Amazing Stories is a 1980s TV series produced by Steven Spielberg for NBC. This Genre Anthology series is similar to The Twilight Zone, although with a distinctly larger proportion of happy endings. The show had very impressive visual effects at the time. Of course, given Spielberg's involvement, that's not surprising. It also had episodes directed by people who hardly ever work in television (Robert Zemeckis, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, etc).
Despite all this, the series didn't do that well in the ratings. It lasted from September 1985 to April 1987 for a total of 45 episodes in two seasons. Still, a revival was announced in 2015
, and aired exclusively on Apple's streaming service Apple TV+ on March 2020.
For tropes in "Family Dog" and its spin-off series, please see the relevant page.
Amazing Tropes:
- Afterlife Express: "Ghost Train" has an old steam engine, the Highball Express, crashing into Clyde's son's house to take him to the afterlife.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Byron from "Vanessa in the Garden" burns all his priceless paintings in a drunken rage after Vanessa's death, jeopardizing his art career.
- Anal Probing: In "The Main Attraction", Brad is about to tell the scientists examining his room that he's been magnetized, but dissuades himself with an Imagine Spot of being examined in a sterile environment, where they try to get "internal readings" with a rather phallic magnetic field reading tool through an off-screen "entrance".
- Animated Episode: "Family Dog," which also stands out in that it has no fantasy or horror elements. It was later spun off into a short-lived show of the same name.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Emotions are presented this way in "Guilt Trip", where the personification of Guilt is forced to go on vacation for messing up on the job, and meets and falls in love with the personification of Love.
- Artistic License – History: "The Mission" takes some extreme liberties, especially in the moments where the bomber is flying towards ita target. The interior of the Boeing B-17 Bomber is a lot roomier than any B-17 has any right to be, and the crew members are seen idly milling about within the absurdly spacious plane, drinking coffee (from a tea set, no less!), playing harmonica, drawing, and pretty much loafing about like they're at a social event instead of a combat aircraft flying behind enemy lines. While finding some idle time wasn't uncommon, the general amount of movement and relaxed activities would be quite difficult to achieve in an actual B-17—breaches in discipline aside, even during the cruising stages bombers at the time were known to be noisy, windy, cold, and generally tossed about by air currents and turbulence; not the kind of place you would want to have your fragile glassware or unsecured papers being flung around by the first gust of wind to make it through the plane.
- Based on a True Story: "One for the Road" was based on the actual murder of Michael Malloy, who proved quite hard to kill (although in reality, the conspirators did finally manage to kill him).
- Beauty Contest: In "Miss Stardust", one is crashed by an alien named "Cabbage Man" ("Weird Al" Yankovic) who threatens to destroy Earth unless the contest lives up to its name — Miss Galaxy — and allows contestants from other planets to participate (and ideally win). To make matters trickier, the new entrants aren't Human Aliens...
- Bittersweet Ending: The fate of Jonah Kelley and his former parents in What If...?, who fades out of existence as his parents ignore him. His guardian angel takes him away and tells him that he is to be reborn as a baby to a family wanting a child; he also adds that some day, Jonah's former parents may want to have a child and he'd return to make sure that happened.
- Black Widow: Mentioned as the previous ring owner in "The Wedding Ring". Makes you wonder if she imprinted on the ring or was the victim of the ring too.
- Book Ends: In "Go to the Head of the Class":Beanes: So, I finally have you where I want you, Mr. Brand! In detention!"
- The Cameo: "Remote Control Man" is a huge conglomerate of television favorites. It has everyone from Face to KITT to Arnold, with almost all of them played by their original actors.
- Chekhov's Hobby: Johnathan's habit of saving his old junk in "Gather Ye Acorns" ends up benefiting him gracefully by the end.
- Chemistry Can Do Anything: "Miscalculation" is about Phil, a college boy desperate for a date, discovering that two beakers of vivid, viscous liquid in chemistry class can bring pictures to life when mixed on them. As indicated by the title, figuring about the particulars takes some trial and error; the first time, he uses too much on a centerfold and makes a Giant Woman. The second time, he uses too little and makes a woman that's normal sized, but borderline undead in appearance. In either case, they're shown to be temporary and animations eventually melt into goo.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Jonathan survives "The Mission" this way. His cartooning and pure belief allow him to replace his plane's damaged landing gear with cartoon tires. As long as he keeps concentrating, the tires exist, so once the plane lands, workers cut him out of the turret as peacefully as possible. When he's safe and snapped out of it, the tires disappear.
