About this season
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
Episodes (52)
1. IDES OF APRIL
Aired 28 August 1950 • 30 min
2. Benuili Chant
Aired 4 September 1950 • 30 min
3. The Dark Corner
Aired 11 September 1950 • 30 min
4. The Leopard Lady
Aired 18 September 1950 • 30 min
5. SISTER OF SHADOW
Aired 25 September 1950 • 30 min
6. The Posthumous Dead
Aired 2 October 1950 • 30 min
7. Just What Happened
Aired 9 October 1950 • 30 min
A man stands trial for murdering another man by throwing him out a window.
8. The Thing Upstairs
Aired 16 October 1950 • 30 min
9. The Skeptics
Aired 16 October 1950 • 30 min
10. The Martian Eyes
Aired 30 October 1950 • 30 min
An odd professor claims he can spot Martians, who masquerade as humans, using a pair of infrared glasses he wears. Only then can you see the third eyeball in the middle of their forehead. He relates his wild theory to a photographer sitting by him in a bar--and the man believes him. While playing around with infrared film, the photographer says he's snapped a shot of a man with three eyes. The two team up to convince authorities of their find.
11. The Half Pint Flask
Aired 6 November 1950 • 30 min
12. The Waxwork
Aired 13 November 1950 • 30 min
13. THE EXPERIMENT
Aired 20 November 1950 • 30 min
14. THE MULE MEN
Aired 27 November 1950 • 30 min
15. Beware This Woman
Aired 4 December 1950 • 30 min
A woman experiencing poltergeist activity in her home secures the services of a reluctant, non-believer in the supernatural, scientist to resolve her problem.
16. THE MASQUE
Aired 11 December 1950 • 30 min
17. The Men on the Mountain
Aired 18 December 1950 • 30 min
18. Jasper
Aired 25 December 1950 • 30 min
Songwriter Charlie has suffered with writer's block" since he and his wife moved to the country. Betty wants them to sell the house to pay the bills, but Charlie doesn't want to part with the family estate. His late ancestor, Jasper, isn't thrilled with the idea either.
19. The Haunted Skyscraper
Aired 1 January 1951 • 30 min
20. Bird of Time
Aired 8 January 1951 • 30 min
21. The Bottle Imp
Aired 15 January 1951 • 30 min
22. For Release Today
Aired 22 January 1951 • 30 min
Maggie, the press agent for actor Henry Crawford, is horrified by his lifeless performances during dress rehearsals for his new play. She comments that he seems dead, to which his wife, Elaine, declares that he is. A year earlier, Elaine's ex-fiancé Balsamo had cursed Henry when he stole her away, promising Henry that he'd be through in one year.
23. The Masque of the Red Death
Aired 29 January 1951 • 30 min
24. THE HOUSE OF DUST (AKA) 1962
Aired 5 February 1951 • 30 min
25. Curtain Call
Aired 12 February 1951 • 30 min
Off-his-rocker Kruger, a famous actor coming out of retirement for a new play with his daughter (Randel), suddenly is tormented by the ghost of his late, thought-to-be-a-suicide wife. His daughter is a triumph in her first big stage role, but ... can Kruger take the adulation she receives ...
26. Strange Legacy
Aired 19 February 1951 • 30 min
After suffering a concussion in a car accident on the Oregon coast, Stephen Elliott is carried to the home of an old man and his beautiful daughter-in-law to recover. The young woman tells Stephen that her husband, a World War II pilot, had died the year before and left an uncompleted musical composition, a model airplane and a piece of sculpture, as well as a strange will.
27. The Dispossessed
Aired 26 February 1951 • 30 min
28. THE MAN WITH ASTRAKHAN HAT
Aired 5 March 1951 • 30 min
29. Leda's Portrait
Aired 12 March 1951 • 30 min
30. Western Night
Aired 19 March 1951 • 30 min
31. THE POWER OF BRUTE
Aired 26 March 1951 • 30 min
32. The Mad Dullaghan
Aired 2 April 1951 • 30 min
A man finds his missing fiancé in a mental hospital. She believes she's possessed a Dullaghan, a spirit of Irish folklore that jumped to her from her late father when she kissed him farewell at his funeral. The finance investigates and learns that her parent had been a famous ventriloquist and his dummy was named Mr. Dullagham.
