Courtesy of Mark Phillips and William Lenihan III
Newspaper Effluvia on The Outer Limits
How Contemporaneous Critics of its’ Era Viewed the Series
Compiled by Mark Phillips
Some entries are abridged, to cut out non-Outer Limits text.
February 5, 1963, The New York Times
One of the main TV highlights planned by ABC for next season is Please Stand By, a United Artists hour-long series starring its creator-writer Leslie Stevens.
March 13, 1963, The Chicago Tribune
ABC announced it is planning to come up with the science fiction shocker of all time. The show is an anthology and conceived by Leslie Stevens, called Please Stand By. The series, set for the 8:30-9:30 Friday time slot this fall, will feature a little white dot in the middle of a black screen, the kind that stays on your set after you've turned it off. It will move across the screen, horizontally and vertically. Please Stand By is ABCs answer to Twilight Zone and is straight science fiction. It stars Leslie Stevens as its host. It's aimed at taking down some of ABC's giant TV competition next year.
April 19, 1963 by Cynthia Lowry, Associated Press
ABC plans hour-long science fiction tales on Monday nights next season called The Outer Limits, which was originally called Please Stand By. Science fiction tales, for some reason, have never done very well on network television but maybe, with all of the real-life space shots, audiences are better prepared for them than they were in the days of, for instance, The Man and the Challenge.
April 19, 1963, The Lewiston Evening Journal (column by Johnny Robinson called "Video Versions")
"TV to probe the Unknown in The Outer Limits"
The Outer Limits, a gripping hour-long anthology of startling science fiction adventure created by Leslie Stevens, features outstanding special guest stars and a new and different story each week. It will debut on ABC this fall on Mondays at 7:30, says Daniel Melnick, ABC's vice president. For The Outer Limits, Leslie Stevens has brewed a series of science fiction adventures which rivals the wonders of Jules Verne. Armed with modern scientific data and a strong array of some of the finest writers and directors, Stevens plans to travel into the dark unknowns and mystical nether worlds via ABC for one full hour. Each week he will present dramas that will reach from the inner mind to outer space. Stevens created ABCs 1962 rodeo riding hero Stony Burke. His first success was only eight years ago, when his play, "Bullfight," was acclaimed as a smash off-Broadway hit. He then became a top writer in theater, TV and films. Outer Limits will be produced by Joseph Stefano, who scripted Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and who won the Robert I. Sherwood award for his Playhouse 90 script, "Made in Japan."
May 21, 1963, The Toledo Blade, by Ray Oviatti
According to Doug Cramer, ABCs director of programming, the network has invested over 30 million dollars into developing its new programs for 1963-64. "This is our year for innovation. We recognize that we have to be bold and aggressive." One of those newcomers is The Outer Limits, which Cramer calls, "Strictly science fiction, as opposed to the Serling fiction."
June 25, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
There is promise and provocation in The Outer Limits, an upcoming ABC series, as Psycho writer Joseph Stefano embarks on a new TV kick.
June 30, 1963, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
"New Science Fiction Series Planned"
Joseph Stefano, the dark, handsome writer of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, has some chilling but fascinating tricks to play on the nation's televiewers this fall via a new ABC series, The Outer Limits. "I get to do anything I want to do in this series," he told us while he ate a plate of spaghetti and meat balls in a Hollywood restaurant last week. "There won't be a single continuing star. This is totally a good thing because in one episode I had to get rid of everyone." He said this with his eyes glistening with glee. "In this particular episode we teleport (that's Stefano's own word) six square blocks of Beverly Hills to another planet. No, that doesn't include the block where the Beverly Hillbillies hang out!" he answered my interruption. "Actually, beings from another planet have teleported these six square blocks to their world. They want to see if earthmen will survive on their planet. If they do, all earthmen will be used as slaves. Well, the kidnapped earthmen find out what is going to happen so they decide to become martyrs. They determine that there will be no survivors among them. Everyone dies and the beings from the other planet decide there is no use in conquering earthmen."
Another episode deals with a miniaturized human being. In telling me about this eerie segment, Stefano illustrated how careful he would be of using scientific detail. "I wanted to make a doctor small enough so that he could enter the brain of a woman and perform a lobotomy on her. I wanted to remove the hate center from the brain of this woman. I went to a UCLA brain specialist and asked if he would go along with me for this story plan. I wanted to know how small the man would have to be in getting to the right place in her brain. The specialist looked at me as if I were some kind of a nut! Finally, though, I convinced him that I wasn't and so he got out his brain charts and we went over them. He told me that there was a certain path that would not lead to the specific placed that I wanted but he showed me another path that would. The giant picture of the brain would appear in the series just as the doctor had outlined it. Only the miniature man would be shown inside the brain and he would communicate with the others on the outside through a special public address system that we've devised."
Do you sleep well at nights, we asked the personable and apparently well adjusted writer-director. "Oh yes, I get rid of all my phobias at work during the day with stories like this. My only problem on the show will be keeping ahead of science. We have planned things for this show and then found out that we've been outdated by fact. We have all sorts of gadgets and monsters planned for this series. However, our key word is entertainment. We would put everything in the world back together after each episode."
July 28, 1963, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
"Trouble in Monsterland"
There are troubling reports from monsterland and that word is, "Don't let those monsters get out of hand." The monsters in question will appear now and then on The Outer Limes, the high budget show that will open ABCs Monday night schedule this fall, beginning September 16. Obviously, the Outer Limits is not a show made for children but the problem is, the kiddies dote on monsters. ABCs programming department says, "Make it thrilling" but ABCs continuity (censorship) department says, "Don't scare the kids!" Leslie Stevens, whose Daystar company is producing Outer Limits, says there are difficulties in dealing with that split opinion but he says those problems are not insoluble. Stevens, who turned out the so-so rodeo show Stoney Burke last year, offered an example of a story written by writer Joseph Stefano, who is a producer of the show, that will not be made. It had creatures from outer space inhabiting the bodies of ordinary house cats. Stevens said the feeling was that such a tale might cause youngsters to fear cats, so the story was tossed out. Each Monday night a control voice will take over your television set to present a story. This may scare parents, who will visualize TV repair bills, much more than the monsters will ever scare their kids. The kids' parents and grandparents remain the target audience, as they were avid fans of what they grew up with, the Frankenstein and Dracula movies. Stevens says, incidentally, that there will be no on screen host for the ABC series but rather a Control Voice. This weird voice will make the picture on the television do strange and curious things. Both Stevens and Stefano, who are science fiction fans, are playwrights who wrote some of the finest Playhouse 90 TV shows. (PAY)
July 31, 1963, St. Petersburg Times
The Dakotas, a well-done western, is going off and will be replaced by The Outer Limits, a science fiction series created by Leslie Stevens, the man who produced Stoney Burke.
August 5, 1963, The Chicago Tribune by Walter Olesky
There was a recent preview of ABCs 13 new shows for this season and they had shows which you may like. Here is a report on them....Science fiction fans will find plenty to frighten them in The Outer Limits on Mondays. The pilot we saw gave us a chill.
August 5, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
It's a science fiction role for a TV policeman. Barry Morse, Inspector Gerard of ABCs The Fugitive, is starring in an episode of the networks' new Outer Limits. Morse portrays a Martian who is mystified by the "unique Earth custom of murder."
August 6, 1963, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
Letter from Reader:
"In his recent column on The Outer Limits, Joseph Stefano took sole credit for himself as the author of Psycho, with no credit to Robert Bloch, author of the novel which the Alfred Hitchcock film was based. Mr. Stefano's screenplay for that subsequent Hitchcock movie closely followed Bloch's original novel. I think credit should also be given to Bloch for being one of the leading writers of our day."
August 17, 1963, Associated Press, Cynthia Lowry
"The Outer Limits is Way Out."
Viewers who complain about the sameness of TV series and stereotyping of characters are invited by ABC to look at its new series, The Outer Limits. There they will encounter unusual villains, such as the inhabitants of another planet who appropriate six square blocks of an American community for experimental purposes; A foreign power that replaces a shoo-in candidate for the United States' Presidency with a double who is one of them; A magic machine that can see and hear everything going on within a five mile area; and monsters by the carload. The series will go several steps beyond Twilight Zone, which concentrates on supernatural and the unexplainable. Like Twilight Zone, Outer Limits will play its monsters and visitors from outer space straight. Dropping into the 7:30pm slot Mondays, the series is obviously expected to attract a youthful audience. Producer-writer Joseph Stefano, therefore, has been walking that narrow line that separates titillating entertainment from downright scary stuff. That has been the show's biggest problem, says Stefano. "I wrote one script about cats whose bodies were invaded by other world beings. But I withdrew it when I thought about the effect it might have on a child who had a pet cat in the house." Stefano hopes to avoid parental complaints by creating monsters completely divorced from reality. "Actually, I'd rather have my five year-old son see my monsters than watch a TV show in which a bunch of black-jacked hoods beat up somebody," he added. The series is making certain that real advances in scientific knowledge do not make the plots obsolete. "We really don't know what may be turning up in these space shots. We've got one show taking place on the moon, but we've researched it thoroughly and it is based on facts that we are certain about."
August 20, 1963, The Chicago Tribune
ABCs new Outer Limits offers a spicing of daring and dangers."
August 30, 1963, UPI, by Rick du Brow
"TV Network Press releases about their new TV shows provoke critic"
So we've been reading the new TV network press releases and one was from Joseph Stefano, the producer of ABCs new series, The Outer Limits. It went like this: "For a couple of years now, ever since Alfred Hitchcock delivered his sly, brilliant presentation called Psycho to a ticklish-loving world, I have been referred to, often in horrified whispers, as 'that man who wrote Psycho.'"
I'm sorry - just what was that name again? And then ABC says about this producer: "In 1956, Mr. Stefano bought a television set for the first time and fate touched him lightly on the shoulder." Yes, it usually happens that way!
September 5, 1963, The Hartford Courant
Sal Mineo's girl, Jill Haworth, just wound up filming a role on the new ABC science fiction series, The Outer Limits, which will also feature pretty Shirley Knight in another segment.
September 6, 1963, UPI, by Rick du Brow
William O. Douglas, Jr., son of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice, is co-starred in the premiere of ABCs new science fiction series, The Outer Limits
September 7, 1963, The Miami News
The new Outer Limits is not exactly ABCs answer to The Twilight Zone since the show's publicity says it has a basis in scientific principles and avoids fantasy, the supernatural and the unexplainable.
September 15, 1963, The Chicago Tribune by Jack Gaver
Outer Limits is a science fiction anthology with scripts by top writers and an emphasis on scientific fact rather than fantasy
September 15, 1963, The Toledo Blade by Charles Denton
The Outer Limits, the new way, way out science fiction series, is plunking down heavy, heavy moolah for its weird special effects, monsters and stars. The reason is that every show is being shot for a release as a movie overseas, where science fiction is the hottest stuff on the market.
September 15, 1963, The Milwaukee Journal
(Advertisement)
The Outer Limits! Step into a world beyond, the far out, the weird world of science fiction, a world that reaches into the outer limits. The stars will be guests like Gary Merrill, Cliff Robertson, Ralph Meeker, Nina Foch and Bob Culp.
September 15, 1963. The Hartford Courant
ABC will air 14 new shows this season, with Jerry Lewis as their biggest show but Mondays will have The Outer Limits, a one-hour science fiction series with adventures based on real scientific data. The stories will be souped up with imagination!
September 16, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
(Advertisement)
You be the judge tonight as a fantastic world of terror comes to life on The Outer Limits. Watch Cliff Robertson accidentally summon an electrical alien being!
September 16, 1963, The Deseret News by Howard Pearson
Televiewers who saw the premiere of the new science fiction thriller The Outer Limits can have more of the same tonight. It's on the Play of the Week, which presents "Night of the Auk" by Arch Oboler. It's about the crew of the first interplanetary rocket ship. Having landed on the moon, the ship and crew of five are returning to Earth. A sixth man had been left behind to die on the moon. But before the ship gets within landing distance of Earth, two of the men are dropped off the side into outer space and a third man commits suicide. The remaining two astronauts, peering through an electronic telescope aboard the rocket, make a horrible discovery about the Earth. They find it is now in the same condition that the creature on last night's Outer Limits had warned against.
That Outer Limits creature had the figure of a man but looked like a ghost of some type. He emitted atomic radiation from his eyes and was a superman of sorts. He was someone from space who was brought into three-dimensional form when a radio operated on a certain wave-length. After causing destruction whenever he looked, the creature lectured his would-be destroyers on 'the mysteries of the universe" and "I leave you now in peace." An off-camera voice then warned, "We must begin to understand ourselves and each other. We now return your TV set to you." The Outer Limits is depending on special effects to hold viewers' attention. The fascination of such features just might make it a success.
September 16, 1963, The Milwaukee Journal, by Wade H. Crosby
The Outer Limits had "The Galaxy Being" tonight and nothing quite like this has ever been seen on television before. The show features photographic techniques that are guaranteed to provide you with a case of the shakes. Tonight's play showed some imagination in thinking up a new mode of transportation via radio waves. Cliff Robertson starred as a radio engineer whose ingenuity provided him with a surprise reception from outer space. A glob-like blob of intelligent protoplasm, whose blinking brilliance may remain printed in the back of your cornea long past bedtime, was the featured creature.
September 16, 1963, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune
The Outer Limits premiere was called The Galaxy Being. Its main feature are photographic techniques that have not been seen in television and is guaranteed to really provide you with a case of the TV DTs. The series' premiere abounded with floating flotsam and jetsam from the far reaches of outer space, with a smattering of Godzilla-like creatures, obviously conjured up in a cinemascope nightmare. Tonight's play shows imagination in thinking up a new mode of transpiration and stars Cliff Robertson as an engineer whose ingenuity provides him with a surprise reception from outer space, a glob-like being of intelligent protoplasm. If nothing else, this show certainly puts the "vision" before the 'tele."
September 17, 1963, The Miami News, by Agnes Ash
"Our House Almost Reached The Outer Limits Too!"
TV repairmen must have been busy last night when static, beeps and runaway lines heralded the opening of ABCs new science fiction thriller, The Outer Limits. The show started at 7:30, a little too early to chase the children off to bed. According to director Leslie Stevens, the show is supposed to have a basis in "scientific principles" and will be avoiding fantasy, the supernatural and the unexplainable. I wish Mr. Stevens would drop in around our house and explain the following to us:
* If the man from outer space doesn't have a mouth, then why is he talking?
* If he doesn't have a nose, how can he breathe?
* If the man is running on an electrical system, why don't they just turn him off at the fuse box and make him disappear?
The show held your attention and was top grade stuff for science fiction fans. The "thing" from another galaxy was imaginatively conceived. It resembled a mummy wearing a luminous polka-dotted shroud. The show made viewers squirm but that was more from embarrassment than from fear as it attempted to put God and the hereafter into a mathematical formula. This bordered distastefully on the sacrilegious. The thing preached against war and encouraged earthlings to support scientific research. Certainly these are immediate causes but the message lost its urgency because this thing had a voice which sounded very much like an old-fashioned Victrola (record player) that had run down.
September 17, 1963, by Cynthia Lowry, AP News
It has been obvious for some time that evening television lacks one type of entertainment program. Well, we got it this Monday - a horror show. The program was the first of a new series, The Outer Limits. It was heralded as science fiction and came complete with a monster, a chrome plated three-fingered thing from a different planet that somehow was pulled down into Earth's atmosphere by a radio beam and landed in southern California. It was very reminiscent of those jolly old scary movies but with modern refinements. The creature lumbered around like a Frankenstein monster. It was preceded by gale winds and dissipated enemies with electrical charges. He spoke and understood English, monster style. Because the series is at an early evening hour, it apparently is aimed at a youthful audience. It is the sort of nonsense that is likely to be boring to the post-21 viewers.
