Amazing Stories

A mother (Hayley Mills) listens while her son uses Sesame Street to complain about her housecleaning results

Amazing Stories is a television anthology created by Steven Spielberg, airing on NBC from 1985 to 1987. Spielberg executive produced, wrote several episodes, and directed two installments. Leasing its title from the long-running scifi pulp magazine Amazing Stories, the series offered similar weird tales, usually with an emphasis on the whimsical and nostalgic but with occasional eerie episodes. The roster of guest directors included notable film names and those then best known as actors, such as Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, and former The Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson contributed three scripts.

The second season episode "Family Dog," an animated installment directed by Brad Bird with designs by Tim Burton, led to a short-lived 1990 spinoff series, co-produced by Nelvana.

The Jim Henson Hour and its components drew comparisons to Amazing Stories from several critics. When "Hans My Hedgehog" aired as a standalone special in 1987, the Seattle Times said "The StoryTeller is more amazing than any of NBC's Amazing Stories." When Jim Henson Hour premiered as a full series, Matt Roush of USA Today said "Such an unpredictable anthology hasn't been conceived since Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories." Tom Shales of The Washington Post was less positive: "At its worst, The Jim Henson Hour brings back memories of two notorious television failures, Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories and babbling Max Headroom, which wore out his welcome in about two weeks."

References

• Before Amazing Stories premiered, Janice promoted it in her movie column in Muppet Magazine issue 12, emphasizing that it came from Spielberg: "Now you can catch his far-out act on the tube, Sunday nights on NBC TV... You'll be stoked to tune in and glue on every week, fer sure."

Muppet Mentions

• The second series episode "The Greibble" (1986) has a son complain to his mother (after a thorough housecleaning of his room and dumping of old possessions), "You make me watch Sesame Street but you throw out my books?"

• The sixth Family Dog episode, "Family Dog Goes Homeless," has young daughter Buffy praying, "God bless Mommy, Daddy, Mrs. Jones at daycare, Big Bird..."

Connections

• Loni Anderson played Love in "Guilt Trip" (1985)
• Paul Bartel directed and wrote or co-wrote "Secret Cinema" (1986, also as Dr. Shreck) and "Gershwin's Trunk" (1987, also as Detective Watts)
• Barbara Billingsley played June Cleaver in "Remote Control Man" (1985)
• Bruce Broughton scored four episodes
• Sid Caesar played Lou Bundles in "Mr. Magic" (1985)
• William Dear directed "Mummy Daddy" (1985)
• Dom DeLuise played Guilt in "Guilt Trip" (1985)
• Danny DeVito played Herbert and directed "The Wedding Ring" (1986)
• Charles Durning played the assistant to the Boss in "Guilt Trip" (1985) and Earl in "You Gotta Believe Me" (1985)
• Stan Freberg voiced Dad in "Family Dog" (1987)
• Miles Goodman scored "The Eternal Mind" (1986)
• Ken Kwapis directed "Lane Change" (1987)
• Ed McMahon played himself in "Remote Control Man" (1985)
• Rockne S. O'Bannon wrote the teleplay for "Life on Death Row" (1986)
• Bronson Pinchot played a director in "Mummy Daddy" (1985)
• Joshua Rudoy played Dennis Paxton in "The Sitter" and Billy in "The Pumpkin Competition" (both 1986)
• Frank Welker voiced the Greibble in "The Greibble" (1986)
• John Williams composed the theme and scored "The Mission" and "Ghost Train" (both 1985)