Due to a combination of lax parental oversight and just being kind of a weird kid, I spent what would now be called my “tween” years in a weird horror phase. From the age of about 9-12, or so, I rented every single Friday the 13th movie, every Alfred Hitchcock movie I could get my hands on, as well as other random horror films. This dovetailed with another obsession I had at the time — Nick at Night. I would watch Dragnet, Dobie Gillis, and Car 54, Where Are You? constantly — but as much as I enjoyed those shows, none of them ever came close to my absolute favorite: Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Since I was already familiar with his films, it brought me no end of delight to find out that there was a TV show that basically had 30-minute versions of Alfred Hitchcock movies. They were dark, scary, gruesome, and even funny at times. They were everything I wanted, and I got to see them all the time.
Even the intro was awesome. The scary music, the simple line-drawing of a silhouette, and then finally, the man himself, slowly walking onto the screen. I still get chills watching it.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Intro:
While the episodes themselves generally dealt with murder and betrayal, they were unlike anything else on television at the time — or, really, at any other time either. The Twilight Zone comes close, thematically, in a lot of ways, but AHP doesn’t deal with the supernatural or the unexplainable; the bad guys here are people you know. They could be your wife, mother, father, husband, neighbor, or even you.
The bad guys don’t always lose, either. In fact, they probably won more than they lost on this show. Take, for instance, my favorite episode of all time: “Lamb to the Slaughter.” A wife bludgeons her husband to death, and feeds the murder weapon to the policemen investigating the crime. The episode ends with her laughing maniacally as they enjoy their dinner.
The episode, incidentally, was based on a short story by Roald Dahl. For a kid who was also at the time reading James and the Giant Peach, and The Witches, this was a very confusing time, indeed.
“Lamb to the Slaughter:”
(You can watch the rest of the episode on YouTube).
The thing that really made the show, and Hitchcock himself, so creepy was that it often used gallows humor. Like, real gallows humor. The way each episode was structured had Hitchcock speaking to the audience at the beginning of the episode to intro the story, and at the end, to crack a joke, teach a “lesson,” or sometimes, as was with “Lamb,” even give a bit of an epilogue. One of the funniest/creepiest examples is Hitchcock’s “cure for insomnia.”
Cure for Insomnia:
The fact that this is what shaped my childhood probably explains a lot about me now. I know that there are a lot of episodes I missed, so I fully intend to catch up with whatever I haven’t seen, since this truly is an amazing show (with well over a hundred episodes). Most of them are available on Hulu, so if you haven’t seen this show in a while, or never before, you can start now.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Aug 05, 2009 @ 17:00 EST5EDT
I’m a big Hitchcock fan too, and hope Universal keeps bringing us the series on DVD!
Argh, you evilly suckered me into watching the entire episode at a time when I should really have been productive. Just pitch-perfect, although I’m sad the wife got caught trying to kill her second husband. Or are you supposed to feel bad for the first one?
For me, the hands-down creepiest, most suspenseful, and shocking episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually aired during the period when the show ran for one hour as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
The episode is called “An Unlocked Window” and features a story about a serial killer of nurses. A couple of nurses and a drunk housekeeper just happen to be tending a sick patient during a raging thunderstorm in a gothic house (the house from Psycho, by the way!). Guess who threatens to make a call?
The ending is absolutely shocking (“Stella…”), and the suspense builds to an almost unbearable level. It’s on Hulu, so watch it now before someone spoils the ending!