I will never forget precisely where I was. My four siblings and I were sitting in our TV room, next to the kitchen. The front had our 17” 1950 black-and-white television set, while the back had a long sleeper sofa. The television picture had started to flutter and roll vertically, as usual for after about ten minutes.
One of my brothers got up from the sofa and started walking over to the set to fix it. Then he got startled, and jumped straight up into the air when he heard the Control Voice first begin reciting the following introductory message for The Outer Limits:
"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to - The Outer Limits.”
The best-known episode was Demon with a Glass Hand, which you can watch here on YouTube.
Over the Fourth of July holiday a local TV station had a Twilight Zone marathon, which reminded me of The Outer Limits.
The TV set image came from Openclipart.
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