I think this was one of the many shows forbidden me when I was ten, but obviously mainstream 50s TV (a "Panic!" marathon would be a great Thanksgiving Day). The only one I remember has of course the heavy voice-over at the beginning. A man is on a subway with three men sitting opposite him. All are wearing generic 50s suits. "Your friend seems to have had one too many," he says. The heavy voice-over then comes in ending ominously "... the man in the middle was dead." At the next stop, the 'hero' reaches down for his newspaper and bolts out the door. The pre-commercial shot is a close-up of the face of one of the three men (with gun) pressed against the closed subway door ... (The memory trail now grows cold.) Think of all the great things I could have done in life if my brain were not cluttered with things like this.
Add a Review
-
dane-7027 December 2008
-
This was a good show. Each episode started out with the TV screen (glass) seemingly shattering. No regular cast, each episode had guest stars who were inevitably thrown into dire circumstances and who then had to save themselves or be doomed! Thus the title.
-
H2IZCOOL3 November 2000Probably will never be seen in reruns. I don't think there were more than 10 or so episodes ever made. I recall my favorite episode that featured a little boy who was notorious for lying. He is wandering through a desolate area not far from the town where he lives and comes upon a truck that has fallen into a pit or hole. It's a circus truck. At the bottom of the hole is a man (the driver) with a broken leg who is trying to fend off a tiger. How does the boy (remember, a notorious liar) convince the townspeople what has happened and that the man needs help quickly?
"Panic" was also in syndication for one year, I believe, in the very late 1950's or early 1960's under the title "No Warning" -
H2IZCOOL20 November 2003I just now remembered another episode of the short-lived TV series Panic. This one involved a Catholic priest. He hears the confession of a stranger, who confesses to planting a bomb somewhere in the city. - But before he can reveal where he planted the bomb, he dies of a heart attack. Now the priest is forbidden to reveal what he heard in the confessional - thus his panic. - What the priest is able to do, however, is find the bomb himself -- which is the story line of this episode.
-
H2IZCOOL12 November 2004It seems that little by little, over the years, we are piecing together the episodes of "Panic" that short-lived series from the late 1950s. A key piece of the puzzle appears to be someone at IMDb getting a list of "guest stars" and when you click "more" on that list, you get titles of all the episodes. There were apparently over 30 of them, many more than I thought. (Shows how your memory plays tricks on you.) Anyway, the episode listed as #1.11 "Peter and the Tiger" was obviously the one that I was referring to in my post of Nov 3, 2000 (darn! four years ago!)and that crabturtle also mentioned. Episode #1.1 "The Priest" obviously corresponds to the one I mentioned in my post of Nov. 20 2003. (I wonder why I only post in November ???). Also, the episodes #2.2 "Hear No Evil" and #1.16 "Botulism" are obviously two of the three referred to by stattad.
Anyway, I believe the episode #1.6 "The Airline Hostess" is about a flight attendant who realizes there is a bomb aboard her plane, which is, of course, in flight. I think there may have been a note left on the plane, or something like that. The show deals with how the flight attendant and other crew members narrow down the list of suspects on the plane. At the end, it's down to two men, both of which seem to be holding their hands on an object and not moving. One has (I think) his hat and coat in his lap, seemingly covering something, and the other has a hand on a briefcase and never moves the hand. Finally the crew decides that since the bomb is about to go off (don't remember how they know this) they have to take a chance and pick one of the two suspects and disable him. Of course if they pick the wrong one, they're all dead. The decision, is left to "The Airline Hostess". She first chooses the man with the briefcase, goes over to him and offers him a cigarette. He says something like "you'll have to help me light it" He takes his one hand and uses it to lift his other hand off the briefcase - he has a paralyzed hand. Obviously, the bomber is the one with the hat and coat - and the crew is able to disarm him and (I seem to remember) throw the bomb out the window (!) before it goes off. -
H2IZCOOL9 March 2012@Dane-70: I do remember that episode about the man in the middle being dead. Much is fuzzy to me also, but I remember that the two men on either side were (obviously) criminals, and they realize that the protagonist knows that the man in the middle is dead. They wind up either following him or finding out where he lives. They come looking for him to kill him. But somehow he is prepared and prevails. Sorry - not much more help but it takes you one step closer.
The vision of the man in the middle being dead gave me nightmares at the time!
. -
mandre-322208 August 2020This show aired in 1956 and 1957. I watched it with my sister. We both loved it but didn't get to watch it very often because it aired at midnight. We were both pretty young and we had to be sneaky to watch something that late which also was not aimed at kids. Like others here, I remember the breaking glass that started all the episodes but I remember only a few episodes, probably because we didn't see many of them. For many years I've wished that episodes of Panic would become available today. I'd like a chance to see it again through grown-up eyes. So far no luck.
