Lights Out (radio Show) - Influence

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.