- Clothes for Christmas Cringe: In the original Amazing Stories episode of Family Dog, the middle segment is a home movie set at Christmas. Dad Skip opens his first present, and it's a necktie. He opens his second present... another tie. And then another and then another, and Skip is looking more displeased with each one. As for Bev, the mother, she is mortified to get a racy apron with handprints on the chest area.
- Coincidental Accidental Disguise: "Mummy Daddy", where actor protagonist Harold is stuck in a constricting mummy costume while there's also a real mummy lurking about.
- Dead Man Walking: "The Mission". Johnathan's bubble won't retract and the landing gear has been destroyed, meaning when the plane lands, it's going to be very messy.
- Deep South: The movie Harold is starring in in "Mummy Daddy" is being shot in this reigon, hence why the local yokels think he's a real mummy.
- Deus ex Machina: Happens a number of times, but the most extreme example is possibly "The Mission".
- Earn Your Happy Ending: A number of episodes, such as "Gather Ye Acorns." A rather literal example in "Secret Cinema."
- Finger-Twitching Revival: During a comatose wakeup in "Dorothy and Ben".
- Formula-Breaking Episode: "Family Dog," an entirely animated episode directed by Brad Bird. On top of being animated, it also has no overt fantasy elements.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Jennifer from "The Sitter" uses this against her two trouble-making young charges.
- Humiliation Conga: Jerk Jock Brad Bender from "The Main Attraction" gets magnetized by a meteor that strikes his room, and spends the next day being "attacked" by every metal object in town, culminating in the belated announcement that there were two meteors, the second hitting the room of his nerdy stalker Shirley.
- I'm a Humanitarian: "Thanksgiving", assuming whatever it is down there is human.
- Jerkass Has a Point: B.O. Beanes from "Go to the Head of the Class" may be a Sadist Teacher that delights in tormenting his students, but he's absolutely right about Peter's sexual attraction to fellow student Cynthia making him a poor student. Cynthia knows of this crush and exploits it to the hilt, duping him into providing her with an essay that gives her a passing grade while he falsely confesses to plagiarism. He also goes along with her plan to break into Beanes' family crypt and later his house to put a curse (and later, a resurrection spell) on him. As Beanes himself knows, Peter wouldn't be performing these criminal acts if not for his sexual attraction to Cynthia clouding his judgement.
- Large Ham / Sadist Teacher: B.O. Beanes in "Go to the Head of the Class," played to perfection by Christopher Lloyd.
- Losing Your Head: "Go to the Head of the Class" has Sadist Teacher B.O. Beanes, who, after accidentally being killed, comes back to life with his head separate from his body, because the picture used in the resurrection spell got torn in two.
- Magical Nanny/Magical Negro: Jennifer from "The Sitter"; see above under Hollywood Voodoo.
- Major Injury Underreaction: In "Go to the Head of the Class", Beanes' personality never changes, no matter what has happened to him. If anything, he delights in exploiting it!
- Mercy Kill: The bomer crew in "The Mission" complete their task, but their landing gear is damaged, and Jonathan is left trapped in the underside turret, crushed to death when they should land. As the fuel starts running out, and all conventional options fail, one of the men prepares to shoot Jonathan to spare him from an agonizing death. Luckily, the day is saved, thanks to Johnathan exploiting Clap Your Hands If You Believe.
- Mirror Monster: Horror writer Jordan Manmoth from "Mirror, Mirror" finds himself being stalked by such a creature. Every time he looks in a mirror, he sees some kind of phantom threatening him, but no one else does. It gets to the point where any reflective surface can allow this monster to get to him.
- Mistaken for Undead: The plot of "Mummy Daddy" involves a bunch of angry and dumb rednecks believing that Harold, some poor actor stuck in a mummy costume, is an actual mummy (there is an actual undead mummy moving around, but still) they decide to lynch.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Inverted/parodied in "Mummy Daddy", where Harold, an actor trapped in a highly constricting mummy costume, frantically attempts to reach the hospital where his wife suddenly went into labor. His task is further complicated by two things: a hostile band of backwoodsmen lookingto kill him, and a real mummy.
- Mood Whiplash: As each episode is done very differently, this happens often and can catch people off guard. One episode will be whimsical and comedic, then the next will be dark and serious.