Twilight zone aired three or four years later and we used to watch it with our parents, but I always thought Panic was a much better show. I don't know why it isn't more widely known. -
greencrossing26 September 2017Does anyone remember this episode? A young girl sitting by the window in a second floor school room gets bored and starts staring out the window. Movement catches her eye and there on the far edge of the school ground two (or 3) men are fighting when sudden one man kills another man. The young girl is so shocked she can Not pull her eyes away from the scene. The murderer starts looking for witnesses. I think he uses binoculars and spots the young girl staring at him. He has to kill her. When school lets out the frightened girl hides and gets locked inside the school. Night falls and the dangerous game of Cat and Mouse begins. My parents drug me away from the TV at this point. Can someone please tell me how this one ends? greencrossing11@gmail.com
-
stattad19 May 2004I wish I had the episode listings of this old show. You were always on the edge of your seat watching the predicaments the characters got into. Here are three I remember:
1) My favorite episode was the one where Mercedes McCambridge played a young deaf woman who still lived at home with her struggling parents. She was going to a school for the deaf and seeing ear doctors (pun?)periodically. One day her ear doctor solves her hearing problem. She comes home to excitedly tell her parents that she can hear, only to overhear them plotting her death (for the insurance money I presume). I nearly had a heart attack!
2) A businessman gets a new job in a high-rise office building (25th floor or so). He gets hired on a Friday and decides to bring his family down to the office on Saturday to see it. He uses his key to get in and take the elevator up to the 25th floor. While they are looking at his office a fire breaks out (in the elevator?). The phones weren't working on the weekend, and the stairs were the only way down. For the life of me I can't remember what happened at the end!
3) This one is real fuzzy, but it has to do with a couple of young boys left together while their mother runs to the store. They decide to make some peanut butter sandwiches, but they are tainted with botulism (I don't remember why or how). I think they were ready to take their first bites when the mother returned home. -
videoace29 March 2006One of the best things about the show was the voice-over at the beginning of each episode done by Westbrook Van Voorhis (you just don't see names like that anymore.) He had a great deep voice that added much intensity to the show intros. I only remember fragments of episodes, one had a scene with two boys hiding under a porch and overhearing some sinister conversation, and the other episode had something to do with a lighthouse. I believe that when I was watching this show in Washington DC, it was on at the same time as "Twilight Zone" and it was always a tough decision which one to watch. I hope these shows are not totally lost or destroyed, so we can see them again.
-
This has been one of my favorite TV shows in the last 50 years, and it's wonderful that other people liked it and are collectively piecing together their remembered episodes. My favorite, by far, was "Nightmare".
The teaser: a man is shown (the usual through-the-windshield view) driving a car, in the rain. A woman is in the back seat. Next camera view: from a distance, a car is seen breaking through a barricade, into a deep ravine, and bursting into flames on the other side. There's a scream, of course, followed by a commercial break. When the show returns, the whole thing was a woman's nightmare, and she woke up screaming. She frantically describes it to her husband: "You're driving a car. It's raining. You aren't wearing your glasses. It's in California, on Horseshoe Mountain Road. There's a strange woman in the back of the car. It breaks through a barricade where Horseshoe Mountain bridge has been washed out, and crashes on the other side." Her husband comforts her. "It's only a dream. Why would I be driving in California? We're in New York! And with a strange woman in the car? And you know I never drive without my glasses."
Then the phone rings. It turns out the man is a diplomat working with the new United Nations, which was headquartered in San Francisco at the time. "I have to be at the opening of the UN General Assembly session in the morning. I have to fly out tonight." "But... it's in California!"
One thing after another happens. He drops his glasses on the plane, and another passenger steps on them and breaks them. The ominous words ring in his head: "You aren't wearing your glasses." Bad weather forces the plane to land at Stockton, and they will bus people the rest of the way. He grouses to the powers that be, because he will miss the UN session. Another passenger on the plane also can't wait for the bus, and he and his wife rent a car to go to San Francisco, giving our friend a ride. Off they go. Somehow, they phone back to the airline and find out that the storm is lifting and the flight will be able to continue, so they have to go back to Stockton. I guess the other man knows a shortcut or something. His wife is ill and he needs to take her to the hospital. She has an attack of whatever it is, and he has to stop driving and take care of her (drug injections?) in the back seat. Our friend must drive. He balks. He's broken his glasses, and never drives without them. But he's told he has no choice, so he drives. More ominous words ring out: "YOU are driving." "It's raining." "There's a woman in the car." Then he passes a sign "Horseshoe Mountain Road", but doesn't see it because he's not wearing his glasses. The other man says something like "It's just a little bit farther, after Horseshoe Mountain Bridge."
