MovieChat Forums > Explorers (1985) Discussion > Similarity to an 'Amazing stories' episo...

Similarity to an 'Amazing stories' episode

posted 17 years ago by Fluke_Skywalker
2 replies | jump to latest

Does anyone remember the episode of 'Amazing stories' called "Fine tuning"? It starred Matthew Laborteaux [AKA Albert from 'Little house on the prairie'] and had a cameo from Milton Berle.

Three junior-high pals build an antenna that pulls in outer-space versions of 1950s TV shows, and receive something threatening as well: a newscast revealing alien plans to land in Hollywood.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0511093/

An image of the aliens from the show

http://www.dvdinmypants.com/reviews/A-G/images/amazing3.jpg

It always put me in mind [and vice versa] of 'Explorers'. It had the same 'Aliens watching old TV signals' thing, plus three teen boys etc.

Anyone else ever notice or feel a similarity between the two?

’Cause there’s thunder in your heart... Every move is like lightning!

[–] Fluke_Skywalker 10 years ago

*cough* *cough* Hard to believe it's been nearly seven years since I posted that. Wow. Anyway, stumbled across it again while on a rare visit to The Explorers board and thought I'd dust it off.

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A journey into the realm of the obscure: http://saturdayshowcase.blogspot.com/

[–] kaydie-fee 10 years ago

Yes I've seen the episode (it's not very good), I always assumed this movie was based off it in some way - or is it just a huge coincidence that they both have the same plot?
I see now that Explorers was released in July 1985 and the Amazing Stories episode aired later in November 1985 - Joe Dante worked on amazing stories but Wikipedia said the ' Explorers' script had been circulating Hollywood for a number of years before it was made, I think that the 'TV loving aliens' were not in the original script and were added in by Dante when he chose to direct the movie, the movie was a rush job and they were still writing the script while filming took place.
it's odd that Amazing Stories would use the same plot just months after the release of the movie, maybe A S filmed their 'fine tuning' episode before Explorers was filmed and Dante first heard the idea when he was working on Amazing stories.