September 17, 1963, The Toledo Blade, "On the Beam" by Ray Oviatt
The Outer Limits, the new ABC TV series, has been, in the network's infinite wisdom, put into the 7:30pm Monday tome slot and that should do it just fine. It's just the kind of thing that would delight the youngsters and set their little scalps to tingling. There is no fun as good as something scary - remember? And it could be just the thing to stimulate a jolly string of nightmares for young folks. Oh, what fun! Outer Limits, to judge from last night's opening, called The Galaxy Being, promised more frightful looking creatures than on Dick Tracy. The makeup men and special effects boys will be hard pressed to keep topping themselves. The Galaxy Being on the premiere was a maggoty-looking glob of iridescent gelatin which had been accidentally summoned from beyond the milky way by Cliff Robertson. He played a radio station engineer who was messing around on his boss's time. Cliff, getting very pre-occupied with his experiments in three-dimensional monitoring of radio signals, managed to bring in the being on a television screen just before he was hauled off to a party by his wife. Accidentally, the radio power gets jacked up and all of a sudden the being from several hundred light years is right here, big as you please. It appears right in the transmitter room and is looking for his ol' buddy, Cliff. Before Cliff can get back, there are a few fatalities. But it's a really good thing that the creature shows up because Cliff's wife was having doubts about what was going on out there with the transmitter. She was not able to buy Cliff's story about a galactic being without seeing it for herself. These scientific geniuses like Cliff are always having trouble getting themselves understood by their wives. I don't know what you can say about a series such as The Outer Limits. It's a form of escapism which can't be taken very seriously. All right, all right! So I did leave the hall light on all night!
September 17, 1963, UPI news, by Rick du Brow
"Three new TV Shows Gain No Praise from this Reviewer"
Monday nights on ABC has a new science fiction series. Leslie Stevens, its creator, is a playwright who became largely successful in New York with such shows as Bullfight and Marriage Go Round. Now he is trying to become a very large success in Hollywood and has his own production company, Daystar. It not only produces but takes surveys and has an international division. Last year Mr. Stevens tested us with Stoney Burke on ABC, a western with such a phony he-man approach that even the mass audience it was catered too could spot it and it is no more. Last night, Mr. Stevens treated us again with the debut of ABCs new science fiction anthology. If only Stevens had credited us with the same maturity and intelligence that he had done with his New York plays he might have had a really dandy of an opener. As executive producer, writer and director of the premiere, Stevens displayed everything he needed, except trust and respect for his audience. He set the stage wonderfully for his weird story, about the operator of a small radio station who makes contact with a friendly, faceless being from outer space on a TV monitor through microwave experiments. Cliff Robertson, who played JFK in PT-109, enacted the operator and William O. Douglas Jr., son the Supreme Court Justice, portrayed the Galaxy Being. There was some way-out showmanship, a sharp use of usual special effects and good low-key acting, with an everyday sense of realism that was doubly effective because of the normal approach to the unreality. But then came the compromise - the difference between Leslie Stevens and Outer Limits.
Lecture from a Monster
It started when Robertson's wife convinced him to go to a testimonial dinner, not knowing that he was in contact with a being from another world. So he goes - and can't you just see a fellow leaving a conversation with a creature from outer space in order to go to a testimonial dinner? Maybe Danny Thomas would but no one else. Still, I allowed for a bit of literary license, or should I say unliterary. Robertson leaves the transmitter power in charge of a radio disc jockey who is unaware of the proceedings and anyone who knows disc jockeys knows that was the wrong thing to do! With a monster and disc jockey, why, we might just have a hit record. Well, the jockey wanted to be heard over a greater area and so he turns up the power and the monster breaks through the monitor and before you know it, the town is in as much of a mess as the show. Things got worse when the creature brought back a wounded woman to perfect health with a touch of radioactivity. Still, I held out hope that there would be no message but it came. We must not distrust strangers or try to kill others. Verily, it was a lecture from a monster. And verily, I say to Stevens, it could have been tops if the obvious message and melodrama had not been over-emphasized for morons. There are good brains behind this series and all it needs is to be worthy of an assumption that some good brains are watching it.
September 18, 1963, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
Paul Richards, starring in the new Breaking Point series, is fine and that series gets right to the point. But on Monday night you might have seen a new monster show called The Outer Limits. It was awful. They tell me that the kids like this sort of thing. Well, they can have it.
September 18, 1963, The Baltimore Sun, by Donald Kirkley
The Outer Limits, which had its premiere Tuesday on ABC, is a promising program entry in one of the few TV categories which has not been overcrowded. If forthcoming stories maintain the pace set by "The Galaxy Being," then this series will challenge Twilight Zone for top honors in science fiction. Only ten years ago this show might have been considered too preposterous, even for the kids. Under the science fiction rule, these stories often require a temporary suspension of belief.
September 18, 1963, The Chicago tribune, by Larry Wolters
ABC adds a monster and color to brighten our TV screens this season...The Outer Limits has been described as an adult science fiction series, with an opening that comes complete with a chrome-plated, three-fingered monster from a distant planet who makes contact with a radio engineer, played by Cliff Robertson. Judging from its premiere it appears to have reached its limit and perhaps has gone a little beyond it. Ahh, it makes you wish for the good old days, for such simple, eerie shows such as The Twilight Zone.
September 22, 1963, The St. Petersburg Times, "The Lively Arts" on the Air
Let your imagination have a free reign and have yourself a fine time watching Outer Limits. "The 100 Days of the Dragon" concerns molecular rearranging of human faces and fingerprints after a fluid is injected into the blood to make skin temporarily plastic. An unnamed, unfriendly foreign power (where all the natives look like Red Chinese) thus molds a splitting image of the man due to be elected as US president. So, until the vice president gets suspicious, we can watch a plot to take over the United States government. This builds to great suspense. Sidney Blackmer is the President and Phillip Pine is the Veep.
September 23, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
After unleashing a very scary science fiction yarn last week, The Outer Limits' story tonight is one of those bearing `a message'. Sidney Blackmer plays a foreign agent who impersonates the President of the United States.
September 23, 1963, The Hartford Courant
Talk about neat casting - Shirley Knight had just completed a "nervous breakdown" role on The Outer Limits when she immediately went over to get psychiatric treatment for another "nervous breakdown" on The Eleventh Hour.
September 27, 1963, Associated press, by Cynthia Lowry
After a week of contemplating such dreary new concoctions as Harry's Girls and The Outer Limits, the prospect of seeing meaningful theater classics on CBS, an adaption of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, with star Ingrid Bergman, was as appetizing as having steak after a long diet of applesauce.
September 28, 1963, The Chicago Tribune
If science fiction is your opium, then try The Outer Limits, the new ABC-TV series that is seen Mondays.
September 29, 1963, The New York Times by Jack Gould
...And then there is the pure absurdity of The Outer Limits. It's only a pretext of science fiction and it is dreadful
October 3, 1963, Pittsburg Press
TV Mailbag: The Viewers Speak:
I am a Jerry Lewis fan and I think your column on his new show was very unfair. Jerry has a lot of fans and Jerry is not only funnier than everyone else, he is very handsome too - a rare combination. Frankly, I am a little tired of the science fiction shows such as The Outer Limits and westerns and courtroom dramas. It seems every time I turn on the TV, somebody is getting murdered. The only thing worth watching, before Jerry came on, were President Kennedy's news conferences. - Anna Warrenorski, Pittsburg.
October 7, 1963, St Petersburg BEST BETS TV Highlights
One of England's finest character actors, Donald Pleasance is in "The Man With the Power" a journey into The Outer Limits. Pleasance is magnificent as a placid man -- dominated by his wife -- who invents an energy link that, when inserted into his brain, allows him to move chairs into walls or stop asteroids in space. But some suppressed hostilities show Pleasance the danger of giving the human mind too much power.
October 7, 1963, UPI, by Rick du Brow
On Monday nights ABCs new shows include The Outer Limits, a science fiction series that has quickly compromised itself and is aimed for the kiddies. Right now, ABC-TV does not have one single outstanding television series drama on its network.
October 8, 1963, The Associated Press, by Cynthia Lowry
The Outer Limits on ABC is for the kids who like horror movies. It is a show that is in the definite "miss" category.
October 9, 1963, The Los Angeles Times by Cecil Smith
The new TV season is in the books, even though one show, 100 Grand, is already done and out. TVs pundits and statisticians are making their annual pronouncements and predictions as to what new TV shows will be hits. Some new shows that the analysts feel will rank high in the popularity polls include The Danny Kaye Show, The Outer Limits, Bob Hope's anthology series and Petticoat Junction.
October 13, 1963, The Chicago Tribune, by Larry Wolters
The Outer Limits is complete absurdity...it is strictly for Captain Video and Space Cadet fans.
October 16, 1963 by Hank Grant The Evening Independent
Well, it figures that a series like The Outer Limits would have a producer named Dominic Frontiere (the new Frontiere, perhaps?)
October 21, 1963, The Hartford Courant
NBC is moaning that its once popular Monday Night at the Movies series on Mondays is suffering in the ratings at the hands of ABCs The Outer Limits, except on nights when NBC has a really superb movie to offer.
October 29, 1963, The New York Times
The latest ratings include.....The Outer Limits, a 19.3 rating, and 35th position out of 90 television shows......Joey Bishop Show, 19.3, 36th, The Nurses, 19.2, 37th, Garry Moore Show, 19.1, 38th, The Fugitive, 19.0, 39th.....
October 30, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
Ruth Roman is an unsinkable star and will have four major roles on TV series this season, including Breaking Point, The Outer Limits, Dr. Kildare and The Eleventh Hour.
October 30, 1963, UPI, by Rick du Brow
The Top 20 ratings last week: The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Dick Van Dyke, Lucy, Andy Griffith, Petticoat Junction, Danny Thomas, Red Skelton, Perry mason, Donna Reed, I've Got a Secret, Patty Duke, Candid Camera, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, Jack Benny, Hazel, Virginian, Gunsmoke and Grindl. Meanwhile, on Mondays, the NBC movie finished third place in its time slot, against the combined efforts of To Tell the Truth, I've Got A Secret, Lucy, Danny Thomas, The Outer Limits and Wagon Train. Future ratings for the NBC movies may depend on what specific film is shown. Other shows in the top 40: Danny Kaye, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Jimmy Dean, Jack Paar, Richard Boone's anthology series, Bob Hope's anthology Theater, Suspense Theater, Espionage, The Defenders and East Side, West Side.
November 3, 1963, The New York Times
A new ratings handbook will tell viewers what shows are "in" this season and which ones are "out." For what's in, the nod goes to East Side, West Side on CBS and to The Outer Limits and Wagon Train on ABC.
November 4, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
There is some highly imaginative writing in OBIT, a strange story in which a US Senator investigates a machine that allows people to tune into the private activities of other citizens. Peter Breck stars as the senator on this segment of The Outer Limits.
November 8, 1963, TIME magazine
The Outer Limits is one of the television shows this season that allows Negro actors to cross the racial bar. On one segment, a Negro recently played a would-be Pierre Salinger press secretary to a presidential candidate. Another Outer Limits episode will have a Negro astronaut on the moon.
November 8, 1963, TIME magazine
The latest Nielsen ratings: The Top 40
1. Beverly Hillbillies. 34.9 rating - CBS
2. Bonanza. 30.9 - NBC
3. Dick Van Dyke. 28.1 - CBS
4. Lucy. 28.1 - CBS
5. Andy Griffith. 27.0 - CBS
6. Petticoat Junction. 25.9 - CBS
7. Danny Thomas 25.8 - CBS
8. Red Skelton 24.6 - CBS
9. Perry Mason 24.2 - CBS
10. Donna Reed Show 23.9 - ABC
11. I've Got A Secret 23.9 - CBS
12. Patty Duke Show 23.5 - ABC
13. Candid Camera 23.1 - CBS
14. Dr. Kildare 22.9 - NBC
15. Ben Casey 22.8 - ABC
16. Jack Benny 22.4 - CBS
17. Hazel 22.2 - ABC
18. My Favorite Martian 21.8 - CBS
19. The Virginian 21.7 - NBC
20. Gunsmoke 21.4 - CBS
21. Grindl 21.3 - ABC
22. Ed Sullivan Show 21.1 - CBS
23. Lawrence Welk 20.9 - ABC
24. World of Disney 20.9 - NBC
25. What's My Line 20.5 - CBS
26. Ozzie and Harriet 20.3 - ABC
27. My Three Sons 20.3 - ABC
28. McHale's Navy 20.2 - ABC
29. Garry Moore Show. 20.1 - CBS
30. Wagon Train 20.1
31. To Tell The Truth 20.0 - CBS
32. Jackie Gleason Show. 19.9 - CBS
33. Rawhide 19.8 - CBS
34. Flintstones 19.7 - ABC
35. Saturday Night at the Movies 19.6 - NBC
36. The Nurses 19.6 - CBS
37. The Outer Limits 19.3 - ABC
38. The Joey Bishop Show 19.3 - ABC
39. The Fugitive 19.0 - ABC
40. The Greatest Show On Earth 18.9 - ABC
November 10, 1963, The Hartford Courant
Martin Landau's monster in "The Man Who Was Never Born" on The Outer Limits may be that show's actor Emmy nominee for this season. This would be a first in monstering TV programming.
November 16, 1963, The Los Angeles Times, by Hal Humphrey
Joey Bishop is yelling "foul!" over the latest Nielsen ratings. He was listed as number 35 in the latest ranking. But he's right when he claims that his show is actually in a dead heat with The Outer Limits for the number 34 spot.
November 17, 1963, The Chicago Tribune
Wouldn't it be interesting to have two different TV series team up together? For example, My Favorite Martian could have Uncle Martin grope with a monster from some other planet on The Outer Limits.
November 18, 1963 TV Highlights, The Pittsburg Press
Rock spirits, planning to take over the world, select as their first victims a doctor and his wife. Robert Culp, Salome Jens and G. B. Atwater star.
November 23, 1963, The Chicago Tribune
Latest TV ratings include:
32. To Tell The Truth
33. Jackie Gleason Show.
34. The Nurses.
35. Rawhide.
36. Flintstones.
37. Saturday Night at the Movies
38. The Outer Limits.
39. Joey Bishop Show.
40. The Fugitive
December 1, 1963, Hartford Courant
The Outer Limits was the first ABC series to get full sponsoral renewal for this season.
December 2, 1963, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
ABC counts on the TV shows they make for television, rather than the feature motion pictures they broadcast in prime time. One such successful show is The Outer Limits, which tonight has another in its growing series of monsters. The one tonight has a visitor from another planet who looks like it's all bone.
December 6, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
Rod Serling has dreamed up another creepy one, about General Custer's Calvary who meet up with a trio of modern day soldiers on tank patrol in "The Calvary is Made Up of Phantoms" at 9:30 channel 2 tonight. And in case you are new here, Twilight Zone is just to the right of The Outer Limits.
December 15, 1963, The Sunday Herald, by Lem McCollum (Humor column)
To the respective Czars of the National Football League, let me tip you off to a revolting development which is about to ensue. It's as scary as anything that you've ever seen on The Outer Limits and twice as dangerous. Unless you cancel the rest of our games immediately, the F.U.H. of America will launch a revolt that will wipe out all professional football and may erase the television industry too. F. U. H. stands for the Fed Up Housewives of America and they are ready to strike like an underground organization over weekend football games on TV...
December 16, 1963, The Pittsburg Press, TV Scout
A fine cast of reliable actors take on a fairly confusing Outer Limits tale tonight. Mark Richman has two right hands as the result of a brief cross-over into the fourth dimension. Now with the aid of his wife (Nina Foch), he gets financial assistance from Barry Jones to continue his experiments and to cross over completely. But Gladys Cooper, a double-crossed medium and Alfred Ryder, her believer, plot to throw a monkey wrench into the experiment. This one is so unbelievable that it's unbelievable.
December 21, 1963, Pittsburg Press, The TV Scout:
We all know the black planet Ebon. Well, that's the locale of tonight's Outer Limits, which follows the adventures of an Earth force that is captured by Ebons - odd looking men or whatever they are. And the problem of which one of the men will crack under the Ebonites unique methods of extraction is fascinating. The gimmick - which you'll probably guess- is one which has served Twilight Zone before. This is the first of seven shows Joseph Stefano (who wrote Psycho) will write.
December 23, 1963, The Deseret News by Howard Pearson
Televiewers who like science fiction or way-out stories will be able to get their fill tonight. Monday Night's Movie on NBC premieres The Lost World as competition to The Outer Limits, a series which has come up with a new and more frightening monster each week.
December 26, 1963, The Evening Independent
My favorite Martian and The Outer Limits really started something this year. Picking up the trend toward the bizarre and fantasy are at least a dozen products of 1964. Three ideas that already have network financing are Marilyn, about a beautiful but mischievous mermaid, My Living Doll, concerning a sexy female robot - Leslie Parrish has the inside track for that title role, and CBS has the option to pick up Rod Serling's new series about a female-voiced automaton machine that will dominate the life of Howard Morris.
