Development The series came about from
Steven Spielberg's desire to use his ideas and short stories that weren't substantial enough to support feature films and had toyed with the idea of returning to work in television having fond memories of his start in the medium with shows like
Night Gallery,
Marcus Welby, M.D. and the
television movie Duel. The title of the series came from the
science fiction magazine of the same name. With the introduction of producer
Gary David Goldberg, Spielberg met with
Grant Tinker and
Brandon Tartikoff of
NBC. After Spielberg outlined his conditions for the series (including avoiding using his name for series promotion following the premiere and placement in the 8 p.m. Sunday Night timeslot), NBC gave
Amazing Stories a then unprecedented commitment of 44 episodes over a two year period as creator and producer
Steven Spielberg didn't want to do the series unless he had a second year with which to work so he had room to adjust any flaws of the series between seasons. The series had a budget of $1 million per half-hour episode with the standard rate for hour long TV episodes in regular TV series costing approximately $900,000. When questioned about the nature of the deal, Tartikoff responded that they wanted to give Spielberg the most comfortable creative environment possible as they felt
Amazing Stories had the potential to be hit for the network. Spielberg made clear his intentions with
Amazing Stories was to create an all-ages family show emphasizing wonderment, fantasy, irony and comedy whilst sidestepping more scary or macabre stories (though some would still be produced, but would be broadcast later in the evening if Spielberg deemed them "too intense" for family viewing). While Spielberg expressed admiration for prior anthology TV series of the past, he said he wanted to avoid the "moralizing" seen in series such as
the original The Twilight Zone. Spielberg's heavy hands-on involvement in the series lead to rumors that no
Amazing Stories episodes would be screened for critics nor would clips from the series be used in promos both of which Spielberg denied (though the first two episodes were held back as Spielberg wanted to adopt a similar approach to how he handled his film releases). Spielberg wanted one third of the directors for the series to be newcomers as he felt the series could serve as a good training ground for writers and directors. Thanks to Spielberg's reputation, many established directors such as
Clint Eastwood and
Martin Scorsese came on board to direct segments as they'd wanted to work with Spielberg.
Peter Weir had wanted to direct a segment, but due to scehduling conflicts with
The Mosquito Coast this ultimately never came to be.
Season One The premiere episode, the Spielberg directed "Ghost Train", was a decent sized hit that managed to pull in one third of the television viewing audience beaten only by
CBS' Murder, She Wrote but
word of mouth saw ratings rapidly decline until the series ranked 40 out of 67 for all shows. Season one story editor
Mick Garris blamed the lukewarm reception on unrealistic audience expectations who were expecting moments comparable to those in Spielberg's films and contrasted the internal enthusiasm "Ghost Train" was met with against the public ire and derision. According to Garris, Spielberg had final say on all scripts with Garris' job primarily being to rewrite the scripts to match Spielberg's specifications (hence why 16 of season one's 22 episodes have a "Story by" credit for Spielberg).
Season Two Following the middling performance to season one Spielberg agreed with NBC to take a less hands-on approach to season two such as authoring fewer stories, taking less of a role in reworking scripts, a less juvenile tone, and allowing a panel of writers and producers to be brought in on a consulting basis including
Richard Matheson,
Robert Zemeckis, and Garris. Tartikoff also blamed
Amazing Stories under performance on its pairing with the revival of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Sunday nights as parents looking for an "electronic babysitter" for their children were taken aback by the colorful whimsy filled fantasies presented in
Amazing Stories that would then segue into stories of murder on
Alfred Hitchcock Presents with parents opting to put on
ABC's Wonderful World of Disney which started before
Alfred Hitchcock Presents for uninterrupted family viewing meaning that
Amazing Stories target audience was being siphoned off. As a result, when
Amazing Stories returned for a second season
Alfred Hitchcock Presents was cancelled by NBC (though later revived by
USA Network for an additional three seasons). The behind the scenes changes were unable to stem the downward trend in viewership with the series falling to 62nd place and cancelling the series after completion of its two year commitment. ==Soundtrack==