Panic!

i was only 9 years old when this show was on the air, which may be one reason it was so memorable. the most unique thing about the show was the opening. a narrator introduced a character and gave a time in minutes and seconds when he (or she) would become involved in a harrowing situation. for example: "this is mr. smith. in 2 minutes and 36 seconds he will be in PANIC"! then in that announced time the character would get into some unforseen trouble and would indeed become panicky! the title then came on the screen and shattered into hundreds of pieces. the rest of the show would be how the victims of the situation were saved from their predicament. i think it was always a happy ending. i don't recall anybody actually dying as a result of the initially dangerous (and potentially more dangerous) plot set-up. another reviewer mentioned the plot involving the little boy finding a man trapped in a tank with a tiger. the boy was known in town as a liar so nobody believes him when he tries to get help. in this case, the title could refer to either the boy or the man in the tank. the only other plot i remember vaguely was a woman trapped in a closed and darkened theater with a maniacal killer. i would love to have somebody contact me who remembers more shows of this series.

It was the scariest show (of course I was only 8 years old) but even to this day I recall the opening with the cracked glass. Does anyone know where I can get copies of the show? I've looked on amazon and ebay without any luck. The one episode I recall was a painter or mechanic or somebody like that who was working inside a water tower. He got trapped and had to be rescued. But he was petrified and went a little nuts and the guy who rescued him had to subdue him in the dark inside this metal container. It was creepy and made me claustrophobic just watching it. I recall that he threw a wrench at his rescuer and the way it clanged on the side of the tower scared me.

I just now remembered another episode of the short-lived TV series Panic. This one involved a Catholic priest. He hears the confession of a stranger, who confesses to planting a bomb somewhere in the city. - But before he can reveal where he planted the bomb, he dies of a heart attack. Now the priest is forbidden to reveal what he heard in the confessional - thus his panic. - What the priest is able to do, however, is find the bomb himself -- which is the story line of this episode.

Probably will never be seen in reruns. I don't think there were more than 10 or so episodes ever made. I recall my favorite episode that featured a little boy who was notorious for lying. He is wandering through a desolate area not far from the town where he lives and comes upon a truck that has fallen into a pit or hole. It's a circus truck. At the bottom of the hole is a man (the driver) with a broken leg who is trying to fend off a tiger. How does the boy (remember, a notorious liar) convince the townspeople what has happened and that the man needs help quickly?

"Panic" was also in syndication for one year, I believe, in the very late 1950's or early 1960's under the title "No Warning"

I think this was one of the many shows forbidden me when I was ten, but obviously mainstream 50s TV (a "Panic!" marathon would be a great Thanksgiving Day). The only one I remember has of course the heavy voice-over at the beginning. A man is on a subway with three men sitting opposite him. All are wearing generic 50s suits. "Your friend seems to have had one too many," he says. The heavy voice-over then comes in ending ominously "... the man in the middle was dead." At the next stop, the 'hero' reaches down for his newspaper and bolts out the door. The pre-commercial shot is a close-up of the face of one of the three men (with gun) pressed against the closed subway door ... (The memory trail now grows cold.) Think of all the great things I could have done in life if my brain were not cluttered with things like this.