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 higher the state of civilization, the more completely do the actions of one member of the social body influence all the rest, and the less possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“The Spirit of Place [does not] exert its full influence upon a newcomer until the old inhabitant is dead or absorbed. So America.... The moment the last nuclei of Red [Indian] life break up in America, then the white men will have to reckon with the full force of the demon of the continent.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)