Best of Night Gallery and 80s Twilight Zone

There was another one involving a creepy portrait of a man. I don't remember the plot, but the portrait had a glint in its eye, and that used to scare the hell out of me, too.

The original TZ was probably the best from an adult standpoint, but we used to stay up to watch NG because it was the scariest.

I'll bet that there's a web site devoted to this show, complete with episode guides. It appears that there's one for every show imaginable. I can't decide if that's good or bad: sometimes my memories are better than the actual facts.

www.nightgallery.net

The NG pilot with Roddy McDowall as a scheming heir, where there is a successively changing picture of the cemetery outside his mansion and his dead uncle creeping closer to the house; the episode based on the H.P. Lovecraft story where a woman falls in love with a guy who must stay in a refrigerated room (what was that one called? too lazy to look it up)...

80s TZ: The "Shadowman" who lives under the kid's bed and protects him from bullies; the one with Elliot Gould as a pompous food critic who pisses off the owners of a Chinese restaurant and gets a rather nasty fortune cookie; there was also a creepy one with Martin Landau (? I think) and a lighthouse, but I can't remember the plot exactly (reminded me of "The Lottery")...

I love that episode! It's a really old one though. Burgess Meridith played the old geezer, he survived the nuclear apocolypse by accidentally getting locked in a vault.

I didn't see too many of the 80's TZ episodes. One episode I dimly recall starred Bruce Willis and was called 'Shatterday'. He plays a bachelor and the episode starts with him sitting in a bar and goes to phone someone but he accidentally calls his own number. Before he puts the reciever back down the phone is answered - by himself. Can't really remember what happened after other than it didn't live up to its beginning.

The other one I can think of features a 'housewife' who is getting right narked at her noisy kids and at the all-too-quick pace of life in general. She wishes everyone would just shut the FUCK UP once in a while so she can have some peace and quiet. She gets her wish when, one day whilst mucking about in her garden, she unearths an old, antique stop-watch. She finds that once she depresses the 'stop' button on the watch, the entire world freezes on the spot (except, conveniently, her). She has some fun with this at first: stopping her squabbling children at breakfast time so she can finish her brekkie in peace; getting to feel up some young hunks arse whilst out shopping etc. Then, this being the eighties and all, Nuclear War! is announced, and before they know it, the episode's family face annihilation as a nuke is headed for the US! The family huddle as one as they grimly face the end, when Mom suddenly remembers her magic watch. So, she stops everything again, saving her family, herself and every other American citizen from death - but soon realises she faces a future alone alongside a world of people frozen in time. The final scene is where she has gone down the supermarket to help herself and the camera pans up to reveal the nuclear missile hanging suspended in the sky above her.

Anyway, if anyone can remember this episode, I'd love to find out where I can purchase a video of it. I've searched and searched, but can't seem to find a thing.

Thanks for your help!

I wish I can find the name of that episode but even though I was very young that is not how the episode went. She didnt find a watch it was a necklace. And to stop time she would say "shut up" and to start time she would say "start talking"..... hope that sparks the memory for ya. I loved it when she shut the door sale people up then layed them in the yard ;)

I was roommates at camp one summer with a guy who could name the titles of every one of these episodes. Keep in mind that this was in 1988 with no internet. Where I'm saying things like "the one where...", he knew the title to them ALL. I haven't spoken to him since then, but I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he ever popped up on this board one day.

Even with all of this said, "Amazing Stories" really sucked some major arse.

I remember that episode: "Button, Button" I believe was the name, I was telling someone about it the other day. I think it had Mare Winningham. Great twist ending.

Now, if only they'd release the 80s edition of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well...

00s Twilight Zones:

Ho-lee SHIT, are these things bad. But it is a good primer on "who was a C-rated actor at the turn of the century?"

Grungy Jason Bateman getting burned alive? Check.
Curvy Shannon Elizabeth not really the dream girl? Check.
Confused Katherine Heigl killing the wrong Hitler? Check and check.

And of course, the man following in the footsteps of Rod Serling is none other than... Forrest Whittaker? What, Chris Lambert wasn't available?

80s TZ -- fave: "Examination Day," based on a good seventies short story. All the kids in the world are regularly tested for intelligence. Too bad for you if you get the wrong result -- by testing too high.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, June 22, 2001 8:00 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm pretty certain that this episode was a major contributor to my self-sabotage in school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLvu_bPqaL0

Not sure how long this will be up, but the complete series in full-length, unedited versions

https://archive.org/details/night-gallery_202507