December 27, 1963, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
At least half a dozen bizarre and fantasy series ideas have been inspired by the popularity of My Favorite Martian and The Outer Limits for next season.
December 29, 1963 BEST BETS, The Pittsburg Press
In "The Zanti Misfits," The Outer Limits has an ironic tale illustrating the hazards of excessive fear. Earth has been coerced into accepting a penal ship of misfits from the planet Zanti. These passengers on the first prison ship land here on Earth. When an American breaks security and rushes into the area reserved for the Zantilites, they get mad. And you haven't lived until you have seen a mad Zanti. But a warning! Don't eat while you're watching this episode.
December 30, 1963, The Los Angeles Times
Alien creatures demand a site for its penal colony when outer space misfits are dispatched to the Earth. An army commander, fearing alien reprisals, is afraid to attack The Zanti Misfits. Another science fiction gem from producer Joe "Psycho" Stefano.
December 30, 1963, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
In hindsight, I'm looking over the 1963 TV season so far, specifically in the Not Good, Not Bad category. On the "Not Bad" side are Suspense Theater, Bob Hope's Theater and you're almost willing to forgive The Outer Limits. So it has not been a bad television year. But it has not been good, you understand. But it's better than reruns!
January 1964, The Chicago Tribune
Don Gordon, who has struggled after 15 years in show business before finally realizing stardom (and last year he was among five very fine TV actors nominated for the Best Actor Emmy award. Gordon received the nomination for The Defenders, where he played a crazed killer) had to take a cab to work to The Outer Limits set the other day. He's playing a US government agent who infiltrates the society of The Invisibles, an organization bent on taking over the Earth. The reason for catching the cab was that Don's car was stolen from his garage, and this has been the third time this has happened this year. Not only that, but the thieves let the air out of the tires of his motorbike!
January 3, 1964, The Hartford Courant
Talented young actor Don Gordon will star in a pilot called The Invisibles as a spin-off for The Outer Limits for Daystar productions. The storyline remains a top secret until it airs February 3rd.
January 7, 1964, The Los Angeles Times by Hedda Hopper
Barbara Rush's guest performance on Ben Casey has paid off and so did her movie Robin and the 7 Hoods. It led to her doing an Outer Limits segment that will be used as a pilot for a new hour-long anthology series called Lovers and Madmen. Warner Brothers has just signed her to a movie contract.
January 9, 1964. The Pittsburg Press
"Monster Picture requests are Swamping ABC"
Requests for pictures of monsters on The Outer Limits has been so heavy that ABC is about to start a campaign. They will distribute autographed monster pictures to the public as a promotional gimmick. It all started when one request for a monster photo reached the desk of producer Joseph Stefano. As a gag, he took a photo of himself and signed it "The Galaxy Monster" and then sent it along. One hot-shot ABC press agent heard about this, checked it out and discovered The Outer Limits was getting large batches of mail from kids all across the country asking for monster pictures!
January 10, 1964, The Lewiston Evening Journal by Sheila Vaughn
During the Christmas vacation, many Lewiston High School students did many things. Some of these were very interesting, others were quite unusual. Here were some of the comments from the students about their Christmas activities...
Paul Dube: "I watched The Outer Limits for the first time!"
January 12, 1964. The Pittsburg Press
On The Outer Limits, a Queen bee who is transformed into a human being adopts inhuman methods in trying to get a husband. Joanna Frank, Philip Abbott star.
January 13, 1964, Pittsburg Press, TV Previews
The Outer Limits is funny, as its first comedy episode plays well. It's our Best Bet for tonight as Outer Limits tries its first comedy with great success. "Controlled Experiment" sends Martian Senior Inspector Barry Morse to Earth with a miniaturized temporal condenser and he enlists the help of a Martian caretaker, Carroll O'Conner, in his scientific study of an old earth phenomenon - murder. There are all kinds of interesting photographic special effects used here as Morse, in a witty performance, watches the murder forward, backward and in slow motion There are also some satiric jabs at human foibles, including smoking, coffee drinking and kissing. This makes this episode a delightfully tongue-in-cheek viewing experience. This is also a pilot for a new half-hour series.
January 13, 1964, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
"Monsters and Comedy take over TV Shows"
Monsters, thanks to The Outer Limits, are becoming the most popular feature in television, just as horror shows are taking over motion pictures. And tonight, Outer Limits turns the spotlight on a Solar System inspector, a Martian who investigates the phenomena of killing, which is peculiar to Earth people. The gimmicks here include a time converter, which plays a murder backwards. In other words, the story concerns the reconstruction of atoms.
January 13, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
If you find this one laughable, it's because it is played for laughs. Tonight is The Outer Limits' first comedy. Barry Morse and Carroll O'Connor star in "Controlled Experiment."
January 13, 1964, The Telegraph
TV Highlights:
In The Outer Limits "Controlled Experiment," this usually serious science fiction series switches to comedy tonight with delightful results. Barry Morse is quite good in a change of pace role as an agent from another planet who has come down to Earth to document why people commit murder.
January 15, 1964, The Hartford Courant
Actress Mary Ann Mobley has been dating several Hollywood lads but the fellow currently responsible for the happy twinkle in her eyes is producer Leslie Stevens (The Outer Limits). Stevens has just divorced from his actress wife, Kate Manx.
January 17, 1964, The Ottawa Citizen
One of television's most popular series, The Outer Limits, is in for a typical cock-eyed Wayne and Shuster treatment in a comedy sketch called The Utter Limit. In it, the comedians explore the world of weird scientific theories and experiments. It's all part of Wayne and Shuster's Comedy hour, airing Sunday night February 9th on CBC television.
January 17, 1964, The Tuscaloosa News
"Fun on the set of TVs The Outer Limits
Recently, during filming on the science fiction series The Outer Limits, a spaceship mockup from the planet Mars landed on the set. A monster got out of the ship, slithered over to the nearest actor and said, "Take me to your agent!"
January 18, 1964, UPI by Rick du Brow
It's the big name stars who provide the notes for episodic television nowadays, which helps to determine what shows to watch. This includes Miriam Hopkins who stars on Monday's ABC science fiction series, Outer Limits, as a recluse whose husband lives in a box.
January 25, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
William O. Douglas Jr., son of the Supreme Court Justice, will be in Milwaukee this Monday to promote ABCs The Outer Limits and his full length motion picture, Shock Treatment. This news has come to us from Marjorie Thomas, a Hollywood publicist who was once a copy girl on the old Milwaukee Sentinel paper.
February 3, 1964, The Telegraph
TV Highlights:
The youngsters will probably find this combination of horror-espionage to their liking. There is plenty of action involved in this Outer Limits entry, as a government intelligence agent (Don Gordon) infiltrates a strange society known as the Invisibles in order to break up their operation to take over the Earth.
February 8, 1964, The Pittsburg Press by Erskine Johnson, NEA
Allyson Ames is young, blonde and strikingly pretty, with a rip-snorting sense of humor. She changed her last name from Hubbard to Ames years ago, and has a Texas background. She also has an IQ of 162. She has three boys, ages 8,7 and 5 and a girl aged 4. Since being divorced, she has been their sole supporter. She moved into a three story house on the wrong side of the tracks in California, a place that has not been painted in 38 years. But Allyson is working up to it. She's painting and wallpapering the interior all by herself. Allyson knows exactly what to do in life, not that life isn't hectic. It is. Or as Allyson laughs, "I'm the country's best customer for panic buttons." Her goal is movie stardom. She has been told many times by people, 'You'll never make it in Hollywood with four kids." She says, "I refuse to hide my children." She also says, "I'm not one of those frump's in last year's clothes. You have to take pride to look the way I look." In just the last three years, she has played bit and featured roles in over 42 TV series, including two episodes of ABCs The Outer Limits, as well as five appearances each in 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside 6, Hawaiian Eye and four films. Inch by inch, Allyson is a match for any sex kitten you're likely to name. And as an actress, she is doing even better than many sex kittens I could name. She has dates in Hollywood - Gardner MacKay of Adventures in Paradise for one. But she says that sometimes, when she tells a fellow about her brood, "I can see his whole face melt right away in front of me." As she works as an actress, she has a combination nurse/cook/housekeeper come in for all four children. She has experienced a sordid childhood of her own and that has been a driving force behind her vow to see that all four of her kids are well fed, clothed and educated. Allyson was born in a charity ward in a Dallas hospital and was a teenage rebel. She was expelled from school seven times. She then married at age 15. She says, without self pity, "In your worst nightmares you haven't been through the things that I've been through." She has worked as a cotton picker, carhop, store clerk, theater candy-counter girl, then became a star of high-fashion modeling in a famed Dallas department store. It was there that she got the advice of, "You ought to be an actress." Her divorce gave her custody of the children and the family car. So three years ago, she packed up all of her kids into her sedan and drove straight from Dallas to Hollywood. She hasn't rested since. Stardom is her goal and all of her kids know it. Their favorite nursery story starts with Allyson saying to them at bedtime, "Once upon a time there was a movie star named Allyson Ames and..."
February 9, 1964, The Hartford Courant
"Gifted John Anderson hopes to find a role that will place his name"
"I've played in everything from The Twilight Zone to The Outer Limits, to Bonanza and Rawhide. I estimate I've been the heavy in about 70% of the shows I've done." John Anderson was saying this on a biting winter's day where he stood outside a mid-Manhattan restaurant, waiting for a friend. He's played more than 190 character roles and admits that he's tired of being "almost" familiar to television fans.
February 9, 1964, The Chicago Tribune, by Walter Oleksy
When is a United States Supreme Court Justice's son not a United States Supreme Court Justice's son? When he is playing aliens and creatures from outer space on TV. But is this justice for a US Justice's son, to play all of these monsters on a science fiction series? William O. Douglas, a craggily good looking 31 year-old, recently signed to play all of the monsters on The Outer Limits. Being cast as a monster does not scare Bill. He pointed out that other actors also got their start playing monsters and wearing so much weird makeup that even their Supreme Court Justice fathers would not have recognized them. The great horror actors Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff (cast as a ten-foot Frankenstein), Bela Lugosi - they all were seen by audiences as monsters, which also include Dracula and the Wolfman. Douglas got the contract to play Outer Limits monsters as a result of his frightening performance as The Galaxy Being in the premiere episode. "And actually my Dad did recognize me as The Galaxy Being on the first Outer Limits show," said Bill, beaming. "He said he watched the show and that he was very proud of my performance. But he also said that I didn't scare him at all."
February 15, 1964, The Meriden Journal by TV Key Inc.
There was a small, inconspicuous item in last week's Variety that should write finis to all the rumors of regulating the cigarette commercials on TV. The gist of the tale was that although ABC's The Outer Limits has not won a big rating by Nielsen standards, the advertising agency that places the weed plugs between that show for Liggett and Meyers cigarettes has advised their client to stick with The Outer Limits because it has a loyal teenage audience. That's when a cigarette commercial means a lot.
February 17., 1964, The Modesto Bee, TV Key previews
The Outer Limits' "Children of Spider County." An interesting tale heightened by Leonard Horn's imaginative use of the camera. Science fiction fans will recognize the plot line about a creature from another planet who pays a return visit to Earth to claim his son, who was born of his union with an Earth being the first trip around. Lee Kinsolving and Kent Smith play the son and father.
February 18, 1964. St Petersburg Times, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
"The Children of Spider County" on The Outer Limits tonight sets some kind of a new record for television. It is being aired less than three weeks after the episode was completed because producer Joe Stefano thinks so highly of this episode. It's a study of father love, with father in this case being a monster (Kent Smith) from the planet Eros. Lee Kinsolving is one of his sons, one of the 5 boys sired by the Erotics. Now it's time for all of them to return to Eros but there are dual problems - the police in Spider County think Kinsolving is a killer and Kinsolving, in love with Benneye Gatteys, wants to stay here on Earth.
February 25, 1964, The Free-Lance Star
Here is a TV Guide for students to current TV shows:
The Fugitive: Someone skipping class
The Outer Limits: Solid geometry Class
Twilight Zone: A boring class
Death Valley Days: When you miss the schedule
Super Car: New driver training car
Bonanza: Snack between classes
March 9, 1964, St. Petersburg Times
BEST BETS:
Outer Limits takes viewers to a moon-based scientific expedition where Alex Nicol proposes marriage to sweetheart Ruth Roman. But the pursuit of romance is interrupted by some glowing eyes belonging to higher intelligence beings, living as refugees from their planet. The aliens are found inside a moonstone on the lunar surface. These beings agree to feed their knowledge into computers before a rescue ship arrives. But the rescue ship from space turns out to be warlike. This episode makes some good points about the proper use of knowledge.
March 9, 1964, The Modesto Bee
TV Key previews:
Outer Limits' "Moonstone": A tale of a lunar expedition is told in terms of a comic book space adventure. The staff of military and scientific personal on a moon outpost discover a round egg-like ball which contains floating eyes from the stars, which are from far off in another galaxy.
March 9, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
The Outer Limits: As you might expect, this series gets to the moon before NASA does. Scientists Ruth Roman, Alex Nicol and Tim O'Connor land on the moon and find a strange form of life. It's a suspenseful drama about the first military scientific expedition to the moon.
March 15, 1964, The Los Angeles Times, by Hedda Hopper
"Barbara Rush - surrounded by Time in The Outer Limits - where everything is coming up black and blue."
Barbara Rush is an independent girl and she comes by her independence naturally. Her great, great, great, great, grandfather Benjamin Rush was a pioneer in American medicine and a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Barbara has played against some of the top international stars such as Charles Boyer, Rock Hudson, Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra. She has also sung with a dance band. Now she is one of the leading actresses in film and television. That career has been going up, up, up ever since she learned a sad but very true Hollywood axiom - dieting to slim down will get you more meaty parts. And now, whatever role she is after, she gets it because she has that look producers are looking for in their leading ladies. The peaches and cream brunette had been going along for five years playing parts of the wholesome, slightly chubby girl next door in movies. Then she awoke to the fact that it was the Audrey Hepburns who got the real emotional, meaty roles. "Some years earlier, when I considered myself overweight, I used a weight reducing machine, massage exercise and experimented with a diet. I found one that suited me. I now confine myself to 1000 calories a day and now my leg measurements have even come down to my satisfaction." Her recent roles include Ben Casey and the film Robin and the 7 Hoods with Frank Sinatra. She describes that as "a musical version of The Untouchables" where she plays a gangster's daughter. "The story is set in the gangster era," she says. "I play Edward G. Robinson's daughter. He is something like Al Capone and when they knock him off, his daughter take over the action and she hunts down the men who killed him." This role has paid off, leading to her being cast by producer Joseph Stefano in the new TV pilot, The Unknown. "I went in to do the pilot right after finishing Robin and the 7 Hoods." She has spent the last few weeks working on this show, which is for a new anthology show on ABC. Barbara talks to us while relaxing in her Beverly Hills home on one of her infrequent days off. "I found I had to reduce my weight for this role - again - after the birth of my baby six months ago," she admits, wanting to look right for these latest projects. I remarked to her that she has a very strenuous work schedule. "If you had seen us working on this ABC pilot, you would say that again," she said. "I was covered with black and blue marks on my arms and legs. I'm still covered with bruises."
Vera Miles also worked in the pilot and despite years of pictures and television making, the two girls had never met before. "It's odd how you never meet certain people in this business and then one day, you're both hired for the same project and you discover them," Barbara said. "I found Vera to be such a good sport and she has a great sense of humor. The show required a great deal of physical action and since the story is supposed to take place in the summer, we were dressed in these high fashion linen frocks, in which we had to go running through a forest in the rain and we got all wet and muddy in this freezing cold. After each scene, the crew would wrap us up in blankets but neither of us could get warm. They offered us brandy but we wouldn't accept. I don't drink and neither does Vera. She is a Mormon. It could have been very grim but somehow, Vera managed to make it all great fun." Vera Miles had similar memories of the grueling experience in the MGM forest and said afterward, 'No matter what happens, if anybody should ever run away from me into a forest and it’s raining, then they are on their own. I won't go chasing after them!"
