'Way Out

Way Out was a dark anthology series that aired on Friday nights at 9:30 PM in in the slot before Twilight Zone on CBS between March and July of 1961. It replaced one of TV's most notorious bombs, Jackie Gleason's "You Are In the Picture", an ill conceived game show. It premiered with strong ratings for the debut episode of "William & Mary" based on Roald Dahl's short story, but failed to sustain its audience and was canceled by July of 1961. Roald Dahl wrote and delivered the dark, wry introductions and sign offs with panache. Beginning each show with a, "How are you?" He would offer advice on, disposing of unpleasant spouses, or recount facetious stories of his boyhood in Norway where, when somebody died, and the ground was frozen solid, they would sharpen the legs and hammer the body into the ground, "like an enormous nail."

Fondly remembering this almost forgotten chapter in television history, Mike Dann says, "Way Out was one of the last weekly dramatic shows to be done in New York. Practically more than any other show, while it was not the most important, it represented the end of the era of New York as a production center for prime time. The only thing we had left then was variety shows. It meant the death of drama in New York, which is a great loss fore everyone."One I would dearly love to see, but have not been able to find is "Soft Focus" starring Barry Morse with makeup by Dick Smith. The program is subtle and needs repeated viewings to be fully appreciated. I hope it comes out on DVD or VHS.

I was seven years old when I saw this episode, and these many many years later it still is in place as one of the creepiest concepts and images I have ever experienced. Hope to see this one day on DVD, or on TV someplace. Far scarier and more unsettling -- at least this one episode that has stayed alive in my head -- than anything else, except perhaps some segments of "Thriller" with Karloff. Glad to see other people remembering this with the same intensity as I have! Obviously there were lots of us kids staying up and devouring this material, and funny that of all these, basically only "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" still resonate in any major way. "T Zone" because of the number of episodes became a classic, "Outer Limits" because of its sheer excellence despite a low # of episodes. Almost no hope for something like "Way Out" to have a life in syndication, which obviously it didn't. Hopefully this will resurface for us soon!

This is a sadly overlooked anthology series which only ran from March to July 1961 (14 episodes). Although it had the low budget look of the early drama anthologies, it was quite unique and twisted. It often contained dialog that was both creepy and amusing. The series was hosted by Roald Dahl and he did an excellent job of setting up the mood for the stories. His monologues were clever, somewhat like Alfred Hitchcock. The stories themselves included such diverse plots as a man who has a chemical that can change facial features by touching up photos, an actor who can't remove his Quasimoto make-up, a new neighbor who can turn people into frogs, a married man who falls in love with a decapitated woman kept alive by electricity (with a light bulb for a head!), a woman who keeps waking up from nightmares only to find she is still dreaming, an undertaker who seems willing to help murderers "dispose of the body", an actress who discovers that during night rehearsals actors are really murdered & a dying old professor who is given an offer by a doctor to keep his brain alive in a tank after his body is dead. This show aired the 1/2 hour before The Twilight Zone on Friday nights. Seeing them as a child was quite frightening. Now seeing the only 5 stories that I could find as an adult, I can see how well written they were. I am really hoping this series shows up on DVD. At only 14 episodes, the whole series would make a great set.

Does anybody remember the TV show Great Ghost Tales. This show was very similar to Way Out. First, it was filmed live in New York City. Second, the show came on at 8:30 P.M. CST. Like Way Out, the show was short lived. Great Ghost Tales ran for 12 episodes, Way Out for 14. Fourth, Richard Thomas of The Waltons fame starred in one episode of Way Out and one episode of Great Ghost Tales. Way Out aired on CBS from 3/31/61 to 7/14/61. Great Ghost Tales aired on NBC from 7/6/61 to 9/21/61. The show replacing Great Ghost Tales was Hazel. A viewer would almost get the impression that Great Ghost Tales was a continuation of Way Out on another network with another announcer, Frank Gallop. On Way Out the episode that frightened me the most was "I Heard You Calling Me" about a woman who drowned 49 years ago aboard the Titanic. She haunted the room on the 7th floor of a hotel in London. On Great Ghost Tales, it was "A Phantom of Delight". This episode was about a woman who died forty years ago on her wedding day. Wearing her wedding gown, she would haunt her bedroom that was left locked and untouched by her parents.

The "galaxybeing" did a good job of describing this series and did so with a great deal more specificity than I could. The show was genuinely frightening. I do remember the episode about the love affair with the headless "electric woman". It gave me nightmares as a child. One of the most chilling things about the show (I hope I'm remembering this correctly) was the lead in at the beginning. I recall hands sticking up out of sand and writhing to the tempo of beatnik bongo drums. As the drum crescendo increased in intensity, the hands would burn up.

No wonder it lasted just fourteen episodes in the days of Ward and June Cleaver! Definitely ahead of its time.