July 17, 2018 • 59 mins
In episode 16, Dani and Ify deep dive into the world of the television show: The Twilight Zone. They're joined by writer Mellow Brown to break down the history of the show, how the creator Rod Serling came about creating the show, their own experiences with the show along with their favorite episodes and how they relate to today, attempts at reviving the show, and much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
How's it going, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Narratives
and I'm if you way. It's in acrost from Danny
Fernandez and we are joined up top by Mellow Brown,
who's a writer and tech editor at fanbros dot com
and also a writer on American Gods. How's it going everyone? Hey,
and you are also a listener of the show. Yes, wow,
(00:31):
Like I'm actually you know that's having my feet to
the theme song now, I love it. I know we've
had a couple of people ask us about the theme song.
I don't know if they can get it somewhere. I
mean there's still people who were asking me what the
song is for World Cup date and Anna never found out.
And I don't think anyone knows because I've asked Miles
and he kind of brushed it off. Well, both of
(00:52):
our our artwork and our our yeah, our song were
created in house by someone at how Stuff Works. I
imagine in Atlanta, in there, in there big I haven't
been over there, but I am one day if he
one day, I'll make it out there. Yeah, one day
we'll get flown out there at the Big House House
Stuff Works headquarters. For some reason, that's true. I'd probably
(01:17):
spend a month. I'd probably spend a month in Atlanta.
I phone out there. Um, today we are talking about
the Twilight Zone. This is a series that is extremely
near and dear to my heart. But Melo, did you
grow up with it? Um? Actually, yes, what was it?
I've been a long time watcher. My dad got me
into it and um allowed like the social political issues
(01:37):
hit immediately along with my nightmares. True true, Um, off
the top of your head, what would you say is
like your favorite episode? I would definitely say It's a
good Life. Oh yeah, like that one is terrifying. What
was currently? Yea currently that? Um, yes, so we'll get
into it. But yeah, It's a good Life is often
(01:57):
referenced because of Donald Trump. I've seen a lot of
political cartoons that have referenced him and the and the
Little Boy. Yeah, like you said, we'll get into a
bit later. But there's a sequel to that. It makes
it even worse. Really is it in their original series?
It is in uh the two thousand two. Okay, I
(02:18):
don't always count the like there was one. Yeah, they
we'll get into it, but I don't always count I
count the original Star Original Star Wars. I get the
original Star Wars big you have that whole just petition
to remake the news up and I read, which is
also great because I love that myself subconscious went there.
(02:42):
I love the New Star Wars. I actually do very
much love the New Star Wars um because I get
to see more people, more women and people of color
degree and this Villa, the villain of that story for
the sequel, actually is the epitome of a New Star Wars.
Uh if you if they prefer to call themselves up? Um? Yeah,
(03:07):
so so Twilight Zone, Um yeah. I thought we'd kick
it off with talking just a little bit about Rod
Sterling's history, because I actually found out before I even
we cranked out this early additional research to the topic.
I saw this in a Twitter threat where he has
(03:28):
this quote where Danny was shaking her head because she
remembers it, where he was like, I don't care. I
think it was something along the lines if I don't
care what it is, I just want my writing remembered
and to last longer than me, And which is dope
because it is and it's not only remembered, but it's impactful.
And then someone went on and talked about kind of
(03:50):
the history of Rosterling, about how he was a war
vet and how he created Twilight Zone because he wasn't
allowed to kind of talk about those social issue is
at the time just so openly. So he did it
deceptively through the Twilight Zone. And and that's why I think, uh,
and not to be this guy. Even though I like
(04:12):
all the Black Mirrors episodes, I like them all, but
I feel like the earlier ones are stronger because the
earlier ones are kind of really making that like, you know, technology,
we're letting it get ahead of us point, and I
feel like the later ones is more just kind of
like I don't want to, you know, undercut a lot
of the stories, but you know, because there are some
that really are very like current. But I feel like
(04:35):
the newer ones are more just kind of adding on,
just kind of exploring the idea of the world and
story building that they've kind of um set up. Where
those first ones, like it really did feel like Booker
was like saying something to us funny enough. Booker normally
a comedian, Ron Sterling actually had a comedy background. But
(04:55):
I don't want to get too ahead of myself. I
want to start just with the the War because it's
very interesting. It's it's almost like you know when you
read some people's biographies and you're like, oh, this is
this is going to be a good movie one day.