33. The Crushed Rose
Aired 9 April 1951 • 30 min
34. The Witness
Aired 16 April 1951 • 30 min
35. THE FONCECILLE CURSE
Aired 23 April 1951 • 30 min
The heir of the old aristocratic Fonceville family takes his bride to the ancestral castle, where a hereditary madness takes over his dreams, one that tries to induce the murder of his new wife.
36. Grey Reminder
Aired 30 April 1951 • 30 min
Charlotte is distressed by the letters addressed tor her new husband that mysteriously appear at their door. Kenneth refuses to discuss their contents, but they clearly disturb him. Fearing he's seeing another woman, Charlotte demands to know who's writing them. She's shocked to find they're from his domineering first wife who seems intent on controlling him even in death.
37. The Lost Will of Dr. Rant
Aired 7 May 1951 • 30 min
A Boston librarian is drawn into a ghostly web of deceit as he helps a beautiful heiress recover her stolen fortune by finding a missing will written in a rare version of the Talmud.
38. Dead Man's Coat
7.0Aired 14 May 1951 • 30 min
By opening the grave of a recently deceased man and putting on his coat, a person will supposedly be granted invisibility. A bitter man with scores to settle decides to put the superstition to the test. He forces his reluctant butler to join him in his scheme of grave-robbing and murder.
39. Cat's Cradle
Aired 21 May 1951 • 30 min
Former hometown football star George Logan pays an unexpected late night visit on Phyllis and Bob at their country home. Down on his luck, he's obsessed with having never fit in, and holds a grudge against the world. His one talent is weaving a string into a cat's cradle and, he claims, using it to cast spells and murder people who get in his way. A skeptical Bob call it nonsense so an irate George is determined to prove him wrong.
40. The Pattern
Aired 28 May 1951 • 30 min
Al March is tortured by his failure to have stopped the bombing of an Army barracks in 1945 Germany. Awaiting surgery, he tells his sister that the two men and a woman he killed the night before were the same ones who had planted the explosives. Even though they had died in the blast, they had been chasing him for the past six years because he lived and they didn't.
41. THE MARTIAN EYES
Aired 4 June 1951 • 30 min
42. Pit of the Dead
Aired 11 June 1951 • 30 min
43. Dead Freight
Aired 18 June 1951 • 30 min
44. The Passage Beyond
Aired 25 June 1951 • 30 min
The ghost of Lady Anne continues to walk down the stairs, knife in hand, and into the secret passage where she murdered her domineering husband. She vividly demonstrates her disapproval of Rodney's attempt to conduct an affair with a visiting friend of his wife.
45. THE ADAM BEGOT
Aired 2 July 1951 • 30 min
The car carrying cultured Geoffrey, brutish Claude and eligible Kay swerves off a cliff and into a mysterious valley. Surprised by the weird vegetation and climate, they come to believe they've traveled back in time 50,000 years. An encounter with an unfriendly caveman results in all three being held captive in the wild man's cave.
46. The Meddlers
Aired 9 July 1951 • 30 min
Cecil Crofton shows up at the backwoods, hillbilly shack of Purdy with a wild proposition on how the two can split a million dollars. Crofton as figured out that a ton gold that once belonged to the Confederacy is buried locally, in the cellar of a house that had burned down and was rebuilt. Purdy figures rightly that it's the old Larro place, but the abandoned house is cursed by the ghosts of Larro ancestors from the Civil War.
47. THE DEVIL IN GLENCAIRE
Aired 16 July 1951 • 30 min
Steenie, the best piper in all of Scotland, is about to be evicted if he doesn't pay his owed rent. After selling his pipes to raise the money, a mysterious stranger appears, ready with a deal: it involves Steenie's money, bagpipes--and his immortal soul.
48. Zero Hour
Aired 23 July 1951 • 30 min
49. The Fingers
Aired 30 July 1951 • 30 min
50. The Faceless Man
Aired 6 August 1951 • 30 min
Francis Carvel visits a plastic surgeon to erase a lifetime of ugliness from his face. Now handsome, he returns to the French inn where, a year earlier, an lovely woman had spurned his affection. Complicating Carvel's plans is a new traveling companion, a disfigured man in bandages who knows everything about him.
51. The Man With the Watch
Aired 13 August 1951 • 30 min
A New York City detective is investigating the disappearance of over 200 people. Before vanishing into thin air, each person has reported a dream involving a fat man with a bizarre watch who convinces them to join him on his planet of Aleria.
52. Follow Me
Aired 20 August 1951 • 30 min