Countdown to Halloween: It’s a real good thing you did, Anthony

Growing up in El Paso at a time when cable was still a relatively new thing, I was lucky that one of the small number of channels we got was KTLA, a longtime and fairly well-known station broadcasting out of Los Angeles. At the time I didn’t know anything about KTLA except that it was more than happy to give me regular fixes of the Three Stooges, Little Rascals and old Popeye cartoons.

Most importantly, though, it was the first pusher responsible for my lifelong addiction to The Twilight Zone. So many of those iconic episodes are the reason I got into sci-fi and horror in the first place, giving me a solid foundation in the weird. Of course, Twilight Zone also creeped me right out and I learned to look sideways at talking dolls, ventriloquist dummies and signposts up ahead warning that the next stop might be an ironic comeuppance.

This series of clips from “It’s a Good Life” stars the kid from Lost in Space (another show I watched thanks to KTLA) as a nearly omnipotent brat with a cruel streak who terrorizes the people still left in town. The episode is peppered with icky bits — three-headed gopher, anyone? — but the part that got me was the “jack-in-a-box.”

You’ll see what I mean.