In the autumn of 1963, a new television series took to the air and became an immediate hit. The Outer Limits was a speculative fiction series in the vein of The Twilight Zone, which was still in its original run. Even today, fans of The Outer Limits can recite its memorable opening credit sequence word for word.
Capitalizing on the popularity of both the show and the current surf rock craze, Michael Z. Gordon wrote an instrumental piece for his band The Marketts and titled it after the hit show, even though “Outer Limits” had nothing to do with the show of the same name.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, though. Gordon actually sent his composition to the producers of the television show, who picked up on the song’s similarity to the opening theme from a similar show, The Twilight Zone.
The producers turned Gordon down, but the song became a smash hit anyway, spending fourteen weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at #3. It sold over a million copies, garnering enough attention for the network to protest that The Marketts were unfairly profiting from the popularity of the television show.
As a result, the band had to re-title the song, and subsequent pressings were called “Out of Limits,” the name the song has been known by ever since.
As a side note, there seems to be some confusion over the nature of and players in the legal drama surrounding the song. Almost every source I’ve found on- and off-line states that Rod Serling forced the name change by suing The Marketts for quoting the theme to his show.
While it’s undeniably true that “Out of Limits” owes a heavy debt to The Twilight Zone, it makes absolutely no sense that a) Serling would sue, because he didn’t own the rights to either the show or the theme; and b) that either Serling or CBS (the actual owners of The Twilight Zone) would be placated by a name change rather than a tune change.
It’s far more likely that ABC-TV (the owners of the rights to The Outer Limits) forced the change, and indeed in the YouTube comments in the original clip above, Gordon actually comments that “the tv program made us change the name” without any reference to The Twilight Zone.
So even though every single print and on-line source says otherwise (almost always in verbatim wording, which underscores my suspicion that it comes from Wikipedia rot), I’m running with the belief that Serling and The Twilight Zone had nothing to do with it.
But I digress. Let’s get to the Springsteen connection, shall we?
On Halloween Eve in 1980, Bruce and the E Street Band brought the original River Tour to the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and the boys were in a mood to mark the occasion.
They took to the stage with a cover of Johnny Fuller’s “Haunted House,” and when it came time to kick off the second set of the evening, the E Street Band pulled out their one-time-only cover of The Marketts’ smash hit.
Bruce had started using an instrumental as a second set-opener a few years earlier on the Darkness Tour. Since many audience members tended to straggle back from the restroom for a few minutes after the show resumed, instrumentals tended to be good ways to resume the action while the latecomers took their seats.
Bruce paused that practice on the River Tour, but “Out of Limits” proved a fitting one-time exception on that Halloween night.
Outer Limits
First performed: October 31, 1980 (Los Angeles, CA)
Last performed: October 31, 1980 (Los Angeles, CA)