Our friend slams on the brakes. "What did you do that for?" "The bridge is washed out!" "That's ridiculous! What makes you think that?" "I know it. Believe me, the bridge is washed out!" The two men get out of the car, and they walk a short distance down an incline toward where the bridge is. Sure enough, it's washed out, and there's a wooden barricade. Then the car starts rolling down the incline past them. The woman opens the car door and rolls out, screaming. The car bursts through the barricade to a fiery crash in the ravine.
"How did you know that?" "My wife dreamed it last night." -
crabturtle18 September 2002i was only 9 years old when this show was on the air, which may be one reason it was so memorable. the most unique thing about the show was the opening. a narrator introduced a character and gave a time in minutes and seconds when he (or she) would become involved in a harrowing situation. for example: "this is mr. smith. in 2 minutes and 36 seconds he will be in PANIC"! then in that announced time the character would get into some unforseen trouble and would indeed become panicky! the title then came on the screen and shattered into hundreds of pieces. the rest of the show would be how the victims of the situation were saved from their predicament. i think it was always a happy ending. i don't recall anybody actually dying as a result of the initially dangerous (and potentially more dangerous) plot set-up. another reviewer mentioned the plot involving the little boy finding a man trapped in a tank with a tiger. the boy was known in town as a liar so nobody believes him when he tries to get help. in this case, the title could refer to either the boy or the man in the tank. the only other plot i remember vaguely was a woman trapped in a closed and darkened theater with a maniacal killer. i would love to have somebody contact me who remembers more shows of this series.
-
tcarson914 August 2004I remember seeing this in reruns in England when I was around 5 (about 1964). The episode I remember best was about a man, I think he was a professor, who was transporting a deadly snake on a passenger liner. The snake somehow breaks loose and could be anywhere on the ship. They finally find it and the professor subdues it by tying a cloth soaked in ether around a cane and using that to knock the snake out. In another I remember a man in a wheelchair was trapped in a fire. I seem to vaguely remember that he used a ham radio to save himself. I don't remember that episode all that well though. I do remember the series as being a real nail biter though. Wish they'd rerun it or make it available on video.
-
steveoc-125 March 2005Panic was one of the all time great thriller shows of my youth. It, along with "One Step Beyond" and "Thriller", hosted by Boris Karloff were truly scary stuff.
I seem to recall the beginning of each show, which showed a hand in fire.
One show I recall quite well, involved a performer, who needed to be made up to look like a horribly disfigured person, for his act on stage. He has his assistants find and hire and hire the most horribly disfigured person they can find, so he could make himself up to look like this person. He does so and has a great performance. The problem occurs afterwords as he discovers that the makeup has become permanent! Now, he has become this horribly disfigured homeless person! It's unfortunate that none of these episodes seem to be available any longer. Possibly, someone will find them someday in some archive? -
akiva-91 March 2006It was the scariest show (of course I was only 8 years old) but even to this day I recall the opening with the cracked glass. Does anyone know where I can get copies of the show? I've looked on amazon and ebay without any luck. The one episode I recall was a painter or mechanic or somebody like that who was working inside a water tower. He got trapped and had to be rescued. But he was petrified and went a little nuts and the guy who rescued him had to subdue him in the dark inside this metal container. It was creepy and made me claustrophobic just watching it. I recall that he threw a wrench at his rescuer and the way it clanged on the side of the tower scared me.
-
non_sportcardandy14 July 2005That's saying a lot when I can barely remember only one episode.That beginning with the broken glass was something else,it set the viewer up to have their emotions worked over.Although I can't remember the episodes each show left a feeling it lived up to my expectations,it batted 1000.There were popular shows like twilight,hitchcock,thriller,one step beyond,science fiction theater,etc.Those shows were good but to me never batted 1000,even as a kid once in awhile after watching those shows I found myself saying "Yeah,right".There is one episode of Panic I remember a little of and maybe no one else has commented on.It's nightime and a man is walking down the street when he notices in the distance a crowd of twenty people or so.They seem to be very interested in something or someone and he goes over to investigate.He soon finds out that the interest of the crowd is a little girl maybe about eight years old.Although standing her hands are covering her face and she is sobbing loudly.As the crowd ttys to comfort her she lowers her hands and looks up seeing the new arrival to the crowd.Then while pointing at him she states loudly" That's him! He's the one". Our main character starts to look around at everybody with a surprised look on his face exclaiming his innocence.People start toward him and he takes off running.That's it,can't remember anymore.