There used to be weekly anthology shows for both drama and comedy.
Shows with completely different casts and themes.
I’m sure some of you can recall others, but a couple dramas were
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
The Twilight Zone
And on the comedy/light drama front were the shows where the main story was carried, not by the regulars, but by the non-regular actors.
Love American Style
The Love Boat
Fantasy Island
What others fit this short story category?
Are any shows doing this today?
Is the world waiting for a new one to come along, or are they dead for good?
This sort of show was a staple of old-time radio, especially in the suspense/horror/sci-fi genres. Escape, Suspense, X Minus One, Inner Sanctum, Lights Out, Quiet Please, Cavalcade of America, The Whistler, the CBS Radio Workshop, and, in the 70s, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, are examples of anthology shows on the radio.
I wonder if the decline in anthology shows is linked to the decline of the short story as a literary form—either because people have lost the taste for short, individual, self-contained stories, or because all the written short stories that used to be published provided material for adaptation into episodes of anthology shows.
The genre died out because people preferred to have recurring characters. The last gasp on network TV was in 1985, when NBC paid Speilberg a ton of money for Amazing Stories, and the other networks premiered The New Twilight Zone and the revamped Alfred Hitchcock Presents (this did new versions of old Hitchcock episodes, with Hitch’s original introductions; it’s hard to tell if it fits the OP as being original).
There was a Twilight Zone revival in 2002, making three versions of the series.
And don’t forget Tales from the Darkside and Darkroom
I remember one where Joe Piscopo buys every type of insurance from Robert Klein and then when things go wrong, there’s always some loophole so they don’t have to pay. Joe gets so mad he has a heart attack is clinically dead for a short period of time and sues the insurance company because the policy says nothing about him having to stay dead to collect the money.
“The Alcoa Hour” (1955)
“Alcoa Premiere” (1961)
“Alcoa Theatre” (1957)
“Armstrong Circle Theatre” (1950)
“Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre” (1963)
“Campbell Playhouse” (1952)
“CBS Television Workshop” (1952)
“Climax!” (1954)
“Damon Runyon Theater” (1955)
“The Dick Powell Show” (1961)
“Four Star Playhouse” (1952)
“General Electric Theater” (1953)
“Insight” (1960)
“Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre” (1955)
“Kraft Television Theatre” (1953)
“Lamp Unto My Feet” (1948)
“Lux Video Theatre” (1950)
“The O. Henry Playhouse” (1957)
“The Philco Television Playhouse” (1948)
“The Ray Bradbury Theater” (1985)
“Robert Montgomery Presents” (1950)
“Schlitz Playhouse of Stars” (1951)
“Suspense” (1949)
“Tales of Tomorrow” (1951)
“Telephone Time” (1956)
“The 20th Century-Fox Hour” (1955)
“The United States Steel Hour” (1953)
“Zane Grey Theater” (1956)
Wow, that’s quite a list. Most of this stuff is probably lost to the wind of time. One can only imagine the performances of up-and-coming television and film performers, not to mention well-established stage and screen, older actors, that would be contained in all these shows.
Notice that the majority of these shows are from the fifties. The taste for short stories with different characters and locations took a major turn towards series with continuing, familiar characters and situations after that. I think it was found that the viewing public was more apt to tune in week after week to see the adventures of people with whom they were already familiar. Who knows what, if anything, this says about the average television audience.
Slightly different (a sampling of the same group of cast members each time) is The Comic Strip Presents from England. They’ve been making “movies” since the 80’s.