It's your reception...mine looks fine.
No, they didn't have tape back then. They used Kinescope, which was sort of a like tape, but more like film and so different from each. They would use and reused the Kine, so some things look fine, whilst other things look strange.
There are couple of TZs that look really strange, KICK THE CAN is one, but I don't remeber what the other one is.
Picture looks super sharp on my tv, just strange with none of the little dust, debris and scratches you'd expect on film.
Videotape existed, old timey low band 2 quad inch but it wasn’t exactly cheap and had a few drawbacks.
A quad set up right with a good tape plays very nicely.
Actually, the networks started using videotape around 1957, but it was primarily for variety shows, game-shows, and daytime fare, as I’m sure you know. Unusual for tape to be used for a nighttime network show back then, though. The funny thing is that they also made kinescopes from tape too. When those ‘taped’ “Zone” episodes used to be shown in syndication over thirty-years ago, they were actually ‘film’ prints of the taped show.
Wasn’t Raoul Dahl’s show “Way Out” (which was in the TZ vein, from around 1961) shot on tape? There was another short summer series from the same era, “Great Ghost Stories,” but I think it was broadcast live. Maybe. Not 100% sure.
I used to have the book the Twilight
Zone Companion and it said some episodes
were shot on videotape.Can’t remember
if it was the yr it went to an hour
long.