Format and style in the
telefilm that began the series, 1969. Serling appeared in an
art gallery setting as the curator and introduced the macabre tales that made up each episode by unveiling paintings (by artists
Thomas J. Wright and Jaroslav "Jerry" Gebr) that depicted the stories. His intro usually was, “Good evening, and welcome to a private showing of three paintings, displayed here for the first time. Each is a collector’s item in its own way—not because of any special artistic quality, but because each captures on a canvas, suspended in time and space, a frozen moment of a nightmare.”
Night Gallery regularly presented adaptations of classic
fantasy tales by authors such as
H. P. Lovecraft, as well as original works, many of which were by Serling himself.
Night Gallery's multi-segment presentation mirrored the
EC horror comics of the 1950s, and hadn't been seen on television before, except for on the one-off "Trio for Terror" episode of
Thriller in 1961. The series was introduced with a
pilot television film consisting of three segments or movies, that aired on November 8, 1969. All three were written by Serling, with the second segment of the film, "Eyes", being the directorial debut of
Steven Spielberg, as well as one of the last acting performances by
Joan Crawford. Spielberg went on to direct a segment in the first season in 1970, titled "Make Me Laugh", which was another Serling teleplay. This segment was shot as one long take, and Spielberg said it "appalled" network executives due to its unorthodox style. According to Rod Serling's wife Carol, NBC envisioned
Night Gallery as being a show about "action, ghouls and gore". While Serling was fine with having horror elements, he wanted it to be infused with social commentary. Some of Serling's scripts were rejected by producer
Jack Laird. He was a fan of the classic
Universal Monsters horror films, and preferred NBC's vision of the show.
Night Gallery was initially part of a
wheel series called
Four in One. This 1970–1971 television series rotated three other shows with
Night Gallery, including
McCloud,
San Francisco International Airport and
The Psychiatrist. When
Four in One was cancelled,
McCloud joined another wheel series,
The NBC Mystery Movie, and
Night Gallery was spun off as a standalone series. In its second season,
Night Gallery included original comic
blackout sketches between the longer story segments in some episodes, In another interview, he referred to them as "foreign and substantially incorrect", complaining that "you can't sustain the mood of horror or suspense and then intersperse light laughter in the middle of it and then expect to be able to go back in a neutral fashion to an element of horror. You spend fifteen minutes creating a mood for an audience and then you dispel it arbitrarily by trying to make them laugh."
Music The show featured various composers. The original pilot theme and background music was composed by
Billy Goldenberg. The theme for the first two seasons, composed by
Gil Mellé, is noted for being one of the first television openings to use electronic instruments. For the third season, Mellé's theme was replaced with a more frantic orchestral piece by
Eddie Sauter. Currently, no music from the show has been released commercially. ==Episodes==