Inner Sanctum

It's 1954.  I'm 10 years old.  Our first TV set, a large blonde console unit with a piss ant screen, is 2 years old.  All TV programming is in black and white; color TV still 10 years out.

On a good day, we got 3 North Dakota-based stations, 2 from Fargo, 1 from Valley City.  There was an electric rotor on the TV antenna that turned the antenna towards the signal source.

Dad was the undisputed boss of viewing selections, directing us kids to switch channels while he was lying on the sofa after dinner.  No remotes in those days.  Dad was a great fan of boxing and wrestling.  Mom was into watching religious stuff and The Voice of Firestone, a weekly classical music show, which ran from 1949 to 1963.

Other regularly-watched programs included Flash Gordon, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, The Ed Sullivan Show, I Love Lucy, Adventures of Superman, What's My Line, plus a few other westerns.

My most vivid memory though, is none of the fore-mentioned but rather Inner Sanctum, a horror/sci fi serial.  The show always started with a guy talking like Vincent Price, and a scene showing a heavy metal door.  After a few introductory sentences, the guy would say, "And now we will open that squeaky door."  The door would open very slowly, with the squealing sound of rusty metal hinges.

It scared the crap out of me!  Very creepy stuff.  I'd crawl under the dining room table when the show started.  Actually, no one in our family was much into the show, and we usually changed channels when it started.  The channel change couldn't happen quick enough for me, though.  Gotta give credit to the folks that created that creepy introduction: it left a lasting impression - 60+ years in my case. The show ran for just one season, seems I wasn't the only non-fan.