My summary quote is from Charlotte Rae's character Hazel Atterbury, wife of the guy (Don Keefer) in the 'Death Wish' episode, the one where he wants to kill her but the mortician turns the tables on him. As creepy and mysterious as the shows were, there was just the slightest enough hint of realism to make you think twice. For one season in 1961, 'Way Out' was the lead-in to that other imaginative show hosted by Rod Serling, everyone's favorite 'Twilight Zone'.
Like many of the other posters on this board, I would have been about ten years old when this program first appeared, and the one I remember best even to this day was 'The Croaker'. I just finished watching it, along with the other four episodes that seem to be the only ones readily available. The surprise this time around was learning that the oddball guy turning victims into frogs was portrayed by venerable character actor John McGiver, and the neighborhood kid Jeremy was played by Richard Thomas. I recall sitting on the couch with my Dad fifty years ago when this episode first aired, and we both looked at each other with barely disguised glee when Jeremy concocted his own formula to one-up old Mr. Rana (McGiver). I won't reveal it, but that ending just blew me away. Very clever too, that name Rana, which is a genus of frogs used for McGiver's character.
The shows opened with pairs of buried hands clawing out of their presumed burial places, consumed by smoke and fire. Host Roald Dahl greeted the viewer with a droll "How are you"?, and then did a bit of a somber monologue that was about as creepy as the show itself. Duplicate images of his talking head lent an even eerier quality to the rhythm of his voice, and he had this mesmerizing effect on the viewer making you hang on every word.
Count me in as a fan who would love to see these shows remastered and brought out for a modern day audience. There's a reason why series like this, 'The Twilight Zone', 'The Outer Limits', and 'One Step Beyond' hold sway with such large numbers of fans today. They tap the imagination in a way that's not done any more with stories that both frighten and amuse, and as Roald Dahl would be inclined to say, "You can be quite sure, it is Way Out".
Like many of the other posters on this board, I would have been about ten years old when this program first appeared, and the one I remember best even to this day was 'The Croaker'. I just finished watching it, along with the other four episodes that seem to be the only ones readily available. The surprise this time around was learning that the oddball guy turning victims into frogs was portrayed by venerable character actor John McGiver, and the neighborhood kid Jeremy was played by Richard Thomas. I recall sitting on the couch with my Dad fifty years ago when this episode first aired, and we both looked at each other with barely disguised glee when Jeremy concocted his own formula to one-up old Mr. Rana (McGiver). I won't reveal it, but that ending just blew me away. Very clever too, that name Rana, which is a genus of frogs used for McGiver's character.
The shows opened with pairs of buried hands clawing out of their presumed burial places, consumed by smoke and fire. Host Roald Dahl greeted the viewer with a droll "How are you"?, and then did a bit of a somber monologue that was about as creepy as the show itself. Duplicate images of his talking head lent an even eerier quality to the rhythm of his voice, and he had this mesmerizing effect on the viewer making you hang on every word.
Count me in as a fan who would love to see these shows remastered and brought out for a modern day audience. There's a reason why series like this, 'The Twilight Zone', 'The Outer Limits', and 'One Step Beyond' hold sway with such large numbers of fans today. They tap the imagination in a way that's not done any more with stories that both frighten and amuse, and as Roald Dahl would be inclined to say, "You can be quite sure, it is Way Out".