Watch a selection of Insight episodes on the UCLA Film & Television Archive's YouTube channel.
In fall 2003, the Archive received a deposit of over 400 rare kinescopes and videoreels of the long-running syndicated television series Insight (syndicated, 1960-1983) from Paulist Productions, the non-profit production company founded by the late Father Ellwood E. Kieser.
Insight holds a unique place in the history of public service television programming. The anthology drama, created, produced and hosted by Fr. Kieser, aired nationally for over twenty years without commercial sponsorship. Over the course of Insight's run, a diverse cross-section of Hollywood artists, including Arthur Hiller, Michael Crichton, Ida Lupino and Gene Hackman contributed their talents gratis to the series—drawn by the show’s reputation for consistently stretching the creative boundaries of television.
Offbeat and experimental by design, the series won numerous Emmy Awards and received critical praise for addressing social issues, such as the Vietnam War, nuclear proliferation, and suicide—often with black humor or stark realism, and always with a humanist theme.
Several Insight episodes have been preserved by the Archive, including the original 2-inch video master of Rod Serling’s psychological examination of anti-Semitism, “The Hate Syndrome” (1966), and “Locusts Have No King” (1965) directed by Ted Post and starring William Shatner.
To arrange on-site research viewing access, please contact the Archive Research and Study Center (ARSC).
Learn more about the Archive's aquisition of the series.
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