Barbara recalls, "There was an entire week of us working overtime out on the MGM backlot, from five in the afternoon until five in the morning. There was a wind machine and rain roaring at us. When we got finished one night, my hair was absolutely dripping wet and my dress was totally soaked through. And that's when Jack Warner and Steve Trilling called me on the set. They wanted to tell me that they had just seen a rough cut of Robin and the 7 hoods and how lovely and glamorous I looked in it. They were both puzzled when I began to laugh. It was a good thing they couldn't see me through the telephone line!"
Of the pilot, Barbara says, "It's a very strange story and it will be featured as a segment of The Outer Limits. We went 7 days over a schedule that had already been lengthened before. So I was working on this project for weeks. Daystar has spent a lot of money on it. It's a cross between The Twilight Zone and Suspicion." The Outer Limits segment also features Scott Marlowe, Sir Cedric Hardwick and David McCallum. "This show definitely made it time for a relaxing trip of some kind," she laughs. She and her husband, Warren Cowan. are planning to leave for Europe soon. "Warren has already called for the passports." Barbara surprised me when I asked her what her secret ambition was. "I'd like to get on one of those TV shows, which I call annuity shows, like To Tell the Truth or What's my Line."
March 16, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
The Outer Limits: "The Mutant." Tonight, kiddies, they take us to Annex One, a planet plagued by a weird rainfall that has transformed a colonist into a mutant monster. Warren Oates, Larry Pennell and Walter Burke are under the monster makeup this time.
March 18, 1964, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
The TV market overseas: Bonanza is so popular it runs in England twice a week. It is also seen in 56 countries. Ben Casey is in 57 countries. Perry Mason is third, with 48 countries. Other big favorites in overseas markets are The Defenders, Dr. Kildare, The Greatest Show Earth, Burke's Law, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive and Twilight Zone. Victory at Sea, National Velvet, Panic, Medic, and the 87th Precinct are also popular. In some cases, these shows run in their native English, others are dubbed in a foreign country's language. In still other cases, the shows remain in English but sub-titles are carried on the screen for foreign viewers.
March 26, 1964, The New York Times, by Russell Baker
On the day that movie villain Peter Lorre died, The Outer Limits, a contemporary horror show, was doing a play which represented evil as a tremulous blob of gelatin. The gelatin had lured a typical group of life's losers into a dark old house and began turning his captives into his slaves. From time to time it forced them up to his room where he picked their brains as it was invading their skulls with powerful extra-sensory emanations. The gelatin was clearly evil as well as ugly but it was evil in the ambiguous, modern way that children may sense but not explain. All of this was part of an incomprehensible scheme to improve its knowledge of human beings, which it lacked. It was all part of some inhuman system that it tried to justify with good intentions. From this point on, the villainy went to the Freudian stage and then suddenly, there was no "thing' any longer, it disappeared.... The entire predicament was too complex to be solved by pumping three slugs into the thing's digestive tract on the church steps. We miss Peter Lorre far longer than we realized.
March 30, 1964, The St. Petersburg Times
Best bet on TV tonight: The Outer Limits has an ultra-modern version of fun and games of the ancient Romans. The planet Andera is all done with warring and plundering but the Anderans have some strange entertainment for its populace. Earthlings Nick Adams, running from a possible murder charge and Nancy Malone, a perpetual cheerleader, are imported to an asteroid for a fight to the death with a pair of primitive beings, a male and female from unnamed planet. This one gets pretty scary thanks to a prehistoric atmosphere during the climatic fight.
March 30, 1964, The Los Angeles Times by Lawrence Laurent
"So There! Creativity galore is in TV commercials"
The dramatists in TV never sleep in their efforts to find new ways to scare housewives. The wife on TV lives in a terror-ridden world unless she uses certain products. These commercials make the stories in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone or Leslie Stevens' The Outer Limits seem tame in comparison. So let's hear no more nasty charges that all creativity has been lost on television.
March 31, 1964, The Pittsburg Press
TV mailbag
"Mark Goddard and Yale Summers, the look-a-like actors"
Question from C.L.: I enjoyed watching a recent Outer Limits drama titled "Second Chance" which was about a group of people who didn't know they were on a real spaceship in an amusement park. My question concerns the actor who played the handsome football player with the blonde girl. Wasn't that Mark Goddard? I didn't see Goddard's name anywhere in the credits but I could have sworn it was him.
Answer: The actor who played the college athlete in the "Second Chance" segment is a newcomer named Yale Summers. You are absolutely justified in confusing Mark Goddard and Yale Summers, they bear an uncanny resemblance to one another.
March 31, 1964, Pittsburg Post-Gazette, TV key previews
The Outer Limits' "The Guests" - A good eerie mystery. Director Paul Stanley uses the "haunted house with squeaking doors" techniques of the early monster movies in tonight's drama and it works very well. A fine cast, including Geoffrey Horne, Gloria Grahame and Nellie Burt, does very nicely in this tale about a stranger who stumbles upon a strange house whose inhabitants are captive "guests" of a frightening thing that looks like melted wax.
April 8, 1964, The Pittsburg Press, by Kasper Monahan
"There are many wonders - too many - in George Pal's new The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao"
Tony Randall is starring in The 7 faces of Dr. Lao and this Oriental, an aging Chinese man, has supernatural powers. At this stage of the film, I feared he might be a fugitive from TVs The Outer Limits, for he can walk through walls, send thought impulses that shoot off him like bullets and he can disappear in a flash of fire, etc.
April 12, 1964, The Baltimore Sun by Donald Kirkley
"An Actors' Art Without Words."
Do you remember that strange being from another galaxy who burst out of a television set one September evening last year, with flashing electronic holes where its eyes should have been? Its silvery face was glittering and its synthetic voice was uttering weirdly distorted words? It helped to bring success to The Outer Limits series. Well, the actor who furnished the live 'acting" power for that creature is William O. Douglas Jr., who visited Baltimore recently as part of a promotional tour by ABC to publicize the monsters of Outer Limits. His father, William O. Douglas Sr., is a Supreme Court Justice. Douglas Jr. began his career by studying with mime Marcel Marceau and he had hoped to make a living doing pantomime but then came the opportunity to work in television. He still studies pantomime and practices the art of acting without words. He was on one of Garry Moore's game shows recently, doing a pantomime routine and he hopes to make more appearances later. Meanwhile, since he has made his way into that Galaxy Being costume, he has been a part of the Outer Limits monster line. It's certainly an unusual way to make a living.
April 12, 1964, Milwaukee Journal, by Wade Crosby
One change has already made in ABCs 1964-65 line up: Alexander the Great has been abandoned and The Outer Limits will occupy the Wednesday night 7:30pm spot it has vacated.
April 16, 1964, NEA, by Joan Crosby
"Monster leads Hardy Life"
Now take your average, well constructed monster. He is light in weight, being made of plasticized foam rubber. He also has the occasional refinement that a man might find useful, like a zipper up the back of his head. But he has some drawbacks too, as William O. Douglas Jr. has had to learn the hard way. Douglas, who is too nice looking to be hidden from view, has played the monsters in half a dozen Outer Limits episodes. But he has no complaints, outside those that comprise this article. He has even signed a contract to play all of the Outer Limits monsters for next season. That is, if Outer Limits has another season. On that score, some say yes it will, and some say no, it won't. The premiere monster in Bill's repertoire, and the one that will always be closest to his heart because of its experimental nature, was the Galaxy Being, which appeared in the first show of the season. "I wore a black skin divers suit backwards," Bill said. "It was covered with glycerin which picked up the light in lobby patches. What you saw on the TV screen was the suit as a negative print, making the suit look white with black highlights."
But the problems came from the rubber headpiece, into which he was hermetically sealed. It covered Bill's mouth so that he was talking through a gag. It also left him no room in which to breathe. So he was wired for oxygen, with a tube stuck in his mouth. The oxygen tank was on a roll-on platform, which was pulled along behind Bill by a man who tried to keep out of camera range. "The main problem was that the head piece was so tight over my ears and the oxygen made a loud hissing sound, so I couldn't hear a word the director was saying," Douglas laughed. "He finally got an old fashioned mega-phone and he would stand close to me, shouting instructions to me like, 'Move to the left!' I would only hear a faint voice in the distance but I could see everybody in the studio was in stitches, breaking up in laughter as they watched this." Douglas, son of a US Supreme Court Justice and a former student of French mime Marcel Marceau, says playing the monsters is a definite challenge to an actor's art. "Your face is generally hidden and your voice generally distorted, so if the creatures are to be made more than just lunging hulks, the character must be done with the body language or a tilt of the head. I have the feeling that if anyone were to rip off my headpiece during the filming of a scene, he would find that underneath all of that makeup I would have a similar expression on my real face."
Another of Bill's more rugged assignments was as the monster from the planet Eros in "Children of Spider County." This was a bronzed hulk, with a tiered nose, a split-level face, a tuft of brush coming out of the mouth, where a tooth should be and eyes that lit up. "There were pinpoint holes in the bulbous eyes and they inserted these penlights behind them. They were activated by a man who was put off camera range. But they were very unpleasant to wear, blinking on and off next to my real eyes. This burned so much that they really hurt." Bill also found that he was allergic to a silver paint used for another unspeakable monster (this one had no name). He fell ill during shooting. Another time a zipper got caught in his hair and he lost a patch of hair off his scalp. Still, another time found him sharing a monster headpiece with a cloud of cigar smoke, which had been accidentally coughed into his mask at the very last minute by a prop man who was smoking and trying to help him put on his monster makeup. Finally, another episode needed a monster with gleaming eyes. So they coated the bloodshot eyeballs with petroleum jelly and Bill couldn't see out of them at all.. Call all of this "The Scream of the Crop." A monster's life can prove tough and lonely. But there are good moments too, like the personal appearance in Houston, where he was dressed up as one of the Outer Limits monsters. "It was in a hotel auditorium and I was waiting to go on stage. I was leaning against the wall, next to a powder room door. The door opened and two very pretty, beautifully dressed young ladies came out. It was probably because they were so pretty that I couldn't resist turning around and lurching over them menacingly like the monster that I was. The first lady screamed and the second one turned to see what the other was screaming at. They then tumbled over one another, trying to get back inside the powder room. They finally made it in. I couldn't resist peeking in after them. They were nowhere in sight but behind the closed door I could hear their very heavy breathing!"
April 19, 1964, The Tuscaloosa News
"Pretty Mom plays with TV Monsters"
For pretty Allyson Ames, the current TV season can best be described as "The Year of the Monster." She has just completed her role on The Outer Limits and it has been her second casting on the series as the target of a monster. In "The Production and Decay of Strange Particles," airing on the series April 20, Miss Ames plays Arndis, a Vassar-type young lady on the run from a not-of-this-world creature. Last fall, as Loreen, the hip girlfriend of Cliff Robertson, she was chased by The Galaxy Being in the series premiere episode. "My children are so in love with Outer Limits, I don't dare turn down any parts on the series, even if I wanted too," she says. Allyson said that her kids, John, Jack, Jud and Jennifer, not only line up in front of the TV set to ascertain the results of their mother's outwordly predicaments but they also conduct publicity campaigns for her. "Would you believe it? Allyson says. "They even went down to the neighborhood supermarket with placards that read, ''See our mother on Outer Limits.' Another one read, 'Will mother get away from the monster?' It was wonderful of them but kind of frightening since I'm running in and out of this same market wearing curlers in my hair!"
April 20, 1964, The Pittsburg Press, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
The furnace people attack on The Outer Limits! Producer Leslie Stevens, who wrote the script for "The Production and Decay of Strange Particles" told TV Scout, "This particular production was done strictly for us." His story concerns a group of nuclear physicists who are over-run by force figures which came from the furnace, infiltrated and disposed of the bodies of the men working there and live as long as they have a source of energy. The climactic implosion is great fun to watch!
May 4, 1964, The Associated Press, by Cynthia Lowry
"The Outer Limits reaches the limits of one viewers' patience!"
The Outer Limits has been renewed - the monsters and madmen are here to stay. It's a mediocre, poor and silly series but it will return for the fall. Outer Limits is an early evening show apparently designed to deliciously scare an audience that is too old for Godzilla movies but too unsophisticated for Twilight Zone. There is obviously a big audience for this kind of nonsense - monsters from outer space and mad scientists with their machines, because ABC has renewed it for another season. Monday night's tale was a typical for this silly series. It started out with two frightened girls serving a poisoned cocktail to a handsome blackmailer who was standing, for some unexplained reason, in his summer trunks in a lake located in the middle of a dark forest. Then one of those Hollywood studio storms started and the girls fled through the woods to an eerie house where they found a grim old man - played, by of all people, Sir. Cedric Hardwicke, and a strange young man who had invented a machine that could tilt time. Well sir, that poisoned fellow kept popping up, alive, then dead, for most of the hour, as the machine kept shuffling the past and present. And at the same time the braver of the two girls kept roaming off into the forest with a shovel, trying to bury him. This is the sort of stuff that was Grade D movie fodder before World War II. Maybe ABC needs a time tilting machine of its own?
May 4, 1964, Eugene Register Guard
Top TV Preview Tonight:
This Outer Limits tale concerns a strange house in the country. It has a group of people taking refuge in a house and they encounter a man who believes the past and present are interchangeable. Two of the women have poisoned their evil lover, then drove out to the country with his body still in their car's trunk. When they're caught in a storm, they seek refuge in a dark house, where they soon learn that their boyfriend is not dead. Guest performances are by Vera Miles, Barbara Rush, Scott Marlowe and David McCallum.
May 4, 1964, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
"As Gravediggers, Vera Miles and Barbara Rush travel to The Outer Limits"
There is one TV highlight tonight, on The Outer Limits. The story, which is way out even for this series, deals with a man who wants to halt death by reversing time. A main feature of this episode, however, is its powerhouse cast, which includes Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Barbara Rush, Vera Miles and Scott Marlowe. The episode was a pilot for another series, The Unknown, which wasn't accepted by the producers or the network.
May 4, 1964, by Johnny Robinson
Barbara Rush, Vera Miles, Cedric Hardwick, Scott Marlowe and David McCallum are featured in a drama people caught in the spell of a man who believes that the past and present are interchangeable. In The Forms of Things Unknown, Kassia and Leonora believe they have killed Andre and drive into the country with his body in the trunk of their car. During a storm they take refuge in a dark house owned by a man named Colos, where they discover Andre is not dead. Indeed, Colos believes that no one ever has to be dead!
May 4, 1964, The News and Courier
Leading TV Previews:
The Outer Limits: This last show of the season is perhaps the wildest. Producer Joseph Stefano made it as a pilot for an anthology series about ghosts and supernatural things. But for here, it was partially refilmed to conform it to the science fiction format. Vera Miles and Barbara Rush believe they have killed a man (and hidden his body in the trunk of their car). They take refuge during a storm in the house of a man who believes that the past and present are interchangeable.
May 7, 1964, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
I have a friend who turns on the opening of The Outer Limits each week just to hear the ghostly voice say, "We have control of your TV set" and in his own particular defiance of networks, agencies and sponsors, he shouts back at it: "You sure have!" and then he turns the TV set off
May 9, 1964, The Miami News by Bill Middleton
"Here's How You Have Rated them."
Recently, "All Florida" invited its readers to name their top five TV favorite programs and they received a record number of postcards. The clear winner was Bonanza, with 289 votes, then Perry Mason at 214, Lawrence Welk at 203, Andy Griffith 193, and Beverly Hillbillies 190. 130 different programs were on the ballots, with a total of 1,400 viewer postcards received in the poll. here's the list of our viewers votes of the top 50 programs, out of the 130 possible shows.
Bonanza, Perry Mason, Lawrence Welk, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, The Richard Boone Show, Danny Kaye, Dick Van Dyke, Sing Along with Mitch Miller, Virginian, Defenders, Dr. Kildare, Jack Paar, Password, That Was the Week That Was, Red Skelton, The Fugitive, Disney, Gunsmoke, Mr. Novak, Andy Williams, To Tell the Truth, I've Got A Secret, Jimmy Dean Show, My Favorite Martian, Arrest and Trial, What's My line, Telephone Hour, Jackie Gleason, Rawhide, Garry Moore, The Today Show, Ben Casey, Combat, Hazel, Judy Garland Show, Ed Sullivan, Huntley-Brinkley News, McHale's Navy, Alfred Hitchcock, The Lieutenant, The Outer Limits, Petticoat Junction, Network Movies, The College Bowl, Hollywood Palace, Meet the Press, Lucy Show, Wagon Train and Wild Kingdom.
