You might wonder what this "Outer Limits" episode has to do with Halloween, besides being scary!
The answer is that this 7th episode from season two titled "The Invisible Enemy" was broadcast for the first time on Halloween night, October 31, 1964, and I think it was the first time I ever wanted to stay home and watch TV instead of going out trick or treating!
You just can't go wrong starting off with going to Mars! That concept still works some 52 years later!
Here's the crew!!!
The always, and I mean always, entertaining Adam West has the lead role of Major Charles 'Chuck' Merritt! "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" also starring Adam, had just come out about four months earlier, so the timing was just right!
1964 Mars looks pretty groovy!
This shot just strikes me as being very strange!
"The Twilight Zone" was one of the greatest TV series of all time, but it was "The Outer Limits" that gave you real monsters each week! This particular monster had a bad case of post nasal drip!
Robert DoQui in his very first role as Lieutenant Frank Johnson, went on to have an awesome career in films like "Willie Dynamite" and the whole "RoboCop" series!
I'm coming to get you boy!!
No, you ain't!!!
C'mon Major, let's get the fuck outta here!
Here's a great shot of Rudy Solari as Captain Jack Buckley, the guy who saves the day!
A staple of 60's TV, Rudy had the distinction of being in two "Outer Limits" episodes, this one, and also "Production And Decay Of Strange Particles!!" (What a great title!)
The creature munched the other two crew members, and while not really invisible, it was well hidden under some Martian sand! This creature was not hungry or territorial, it was just mean, and as it turns out, he's got lots of relatives ready to meet and greet any other space explorers Earth wants to send their way!
We don't like your welcome wagon, Sayonara Motherfucker!!
Damn Adam, since you survived that ordeal, now you can go on and have an amazing career as
BATMAN!!
This might be the only OUTER LIMITS episode that's an all-out "pulp" SF story (though people say the same about a couple of others). And even though I'm glad the others went in other directions, I always enjoy this one's "escapism." And who better for that than a pre-BATMAN Adam West?
ReplyDeleteRight on Grant! I couldn't have said it better myself!!
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention that Ted Knight, voice actor in a lot of 1960s saturday morning cartoons, and of course the Mary Tyler Moore show, was also in this episode.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct Lace, Indeed I did! I focused mostly just on the guys in space, not the ones back on Earth which was the part that Ted was in.
ReplyDeleteTed Knight is very serious in this story, but toward the end he gives a quick little nervous laugh, and at that moment he's sort of looking ahead to Ted Baxter.
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