It’s a shame so many modern-day folk only know Roald Dahl as a “children’s writer.” He was more of a gruesome fabulist, some of whose stories were marketed as children’s fare.

Even the most famous screen version of his darker side, the once ubiquitously-rerun UK TV series Tales of the Unexpected, isn’t widely associated with Dahl. He hosted the show’s first two seasons, which mostly were adapted from his prose. After he quit the show, it continued another seven seasons without him. The show became noticeably lighter in tone as it evolved further away from Dahl’s conceptions.

But for straight-no-chaser Dahl misanthropy, though, there’s no better visual source than ‘Way Out. (Yes, it was spelled that way.)

It was one of the last prime time anthology shows made in New York. It was produced by David Susskind. Dahl introduced the episodes and wrote only the first, an adaptation of his own story William and Mary. But they all display a devilish cruelty.

Of the 14 episodes produced in 1961, five have made it onto the collectors’ circuit, and from there to YouTube. Those can all be found at this link.

Most of them have no sympathetic or even likable characters. There are no Rod Serling moral lessons, and no Alfred Hitchcock ironic twists. It’s all morbid and deadly.

Which, of course, made it a commercial flop.

And so much fun.

You can tell you’re not in Serling-land right at the opening logo sequence. It’s a series of human hands, reaching up in futility from the ground (buried alive?).