May 9, 1964, UPI by Bob Thomas
"Movie Studios helped by the Next TV season"
United Artists operates in television the same way it does in feature films - it provides the financing but not the producing capability. Its series for next season will be holdovers - The Fugitive, Burke's law and The Outer Limits, with a new comedy half hour, Gilligan's Island. The 1964-65 season looks healthy for such movie studios, which can scarcely survive in making features alone. TV productions help absorb the massive overhead costs and keep production crews busy between pictures. 20th Century Fox has placed four TV hours for next season, with Daniel Boone, and three others based on old Fox movies: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 12 0'Clock High and Peyton Place.
May 11, 1964, The Evening Independent
(TV previews)
"Sinister Plants Spark Outer Limits story"
Today's top TVs shows are previewed and selected by our TV KEY staff of experts, who attend the production rehearsals of these shows, watch the screenings of programs and analyze the scripts in New York and Hollywood to bring you the absolute best choices in television entertainment every week
The Outer Limits' "Specimen Unknown" tonight: Fine production values enhance this tale about a space expedition which uncovers menacing plant life that multiplies at a rapid rate and sprays a deadly vapor. The actors take a back seat in this outing while the show's technicians really do their stuff. REPEAT.
May 14, 1964, The Toledo Blade, TV Highlights
The Outer Limits: "The Sixth Finger." An absorbing episode. A dedicated scientist (Edward Mulhare) uses a willing, uneducated miner (David McCallum) to advance his experiments in evolution and thrusts him into the biological future. Mulhare and McCallum have to share the honors with the makeup artist in this one. His futuristic faces for the human guinea pig are excellent.
May 14, 1964, The Australian AGE
The "O" is for Thrills.
The Outer Limits is produced by Joseph Stefano, creator of Psycho. A science fiction series with spectacular special effects, both in sound and in vision, with drama which ranges from the inner mind to the outer limits. Each thrilling episode stars well-known personalities such as Robert Culp, Gary Merrill, etc.
May 18, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
"The Sixth Finger" on The Outer Limits has a Welsh miner projected by a geneticist years into the future and then back again. Neat trick! David McCallum and Edward Mulhare star in this repeat.
May 23, 1964, The Evening Independent
TV previews:
Best Bet tonight is "The Man Who Was Never Born" on Outer Limits. Repeat. One of the best of the series. An astronaut who goes off his planned orbital flight lands on Earth and discovers that he is in the middle of the 22nd century. A mutilated human being, well played by Martin Landau, warns him of things to come and urges him that they go back in time and try to save mankind. The photography is appropriately stylish and arty in parts, which heightens the suspense.
May 25, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
McClure TV previews:
"The Man Who Was Never Born". This rerun has a pretty standard plot for science fiction buffs but it is well treated and uses trick photography for much of its effect. It's about an astronaut who finds that Earth has been devastated in the 22nd century and so he returns to the 20th century with a monstrous mutation of the future in an attempt to alter the course of the future. The best performance is that of Martin Landau as the benevolent "sport." Also starring is Shirley Knight.
June 2, 1964, The Australian Age
The Outer Limits is sparkling entertainment for the whole family..it's lively drama and science fiction at its best - the unusual, the macabre, the incredible!
June 5, 1964, TIME magazine
Diana Sands, who won an award for her performance in Raisin in the Sun, has been laboring in television's well-trampled vineyard recently, in roles ranging from The Outer Limits ("I played a beige monster") to a brilliant characterization as a bereaved mother on East Side, West Side.
June 8, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
A good repeat on Outer Limits about a research center that terrorizes its employees by spying on them with a brain machine. It's a strange story, with Peter Breck as a Senator who heads an investigation of the center that it utilizing the spy machine. Also featuring Jeff Corey, Joanne Gilbert, Harry Townes and Alan Baxter.
June 9, 1964, The Times Daily
The ABC network continues alternating its 1964-1965 schedule. All three networks had proclaimed their fall schedules were locked up but somebody at ABC has apparently kept the key to the lineup because there's been a sudden change of plans. Last Monday ABC announced that it was dropping the folk-song program Hootennany from its Saturday time slot and replacing it with The Outer Limits, a science fiction drama that has done pretty well this season in the ratings. This scheduling move is undoubtedly popular with The Outer Limits people because the series had been pitted for next season, from Mondays, to play Wednesdays at 7;30pm, where it would have been up against The Beverly Hillbillies and Dick Van Dyke, two CBS programs which are among the most popular shows on the air. That tough Wednesday slot has long been dominated by CBS comedy shows. Now as part of the Saturday night programming for next season, Outer Limits has a strong appeal to the young audience, as does its new competition NBC, Flipper and Mr. Magoo. That will leave adults of all ages with a choice, either give CBS's Jackie Gleason's variety hour a look, or go out for a night out on the town.
June 15, 1964, The Morning Record
TV Mailbag:
Question: I saw an Outer Limits a short while ago and I was very impressed with two of the actors in it. The credits listed two names, Scott Marlowe and David McCallum but I don't know who was who. Please give me some information about these two exciting new talents. F. K., Metuchen, New Jersey
Answer: Scott Marlowe played the dark-haired handsome man who kept the two women in subservience. Earlier this year, Marlowe gave a beautiful performance on a two-part drama "Solo for a B-Flat Clarinet" which started on Ben Casey and completed on The Breaking Point. Marlowe's work in that two-parter was worthy of an Emmy nomination but he did not get the nod from the nominating committee. He will probably appear as a guest star on many of the new TV shows next season and may also do film work. The other role was played by David McCallum, a young British actor who has appeared in a few of the leading TV series and was featured in the fine film, The Great Escape. David will be a regular on the new TV series for next season, The Man from UNCLE. It will star Robert Vaughn as a James Bond type agent named Napoleon Solo
June 22, 1964, TV Scout, Evening Independent
Do you think you are hearing things? You haven't heard anything until you have tuned in The Outer Limits repeat tonight, "The Corpus Earthling," in which rocks are as talkative as a Saturday Night hen party. But whom do the voices belong to? Geologist Robert Culp thinks "the little men" inside the rocks want to take over the world.
June 27, 1964, The Chicago Tribune
TV Mailbag:
On Outer Limits the other night, one of the stars was named John Considine. I thought he looked like Tim Considine of My Three Sons. Is he any relation?
Answer: Yes, John is Tim's older brother.
June 29, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
The Outer Limits' "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" stars Scott Marlowe and it's a real weirdy about a mound of dust which becomes a monster feeding on humans. Repeat.
June 29, 1964, St. Petersburg Times, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
So, you think you've got cleaning problems? What would you do if the mound of dust from your vacuum cleaner turned out to be a monster that is hungry for human energy? That's the crisis in a repeat of "It Crawled Out Of the Woodwork," on The Outer Limits. We might add that the script appears as if it crawled out of the woodwork too.
July 4, 1964, The Chicago Tribune by Don Freeman
"One good TV show, one good part, and everything changes for actress Sally Kellerman"
Sally Kellerman is a cosmopolitan, new and improved, intelligent and interesting actress and she has been compared to such diverse figures as Ingrid Bergman and Paula Prentiss and on one unforgettable occasion, the legendary Greta Garbo. The person who made that comparison was her hair stylist on one TV show. "Ahh, but I have kept asking myself if he was really complementing me or just complimenting himself on the hairdo he had given me," says Sally. "He also told me that I had bones just like Garbo." Some recent roles, given to her by producer Joseph Stefano, were on The Outer Limits. In fact, she has done two episodes of that science fiction anthology. One was with Gary Merrill, another with Martin Landau, the latter segment cast her as an ambitious woman who kills a space creature after learning its power-giving secret. "Either way," Sally continues, "my hero, the performer I have always wanted to be, isn't Bergman, Prentiss or Garbo, it's Marlon Brando. I met him once and I immediately said, 'Oh boy, do we understand each other. After all, we both suffered from weight problems. But I got tongue-tied meeting him and he didn't have much to say to me anyway, so that, dear diary, was that." Sally made her first TV imprint on Rod Serling's drama, "Slow Fade to Black" on Bob Hope Chrysler Theater. Then she was tapped for a leading guest role on The Rogues. "One show, one good show, and a good part and everything changed for me," she says. "Suddenly I was no longer too tall or unusual looking, thanks to the Rod Serling script. They now say, "OK, just take off your shoes," she beams. "I really spent six years in this town, waiting to be discovered. I couldn't even get picked to say two words on a Whirlybirds episode. I was working as a waitress in a Sunset Strip coffee house." Despite Sally's "eastern' aura, she was actually born and raised in Granada Hills, California.
July 6, 1964, The St. Petersburg Times, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
"The Human Factor" on Outer Limits is great fun for fans of the genre. In this repeat, we are in Northern Greenland at a Defense outpost, where Harry Guardino, a major, seems to be having a nervous breakdown. He says that he sees a "thing" rise from the ice. Psychiatrist Gary Merrill switches brain waves with Guardino but there is an earthquake and when the experiment is over, the men's minds have been exchanged. The talented Sally Kellerman literally holds the key to the solution.
July 19, 1964, The Hartford Courant
TV Notes: Bernie Allen says he always watches the spooky Outer Limits TV series every week but he can't remember the plots because, as he says, 'Everything goes in one eerie and out the other!"
July 27, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal, TV Key previews
The kids who are science fiction fans and don't like to be kept in the dark regarding a storyline after the first 15 minutes may enjoy this tale of a Queen bee who transforms herself into a voluptuous female and invades the lives of a scientist (Philip Abbott) and his suspicious wife (Marsha Hunt).
July 27, 1964, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
Looking ahead to next season, Hunt Stromberg, the youthful CBS Vice-President of CBS, says his network is planning escapist shows for next season. "We're in an entertainment cycle of pure escapist stuff,'" he says. "It's the way you have to go. These include popular shows such as The Fugitive and Burke's Law, so we're concentrating on new escapist programs too. We think The Outer Limits would have been a great hit if it had had a running character. So we're developing The Haunted, a show about an architect who remodels old homes and find that ghosts are inhabiting them." He also notes, "We don't think you can do the James Bond spy shows on TV. They depend on massive sets, which are financially prohibitive, as well as sexual situations, and that is not permissive on television. So we're trying to do the genre with a new western instead, The Wild West." Looking back on last year, he says, "By my math, I figure there was a 44% mortality rate for last season's network programs." He also says casting is the major criteria for new shows, aside from the freak shows like the Martians and Outer Limits monsters. "We watch the casting process, particularly on comedy shows, very meticulously. There are two ways you begin with new TV series. One is, start with the big question, The Who, and then The What, which is the premise." CBS had to find a series for comedian Paul Ford, which was Baileys of Balboa, and Bob Denver, of the new Gilligan's Island, and then there is Julie Newmar, of My Living Doll. In the "WHAT" column, is a new lawyer series, Slattery's People, a series "that didn't develop overnight" Stromberg says and that he has high hopes for.
July 27, 1964, The Lord News Sentinel
TV Highlight: The Outer Limits. A queen bee is turned into a human being and a very pretty one too! It stars Joanne Frank and Philip Abbott.
July 30, 1964, UPI
"Senator Dodd attacks Violence on Television"
The Senate committee investigating the causes of juvenile delinquency watched monsters and murderers perform mayhem on a giant TV screen in the conference room in Washington DC last week. The scenes that played out at the hearing included those from ABC shows such as The Outer Limits. US Senator Thomas J. Dodd (D) of Connecticut charged that prime time television is still "permeated with programs featuring excessive crime, violence and debased moral standards." Dodd, Chairman of the national subcommittee on juvenile delinquency, said there has been no appreciable reduction in violence in the new season's shows and that the most violent and offensive shows of 1961-1962 still dominate the home TV screens. Dodd's harsh criticism was included in an opening statement as the subcommittee resumed its hearings into crime and violence on TV. It was during the 1961-62 season that the subcommittee first held hearings that showed, "network executives are consciously fostering a trend toward violence by ordering more of this material in action-adventures shows to maintain high ratings for these kinds of programs."
Dodd summoned executives if all three networks to explain why there has been no reduction in violent shows despite their pledge to do so two years ago. Dodd said that only CBS had shown an appreciable improvement. Said Dodd, "There is unjustifiable violence and brutality permeated new shows this year, whether the shows were centered around college campus, hospitals, psychiatric offices and other unlikely locations, in addition to the present formats that are still on the air that are in the adventure, western and detective genres." it was part of Dodd's investigation into juvenile delinquency. Dodd argued with the network executives about whether TV shows, which centered on homosexuality and Chromite-skinned monsters from outer space, violated good taste and he questioned the limits of "tolerable terror" on TV. "You had better mend your ways!" Dodd angrily warned the TV Industry. "But I really don't think you care. So I believe the American people will make you care. Audiences won't take this kind of programming forever" Dodd specifically criticized a segment of one of the ABC shows, The Outer Limits, including a scene of the Chromite monster strangling and drowning a man at the end of a pond. However, ABCs President Thomas Moore protested that such scenes shown from The Outer Limits, Breaking Point and other ABC shows were being shown out of context. "They are not necessarily representative of ABCs programming," Moore said. He insisted that the TV industry, "Can and does police itself as to content and strives constantly to make better programs and will periodically alert its producers to the problems involved regarding violence. We have developed a code for helping to guide the people who produce our television shows," Moore said.
July 31, 1964, The Australian AGE
On the subject of science fiction, the first question we will deal with is to ask ourselves, as we gather around to watch The Outer Limits on our recently converted TV set, is, "What did the TV repairman forget to put back in?" And as The Outer Limits picture materializes, a voice comes on in funeral tones: "There is nothing wrong with your television set. We are controlling transmission. For the next hour, we will control all that you see and hear and think. You are watching a drama that reaches from the inner mind to the Outer Limits." Spurred on by the wave of recent space stories in the newspaper, some Outer Limits episodes zoom to cosmic heights while others should have been destroyed in the film laboratory. Some of the Outer Limits stars: The Man With Sixth Fingers (from 1,001, 963 AD), The Galaxy Being (materialized here by electrical impulses), The Luminoid Visitor (who comes to Earth to see whether earthlings will make good slaves), The Time creature (also from another dimension) the 140-IQ Sea Monster and the icy Spectre (nicknamed by the producers as "Chill Charlie"). Our advice: Close all of the doors after viewing!
August 2, 1964, The Hartford Courant
"How his own TV character frustrates Fred MacMurray"
Those who know Fred MacMurray intimately swear that he hasn't a jealous bone in his body. He has never been known to knock a rival actor and many of the actresses who have been his leading ladies have given him nothing but praise. But he admits he is jealous of the man he portrays on My Three Sons. He says the role of Steve Douglas bugs him and gives him an inferiority complex. In real life, he says, no father can ever attain Steve's perfection and that is what is so maddening. "I get to feeling this way when situations happen at home and I tell my wife, June Haver, that I don't have the answers. I confess, I also tell that to either of my twin daughters. The main source of my envy is Steve's great ability to be a perfect father to his sons. There are many times I wish I could change places with Steve Douglas, you know, like they're able to do in The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone." But despite his feeling of personal inadequacy, MacMurray's twin daughters idolize him as do millions of TV viewers and his three TV sons.
August 13, 1964, The Southeast Missourian
Newslady Peggy Whedon has a message for all the ladies of the Democratic National Convention and that is, beware of the "Creepy Peepy." No, Peggy hasn't been watching The Outer Limits. She means those little hand-held TV cameras that can now go everywhere in their coverage.
August 15, 1964, Lewiston Evening Journal, by Johnny Robinson
Leslie Stevens, the creator and executive producer of The Outer Limits, wrote his first play at age 11. His father, Vice Admiral Leslie C. Stevens, was attached to the US Embassy in London at that time.
August 18, 1964, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
East Side, West Side has been cancelled but the kids' favorite, The Outer Limits, was renewed. It's all part of the TV industry's drawing of great truths from those scanty bits of evidence provided by polls and surveys which tell them what multi-million dollar TV programs to keep on the air for next season. It's based on the 1,100 Nielsen families that measure a show's popularity.
August 22, 1964, The Chicago Tribune by Larry Wolters (TV Ticker)
Sammy Davis Jr. has written two science fiction plays. The Outer Limits is now looking them over.