I feel like Rod Serling has one of those. Yeah,
that's kind of fascinating. I guess he hasn't. No one
(05:17):
has played him yet, like and officially in a huge film.
I agree. He is so instrumental. I feel like in um,
not only science fiction, but just yeah, I know that
he gets compared Black Mirror gets compared a lot to
Twilight Zone, and that's accurate. And then and of course
we're gonna also visit the fact that Jordan Peel is
now making which I think he's perfect for. It is
(05:38):
going to be on the CBS platform. Yeah, because like
get Out would have been the perfect like episode of
Twilight Zone in the same like cutting just um, what's
the word I'm looking for criticism? What I was gonna
say is actually, Durassic Park fits a lot people forget,
but that fits a lot of like, yeah, the original
(05:59):
Drastic Ark well and I would say Drastic the last one,
Durassic World, Falling Kingdom, um where they start to kind
of or or they hint at using dinosaurs as weapons.
That to me is also kind of like what would
we do with this technology? Um, where it could also
be like a Black Mirror episode. But yeah, Rodster as
far as me, like I grew up with the Twilight
(06:19):
Zone marathons, my parents would party and essentially leave us alone.
On New Year's Eve, we watched on Sci Fi my
brothers and I. I now, if he has been to
my place, Melo, you are welcome to come to my place.
I have a Twilight Zone wall um which I will
tweet with different artwork and original artwork that's signed by artists.
(06:40):
I have rod Sterling up there. I have um many
of the episodes, including one of the most famous ones,
which is I have the Beholder. But also I had
an artist. Uh. A lot of the other ones don't
have as much artwork, so I commission an artist to
do my favorite. Well, it changes as the years go on,
but my favorite is The Howling Man is one of
my absolute favorite episodes. Uh. And also Satan's kind of hot.
(07:04):
He's kind of hot in it, ah he is, he
looks good. Um. So yeah, so let's talk about the
history of rod Serling. Yeah, I was I just wanted
to start in high school. He funny enough, he's always
been a writer. Not funny, I mean just I guess
as expected. Always he was writing for the school newspaper
and he was kind of like amped up about World
(07:25):
War Two and he was kind of encouraging other students
to enlist. And he actually wanted to enlist before he graduated.
But then it was actually his Civics teacher, Gus Youngstrom,
who said war is a temporary thing. It ends an
education doesn't. Without your degree, where will you be after
the war. So he actually finished school, graduated, and as
(07:46):
soon as school ended, enlisted. Now there's a fun detail
in his enlistment that kind of really I think sets
up who Rod Serling is. So originally he was sent
to um California, which man, he was going to fight
the Japanese instead of you know, the the Germans, and
(08:07):
he was actually angry about it because he wanted to
fight Hitler and so so he was like, forget the Japanese,
I need to fight this guy, this horrible, bigoted, racist guy,
Like that's who he wanted. And I feel like that
kind of set the tone for his life. Eventually, he
actually grown bitter about the war because it seemed like
(08:27):
such a young thing to do, to be like, oh,
I'm gonna go join the army, I'm gonna fight the
bad guys. But he found out that, you know, he
was seeing death every day. And then there were a
lot of freak accidents. There was this huge freak accident,
like there was there was a Jewish private name Melvin Levy,
and Levy was delivering a comic monologue for the platoon
(08:47):
as it as like he was standing under a palm
tree and a food crate was dropped from a plane
above and it decapitated him. And so Startling actually let
the funeral services for Levy and placed the Star of
David over his grave. So like, not only are you
seeing the death of the war, but you're also seeing
freak accidents like that. I can imagine that's not only
(09:08):
kind of making you better towards the war, but that
I feel like there's no way to not have this
kind of morbid, kind of creative thought when you see
things like that. You know, like, yeah, I would say
also during the time, I think like you were saying too,
that he was exposed to this idea of good versus evil.
(09:29):
And then evil, not necessarily being evil or are we
the evil? Actually? UM was something that I think that
he tackled a lot pretty often, UM human nature as
well as during this time. Just the amount of racism
that he saw was definitely influential in his writing. And
something that's really fascinating is we can we can link
(09:50):
this in our footnotes. But I watched a YouTube video
of him a couple of years ago. Uh, that sounded weird.
