Influence
- "Chicken Heart," a routine from comedian Bill Cosby's album Wonderfulness, includes a (not entirely faithful) retelling of the Lights Out episode with the same title. As a result, many believe the story originated with Cosby.
- "What the Devil", (1942), about two motorists menaced by a truck whose driver they cannot see, may have later inspired Steven Spielberg's TV movie Duel, adapted by Richard Matheson from his own short story. Oboler, feeling his copyright had been infringed, claimed in an interview that he "reached for a lawyer and got paid off by Universal Studios."
- The Lights Out television episode "The Martian Eyes" starred Burgess Meredith as a man whose glasses enable him to see Martian invaders who have disguised themselves as normal people. A similar premise in John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live was adapted from the story by Ray Nelson, who reworked the idea from his friend Philip K. Dick's never-produced film treatment for an episode of The Invaders TV series.
- The Simpsons annual Halloween episode "Treehouse of Horror V" referenced Oboler's "The Dark" about a mysterious fog that turns people inside-out. In the episode, The Simpsons and Groundskeeper Willie turn inside out, and then break into a song and dance number. No recordings of the original broadcasts of "The Dark" have survived, but Oboler recorded a memorable remake for his 1962 stereo album "Drop Dead!"
- Wally Phillips, former morning personality for Chicago's WGN-AM radio, used to play "The Dark" every year on Halloween.
Read more about this topic: Lights Out (radio Show)
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The Family is the Country of the heart. There is an angel in the Family who, by the mysterious influence of grace, of sweetness, and of love, renders the fulfilment of duties less wearisome, sorrows less bitter. The only pure joys unmixed with sadness which it is given to man to taste upon earth are, thanks to this angel, the joys of the Family.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)
“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)