I've been watching "Zone" reruns my whole life. Why haven't I seen this before?

[MilesColtrane]

There was an episode of the old "Twilight Zone" series on tonight that was shot on videotape.

It had that real "old live TV" look....shot on a soundstage with minimal camera movement and with the attendant lens flares from reflective lighting that you just don't see when something's recorded on film.

Instead of Rod's little interludes being obvious filmed insertions, he'd just walk onto the set from the kitchen, like he'd been hanging out there having a smoke the whole time.

Apparently only 6 out of the 156 original episodes were shot on videotape as a budget cutting measure by CBS.

Weird feeling. It was like tuning into an old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" but instead of "Funeral March of a Marionette" and "good eeeevening", you hear "Danse Macbre" and "greetings and felicitations".

[surrealAmerican]

1. They abandoned the use of video tape pretty quickly.

I read that they were unhappy with the results, and at the time video tape was not versatile enough for most of their scripts. It would be another 10 to 15 years before tape was a viable medium for most television shows.