August 29, 1964, The Montreal Gazette, by Eric Haworth
"How the World of Crime Moved in on George Bist"
[Note from Mark Phillips: the snippet that follows as part of a much longer crime story NOT related to Outer Limits]
...it all seemed too unreal to be true. Momentarily I felt that this was an extension of something I'd been seeing on one of those TV shows - The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone - where some ludicrous experience is projected into the life of an ordinary person like me and spotlighted. But then I was brought back into focus..."
August 30, 1964, St. Petersburg Times
This is the year of the monsters. Although doctors, lawyers and cowboys are back, they don't stand a ghost of a chance against the off-beat shows bring dredged up by TV writers. ABCs Addams family and CBS's The Munsters top the list of the macabre but The Outer Limits, Bewitched and My Living Doll can also be considered as far from normal.
August 30, 1964, The St. Petersburg Times TV Scout by Joan Crosby
The world is going to be invaded on Outer Limits but it's only a group of scientists who take the threat seriously. In order to convince their tranquil earthmates of the danger, they transform Robert Culp, a fellow scientist, into a monster like nothing ever seen on Earth before, except in some old Boris Karloff movies. Their plan is to scare people into believers. Some do but others, like yourself, may only howl at the outrageous creature.
September 4, 1964, Associated press, by Cynthia Lowry
TVs 1964—65 season is looming as the year of the computers. These miracle machines are not new to television but will soon be blossoming forth as actors. Computers will turn up as background dressing and as minor characters in science fiction and adventures tales, including The Outer Limits. ABCs new Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea will have a flashing computer that will spew out information in the control room of the show's non-human star, The Seaview, an atomic powered glass nosed submarine that will roam the world, performing all kinds of miraculous feats. One day it may become easier and cheaper to build an actor on order and program their parts, and thus eliminate the need for retakes or flubbed scenes or hassling over new contracts!
September 6, 1964, The Sydney Morning herald, by Valda Marshall of Show Business
The Outer Limits has just about reached the outer limits of my viewing patience last night with its offering titled ZZZZZ. This series, that the producers have labeled as science fiction, looked like a harmless enough romp when it began a few months back. But genuine science fiction fans would not approve of some of the stories that have turned up on Outer Limits. What really gets to me is that a prime time spot can be given to The Outer Limits while the same channel's first class series, Project 64, is held over until an hour later. Anyway, to get back to ZZZZZ, which was a piece about a Queen bee who came to Earth in human form (and in some form, at that!!) to lead a takeover of Earth. Her aim was to court entomologist Ben Fields by buzzing around him but he didn't fall for her words of honey. He wasn't having any of that, even when he was left a widower after the Queen bee's followers had stung his wife to death. After a little speech from Ben on the purity of human love, the Queen bee toppled off a balcony and the bee revolt was over. To sum it all up? GRRRRRRRR!!
September 12, 1964, The Pittsburg-Post Gazette
On the Wide World of Entertainment, host Bing Crosby introduces the stars of ABCs new shows and even pretends to be at home with the monsters from Outer Limits and the new Addams Family.
September 13, 1964, The Baltimore Sun, by Richard Gehman
"The Monster Craze"
Joseph Stefano, who with Leslie Stevens of Daystar TV, were the originators' of last season's smash hit series, The Outer Limits. Stefano and Sevens have introduced a nice array of new misshapen creatures for the small screen for this season. "Our only problem was to find new ones that will scare us," Stefano says. The curious fact is that the monsters frighten their creators. Well, at least, the creators say they do.
September 13, 1964, The Youngstown Vindicator
9-10pm, ABC has their Wide World of Entertainment. This special will introduce all of the stars of the new and old ABC shows for the fall season. It's more of an entertainment than promotional hour and most of the TV stars actually do performing, plugging their shows only in the finale with a multi-verse parody of the old soft shoe. They also participate in comedic bits and song groupings. The most humorous of which is a trio effort by Bing Crosby, Mickey Rooney and David Janssen. You'll see the frightening monsters from The Outer Limits and humorous monsters from the new Addams Family. Even Ernest Borgnine sings and if you can take that, then you'll enjoy the participation of the 30 other stars who sing and dance in the finale, including Connie Stevens, Gene Barry, Inger Stevens, Patty Duke, Richard Basehart, Jimmy Dean, Vic Morrow and Vince Edwards.
September 19, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
Tonight is The Outer Limits' "Soldier," the series' season premiere. The emphasis seems to have shifted slightly away from the first year monsters to a form of literate science fiction. Michael Ansara stars as a soldier of the future who is suddenly relocated to the present, with Lloyd Nolan as a contemporary scientist who is attempting to establish a basis for communication with this strange guest. Lovers of the far-out will enjoy this well-produced item.
September 19, 1964, St. Petersburg Times, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
The Outer Limits moves to a new time slot for its second season with as much ease as some of its characters in past episodes have traveled from one century to another. The opening episode, 'Soldier" has Michael Ansara cast as a soldier from 1800 years in the future who is studied by Lloyd Nolan, a language expert and a man who can't wait to know what is going to happen next.
September 24, 1964, England's Evening Times. "That Was the Week That Was" by The Fireside Critic
The Outer Limits: An ingeniously simply idea provided the formula for this new science fiction series from America. At the start I thought this show was going to be hard to swallow but the horror stuff was kept to a minimum. At least it has a new approach for television and that is really something these days.
September 26, 1964, The St. Petersburg Times
TV previews:
Geraldine Brooks on The Outer Limits has a domestic problem that no ordinary marriage counselor could ever solve. In "Cold hands, Warm Heart" she discovers that hubby William Shatner, who has just visited Venus, is no longer the man she thought him to be. His arms are becoming scaly and webs are beginning to grow between his fingers. He had blacked out during his orbit of Venus and is beginning to suffer weird physical changes. It's a chiller indeed.
September 27, 1964, The Chicago Tribune
The networks are trying out new strategies and scheduling to win more viewers. For example, The Outer Limits will now be seen on Saturday nights, to attract young lovers of the far out, while CBS will counter with The Jackie Gleason Show as opposition, to get the middle-aged viewers.
September 27, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
Two new shows that have a ghost of a chance are debuting this year. You can blame it all on The Outer Limits or Inner Sanctum since ABC has unearthed a couple of situation comedies that are strictly way out - The Addams Family and Bewitched.
September 27, 1964, NEA news, by Joan Crosby
"It's A Hot Time on the Old Set for a New Hand at Horror"
There are some minor details that the writers of The Outer Limits occasionally overlook. For instance, they created the role of an American astronaut with a problem. The problem concerns a pair of scaly hands and webbed fingers, plus his inability to get warm. The scaly hands were an easy assignment for the makeup department and the appearance of being cold fell to the wardrobe department, which resolved that by dressing William Shatner (as the astronaut) in a warm dressing gown, complete with wool scarf around his neck. The minor detail the writers had overlooked was Shatner's problem. He was standing under the hot studio lights, preparing to thrust his hands into a blazing fire and trying desperately not to perspire. He had just finished a very trying scene in which he went berserk, pulling a telephone cord out of its socket, smashing papers and shoving books off a desk. He is so menacingly in doing so that his wife, played by Geraldine Brooks, fainted. It required eight takes to get this scene right. Between takes Shatner and Miss Brooks joked about the scene and hammed up their acting. "One more take of that scene and my hands would have fallen part," Bill said when the scene was finally finished. The cameras were then set up for "the moment of ecstasy when I shove my hands into the fire." Ironically, this season, The Outer Limits is occupying the same time slot the network originally had scheduled for the new Alexander the Great series starring Shatner. The cancellation of that series, after it had been all set for the 1964-65 season, was a huge disappointment for the handsome and talented young Canadian actor. "It was a personal disaster to me," he says. "One of the biggest disasters of my life. The disappointments that you find in this business are multi-faceted but this one was the Acme. I had accepted the Alexander series, which was produced by Selig Seligman who turns out Combat. He sold it on the basis of his reputation, his story idea and the quality of his Combat series. And our pilot was really wonderful to see. It was filmed on location in color and it looked more like a movie than a television pilot. Alexander was not a typical TV hero. He would have grown and changed as the series progressed. It was to be an adventure series with a novel and unique approach. We were right in the middle of a victory celebration over its sale to ABC when we were told that it had been cancelled."
Shatner, however, is still ahead of the deal. To prepare for the pilot, he had learned to fence and to ride horses bareback. "The first time I mounted a horse bareback, I fell off. By the time I finished, I could ride bareback. So I figure I am ahead because of what I learned." It was time for Shatner to head back to the set and thrust his cold hands, hands you don't love to touch, into the warm fire building in a fireplace. "Are you sure these hands have been fireproofed?' he asked as he held up his hands. He was quickly assured that they had. And a portable fire extinguisher was just out of camera range, leaning against the edge of the fireplace just in case anything went wrong. Bill turned to the set's fireman and smiled, "I won't consider it an invasion of my privacy if you want to pick that extinguisher up now and hold it in your hands. It won't throw off my performance at all." Bill then went ahead and did the scene, four times! He admitted later that he was a bit uncomfortable wearing the hands, even though they were well protected from the fire. "The trouble is that the hands, even under the covering, get very hot in the fire. They stayed hot even after I took my hands out of the fireplace," he grinned. "This is my first monster role that I have ever played. It may be my last!"
October 3, 1964, The St. Petersburg Times, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
On The Outer Limits, you can't always believe what you see. Anyway, this week's guest is Peter Lind Hayes as an optical expert with special glasses and he wishes he didn't, because what he sees and believes is a three-dimensional creature who has arrived on Earth through a break in its time barrier. The only way the monster can get back is through Peter's glasses. And you won't believe it unless you see it.
October 10, 1964, England's Evening Times. "That Was the Week That Was" by The Fireside Critic
The Outer Limits: The latest episode of this American show got me to thinking that they have gotten the wrong title for this series. The Giddy Limit would have been a lot more appropriate.
October 17, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
One man is left alone on a shattered Earth. This one solitary soul somehow survived and he must now defend our world against invading creatures from The Outer Limits. Robert Culp stars in the forceful drama tonight.
October 17, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
"Demon With A Glass Hand" on The Outer Limits tonight. Robert Culp, who has been doing more work as a guest star this year than if he had his own TV series, tackles a bizarre but familiar role here. He plays a surviving "human" being from the future who comes back in time to try to prevent mankind from being wiped out. His power to accomplishing his mission is dependent on the intellectual capabilities of a talking and thinking glass hand. Unfortunately, the hand is not all there (literally). It's eerie science fiction with considerable help from the special effects and it has a real shocker of an ending.
October 23, 1964, Lewiston Evening Post, by Johnny Robinson of Video Highlights
TV Highlight tonight is The Outer Limits. Eddie Albert and June Havoc star as a couple trapped by a strange force from outer space. In "Cry of Silence," an eerie being from space isolates Andy Thorne and his wife Karen in a ghost town. They try to escape until they discover the super being seems to be attempting to communicate with them.
October 31, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
An entire crew vanishes on the planet Mars. A sinister horror lurks just beneath the placid surface of the blood red planet Mars. One by one, the rescue crew disappears. It's incredible science fiction on The Outer Limits tonight!
November 1, 1964, Associated Press
Last season My Friendly Martian and Outer Limits made their debut and the trend spotters immediately predicted a new fantasy phase as a result of their popularity. Their accuracy was confirmed when four more shows, relying on viewer’s acceptance of fantasy, made their debuts: Bewitched, My Living Doll, The Munsters and The Addams Family.
November 1, 1964, NEA News by Dick Kleiner
"Catching Ron Randell between planes is necessary for an Interview"
Ron Randell is the perfect example of that creation of the 1960s: the international actor. He had zipped into Hollywood to do an episode of The Outer Limits, where he played "The Duplicate Man,". He had flown in from Marseilles, where he had been filming a movie called House on the Hill, to do the episode. Where Randell will be two weeks from now is anybody's guess. He says this life of a traveling actor is both adventurous and disadvantaged, but he likes to travel. Ron's lovely wife, Laya Raki, is currently in London. They have no home.. Ask him where his home is and he gestures around the hotel lobby in Los Angeles. Ask him where his roots are and you get a blank stare. "We can't accumulate anything," he says. "I have no books or pictures or anything permanent. And that's the one thing I really regret. I've had some lovely things and have had to give them away." At least he has a couple of suitcases with him and along with his wife, has a car and a few boxes in London.
November 7, 1964 The Chicago Tribune, by Harold Stern
Regarding The Outer Limits series - ABC, please! Take back control of your television set!
November 7, 1964, Milwaukee Journal, TV previews
"Wolf Number 359" This is as eerie a horror story as this series has ever produced. A scientist sets up a fragment of a distant planet on a specially constructed chamber and by duplicating its atmospheric conditions he finds that he can observe its evolution at the rate of 11 and a half days per second. Strange life forms begin to evolve into men who become increasingly hostile to Earth creatures. There are some pretty chilling scenes and a good science fiction concept here. Patrick O'Neal and Sara Shane star.
November 8, 1964, The Los Angeles Times
A robot goes on trial for the murder of its inventor. This Outer Limits episode is, in a sense, a take-off of Perry Mason as Howard da Silva plays a lawyer brought out of retirement to defend a robot accused of murdering a scientist, its inventor. It's a bizarre case. Ford Rainey plays the prosecutor who is forced to bring the robot to trial. The cast also includes Marianna Hill and Leonard Nimoy.
November 14, 1964, The St. Petersburg Times, TV Scout by Joan Cosby
The Outer Limits taps into the outer limits of imagination with "I, Robot." which concerns a near-human mechanical wonder that goes on trial for slaying its inventory. Out to defend the robot from the scrap heap is Howard da Silva, a lawyer whom Clarence Darrow would have envied. The love birds hoping for the best for their tin-haired friend are played by Leonard Nimoy and Marianna Hill.
November 16, 1964, The Los Angeles Times and Associated Press
TV actress Kate Manx died in Torrance Sunday. Manx, 32, was divorced from writer-director Leslie Stevens (Outer Limits) and died in a Torrance hospital early Sunday morning of what police describe as an overdose of pills. According to her fiancé, Dr. Samula Stornelli, she took the overdose of pills after an argument with him in his Palos Verde estate home. Stornelli said Manx awakened him at 11pm Saturday night, after he had gone to bed, and told him she had taken the pills. He immediately called an ambulance and she was taken to the Little Company of Mary Hospital. Stornelli then called Leslie Stevens, who rushed to the hospital and both men were present when she died at 1:15am. Stevens stated that their two year old son was staying with him at their Beverly Hills home at the time of his ex-wife's death. Manx had divorced Stevens earlier this year, claiming charges of cruelty. She told the Los Angeles Supreme Court, "Leslie told me that he didn't want to be married and that upset me a great deal." She was awarded custody of their two-year old son. Manx's television credits included a recent episode of Perry Mason.
November 18, 1964, The Montreal Gazette
The science fiction program Outer Limits, now in its second season, will be getting the chop from ABC and will be replaced by The King family. a musical variety show featuring the singing King Sisters.
November 28, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal, TV Key Previews
"The Inheritors, Part 2: Last week's eerie thriller is concluded tonight, but it is somewhat of a letdown, ending in a mystical way as the four GIs, now possessed of superhuman intellects and powers, complete their mysterious project. It's moderately interesting and reasonably well played but it might have been lot better. But if you caught last week's show, you won't want to miss it.
November 29, 1964, Eugene Register Guard
TV Highlights
A two-part Outer Limits ends tonight, as four American soldiers have become geniuses in different specialized fields after being wounded by mysterious bullets during jungle warfare. They now complete the mysterious project assigned to them by a strange force. Robert Duvall, Steve Ihnat and Donald Harron are the stars.
