“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat…there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits”

When you were young and home sick in my era, you watched TV channels morph into different characters throughout the day.  Here in LA there were two “cartoon channels” in the morning and around 9 they would start to become the re-run channels, then eventually the local interest channels, and finally afternoon cartoons again.    Channel 11 was the place where I would watch I Love Lucy, Mission Impossible, and then sometimes darker and more haunting shows like The Outer Limits, while lying on the couch trying to feel better.  And to be quite honest…the opening of the show freaked me the heck out probably a lot later in life than it should have…I mean what would have happened if I tried to change the channel after that very stern warning?!?!

The show itself was an ABC creation, broadcast from 1963-1965 and honestly the episodes were a little edgier horror-wise than the popular Twilight Zone.  It always felt to me like The Outer Limits was more monster/demon driven for many of it’s episodes, and even though I wasn’t watching them until the mid-70’s and on a color television set, they were every ounce as terrifying many of the classic monster movies I was dipping my horror toes into around the same time, and definitely influenced by the dark German expressionist films that I would learn about much later in life at film school.

And yes just as they tried to revive the show with new episodes in recent  years, it just doesn’t seem to have the same black and white horror magic.

Do you remember watching any of these while recovering with a cup of chicken soup?

Rubber masks aside, some of the monsters are still quite frightening…