Trivia for
"The Outer Limits" (1963) More at IMDbPro »

• An example of a television network deliberately killing a popular series by moving it to an inappropriate slot on their schedule. This series was a big hit, especially among younger viewers. For the second season, ABC moved it from Monday nights to 7:30 Saturday. It was not only an inappropriate timeslot for younger viewers, it served as the lead-in for "The Lawrence Welk Show" (1955) and was scheduled opposite the highly popular "Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine" (1962) on CBS. The series was pulled halfway into the second season.
  
  
• Dominic Frontiere scored the first season of this series. The second season was scored by Harry Lubin, who simply recycled his score from the earlier television series "Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond" (1959).
  
  
• The original title for "The Outer Limits" was "Please Stand By". But, America was facing the Cuban Missile Crisis and the executives thought it might make people fearful of an air raid. This is why, in the new series when the show would cut to a commercial, the Control Voice said, "Please stand by." A tip-of-the-hat to the original series title.
  
  
• The opening Control Voice came first during first three episodes ("The Galaxy Being", "The Hundred Days of the Dragon" and "The Architects of Fear"). Then, the executives wanted to see the "Bear" (their name for the monster in the story) first so, beginning with the 4th episode ("The Man With The Power") it would begin with a scene from the show where the Bear made an appearance. Then, the opening Control Voice would start the show, a commercial, then the Control Voice prelude as the show began. That continued throughout the entire first season to the 32nd episode ("The Forms of Things Unknown"). With the beginning of the second season, the 33rd episode ("Soldier") began with not only the Bear but also the Control Voice prelude, which continued to the 49th and final episode ("The Probe").
  
  
• Ended its network run in 1965, the same year as its "rival" the "The Twilight Zone" (1959) ("The Twilight Zone" ceased producing new episodes in 1964, but CBS broadcast repeats of the fourth-season episodes in the summer of 1965).
  
  
• The second-season episode "The Duplicate Man" features the famous Chemosphere House. Designed by architect John Lautner, the house is seen in a few exterior shots but the inside shots were on a set designed to resemble the house's interior.
  
  
• The final episode of the first season, "The Forms of Things Unknown" (starring David McCallum, Vera Miles, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Barbara Rush), was supposed to be a series pilot that series creator Joseph Stefano presented to network executives. When it was rejected, he used it as an episode of this series.
  
  
• When "The Probe", the series' last episode, was originally aired on January 16, 1965, a live announcer spoke over the Control Voice's closing statement about returning "next week at this same time." The live announcer stated that "The King Family Show" (1965) would be seen "next week in this time period." The regular Control Voice closing for "The Probe" was heard only in re-runs.
  
  
• Many scenes and some entire episodes of the series were filmed on location at series creator Joseph Stefano's home called Villa Di Stefano, from which the production company took its name.
  
  
• Numerous guest stars on the show had been victims of the blacklist a decade earlier; for many of them, this was their first work before a camera in years. Among them were 'Jeff Corey', 'Marsha Hunt', Curt Conway, Lloyd Gough, Howard Da Silva and Sam Wanamaker.
  
  

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