CBS Series
Seven years after the success of the original Amazing Stories episode, a CBS series based on the episode was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton (who was involved in the original episodes contributing the story's production and character designs). It was written by Dennis Klein, Sherri Stoner and Paul Dini and animated by Nelvana, but notably lacking the involvement of the original writer and director, Brad Bird. Largely hyped due to the involvement of Spielberg, the series suffered various noted production delays that plagued the show. It did not get past its original network order of 13 episodes. Only 10 episodes were finished and sent back from the Wang Film Productions animation house in Taiwan but the producers were dissatisfied with the results, so they halted production on the final three episodes and outsourced the ten episodes to Nelvana for "fixes and completions". The series was scheduled to debut on March 20, 1991 (and it was heavily promoted during the February 1991 broadcast of the Grammy Awards), but the animation production wasn't completed in time for this premiere, so the series was ultimately pushed back until 1993. Frederick Coffin was originally cast as the voice of Skip Binsford, but Spielberg decided to replace him with Martin Mull, after animation was completed on the first three episodes.
The series was part of a spate of attempts by major networks to develop prime time animated shows to compete with the surprise success of Fox's The Simpsons, alongside ABC's Capitol Critters and CBS's own Fish Police. All three shows were canceled in their first season.
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