It wasn't a YouTube video of him, It was him
doing an interview that was help on YouTube. Okay, Uncle
Rod doing an unboxing bid. Uh. Here can you imagine?
(10:10):
Can you imagine him like doing having a selfie stick.
I would love to see him nowadays, like his commentary
on us UM would be so fast. His daughter is
still alive. But what I was gonna say is I
watched a video on YouTube of him where he was
(10:31):
talking about censorship and how CBS had censored the writers
and what they were trying to get away with in
a lot of the times. Of course, his commentary was
on on people of coming, the treatment of people of
color in marginalized groups in general, where they would end
up having to make them like an alien or you know,
a monster or something for you to like feel for them,
because they weren't they weren't able to make them people
(10:53):
of color. And uh, he actually says that you eventually
start to censor yourself where you're not even writing those stories.
So if you already know it's it's kind of fascinating,
like the brain will just start to center and and
not even create those stories anymore. It was it's a
really fascinating interview, and we'll link it. But yeah. He
ended up volunteering at w NYC in New York as
(11:15):
an actor and writer in the summer of nineteen forty six,
and then the next year he worked at a station
as a pain intern in Antioch work study program, and
then took a couple of odd jobs and other radio
stations in New York and Ohio. He said, I learned
time writing for a medium that is measured in seconds.
He also worked at the Antioch Broadcasting Systems Radio Workshop
(11:36):
and was managing the station within a couple of years.
Dan Len, He's moving up. He was a hard worker.
He wrote and directed the programs and acted in them
as well. Um, this is kind of fascinating. So I
actually read the Twilight Zone companion highly recommended. There's a
couple of different Twilight Zone books out there. Have you
read that one? Mellow? Oh, I think you would like it.
(11:57):
There's so much behind the scenes for each they go
through each episode. So I actually got an inaudible and
I would listen to it when I would clean and
drive and stuff. But it's behind the scenes of like
how did this get made, how this almost didn't get made?
Other freak accidents that happened in the episodes. Uh. And
also he didn't write all of them. Um. I know
(12:19):
a lot of people think that he wrote all of them,
but a lot of them were actually bought from Uh.
They were teleplays or they might have been a short
story in a magazine, and he would buy the rights
to it and then adapt it. Uh, sometimes he would,
and and then he had other people working on his
team as well. And I canna imagine, like he wrote
like an insane amount or believe at the age of
hed written forty or forty nine episodes by that point,
(12:42):
and he was like, Okay, I finally need another writer. Yeah, yeah,
And well he just wanted to be a writer. I
don't know if you know that, but they talked about
that in the book where he just wanted to be
a writer for the Twilight Zone and he didn't intend
to be the host and looking at him like, you
were the perfect host. You're like handsome, you're creepy, and
you're like stern and have like a parental thing to you.
(13:04):
But you're also like, you know, ominous and uh yeah,
I think, And he has gorgeous, lush eyebrows. Um, so
yeah he But originally he actually just wanted to be
a writer, and he didn't because when he was hosting,
he didn't have an acting like he didn't have as
much time to dedicate to writing. Uh and I know
that that bothered him. But hopping back into the past.
(13:29):
While in college, Serling won his first accolade as a writer.
The radio program Dr Christian is starting an annual scriptwriting
contest eight years earlier. Thousands of scripts were sent in annually,
but very few can actually be produced. So certainly want
a trip to New York City and five hundred dollars
for his radio script to live a dream. He and
his new wife attended the awards broadcast on May eighteenth
(13:51):
of nine, where he and the other winners were interviewed
by the Star of Dr Christian Geene Herschel. One of
the other winners that day was Earl Hamner Jr. Who
also earned prizes in previous years, and later Hamner wrote
scripts for Sterling's The Twilight Zone. Also, I just want
to drop this fun fact. Five hundred dollars has the
(14:13):
same buying power as five thousand, one hundred and fourteen
dollars has today. It's something you came up. I mean,
you get that much in college, you like. Hold up,
that's true, that's true. Hold up, We're about to throw
a dorm party. I would love to see Rod Sterling partying.
Oh yeah, yeah. I wonder if any of those cigarettes,
(14:34):
who's always so, if any of them were Blunt's ever
You never know, uh so, Sterling said of his time
as a staff writer for radio. From a writing point
of view, radio ate up ideas that might have put
food on the table for weeks at a future freelancing date.