November 30, 1964, Associated Press, Cynthia Lowry
"The King Family will replace The Outer Limits"
It is one of the few traditions of network TV that the death of a TV program is never formally announced. It is usually only reluctantly admitted too, just when its replacement program is heralded. Over the past weekend, ABC, not unexpectedly, announced a new program will fill its 7:30-8:30pm slot on Saturdays, starting January 23. It used about 300 words to extol this new series, The King Family, by describing it as an hour of music and fun. Yet not one word was spent on The Outer Limits, a science fiction anthology that will slip away quietly in the middle of its second season. The demise of Outer Limits, which often featured weird characters from outer space, is an interesting subject for speculation, particularly during a television season where creatures from outer space and other worlds is definitely in vogue. The Outer Limits monsters were often scary apparitions threatening the security of the Earth. The monsters in the current hit comedies are truly bizarre as far as their looks go but they go for laughs instead of terror. Perhaps The Outer Limits' problem was its anthology format. If there had been one starring monster each week from space, blundering around and scaring people in every show, maybe we would have become accustomed to its idiosyncrasies and learned to love him, as we have the characters of Lurch, the ghoulish butler on The Addams Family or Herman Munster and Grandpa on The Munsters. It seems most likely, however, that Outer Limits was the victim of a tough time spot. It was renewed after a pretty good year in last season's early evening Monday hour. Then ABC shot it over to Saturdays, in an hour which also gave the network trouble last season. The Hootenanny series died there as well, and that has also spelled the end for The Outer Limits.
December 2, 1964, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
It's all over for The Outer Limits, which will dematerialize in January. Apparently, the real monsters on Outer Limits could not compete with the fun monsters on this season's The Munsters, Addams Family, etc.
December 11, 1964, The Deseret News by Howard Pearson
For the first time in history, the Nobel Awards will be shown on TV. Doing this is risky since ABC is pre-empting The Outer Limits, which has a fair audience so early in the evening. There's also the risk of an educational program going into a spot monopolized by a science fiction program. Nobel's Harry Rasky, the director, admits, "We can't hope to compete with a popular entertainment series - but if we can influence just a few young people at that early hour, I'm happy."
December 20, 1964, The Eugene Register.
TV Previews:
Outer Limits goes way out again in "The Duplicate Man" tale. The series delves into the future again tonight with this story of a duplicate man. it is the story of a scientist who, in 2025, brings a specimen from another planet back to Earth, only for it to escape and it endangers everyone on Earth. Ron Randell stars.
December 26, 1964, The Milwaukee Journal
"Counterweight" is an eerie thriller in which sends six passengers and a crew of two are sent off on a simulated voyage of 261 days to another planet. Their "spaceship" runs into all kinds of expected hazards plus a few that no one can account for. Michael Constantine plays the passenger most anxious to have the voyage completed.
January 2, 1965, The Chicago Tribune
Question: Is it true that The Outer Limits is really go off the air? Is there anything people can do to keep it on? My friend and I think it's tops! David K, Chicago
Answer: A musical series featuring the King Family is scheduled to replace Outer Limits on either January 23rd or 30th. So send your protest letters to ABC, 7 West 66th avenue, NYC.
January 2, 1965, The Milwaukee Journal
"The Brain of Colonel Braham" An egocentric astronaut, dying of leukemia, agrees to have his brain separated from his body to be used in conjunction with a computer for space travel. But the liberated brain goes berserk. Anthony Eisley plays the astronaut and the voice of the liberated brain.
January 2, 1965, The Chicago Tribune
TV Highlight:
The Outer Limits: An army colonel agrees to give his brain for use in a robot computer that is going to Mars. Evil doings are the result. Featured are two former Hawaiian Eye stars, Grant Williams and Anthony Eisley, along with Elizabeth Perry.
January 8, 1965, The Los Angeles Times, by Matt Weinstock
Every Sunday with the First Congregational Church Choir, Bob Johnson sings praises to the Lord. The rest of the week he is responsible for the ghoulish and satanic voices of monsters and assorted demons on the scary ABC-TV series, The Outer Limits.
January 8, 1965, The Milwaukee Journal, TV Previews
Tonight on The Outer Limits: "The Premonition." Our old science fiction friend, the space-time warp, is back with us but this time it is a benevolent freak of nature. Thanks to that, both a test pilot and his wife have been whipped into a limbo world where they have 27 seconds to figure out some way to save their little daughter from being run over by a truck. This is practically a two-person drama and the roles of the pilot and his wife are capably handled by Dewey Martin and Mary Murphy.
January 9, 1965, The Chicago Tribune
Best Bet for TV tonight:
A test pilot and his wife are caught in a terrifying time lapse. Now they can only stand by helplessly as their daughter's life is endangered in "The Premonition," a suspenseful Outer Limits episode starring Dewey Martin and Mary Murphy. Both performers do well as the young couple trapped in time, with Emma Tyson as their daughter.
January 9, 1965, St. Petersburg Times
TV Previews:
Again The Outer Limits is occupied with the mysteries of a time lapse. In "The Premonition," Dewey Martin wakes up after a plane crash (so he thinks) and finds himself on the ground with his plane hovering in the sky high above him. If you're able to believe all of that, then you are also asked to believe that his worried wife (Mary Murphy) has hurried to the scene and has crashed her convertible and soon she gets caught up in the time lapse too. Both have jumped ahead in time and are now, of course, able to see into the future. There is a lot of hokum in this one and it is recommended only for the heartiest of science fiction buffs.
January 16, 1965, The Milwaukee Journal
TV previews (McClure newspaper Syndicate)
Outer Limits' "The Probe" airs tonight. This series has reached its own Outer Limits and next week it will have disappeared before your very eyes. Frankly, we'll miss it. This last episode concerns a group of plane crash survivors who find that they've been scooped up by a giant space probe from another planet and are being "studied." Also aboard is a monster form of man-devouring microbe which not only could destroy the humans but it might even destroy the planet during the probe. Mark Richman, Peggy Ann Garner and Ron Hayes star.
January 16, 1965, Lewiston Evening Journal, by Johnny Robinson (Video Versions column):
Tonight: The Outer Limits. Mark Richman and Peggy Ann Garner star in an encounter with a man eating monster from outer space. Jeff Rome and Amanda Franklin are aboard a plane which has crashed into the sea. They discover that they are inside a giant plastic container and are being viewed by beings from space. As they search for a way out, they come face to face with a man-eating monster.
January 16, 1965, The Chicago Tribune
On The Outer Limits the crew and passengers of a downed plane are menaced by the combination of a strange space probe from another planet and a weird monster on the alien probe. Mark Richman and Peggy Ann Garner star in what is the last network telecast for this series.
January 22, 1965, The Los Angeles Times, by Cecil Smith
"TV series shuffled for a new deal"
There is suddenly a great deal of promise on the tube for the next few days. The Outer Limits bows out for the debut of The King Family on ABC Saturdays and the new Chuck Connors western, Branded, begins as well. Outer Limits, a horror show aimed at kids, did quite well as a Monday entry last season but it got nowhere after its shift to Saturday nights this year...in fact, none of the television shows dropped this mid-season will be missed: The Reporter, Mr. Broadway, The Bill Dana Show, Mickey, 90 Bristol Court, The Outer Limits - all were mostly tired and trite formats, weakly done. ABC has high hopes for the King Family series, which replaces The Outer Limits on Saturdays. The network hopes the King family will develop the same kind of Lawrence Welk popularity, with its 36 member King family.
January 28, 1965, Chicago Tribune, by Larry Wolters
The LOOK-Listen Poll by NADD was given to the American Council for Better TV broadcasts, which issued the results of this annual poll. It is based on TV viewer opinions sent in by 3,546 adults and 4,186 teenagers. These people are scattered over 30 states, and each was asked what they watched and what shows they didn't watch (resulting in plus results for the winners and minuses for the losers).
The results here in the PLUS category for most popular shows:
The Fugitive: 1006
Shindig: 679
Lawrence Welk: 611
Peyton Place; 516
Dick Van Dyke: 446
Andy Griffith: 413
Mr. Novak: 380
Danny Kaye: 314
Captain Kangaroo: 269
Bewitched; 261
Gomer Pyle; 260
Evening News With Walter Cronkite: Plus 256
Rogues; 248
Dr. Kildare: 247
Flipper: 243
Defender; 241
My 3 Sons: 228
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: 211
Combat: 190
My 3 Sons: 187
Virginian: 184
Ben Casey: 182
Leonard Bernstein's Concert for young people also scored high.
Some of the losing shows in the MINUS column:
The Outer Limits - minus 145 with adults but 137 plus with teens
Jackie Gleason scored a surprising heavy minus for both adults and teens - adults minus 96, teens minus 42
February 13, 1965, The Chicago Tribune (TV Mailbag)
Question: Half an hour ago, I finished doing the dishes and turned on the TV to watch my favorite TV program, The Outer Limits. Instead, what I saw was a population explosion - The King Family! Please tell me what happened to Outer Limits? Linda H, Skokie Illinois
Answer: ABC dropped the show, with no explanation. Maybe you can learn to like The King Family? It has a regular cast of 36 family members and features the King sisters in a series of music and humor. It is a musical hour designed to replace Outer Limits.
February 16, 1965, The Evening Independent by Steven H. Scheuer
Question: Why was The Outer Limits taken off the air and replaced by The King Family? I think Outer Limits was one of the better hours on television and King Family is like amateur night in Dixie compared to it. Mrs. G.G., Milford, Connecticut
Answer: The Outer Limits just was not making it in the ratings department and was scuttled as a result. The King Family may not be your cup of tea but fans seem to be enjoying this type of entertainment, at least judging by our mail.
March 15, 1965, The Deseret News, by Howard Pearson
Never again shall science fiction, suspense and some so-called horror shows be ridiculed. After seeing real-life pictures of a man climbing out of a spaceship and floating in space, as we saw yesterday on several occasions on television, we are now prepared to believe in anything. Exciting as this event was, I believe it also gave the lie to the old bromide about truth being stranger than fiction. Many TV shows and movies have been doing the same thing for years. Comics too. Do you remember the old Buck Rogers strips? Some industry sources have predicted that westerns will make a big comeback on TV next season but I don't think so. I think this space walking event will mean the return of such programs as The Outer Limits, One Step Beyond and Twilight Zone. Talking of that fact, Irwin Allen, the producer of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, says the submarine Seaview will be attacked by the most frightening sea creature ever witnessed by man on this Monday's episode.
March 21, 1965, The Nevada Daily Mail
Now on Saturday nights on WDAF-TV Channel 4 at 6:30pm: The Outer Limits: venture into the unknown beyond the curtain of reality. Then you be the judge. What is fact? What is fiction?
April 4, 1965, The Hartford Courant
Question: What TV shows did Tim O'Connor appear in before becoming Elliot Carson on Peyton Place? G. B., Baltimore
Answer: Tim has appeared in most of the big TV shows, including The Outer Limits, The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
April 10, 1965, The Chicago Tribune
TV mailbag:
Question: Why has The King Family been cancelled? I am shocked that the fabulous King Family has been taken off the air. Please tell me and their fans where we can write. R.B.
Answer: Write to ABC in New York. Ironically, The Outer Limits fans were outraged when The King Family replaced their favorite show. Well, now the King Family fans are outraged because it is to be replaced next fall. The show fell victim to disappointing ratings in that Saturday time slot. The King Family's latest ratings put it around an 11 rating, even lower than The Outer Limits 13 rating average for the year. We're sure glad we're not network programmers!
April 26, 1965, The Eugene Registry Guard
Before The Man From Uncle, David McCallum worked for nine months in George Stevens' movie The Greatest Story Ever Told. "Then I sat around and worried for almost a year," says David. "Nobody in Hollywood knew who I was and I was panicky." But David eked out work in TV with roles on The Outer Limits, Perry Mason, The Travels of Jamie McPheeters and Profiles in Courage. He soon gathered raves from the directors of these shows as a man who could act and soon word leaked out. "There is a restlessness in me," he admits. "I like to keep my hands busy. Even as a child, I always fiddled with clocks." David's father in England was a music concertmaster but David dropped music for theater, beginning his career as an electrician in British theater at the age of 14. David's father sat down with his son at one point for a heart to heart talk, suggesting music as an alternative to acting. "But you don't understand, father - I'm a dedicated actor," David told him. David has since proved his acting abilities to his father's satisfaction. "He saw me once on television on The Outer Limits,'" David says proudly. "He was touring Canada with an orchestra and he had a TV set rigged up in the back of the stage. He only saw the second half of The Outer Limits episode but he was very impressed!"
Now as co-star of Man From Uncle, David's fan mail is zooming. UNCLE has become a controversial show in that some fans dislike the cool arrogance of agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), while some aren't amused by the plots but many teenagers consider it the toughest show on TV. And there were some prognosticators who said David would be the surprise of the year. "Uncle is a well-produced romantic adventure," says David. "It comes along at a time when the public is hungry for this sort of thing. A few think that if we had more time to film the segments, it would be a better show. I disagree. The production under pressure gives you a tempo and you give a little extra under those circumstances. With more production time, we would lose our edge."
June 7, 1965, The Toledo News
TV Key Mailbag
Question: Now that The Twilight Zone is back on TV with repeats, are they also going to bring back The Outer Limits? I think Outer Limits was much better than Twilight Zone and often scary.
Answer: Twilight Zone repeats are slated to run on CBS for the summer months only. Outer Limits will not be resurrected as a network entry but it is currently being seen in many areas via syndication.
June 22, 1965, The Ocala Star Banner by Joan Crosby
"Patrick O'Neal is in a casting rut - and yearns for another comedy part."
Patrick O'Neal would not mind if casting directors in Hollywood remember his old TV series, Dick and the Duchess and the fact that it was a comedy. "After that series, I worked in Hollywood and could only get parts in light comedies. So I came to New York and worked hard at the Actors Studio and ended up in the play, Night of the Iguana. That play typed me as a heavy dramatic actor." Now he's looking to do more comedy roles. On TV lately, he has been menaced by a monster in The Outer Limits and suffered through The Bob Hope Chrysler Presents. "There is no question that these heavy dramatic roles that you play affect your life," he says. "I would like to get back into comedy for my own peace of mind. The time spent on stage doing Iguana proved to be the most destructive period of my life. I don't think my health could stand it again."
July 5, 1965, The Milwaukee Journal, TV Scout by Joan Crosby
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea continues to be more like Voyage to the Bottom of The Outer Limits, the old science fiction TV series. In "The Indestructible Man," the submarine Seaview is entangled with a robot which has "emotional reactions closely duplicating a man's behavior." It's a monster of a script.
July 20, 1965, The Milwaukee Journal
TV Previews:
As part of NBCs Cloak of Mystery is "The 13 Gate." This one might have been done as a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode. It's a science fiction yarn, sort of an interstellar version of The Man from UNCLE and it was originally made as a pilot for NBC during that brief period of time when science fiction seemed hot. You might literally call this a far-fetched adventure, with Jeremy Slate playing an astronaut who is brought back from outer space in an unusual state. David Opatoshu plays the "Leo G. Carroll" part and Alex Viespi and Karl Held are the impersonations of Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.
August 25, 1965, The Chicago Tribune
TV Mailbag:
Question: Will The Rogues and The Outer Limits return to television?
Answer: The Outer Limits and The Rogues won't be seen on network TV but you're liable to see these shows in reruns in local stations across the country.
August 29, 1965, St. Petersburg Times.
This may be the year of the spies but some of the way-out shows will return for the ratings game, including the popular ex-network show, Outer Limits..... WSUN will revive Thriller with Boris Karloff as host. The other revival will be The Outer Limits. This one-time network science fiction series will be telecast by WFLA-TV.
September 18, 1965, Evening Independent, by Steven H. Scheuer
TV mailbag
Question: I have an argument which I hope you will settle. My friend and I are great science fiction fans. We were discussing the various science fiction television shows and we got around to The Outer Limits. I say it was a success the first season but failed in its second year. My friend says it only lasted for half a season and was a flop. L. D. Saginaw, Michigan
Answer: You are both wrong. The Outer Limits was a moderately successful series in its first half of the season but slipped in the ratings toward the end of the year. However, it was renewed for a second season but it lasted only through January. This constitutes a total network run on one and a half seasons.
September 26, 1965, The Hartford Courant (TV Mailbag)
Question: Why was The Outer Limits taken off television in the middle of the season? LDL, Lindenwood, Illinois.
Answer: According to the powers that be at ABC, the show didn't have the ratings.
April 6, 1966, The Chicago Tribune
In researching the new generation of TV viewers, we found, most interestingly, that young folks of today are being molded most by TV shows like The Outer Limits and Lost in Space.
December 1, 1966, Associated Press
TV writer-producer Leslie Stevens, 42, was divorced by actress Allyson Ames, who had appeared on segments of his TV series, The Outer Limits. Ames testified that his treatment of her during their marriage caused her to become a nervous wreck and that she just fell apart. Ames, 26, married Stevens October 3, 1965.
