# What Show Was This?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-show-was-this/618671>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 13, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-show-was-this/618671 "2012-04-13T16:34:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![osme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/df788c/32.png) [@osme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/osme)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-show-was-this/618671/1 "2012-04-13T16:34:26Z")

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I remember watching one of those horror anthology shows back in the  
60’s where a professor/scientist was teaching a class of medical students.  
On a table is a mermaid. The professor says he has invented a cure  
that will give the mermaid human legs. He gives the injection and a few  
minutes later he throws back the bottom half of the sheet to reveal  
beautiful human legs. The class congratulates him and then he takes  
the rest of the sheet to reveal A FISH HEAD.

Do you recall what show this was from?

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**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-show-was-this/618671/2 "2012-04-13T16:39:30Z")

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I have no real idea about that show, but it sounds amazingly like something Ernie Kovacs might have done. In case he’s not familiar, check out [Ernie Kovacs - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Kovacs)

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**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-show-was-this/618671/3 "2012-04-13T17:24:26Z")

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A Yahoo! search on “mermaid fish head human legs” produced a link to [Monstropedia](http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Mermaid) where there’s this comment:

> [@](#):
>
> In the Futurama episode “The Deep South”, the crew encounters Mermaids who inhabit the fabled lost city of Atlanta in the year 3000. The concept of mermaids not having the same reproductive functions as humans in the show is a reference to the mermaid problem. When Fry wishes that his mermaid lover Umbriel could’ve been the mermaid with “the fish part on top and the lady part on the bottom”, this is a jab at an episode of Night Gallery [5] called “Lindermann’s Catch” [6], about a fisherman who wants to give a mermaid he’s fallen in love with legs, but his wish backfires when her fish half becomes her human half and her human half (her head) becomes the fish part.

That help any?

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**Author:** ![realmojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@realmojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/realmojo)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-show-was-this/618671/4 "2012-04-13T17:55:39Z")

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I think you are refering to the Night Gallery episode “Lindemann’s Catch.”

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_z6uJ43eDtA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z6uJ43eDtA)