The minute you tie yourself down to a radio or
TV station, you write around the clock, you rip out ideas.
Many of them irreplaceable. They go on and consequently can
(14:55):
never go on again. And they sold them for fifty
dollars a week. Gosh and he was saying that back then.
I mean that seems small to us, but you can't
afford to give away ideas. They're too damn hard to
come by. If I had to do it over, I
wouldn't staff right at all. I'd find some other way
to support myself while getting a start as a writer.
Holy Craft, I'm like going through a midlife crisis as
(15:16):
we're as we're discussing this right now. Yes, I know
how many writers in our lives do you think would
agree with this as well? That you're kind of just
giving your ideas over to a studio for like such
little pay, and especially his because he was so like transformative,
like the thought that he wrote forty nine scripts by himself,
and all of them anthology episodes. It's pretty much on
(15:36):
the equivalent of like you wrote a pilot like twice
a week. So we'll we'll just jump all the way
to what we're here to talk about, which is, uh,
the Twilight Zone. And it had an interesting kind of start,
just kind of shows you how old Hollywood used to work.
I don't think the w g A existed at this
point because Sterling submitted the time element to CBS, intending
(15:59):
it to be a pilot for his new weekly show,
The Twilight Zone, but instead CBS used the science fiction
script for a new show produced by Desi Arnaz and
Lucille Ball the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in ninety eight. The
story concerns a man who has vivid nightmares of an
attack on Pearl Harbor. The man goes to a psychiatrist,
(16:19):
and after the session, the twist ending, a device which
Sterling became known for, reveals the patient had died at
Pearl Harbor and the psychiatrist was the one actually having
the vivid dreams. The episode received so much positive fan
response that CBS agreed to let Serling go ahead with
his pilot for The Twilight Zone. Oh I'm sorry. I'm
(16:39):
sorry that my work that you yank for me did
so well that you agree to let me keep making
this thing that people are excited. I'm sorry. I couldn't
stop laughing at the idea of Lucio Ball in this
like serious What's so interesting here is that that's such
a sandwich and it's such a perfect like wrap up
(17:01):
to who Sterling was and into Twilight Zone because I
mean dreams about a World War two, Like he said,
the war left him with nightmares. So this is really him,
like just the beginning of him taking what he was
actually dealing with, putting it on paper, and then making
it into something amazing. I also just wanted to be like,
(17:23):
what a twist that was? All of the No, not
all of them, but that was a lot of his
his most famous ones, I feel like had a pretty
big twist. Um, and some of them I still feel
like you can't always tell. Some of them you can
tell that, some of them you can't. And that was
always my favorite things about a lot of the He
was just so what a fascinating, interesting man. Um. But yeah,
(17:45):
let's talk about the Twilight Zone. Um, after these messages. Yeah,
let's do it. After these messages. Welcome back to Nottificent.
We are joined by Mellow Brown, and we were talking
about the Twilight Zone. Um, what would you say is
(18:07):
your second favorite episode? Second favorite would be uh five characters?
Yeah that one. Oh. I have a fun fact about that.
So this movie that not too many people may be
aware of, called The Cube, which is a that is
that that episode? It inspired that movie? You know what
(18:30):
I always say that is the perfect Um. Yeah, I
just left Netflix play and then like now I'm watching this. Yeah.
The way I found it is I was with um
a friend of the pod, Kyle Lewis. He took me
to this bar in New York. When I was there
from New DCM. This bar, I wish I remember the name.
It was everything. It's just a shot bar, which normally
(18:52):
I'm like hard pass, but every shot is themed and
there is a song and prop that goes with every shot.
So he did he did the like Bret Hart like
a shot and he comes out so he starts playing
sexy Boy and the bartender comes out with this mike
(19:14):
and I'm I don't know that's the gimmick of the
bar yet. I'm just thinking, Oh, this guy really knows.
