Fifty years ago this month, my brain exploded. So did the brains just about all my friends. And it was all because of what CBS did one Friday night.

In those days, when a movie was shown in the theater, there was a sense of urgency to see it. You never knew when you’d get the chance to see it again. Our ability to watch movies was at the whim of networks for when, and if, they’d re-broadcast a movie.

Through the mid and late 60s, 20th Century Fox worked hard to develop a movie called Planet of the Apes. Rod Serling was called to help with early drafts of the movie. Much of his work morphed into something different, but his innovative twist ending, a commentary on the then-current world, made it to the final version which debuted on movie screens in 1968.

Later, Fox packaged this movie together with the sequels for CBS. The network broadcast it on conventional TV during an autumn Friday fifty years ago. I was too young to see this one in the theaters, but I was the perfect age to see it on TV.

Apes riding horse! A spaceship! A beach that looked a lot like Lake Ontario (where we’d spend time every summer)! Linda Harrison in a dried spinach swimsuit! “What could be better?” said my ten-year-old self. Continue reading “With Further Ado #268: Screams, Screens and the Planet of the Apes!” →