Horror TV Shows of the 1970s (1 Viewer)

[Winston T. Boogie]

So, stumbled upon this video and was surprised to find in it several shows I did not recall. Pretty much watched any and every horror TV show that was on in the 1970s.

Any comments on any of these, I think several are not available in a home format unless they are streaming somewhere. I have not searched all of them out yet but curious what horror shows folks recall from the 1970s that they would like to see again.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Interesting list, the ones that I definitely watched, and enjoyed were:

Kolchak: The Night Stalker - I saw the pilot for this series on the ABC Movie of the Week, The Night Strangler (1973) and was hooked. I invariably liked Darren McGavin throughout his career and thought he was well suited for the role of Carl Kolchak. Pretty sure I watched this series religiously. Perhaps one of the inspirations for The X-Files?

Night Gallery - Loved this series. Rod Serling's participation was the immediate hook and I was not disappointed. One good thing about anthologies like this one is the relatively short duration of the various vignettes. If you don't like them, well they aren't around too long and the short run times means that they have to tell their stories with some efficiency and they often pack a strong dramatic point. There were some strong adaptations of noted SF authors such as C.M. Kornbluth's The Little Black Bag.

Looks like there were a fair amount of British shows in the list, which probably explains why they didn't spark any memories. I don't believe I ever viewed Salem's Lot, which sort of surprises me as I was reading a lot of King around that time. I don't think I was watching a lot of television around that time.

In the video, Circle of Fear featured scenes from episode one with Jason Robards and Stella Stevens. Looking at the show on IMDB, it has an interesting cast of guest stars. I've got tons to watch, but some of these might be interesting time capsules.

- Walter.

 

[EricSchulz]

Interesting list. Yes, a majority of those are British and almost none are available in the US. There may be some available on YouTube possibly. I am a huge Twilight Zone/Night Gallery fan, but HATED towards the end of the series when they started showing full length episodes of The Sixth Sense. I don’t recall if it ever became an actual show or just had occasional episodes on TNG.

 

[TravisR]

Kolchak: The Night Stalker - ...Perhaps one of the inspirations for The X-Files?

Yep. I believe XF creator Chris Carter cites the Klochak telemovies as an influence more than the series but still. Also, Darren McGavin ended up in an episode of The X-Files as the guy who discovered the X-files at the FBI as a young man.

 

[billO']

So, stumbled upon this video and was surprised to find in it several shows I did not recall. Pretty much watched any and every horror TV show that was on in the 1970s.

Any comments on any of these, I think several are not available in a home format unless they are streaming somewhere. I have not searched all of them out yet but curious what horror shows folks recall from the 1970s that they would like to see again.

I wish they would have included a simple text listing of all the 15 picks. I'm not gonna sit through a twenty minute video to find out.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I wish they would have included a simple text listing of all the 15 picks. I'm not gonna sit through a twenty minute video to find out.

When I have a moment, Bill, I will try to list the shows in the video. Obviously, I took the easy path here. You can fast forward through it to just see the show titles, the video has clips from all of the shows and some comments on the shows which is why it runs 20 minutes. You can tell watching it, which shows have never got a release because they look like old videotape.

 

[Wiseguy]

Interesting list. Yes, a majority of those are British and almost none are available in the US. There may be some available on YouTube possibly. I am a huge Twilight Zone/Night Gallery fan, but HATED towards the end of the series when they started showing full length episodes of The Sixth Sense. I don’t recall if it ever became an actual show or just had occasional episodes on TNG.

Universal added The Sixth Sense to the Night Gallery syndication package to increase the number of episodes. It was never shown on the NBC episodes (in fact it was an hour-long series on ABC). In cutting the episodes down to half-hour two episodes that only had brief appearances from star Gary Collins had him edited out completely. Most episodes had the Night Gallery theme dubbed over the closing credits but probably due to legal reasons one episode from each season featured the original theme (just as one early episode of Night Gallery featured the first-season closing theme).