January 21, 1967, The Los Angeles Times
"Vic Perrin's hidden voice makes him a commercial success."
In an age where many people are clamoring for a four-day work week, Vic Perrin could not care less. He already has that beat. He only works about three days a week as one of Hollywood's top voice artists in TV and radio. He earns more money than many often-seen, better known, TV performers. But he still thinks of himself as an actor. He will not appear on camera as a pitchman for any commercial. "If the casting people see you in a commercial, they no longer think of you as an actor."
July 16, 1976, Chicago Tribune, by George Castle
"TV Science Fiction: A Victim of Cheap Thrills"
Slithering monsters, hostile alien beings, death rays, weird noises, and flashing lights - those have been the unfortunate staples of most TV science fiction. If you've seen one monster, then you've seen them all, which is why most TV science fiction series are always nearly short-lived. This isn't to say science fiction series can't succeed. It already has, evidenced by the Emmy-Award winning Twilight Zone and to a lesser extent Star Trek and The Outer Limits. Twilight Zone was blessed with good writing from its late creator, Rod Serling and others. But the show wasn't pure SF. Fantasy and horror were also included. Twilight Zone won several Emmys and lasted for five popular seasons on CBS, from 1959-1964. Even Quinn Martin, the blood and guts action producer, jumped into the SF genre with a 1967 ABC series called The Invaders. This show was merely a carbon copy of The Fugitive, with Roy Thinnes on the run from mean aliens who had assumed human form. Good science fiction - the classic Twilight Zone or for that matter, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, were the exceptions. A lack of decent scripts have transformed SF shows of the past into near-laughing stocks, especially those produced by special effects master Irwin Allen. During the 1966-67 season, Allen had three SF series on the air: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Time Tunnel on ABC and Lost in Space on CBS. The best actor among this trio of shows wasn't Richard Basehart on Voyage, it was a $36,000 robot on Lost in Space. Plots for these shows were seemingly interchangeable - the hero is attacked by an evil creature, the hero repulses the creature after a life or death struggle and the hero is no worse for his experience and he proceeds to move on to the next harrowing adventure.
Networks keep trying with a science fiction format because there is a ready-made audience, resulting from the Star Trek reruns and the disgust over the unvarying diet of cop shows and comedies. But many pilots don't result in TV series and nothing will ever become of the promising pilot films like The People, about a race of ancient émigrés to Earth who rediscover their long-neglected powers. Good heavens, these alien people might turn out to be the heroes of such a show, and the humans on Earth may become the bad guys. About the closest thing to SF on network TV these days is The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman. But such offerings don't appeal to the SF fans. They would certainly bring a tear to the eyes of Rod Serling, proving that SF on TV has descended to the level of the worst pulp comic strips.
Indeed, take ABCs Six Million Dollar Man- the scripts for this childish turkey are absolutely beyond the scope. The single redeeming quality of Bionic Woman, the female version of Six Million Dollar Man, is Lindsay Wagner. Science Fiction writer David Gerrold, who scripted for Star Trek and wrote two non-fiction Star Trek books, The World of Star Trek and The Trouble With Tribbles, feels SF has come upon hard times on TV ever since Star Trek left the first-run arena. "There is nothing on the networks worth consideration," he says. "To be really good SF, it has to be dangerous," he notes, recalling that certain Star Trek episodes looked on the Vietnam War and racism.
What's in store for next season for NBC is to revive its silly Invisible Man series, which was canceled last year after 13 episodes and making the hero more visible and renaming it The Gemini Man. Thus another old idea is recycled. SF fans are so hungry for anything that they've turned in desperation to a new syndicated offering, the British made Space 1999, which is shown locally on WGN channel 9. This series was much heralded and the publicity for Space 1999 has resulted in handsome ratings around the country. But 1999 has not turned out to be the answer to SF buffs prayers. The special effects are over-rated and are sometimes laughable. They are reminiscent of Japanese SF movies. Some of the storylines are hard to decipher and the acting is not much better. Martin Landau, the leading man, frowns a lot. Landau's wife and co-star, Barbara Bain, walks around looking like she is in a state of shock. And Barry Morse as the scientist was much better as David Janssen's pursuer in The Fugitive. So if Space 1999 is not the ideal SF show, what is? One fan may have the answer. Doug Van Dorn, president of the Northern Illinois University SF Club, says, "It is very hard to sustain a SF idea in a continuation series. Something like Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, where the anthology format offers a different plot and cast each week, is the one real venue for a SF series to succeed. A continuing series will end up with a monster of the week contest. Even Star Trek had some silly plots, especially in its final season. But the really creative SF writers stay away from TV because their ideas wouldn't be accepted by the networks. It's evident in many cases that TV does not want anything controversial or innovative." Until TV presents intelligent SF, about the only thing a frustrated sci-fi fan can do is to sit back and watch Captain Kirk battle the Klingons in reruns.
August 9, 1978, The Associated Press by Jay Sharbutt
If you want to curl up with a good book on television's past sci-fi fantasies, then get Fantastic Television by Gary Gerani. His 192 page effort surveys nearly 30 years of abnormal TV, from The Time Tunnel to The Prisoner, from Night Gallery to Kolchak; The Night Stalker, from Superman to Captain Nice, and it is quite a scholarly piece of work. "It was quite an ordeal," said Gerani, 24, who went by memory and research and with the help of other experts, in assembling the book, published by Harmony. He has enjoyed such fantasy shows since childhood and says his tome on science fiction TV took over a year to write and research. He worked on the book at night, on weekends and even at work. "I would try to sneak my book research in at work but I had to be careful," he laughs. He also writes for bubble cards, many of those are based on TV shows for Topps chewing gum company in New York, where he lives. Many of the older science fiction shows featured in the book can still be sighted in reruns, some of them now playing episodes for their 90th time. When Gerani is asked what his all-time favorite TV series in the book is, surprisingly it isn't Star Trek, it's The Outer Limits, an ABC mind-duster of 1963 vintage. That series took control of your TV set and says Gerani, "It was so unlike anything else you would find on television in terms of off-beat characters." The Outer Limits was an anthology that had brilliant photography as well as good special effects. "It was above and beyond the call of duty visually" Gerani says. Asked to assess the current crop of TV science fiction, The Incredible Hulk gets his approval, ditto Battlestar Galactica on ABC. But Wonder Woman with Lynda Carter gets a raspberry from Gerani. "It's a perfect example of what not to do. Lynda Carter is playing it so bland that there is no character there. They're going for a pseudo Bionic Woman approach and the result is that it has no personality."
April 26, 1981, The Daily Sentinel, by Kevin Kelly
"The Outer Limits returns to Public TV"
"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are in control. We are about to take you on an awe-inspiring journey from the inner mind reaching to the outer limits." With this familiar narration by Vic Perrin (as memorable as Rod Serling's famed opening lines for The Twilight Zone), The Outer Limits anthology broadcast on ABC in the early 1960s. It remains one of the best examples of science fiction written and produced for the TV box. The show is being repeated Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:30pm on WOUB-TV with benefit of no commercials, making the enjoyment of the series two-fold. The brainchild of Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano, who struggled together as aspiring theater people in New York during the 1950s, Outer Limits presented a fairly sophisticated story each week, coupled with low-key direction and acting. The only way Stevens and Stefano could sell the show to the network was to have a monster in every episode. But the producers managed to get around this by making their creatures multi-dimensional, such as in the first episode, Galaxy Being, in which a mercurial alien makes contact with an inspecting radio operator (Cliff Robertson). In later stories, creatures were used both as heroes (I Robot), catalysts (Bellero Shield) or as the traditional villain bent on taking over the world (The Invisibles). In the second season, the show used writers such as Harlan Ellison who fashioned truly speculative stories (Demon with a Glass Hand) as well as other adaptations by established SF writers Clifford D. Simak and Eanodo Binder. In its first season, Outer Limits did traditional SF yarns but also tackled some bizarre ideas. In Forms of Things Unknown, an unsuccessful pilot for a supernatural series written by Stefano just before he left the show, a familiar murder and guilt plot is interestingly coupled with a sub-plot surrounding a moody time traveler (David McCallum). In 100 Days of the Dragon, a plan is detailed to infiltrate the U.S. with doubles of all political and social leaders, which almost succeeds. Stefano, who wrote Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, was replaced as producer in 1964 and despite a promising start with stories by Ellison, the series continued on a downward spiral (not helped by being placed opposite Jackie Gleason on Saturdays) when it was cancelled in early 1965. Watching a program like Outer Limits makes one understand how shallow space operas like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers really are. Like them as you may, they really are just adventure shows pure and simple, long on dazzling special effects but pitifully short on ideas. And good, bad or indifferent, the strength of Outer Limits lays in the fact it really had ideas, entertainingly presented.
June 30, 1982, The Lawrence Journal World
TV Dialogue: "Outer Scout"
Question: I have been enjoying Outer Limits in reruns and would like to know some background information on the show. When did it air originally? On what channel? Who did the special effects?
Answer: The Outer Limits controlled transmission (do you remember, "There is nothing wrong with your television set") on TVs tuned to ABC for two seasons, from 1963-1965. Leslie Stevens was the creator and Joseph Stefano produced the first year. Ben Brady produced the second. The special effects, including their great alien creatures, were created by a variety of designers and technicians.
July 9, 1989, The Milwaukee Journal
"Radio, TV actor Vic Perrin dies."
Vic Perrin, a mainstay of radio's golden age, died Tuesday at Cedar Sinai Medical Center in California. He was known to millions of viewers as the spooky "alien from space" voice who narrated the 1960s science fiction anthology series, The Outer Limits. In 1940, The Menomonee Falls native graduated from the University of Wisconsin and hours later he caught a bus to Hollywood with less than two dollars in his pocket. "He didn't have a job in Hollywood, but he immediately began to work in parking lots and what all, just to keep his foot in the door," said his Aunt, Irene Perrin of Menomonee Falls. He later became a radio announcer and a member of Charles Laughton's Repertory group. His voice can still be heard at Disney World at the "Spaceship Earth'" and Exxon pavilion.
Mark Phillips did 100% of the heavy lifting on this. I (William Lenihan) did nothing but concatenate & format the info (spread out among 3 emails) into one set of Word Processor docs & do a little spell checking.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten THE KING FAMILY replaced the OUTER LIMITS. I still remember how terrible the show was and couldn't believe warmed over Lawrence Welk nonsense could replace a quality SF show. But it did.
ReplyDeleteWow---Mark and William, I haven't even finished devouring all this material yet. But I had to stop and commend you guys on the yeoman's job you've done in gathering this fascinating journalistic coverage of TOL over the years.
ReplyDeleteThanks much. You've done a real service that countless fans of the show will appreciate.
Wow! This is what I've wanted to do with TOL, among other series! Such amazing info, such an incredibly-long (by TV standards) look back into history! It will take me a while to digest this all, but it's clear that science fiction on the small screen has nearly always taken it right in the nuts from critics. Some nice words from a few who seemed to get the potential, but lots of hostility and ridicule, too. Interesting to see it in the top 40 shows, though.
ReplyDeleteThis material is wonderful! Thanks to you guys for compiling and putting it together so nicely! This is a super-treat!
What strikes you, again and again, in these time-capsule snippets, is the high degree of superficial archness; the shallow disinterest in acknowledging the often metaphorical nature of TOL's "bears"; the lazy potshots at the show's exotic subject matter.
ReplyDeleteIn that regard, perhaps things haven't changed all that much in mainstream perception of fantasy and sf. Even today, a snarky pretension to "maturity" is too often the media's de rigueur posture when mentioning tales of the fantastic, as if to attribute to them any intrinsic value would be to confess to a weakness for juvenilia.
Lot of tasty info in here if I ever get the time to go through it all. Thanks for the effort. But on the tabloid side, Leslie Stevens obviously took his role as producer seriously - divorcing his wife before the series, dating Mary Ann Mobley during the series, and then marrying frequently appearing TOL actress Allyson Ames just after the series, and then that lasted just a year before she divorced him saying she had become a 'nervous wreck.' Well, no wonder.
ReplyDeleteNow we see where all the domestic issues that played in episodes such as "A Feasibility Study" might have been drawn from - Joseph Stefano observing Leslie Steven's wild life.
And "The Invisibles" was a possible spin-off for another series starring Don Gordon. I would've tuned into that one.
Anyway, thanks again for the research and posting.
Ditto your feelings about "The Invisibles." It's one of a large block of high-quality second-echelon favorites that are irresistible and would all have been top-of-the-line entries in any other series. I rarely find myself aligning with right-wing politics and covert organizations. But it's easy here when the choice is our species or a mind-controlling alien invader shaped like a Zulu shield.
ReplyDeleteStevens did indeed present a profile of serial relationships. Once I asked Joe Stefano if he had seen his old partner lately. He replied, "No, but I did see his latest ex-wife at my birthday party recently!"
Thanks, Mark and William, for putting this all together. I haven't got through it all yet, but wow. If people didn't always "get" OL, they certainly knew of it. Jim.
ReplyDeleteUmm ... "The 'O' is for Thrills"?
ReplyDeleteThat kind of tells me everything I need to know about the critical reliability of slap-happy journos.
Mark Phillips was also the co-author (with Frank Garcia) of SCIENCE FICTION TELEVISION SERIES (McFarland & Co., 1996), a wonderfully sprawling book which you'll find duly cited under its complete title in the forthcoming page excerpts from "Nightmare."
ReplyDeleteI found this 1993 article a while back in the L.A. Times from back when I was head of TNT Programming and we had one of our several TOL marathons. As it turned out, Penn & Teller were a little snotty about the episodes, unfortunately! :-)
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/1993-06-06/news/tv-78_1_outer-limits
Susan King was always willing to do articles about classic TV, which wasn't the case with most writers when we were trying to promote these types of things, which of course were my babies!
And you may quibble with my choices for eps, but we had to have Shatner in there! :-)
Thanks for this great compilation--excellent! It was especially interesting to see how the comments evolved over the years. And the top 40 lists, aside from bringing back memories of a lot of things I forgot about, are informative--the fact that Beverly Hillbillies was number 1 tells you all you need to know about what shows like OL were up against!
ReplyDeleteFantastic compilation, guys! Why in the world I was so nasty to Lynda Carter in that old interview I'll never know. Must've had an argument with my girlfriend that week...
ReplyDeleteA great way to immerse yourself in the era in which OL was created and broadcast, and another reason why this blog is becoming THE forum for the true OL enthusiast.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes you, again and again, in these time-capsule snippets, is the high degree of superficial archness; the shallow disinterest in acknowledging the often metaphorical nature of TOL's "bears"; the lazy potshots at the show's exotic subject matter.
ReplyDeleteI give a lot of leeway to the critics who derided the show and the network executives who "didn't understand it" and threw it to the curb too early. To those of us who were exposed to it at a young age, it's part of our DNA. But, as life keeps reminding me, Context is everything. SF to Stevens & Stefano's generation was Flash Gordon & Forbidden Planet. To them, TOL was not merely totally without precedent, but also subversive in a way they probably couldn't even identify if they'd been challenged to (not that network execs -- of any generation -- travel in circles of people likely to do that).
Also, re: "The Invisibles", I've always gotten a kick out of the way Stefano, in later decades, came to imply that this episode was ahead of it's time in raising suspicions about the CIA. When I watch this episode today, I can't see any hint of questioning the "GIA's" integrity. Is this a case of Real Life (what we learned about the CIA in the 70's) subconsciously influencing Stefano's memory about his Reel Life?
Thanks , Mark and William...A staggering amount of info, and fascinating time capsule!
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to see "The 13 Gate".
Re: Larry Blamire's comment: '13th Gate' really needs to be 'found', as an artifact if for no other reason. References crop up here and there, but locating a print or photo is tough. Its only TV appearance was in the summer of 1965 as part of an NBC summer series ("Cloak of Mystery")of epiosdes from old anthologies and at least 3 pilots. Many TV stations didn't even run 'Cloak of Mystery" that summer, either. "Gate" was set to air THursdays at 7.30 on NBC for 1964-65, according to TVG, and from the brief description one just had to guess that OL inspired it.
ReplyDeleteIts also possible that the title 'Cloak of Mystery' was used on an older anthology too, so researchers beware.
Wow! Magnificent job of compilation here! Thank you very much for the hard work!
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