How TV Expanded My Imagination
by Anthony Servante
Between the ages of six and thirteen, I watched a lot of television. It was my friend, my teacher, my mentor. My brothers played sports. I sat in the dark and took in the soft glow of the tube. It showed me other worlds both weird and wonderful. Below, I've listed the shows that hooked me and kept me hooked to this very day in my old age. I still watch reruns of these shows, and they still astonish me and make life seem timeless. I will discuss a bit about each show and what attracted my young mind to view it every week.
Let's begin.
"Where is Everyone?" The first episode.
In 1959 my three teenage aunts gathered around the television. It was ten o'clock on a Friday night. They were babysitting me. They were snacking on oranges. They turned on that big box with the small screen that showed black and white and gray images. I still remember the opening to that first TV show I remember fondly: The blurry sun sinking into that black line crossing the screen as that otherworldly electric guitar repeated the beginning of the show's theme song. Haunting, hypnotic music. Then the black and white imagery of the episode began. I was used to color TV by then. It caught me off-guard, made me uncomfortable, but I couldn't stop watching. There was a lone man in an empty street who seemed to be looking for someone, anyone, but there was no one. This feeling of loneliness, too, frightened me, but kept me glued to the screen. I didn't understand, but I was engaged and engrossed. Each weekend my aunts would babysit me, and we'd watch the latest TZ episode. I also began to notice my teen aunts were scared of certain episodes. The ones with ventriloquist dummies frightened them the most. Those are the episodes I remember most.
One Step Beyond
Same year, 1959, same scenario, different show. A black sky with plump stars speckled across its vastness, a blast of music that was short but scary, a well-dressed man with a friendly voice said something about strange forces. Then the story began. But it was that music, that eerie and haunting sound that told you that something scary was happening. When the music played, my aunts hid their faces behind their hands but kept their fingers open, somehow protected from what was about to happen. I was hooked. When the host reappeared and gave his "believe it or not" closing, I believed. There were strange forces at work in the light of day.
Thriller
!960, Grandma joined her daughters for some TV viewing. She picked the show because that Frankenstein fellow was going to be on. I was waiting for the monster to appear; instead, I got Boris Karloff wearing thick glasses. He stepped in after the episode began and introduced the actors to appear. Then that criss-cross pattern blotted out our host and cut to commercial. For this seven year old, it wasn't so much scary as suspenseful. I kept waiting for the creepy parts but the story always verged on ghostly yet remained merely sinister. Not until "A Wig for Miss Devore" did the show turn horrific. It was a different kind of fascinating for this young child.
Roald Dahl's 'Way Out
William and Mary, first episode of 'Way Out,
Starring Fritz Weaver.
!961 arrives, bringing Roald Dahl's 'Way Out TV Show. My aunt informs me that this is the guy who wrote Willy Wonka. Never heard of it. At the age of eight, I was reading Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson, the horror maestros. But this Dahl TV show also had "horror" on its mind. I could tell the production was not up to par with the likes of One Step Beyond or The Twilight Zone, but the stories were memorable. The one with the headless woman is an episode I love to revisit. I would go on to read everything I could find by this guy, Roald Dahl. His stories would follow me into my old age.
Chiller Theatre
1961 also brought Chiller Theatre, a weekly show that featured a recent 1950s Drive-In horror movie that bombed and went straight to TV. Many of these movies, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Plan Nine from Outer Space, and the like, were films my aunts took me to see at the drive-in, so I was amazed to see them on TV, but also annoyed because there were so many commercial breaks. The best thing about the show was the cringey but creepy host who commented on the movie and introduced the ads. This guy, Jack Zacherle, would be the first of many horror hosts that followed, including Sinister Seymour and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Good Evening.
First episode, Piece of the Action,
Starring Gig Young and Robert Redford.
1962 rolled around and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour TV Show began. In my old mind, I remember seeing Alfred Hitchcock Presents first, but that couldn't be, because I would have been two or three years old. My memory is not that good, but good enough to remember the hour version of the show. The introduction to the show began with a spooky Addams Family type mansion on a dark hill when that familiar music theme plays; creepy images float across the screen until the outline drawing of Alfred Hitchcock appears and disappears as a shadowy figure of our host transitions into Alfred Hitchcock himself, who then introduces the episode. I remember these stories went from macabre to mystery to outright horror. And they all had that Hitchcock twist ending that was so satisfying. The episode with the nurses and the one with the doll are the stories that stayed with me and I've covered both of them on my blog.
The Outer Limits
The original image.
The Galaxy Being, starring Cliff Roberson
In 1963 I saw the first episode of The Outer Limits. I was ten years old. That was a monster. We had a monster of the week TV show at last. But not just a monster, because there was some incredible writing, amazing characters, and suspenseful storytelling. I was sitting alone in the front room, turned on the TV, unaware of what was on, and this science fiction show began. That introduction letting you know that they were in control of your television set for the next hour. I almost believed it. What they had control of was my attention, for the entirety of its short run. But that first night with the black and white show, and that monster, no, that "being" from another galaxy. This was next level watching for me. And I looked up every writer of every episode and read all the stories by them that I could find. Yep, Harlan Ellison. That's how I found him.
Star Trek
Star Trek Enterprise, 1966.
The Man Trap, first episode of Star Trek.
In 1966 I turned on the first episode of Star Trek. I watched in the front room, in the dark, alone, a thirteen year old kid enjoying a color TV show for once. When that salt-eating monster appeared, I thought, Great, another monster of the week TV show. But I was wrong. It was more than that. It was an adventure show, a social commentary, and a cast of wonderfully drawn characters from all walks of life. Creatures from other planets who interacted with and joined the Enterprise crew. Yes, there were the monsters, but we were the monsters to many of these creatures too. I remember trying to talk to my friends at school about the show, but no one watched it. I was old enough now to want to share my macabre TV viewing, but no takers. It became my private world, just like my horror books. It wasn't until college that I met like-minded friends. But between the ages of six and thirteen, it was the universe of horror and mystery that my aunts first introduced me to, and the universe that I have been expanding on beyond the age of thirteen till this very day.