- Mummy: "Mummy Daddy" has Harold, an actor dressed as a mummy, and Ra Amin Ka, a real mummy who has been kept in a sarcophagus.
- My Skull Runneth Over: "One for the Books" has Fred unwillingly soak up all the knowledge in a university library, turning him into a rambling distracted mess.
- Not-So-Phony Psychic: "The Amazing Falsworth" is a play on this, where people believe he's an act, but he really can read minds.
- Oh, Crap!:
- "The Amazing Falsworth" is one big episode of this. Falsworth does his mind-reading act, and winds up picking up on the thoughts of a serial killer. Worse, he was blind-folded at the time, so he doesn't know who the killer is.
- Even through his bandages, poor Harold in "Mummy Daddy" flashes an hilariously epic one after the Shaming the Mob moment listed below.
- Brad, the magnetized protagonist of "The Main Attraction", suffers through a day-long string of these, but especially at the very end when he learns that the repulsive and abhorrent Shirley with the other meteor.
- Opposites Attract: "Guilt Trip" has the personifications of Guilt and Love falling in love with each other.
- Pop Culture Symbology: The episode "Go to the Head of the Class" features a necromantic spell hidden in the lyrics of Michael Jackson's Thriller – in order to hear it, you need to play an LP of the song backwards.
- Retirony: "The Mission" features the 24th (and final) mission for a WWII bomber crew. Jonathan narrowly escapes this fate.
- Ret-Gone: The ultimate fate of 5-year-old Jonah Kelley in "What If...?". Ignored by his self-absorbed parents, Jonah becomes literally invisible to them, along with having his possessions slowly disappear. In the end, a man (implied to be his guardian angel) reveals he no longer exists, but will be reborn as a baby to a loving family that actually wants him.
- Sadist Teacher: B.O. Beanes in "Go to the Head of the Class" has a truly psychotic obsession with Peter, seeking to give him extremely harsh punishments at the drop of a hat for any damn reason. The original idea of the voodoo spell was to brainwash Beanes into being nicer, but since it went horribly wrong, it only made him even more psychotic. And he's got the rest of the school year — if not the rest of his undead life — to make Peter's life an everlasting living hell.
- Saving Christmas: "Santa 85" has Santa end up in jail, and young Bobby has to help break him out so he can deliver presents.
- Scary Stitches: In "Go to the Head of the Class", Beanes reveals that he had to sew his head back on his body — and is eager to torment Peter even more.
- Selective Magnetism: In "The Main Attraction", what metal objects are and aren't attracted to the luckless magnetized Brad is pretty much decided by Rule of Funny.
- Shaming the Mob: Subverted in "Mummy Daddy", with a young boy telling the lynch mob that Harold, the costumed actor, looks like a good mummy, but.. "..he could be a bad one! I say we hang 'im just in case!"
- Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror: "Go to the Head of the Class" manages to be a horror comedy, straddling both extremes.
- Spin-Off: Family Dog, although it was picked up by CBS instead of NBC. The series was notably done without the input of Brad Bird, who intended the original episode to be a stand-alone outing and didn't feel the concept could support a series. (Given its
Troubled Production and the fact that CBS sat on the finished episodes for years before burning them off over the course of five weeks during the summer of 1993, he was probably right.) - Sudden Intelligence/Suddenly Bilingual: "One for the Books" has college janitor Fred unwillingly absorbing all the knowledge in the campus library, with this as the result.
- Terrifying Pet Store Rat: The large lizards in "The Sitter" that Jennifer uses to scare the unruly brothers are a green iguana and a savanna monitor, both completely harmless and usually docile animals often sold in pet shops (perhaps justified in-universe since the two boys probably don't know this).
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Summoned by Jennifer in "The Sitter".
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Eric from "Life on Death Row". Thankfully, he gets better with help from the friends he has healed.
- Trapped in TV Land: Harry, a hardcore horror movie fan, makes the mistake of wishing his life were more like the movies in "Welcome to My Nightmare".
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: "Mummy Daddy" is inspired by an incident in which Boris Karloff, in full Frankenstein makeup, had to leave the set of a Frankenstein film when his wife went into labor.
- Visual Pun: In "Thanksgiving", what's left of Calvin does indeed look like a turkey in silhouette.
- Why Won't You Die?: The barflies in "One for the Road" keep trying to kill Michael Malloy with lots of alcohol, kerosene, and walks in the freezing cold, but he just won't keel over. He never does.
