Histoires Fantastiques

Steven Spielberg produced, wrote, came up with ideas for and even directed episodes of Amazing Stories, so naturally this would have to be the greatest anthology ever right? Unfortunately wrong. Some episodes are just fantastic, but all too often it was a mixed bag. In fact, that might have been it's downfall is it was way too mixed. Some episodes were light comedies, some were dramas, some were horror, and one was even animated, which made this a similar, but not as good 80s version of the Twilight Zone (which also was around).

Normally I'd like having a mixture of stories in an anthology show, but they just didn't fully work here. Some of the more fantastical dramatic episodes felt like they would be better being shown late on night on the Lifetime network, like the episode "Ghost Train", which was directed by Spielberg himself. In that episode, it gave the message of hope, and gave us a fantasy story, but overall it was just a build up to the ending which didn't blow me away anyways. The horror episodes tended to work better than the drama, but there were far more dramatic ones, and they grow tiring to watch. Acting wise, this anthology got some big stars, similar to the original Twilight Zone. Kevin Costner, Kiefer Sutherland, Milton Berle, Dom Deluise, Harvey Keitel, Beau Bridges, Charlie Sheen, Forrest Whitaker, Tim Robbins, John Lithgow, Rhea Perlman, Danny Devito, Patrick Swayze, Christopher Lloyd, June Lockhart, Kathy Baker, Weird Al Yankovich and many other well knowns have been in episodes of the show. It's fun to see well known actors in almost every episode of the series. Great directors have also had part in episodes including Spielberg himself, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Bob Clark, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Paul Bartel, Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis, Danny Devito and even Martin Scorsese. I'd actually recommend this more to fans of the directors and/or the 80s than anyone else.

Amazing Stories was sometimes amazing, usually good, occasionally mediocre, and every once in a while a real stinker came out. But, this show has nostalgic value to me, and it's sort of fun to sit on boring afternoons and watch some episodes. John Williams' theme music for the show is sure to be caught in anyone's head who watches this, too.

My rating: Good show. 30 mins. per episode. TVPG

When this show premiered Spielberg was at the top of his game/fame. He was a director(Jaws, Raiders, ET) and executive producer(Gremlins, Back to the Future). Amazing Stories was a big event series. It had a million dollar per episode budget(quite high for the 80s), state of the art title credits and many famous faces(especially behind the camera). It didn't even need to show its worth in the first season, it was locked in for two seasons. Alas it was mostly a dud, and was nowhere near as good storywise as the original Twilight Zone or Outer Limits.

There was no equivalent of "To Serve Man" or "Nightmare at 20 000 Feet" in Amazing Stories. No "Zanti Misfits" or "Architects of Fear." Stories that you could watch once and probably remember well, and be able to relay to someone else in a few sentences and still be entertaining because the idea was good.

The best live action episode was in my opinion, "Mummy, Daddy." It had energy, humor and clever ending, which was improvised, and if it had followed the script as originally written(concluding in the hospital) would have been a dud as well.

"Family Dog" also stood out.

I remember "the Main Attraction," "The Mission" (mainly for the cartoony ending), "Gather Ye Acorns," "Miscalculations," "Mirror, Mirror" and "Go to the Head of the Class."

But beyond some fancy special effects and occasional laugh, the stories just don't hold up.

Doing a memorable anthology show is hard, but the cheaper Tales From the Darkside was locked into the horror genre and didn't do so badly.

The most memorable thing about it was in fact the opening credits, and as others have said, the series never lived up to the concept. It was probably held to a higher standard because of Spielberg's film history at the time, but for the small screen, he was no Rod Serling.

ever since the sci-fi revival started, i've been wondering if they would ever try another crack at the amazing stories series. i don't know if anyone has seen the new twilight zone series or any of these other 'hack' type shows... but when i think about the best shows since the original twilight zone and outer limits (which are THE BEST) this series is the best thing to happen since those shows went off the air. writing, acting, production value (for its day) are all way above the mark of anything to happen since. the only other show that i remember being EXCELLENT is the short lived jim henson show- and i can't even remember its name. this show along with northen exposure, star trek tng, and a very, very select few make up the creme of the crop of shows since the 80's. oh yeah, of course the x-files had some 'amazing stories-esque' episodes, but 'amazing' was and is the only true modern fantasy series of greatness!!!!!!!! yay!

Some "amazing stories" were actually just rehashes of old ideas, but some, such as "The Mission", were superbly written, directed, and are worth seeking out. To add to their appeal, some top-notch actors are involved to bring an extra dimension to the story. Worth seeing.

I was 26 years old when "Amazing Stories" was on TV. My co-workers and I always talked about it the next day at work. Everyone I knew loved the show...it always gave us something great to talk about and almost always made us really, really laugh. Everyone got involved in the conversations and it was always in a positive way. Some of the shows were serious...some were very touching...and some were absolutely hilarious. But they were all very clever in one way or another. They remind me of "Tales from the Crypt" and "The Twilight Zone. Two very, very, very funny episodes were "Head of the Classs" and the one with the college boys with the pink goop in Science class. They were the two that were our favorites. Who couldn't help but repeat the line "Kiss me and I'm yours forever"? Or how about "Mr. Braaaaaad"? I did, however, miss the magnetic episode. And even from just hearing about it really tickled me. I remember laughing so hard that tears were running down my face when the people at work told me about it. I would really love to be able to see that one. Even after twenty years, I still find myself bringing up the show for some good reason or another. I miss the show very much, and I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting for it to come out on DVD.