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For my money, it was always “The Twilight Zone” segments starring Billy Mumy that were scariest.

Remember the episode when Grandma gives him a toy phone just before she dies, then uses it to call the boy “long-distance,” cajoling him to join her on the other side?

And what about the episode when Billy, possessed with supernatural powers, sends grown-ups to the euphemistic “cornfield” when they dare cross him and changes all the dogs in town into hideous, deformed creatures because he doesn’t like it when they bark?

With the arguable exception of a clown, there is nothing more chilling than a kid who is innately evil.

So I must have been in an evil mood myself recently when I got Mickey, age 8, to watch a Rod Serling marathon with me. Surely, once he met little Billy, he wouldn’t sleep for days.

Would he?

As the suspenseful tenterhooks of “The Twilight Zone” bongo riff played with the credits, Mickey yawned.

“Can I go to bed now?” he asked. “That toy phone was dumb. And why didn’t they show the dog with two heads? That wasn’t scary.”

It was true. These archly ironic black and white teleplays, emceed by a cautionary narrator with a squint and a skinny necktie, didn’t cut it.

No, comparing the mere “suggestion” of horror to its living, breathing screen embodiments — Chucky, Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers and all the other fiends with roman numerals after their names — well. That’s like comparing a jack-in-the-box to a flesh-eating, chain saw-wielding zombie.

And speaking of back-from-the-dead comebacks, has anyone noticed that zombies are hot this year at the Halloween store, with last year’s retro-redneck pirates clearing the decks to make way?

Despite the price of latex, we have Rotting Flesh Zombie, Dead Rocker Zombie, Cheerleader Zombie, Crazy Sewed Face Zombie, Evildoer Zombie and Death Before Dishonor Zombie.

Now, the way this has been explained to me, zombies’ stock goes up when everything else goes down. Apparently, it all goes back to the Cold War and Red Scare anxiety about soulless fellow travelers among us.

But when we reach a place where we are worried about everything — the war, the Dow, the energy crisis, global warming and which fanatical freak job of a world ruler is about to get the bomb — there aren’t enough zombies to go around.

The trouble is, the more gruesome and lifelike the zombie special effects (please, don’t ask about the full-length Pin-Up Girl Zombie costume), the more diminishing the impact.

It takes too much to scare us now. We need to return to the “suggestion” of horror — basically, the fear in heads, the fear of the unknown.

Because come to think of it, I saw Bill and Hillary masks in stock, a couple of versions of McCain and Obama, leftover Bush and Cheney, but not a single Sarah Palin mask to be had.

Which is one more thing to worry about: This is precisely what happens when you outsource horror to China.

Free fun this Saturday

And unless you’re at a spa in Maui, celebrating another great quarter for AIG, here are a couple of cheap Saturday outings:

Stagg Creek Farms, billed as “Alamance County’s only freshwater prawn producer,” is hosting another Saturday picnic from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a pig-picking and, yes, grilled prawns for lunch. Details: staggcreekfarm.com

Closer to home, Double C Farms, 2111 Pleasant Ridge Road, has an open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday with free pony rides, a costume contest and something called “equine bobbing for apples.” Call 215-0235.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com