Amazing Stories (1985 TV series)


Amazing Stories is an American anthology television series created by Steven Spielberg, that originally ran on NBC in the United States from September 29, 1985 to April 10, 1987.
The series was nominated for 12 Emmy Awards and won five. The first season episode "The Amazing Falsworth" earned writer Mick Garris an Edgar Award for Best Episode in a TV Series. It was not a ratings hit, however, and the network did not renew it after the two-year contract expired. The 1987 science fiction film Batteries Not Included was originally intended as a story for Amazing Stories, but Spielberg liked the idea so much that he decided to make it a theatrical release.
The series title licensed the name of Amazing Stories, the first dedicated science fiction magazine created by Hugo Gernsback in April 1926.
On March 6, 2020, a revival of Amazing Stories premiered on Apple TV+.

Episodes

All episodes have a running time of around 25 minutes, with the exceptions of "The Mission" and "Go To The Head Of The Class".

Season 1 (1985–86)

Season 2 (1986–87)

Soundtrack

In 1999, Varèse Sarabande released a CD containing a rerecording of the scores for the episodes "The Mission" and "Dorothy and Ben" plus Williams' opening and closing themes, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted by Joel McNeely.
In 2006–2007, Intrada released three volumes of original music from the series, covering the impressive lineup of composers who worked on it and featuring all of the most noteworthy scores, as well as two alternate versions of Williams' main title theme, one used just once and the other never used. The album is also notable for the premiere release of the music Williams composed for the Amblin Entertainment logo.
Other than Williams, Bruce Broughton and Billy Goldenberg are the only composers to be represented on all three volumes. The running times below indicate the cumulative time for each score rather than the time of each track.
Volume 1
CD1:
CD2:
Volume Two
CD 1:
CD 2:
Volume Three
CD 1:
CD 2:
The series gained a number of positive reviews. However some reviewers were unimpressed with the show, with Jeff Jarvis of People saying "Amazing Stories is one of the worst disappointments I've ever had watching TV."

[Primetime Emmy Awards]

Spin-offs

One episode of the show, "The Family Dog", was spun off into its own series. Six years after Amazing Stories finished its run, Family Dog ran on CBS for ten episodes before being pulled off the schedule.
The video game The Dig originated as an idea Spielberg had for Amazing Stories, but decided it would be too expensive to film.
In 1985–86, TSR published six tie-in novels under the banner "Amazing Stories". They were branching books where the reader chose where to jump at key points.
  1. The 4-D Funhouse by Clayton Emery and Earl Wajenberg. Cover by Jeff Easley.
  2. Jaguar! by Morris Simon. Cover by Jeff Easley.
  3. Portrait in Blood by Mary L. Kirchoff. Cover by Jeff Easley.
  4. Nightmare Universe by Gene DeWeese and Robert Coulson. Cover by Jeff Easley.
  5. Starskimmer by John Betancourt. Cover by Doug Chaffee.
  6. Day of the Mayfly by Lee Enderlin. Cover by Doug Chaffee.
The 1987 film Batteries Not Included was originally planned to be a segment for the series, but Spielberg thought the story would work better on the big screen instead of television.

Reboot

On October 23, 2015, it was announced that NBC was developing a reboot of the series with Bryan Fuller writing the pilot episode and executive producing alongside Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. Production companies involved with the series were set to include Universal Television. Steven Spielberg was not expected to be involved with the new series. On May 5, 2017, NBC and Universal Television were formally notified that their option rights to the Amazing Stories properties had been withdrawn. Rights for the development of a genre television series under the name Amazing Stories were subsequently sold to Experimenter Media LLC.
On October 10, 2017, it was announced that Apple Inc. made a deal with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television and NBC Universal to develop a new, ten-episode series on Apple's streaming service, Apple TV+. On February 7, 2018, it was announced that Fuller had stepped down as showrunner of the series over creative differences. It was further reported that it was unclear whether he would have a different role on the project going forward. He had not delivered a script to Apple before his amicable departure. Later that day, it was also announced that executive producer Hart Hanson was exiting the series as well. On May 22, 2018, it was announced that Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz had joined the production as executive producers and showrunners.

Home releases

VHS

A selection of the original series episodes were released in the VHS format in 1993; these were titled "Book One" through "Book Five" in the US. In Japan and Europe episodes were cut together as movies and released in 8 volumes during the late 1980s, early 1990s. A 3-tape VHS set was released in the UK in 2001.
Europe/Japan VHS series
US VHS series
Between 2006-2009, The Complete First Season was released on DVD in the US, UK, France, Holland, Italy, Scandinavia, Spain and Australia. In 2009, both seasons were released in Germany and Japan only. In Germany both seasons were released as 12 separate DVDs or a complete box set, which was also reissued in 2011. All countries' DVDs contain the original English soundtrack, while Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Japan have a second soundtrack, dubbed in their respective languages. The second season was never released in any video format in America in spite of much demand by collectors.

Apple iTunes

On January 8, 2018, Seasons 1 & 2 were released on Apple iTunes in standard definition.

Foreign broadcasts

In 1992, the series was somewhat erratically screened in Britain by BBC1 and BBC2 – billed in the Radio Times as "Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories" – with episodes airing at any time from early on Sunday morning to weekday evenings to very late at night ; it later received a more coherent run on Sci-Fi. Three of the episodes were packaged together as an anthology film and released theatrically in several European countries such as Spain, France or Finland, and also in Australia on September 17, 1987. It later appeared on LaserDisc in Japan as Amazing Stories: The Movie shortly afterwards.
Until 2006, the Sci Fi Channel in the United States showed episodes on an irregular schedule. The MoviePlex channel also showed the series as a collection of "movies," which are blocks of three episodes.

US TV movies