and he's running to the art gallery And uh, he goes in there to the place where the picture is he says let me get into the picture Let me get into the picture. Let me get into the picture and he screams And people come into the gallery. They're looking all around. They can't find him anywhere and they're looking around and they see this picture of uh Some uh singer somebody had been crucified And it's got this horrible expression of pain on his face And it's in the same place where the fishing picture used to be and they had moved the fishing picture someplace else And so the guys It could have been for for all you know, that's that was just a um A creepy way and and night gallery was actually uh now that it's in when it's in syndication They're showing night gallery along with episodes from another series Six cents. Yeah, they're actually they're re-editing them and supposedly they well, I mean According according to this one critic in one of my books They were like, oh, they they they took this show six cents and it was an hour long show and they made it into a half hour long Uh for syndication purposes and that makes it into this horrible thing Because it doesn't make any sense in a half hour format Well, it didn't always make a whole lot and besides gary collins is such a slow actor. Yeah, you really can't It's like let's let's speed it up I was like the six cents gary Let's go the girl. Let's go. Come on. I like that the night gallery shows always seem to have like it was like The opening and everything gave it such a sense of Of mystery and you know, it was intriguing. I don't know why I like the six cents probably because no one else in the house liked it so It's a power struggle thing Okay, let's see. Here's um another episode of um, oh Open other zone episodes. Well another night gallery and you can't get out Oh, man, tragically trapped. Um, let me see uh, there's a um A disc jockey who who dies and He well, no wait. No, he doesn't die. He goes he gets transferred to this new station That's um, like I guess it was like whell or something like And he's in there and he's setting it up and everything and he he's putting out records and it always playing something demonic Regardless of what record he puts on there's always something demonic playing and he's trying to figure it out And he's trying to he's going around. He's trying to fix it and he gets electrocuted. It's like it's like dj hell Like he's a dj. They didn't like him anymore So they sent him to this station and he gets electrocuted and that's that's how they got rid of it It was it was like a wild one and there's one where um, let me see john asked him goes to Well, he goes to hell he dies he goes to hell and he's um Says he wants to meet the devil and everything but he's like, um, he says okay So he meet the devil and the devil says well, okay. Well, here's where you're gonna be And He he he wants to see the fire to brimstone and everything He ends up with these old couple that's showing slides He's like, oh man bummer bummer It's comparable like a network executive being put at a ct The ultimate favorite of mine and my kids love it, um offered hitchcock Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. I like the one where The woman kills her husband with some frozen meat And they cooks and serves it to the cops destroying the evidence That's just so clever We see you see both zone and And hitchcock have both come back now Uh, at least in they were out there for a while and now Uh, usa picked up one or did they pick up that hitchcock and uh, and zone just kind of bopped all around the place It was on cbs for a while you know it was in syndication all over the place and uh I remember from uh from a hitchcock one of the um one of the uh Episode one of the newer episodes of hitchcock Was I believe robert conrad was playing this washed up actor And William shander Yeah, it was and parker parker stevenson was this other guy who's gonna replace him that one's beautiful And he's like he's like he realizes his career is over unless he gets rid of this young guy So he kills him and they show how he how I mean without actually showing the gore They show like the expressions on his face and all that he chops the guy apart with a chainsaw and then And then it dissolves him in acid, but the only thing left is the guy's head and then uh And then the guys from the studio show up and say we want to give you the part and they're trying to get in And he hides the head And they're like let's have a drink Ah Yeah, I freak the kids out real bad by having them sit down and watch this show And i'm sure they'll never get to an ice bucket as long as they live Oh, mom, there was a head in the ice box. No, no And we certainly seem to see uh even new series like uh like friday 13th the series and and the hitchhiker Tales from the dark side all stuff from the crypt Tales from the crypt Yeah, all these shows come up in the 80s because it's so it's certainly Uh the anthology format still seems to be viable at least in syndication The networks don't seem to want to want to touch it with a 10-foot ball, but uh, but it certainly seems like Seems like it is uh catching back on and the fans just love them. Oh, yeah I think tales from the crypt really borrows from the The hitchcock and the rod surling thing Having someone intro the shows Well, anyways, we're given the signal that we gotta be getting out of here. So uh, next time on vast wasteland We're gonna talk about uh, oh, what are we talking about? Oh darn the luck We're talking. Oh gimmicky next time on vast wasteland. So uh, uh For all of us here at vast wasteland, we'll see you next time and now here are some highly, uh exciting and High tech credits