DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW first aired on this day

On this day--24 Oct.--in 1981, Frank De Felitta's DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW made its premiere on the CBS Saturday Night Movie. Four small-town goons hunt down and murder a helpless retarded fellow--at the time, trying to hide from them as a scarecrow--for a crime that never happened, then cover it up with a story that he attacked them. But as the murdered man's mother notes, "there's other justice in this world besides the law," and soon, a scarecrow is stalking each of them...

Subtle, supremely creepy and essayed by a--forgive me--killer cast, DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW was the origin of the entire "killer scarecrow" genre (such as it is). More significantly, it took made-for-television horror features to their high point and has, for that title, never been matched.