by Jack Seabrook
Star Trek fans were probably the first to compile and publish detailed episode guides to a TV series, but I first encountered such guides in Don Rosa's Information Center, a regular column that ran in the fanzine, Rocket's Blast Comic Collector (RBCC), beginning in the mid-1970s. These were followed by Gary Gerani's book, Fantastic Television, which was released in 1977. I bought that book and wore it out, combing through the pages and checking off episodes I had seen. As good as Gerani's book was, it was missing one thing--an episode guide to Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Undaunted, I began to compile one. I spent hours after school in the public library, poring over microfilm rolls of the New York Times TV listings to collect details about the series. On weekends, I took the train to New York City, where I became a regular visitor to the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts, home to a bound collection of old TV Guides, which provided more details about the shows. One Saturday, as I sat flipping through TV Guide volumes taking notes, Tony Randall sat down across from me and Jerry Stiller sat down next to me. They were there to do research of their own.
After the initial disappointment of the RBCC episode guide, I decided to continue my work with the intention of publishing a book on the TV series. In the late '70s and early '80s, Alfred Hitchcock Presents could be seen in the middle of the night on New York stations. I would try to stay up, usually falling asleep at some point during The Tonight Show, or else I would set my alarm for 2:30 A.M. On the rare occasions when I actually managed to wake up and turn on my TV, I saw classic episodes like "The Dangerous People" and "A Night With the Boys."
McCarty and Kelleher's book led me to discard all of the notes on the series that I had compiled over the years. Their volume was a great resource; it lacked air dates and detailed credits and occasionally got plot details wrong, but it was the only place that collected so much information about the series and it made for a very handy checklist. On television, Alfred Hitchcock Presents returned, first on NBC and later on USA, with new episodes that ran on and off from 1985 through 1989. The series used colorized versions of the Hitchcock introductions from the original series and featured new versions of old episodes interspersed with original stories.
My hopes for writing a book on the Hitchcock show appeared dashed but my love for the series continued unabated. My wife and I married in 1988 and moved into an apartment where we spent most nights watching The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in reruns on the USA network. In the 1990s, Alfred Hitchcock Presents began to turn up here and there on emerging cable networks such as Nick at Nite and TV Land. I watched the occasional episode, such as "The Contest for Aaron Gold," but these runs seemed always to start with season one and rerun the same bunch of shows, petering out before reaching the later--and less familiar--seasons.
In subsequent years, seasons two (2006) and three (2007) were released annually, just in time for Christmas. Then the delays began. It took two years for season four to come out (2009) and over two years for season five to appear (early 2012) Each series was a thrill to see, and I can only hope that the rest of the ten seasons will be released in time.
When this series ended, I began a series called Robert Bloch on TV, which focused solely on that author's work as shown on the Hitchcock series. By this time, I had discovered that episodes that were unavailable on commercial DVDs could often be found online on channels such as Hulu or You Tube, placed there by fans. I also discovered that the final five seasons of the Hitchcock series were available from other fans on DVDs whose quality was not up to the Universal standard, but whose rarity made them irresistible.
1. Enough has been written about the introductions by Alfred Hitchcock. The 2001 Companion transcribed all of Hitchcock's introductions, following the trend set by Zicree back in 1982. Yet next to nothing had been written discussing the actual episodes themselves in detail. I determined to focus on the stories rather than the frames.
2. Detailed cast and crew information is easily available on sites like imdb. I chose not to include detailed credits in my articles, instead focusing on important or interesting contributions and giving background on creative talents of interest.
3. Pictures are important. I chose to illustrate each article with a combination of magazine or book covers and screen grabs from the DVDs themselves. I am confident that this represents a fair use exception to any copyrights that exist. The website Galactic Central is an excellent source for old magazine covers.
4. Title cards are not necessary. After reproducing title cards for my first several articles, I gave up the practice because I don't think it adds anything to the analysis and is visually dull.
6. Read the stories or the books. In preparation for each article, I track down and read the short story or book from which the episode was adapted. This allows for a comparison with the filmed episode.
Now that I am committed to doing the entire series, I have decided to change the umbrella title for these articles to The Hitchcock Project. Articles will appear every other Thursday on the bare bones e-zine website for many years to come, as long as the site remains viable and I remain conscious, until every episode has been discussed. When it is all over, I hope to collect the articles into a book, either paper or an e-book. I offer sincere thanks to Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri, founders of bare bones, for providing a place to publish this work, and to everyone who reads and/or comments on the articles. Suggestions for topics are welcome. Henry Slesar, surely the most prolific writer on the series, will be profiled next, in a group of articles that will take about two years to complete.
Every so often I will update the episode guide, which begins below. I will provide links to the articles I have written on each episode in order of their network airing. The episodes will be coded with two numbers, the first representing the season aired, the second representing the order within that season (for example, the first episode of season one is coded 1.1, etc.). Happy reading!
8/29/22: An updated list of episodes discussed is here.