The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, supernatural drama, black comedy, and psychological thriller, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist, and usually with a moral. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The first series, shot entirely in black and white, ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964.
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
Night Gallery is an American anthology television series that aired on NBC from December 16, 1970, to May 27, 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although he did not have the same control of content and tone as he had on The Twilight Zone. Serling viewed Night Gallery as a logical extension of The Twilight Zone, but while both series shared an interest in thought-provoking dark fantasy, more of Zone's offerings were science fiction while Night Gallery focused on horrors of the supernatural.
Lights Out is an American old-time radio program devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural.
Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from June 10, 1989, to July 19, 1996, on the premium cable channel HBO for seven seasons with a total of 93 episodes. The show's title is based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name and most of the content originated in that comic or other EC Comics of the time. The series is hosted by the Cryptkeeper, a wisecracking corpse performed by puppeteers and voiced by John Kassir.
Hazel Court was an English actress. She is known for her roles in British and American horror films during the 1950s and early 1960s, including Terence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) for Hammer Film Productions, and three of Roger Corman's adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories for American International Pictures: The Premature Burial (1962), The Raven (1963) and The Masque of the Red Death (1964).
"The Landlady" is a short horror story by Roald Dahl. It initially appeared in The New Yorker, as did other short stories that would later be reprinted in the 1960 anthology, Kiss Kiss.
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond is an American anthology series created by Merwin Gerard. The original series was broadcast for three seasons by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) from January 1959 to July 1961.
Kathleen Effie Widdoes is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Emma Snyder in the television soap opera As the World Turns, which earned her four Daytime Emmy Award nominations.
"Lamb to the Slaughter" is a 1954 short story by Roald Dahl. It was initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, but was published in Harper's Magazine in September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (AHP) that starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone. Originally broadcast on April 13, 1958, this was one of only 17 AHP episodes directed by Hitchcock. The episode was ranked #59 of the Top 100 Episodes by TV Guide in 2009. The story was adapted for Dahl's British TV series Tales of the Unexpected. Dahl included it in his short story compilation Someone Like You. The narrative element of the housewife killing her husband and letting the policemen partake in eating the evidence was used by Pedro Almodóvar in his 1984 movie What Have I Done to Deserve This?, with a leg of mutton.
An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse, employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as Studio One, began on radio and then expanded to television.
Tales of the Unexpected is a British television series that aired between 1979 and 1988. Each episode told a story, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, with an unexpected twist ending. Every episode of series one, eight episodes of series two, and one episode of series three were based on short stories by Roald Dahl collected in the books Tales of the Unexpected, Kiss Kiss, and Someone Like You.
Martin Grams Jr. is an American popular culture historian who wrote and co-wrote over thirty books about network broadcasting and motion-pictures. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Grams is the son of a magician, Martin Grams Sr. and Mary Patricia Grams, a librarian. Grams is also the author of more than 100 magazine articles.
The Outer Limits is an American television series that was broadcast on ABC from September 16, 1963, to January 16, 1965, at 7:30 PM Eastern Time on Mondays. It is often compared to The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction stories. It is an anthology of self-contained episodes, sometimes with plot twists at their ends.
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories (1983) is a collection of ghost stories chosen by Roald Dahl.
Jacqueline Babbin was an American television/theatre writer, producer, and executive.
Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected is an American horror and science fiction anthology television series produced by Quinn Martin, and hosted and narrated by William Conrad. It aired from February 2 to August 24, 1977.