And he hands Kyle the microphone. He's like putting him
like what is going on here? And then like after
like seeing everyone kind of do theirs, uh their songs,
I figured out that was it. But in the background
(19:35):
on the TV Cube was playing on the l Ray
Network and that's when I was watching it and with
no sound but enthralled, and then it went straight to
Cube two. I want to say l Ray Network is
like the other channel that's not sports in every bar,
like let's have it on. You have a chance of
(19:57):
either Luja underground or from Yeah. But I was like
super into it, Like Kyle was blown away by how
into the Cuba was and I had the Wikipedia opens. Yeah,
I love it so not present at the bar. This
is what happens when you're married and you go to
a bar and you start Wikipedia. Yeah, bringing up some facts,
(20:19):
some cool facts. If I ever got to tell you earlier,
because you know how I love dropping facts about my
family and they appreciate when I do it on here.
But you know how Rod Sterling, they said, no, finish
your school instead of enlisting. So my mom, um, this
is kind of Twilight Zony. My mom wanted to be
a nun. My family was so religious. There's so so
hard core Catholic. My family is so hard for Catholic
(20:41):
that my mom wanted to be a nun. When she
was sixteen and she talked to a nun. She wanted
to join the nunnery, the monastery, whatever, it's the nunnery
um where they make nuns. And the nuns told her
finished school, like go to college and and then come
back and if you still want to be a nun,
you know we'll talk. So my mom went to college
(21:02):
and she never came back. I would not be alive.
I would not be alive, didn't exist. Isn't that crazy?
My mom went to college and was like, nope, this
is too good. Well she didn't meet my dad in college.
But um, yeah, it's not crazy. It's actually kind of
a decision that wrote Sterling would probably roll with. Um
If you've noticed in a lot of themes in Twilight Zone,
(21:22):
he is constantly afraid of isolation. Yeah, like that is
always like a femine. What was it the Stopwatch the
I forgot the name of the one where the guy
that broke his glasses, the one everyone knows at last?
Was it there? Big? Yeah? Everything that was like his
(21:42):
big fear. It feels like he was writing in a
room and just like I hate being alone and I
was always the mise of some of his best characters.
Um So, speaking of Rod Serling, he said that he
was compelled by the need to not just entertain, but
too enlightened. So he wrote nine three of the series
a hundred and fifty six episodes over the course of
(22:05):
its five season run, which began on CBS in nineteen
fifty nine. Yeah. So, So at ten pm on Friday
October two, nine, CBS Television broadcast the pilot episode of
a new series, The Twilight Zone. So the copy and
CBS is newspaper ad for the debut episode. Where is
(22:25):
everybody remember that one um that started a phenomenon. It's
kind of fascinating too that it was on some of
the episodes I feel like would be kind of scary. Well,
I guess it was late. Ten pm is late for adults,
but I you know, I watched him when I was younger.
My mom was most afraid of the Invaders because that
(22:46):
is an episode which, by the way, fun fact, there's
no dialogue. There's no dialogue in The Invaders except for
the very end um. But yeah, it's a tiny little
robot people um with a twist. I don't know. I
guess we we have to have some spoilers in this
in order to time. Yeah, is that? Were you trying
(23:06):
to like avoid spoilers? I feel like, well, I told
you about the Twilight Zone. I looked up because like,
I'm always fascinated to see what are what are ranked
as the top Twilight Zone episodes. To find change for
me all the time, depending on what I'm going through
in my life. And um, I was reading an article
that had like the top ten best Twilight Zone episodes
and at the bottom of the article. So when wrote,
(23:27):
way to spoil it, man, and the author was like,
it's been out for over fifty years. It's half a
century old, my guy. And also just referenced in like
Futurama the Family, like you're going to get up for everything. Yeah,
people just want to just point that finger and it's like,
whoa the Titanic sink love it. So during the original
(23:51):
series Twilight Zones writers frequently used science fiction as a
vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored
counter rsual material from the live dramas were less concerned
and seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci fi stories. It's the
age old creator's trick. It's even used to this day,
like how you might be wondering, how did Donald Glover
(24:13):
get a show as weird as Atlanta made? Well? The pilot,
if you notice, is very like, it seems very linear,
seems very narrative, and it seems like it's presenting a
different story that we never get to see. That was
how they got it. Greenlight. If you should look at
the script. It's even more so. They give a whole
background about him being in college as an intro. It's
(24:36):
a it's a trojan horse technique that's so bamboos. But
like at the end of the day, kind of like
with the original pilot, you know, the network can't argue
with popularity. If it's popular, they're gonna let you do
whatever they want, even if they would have blocked you otherwise. Yeah,
that's that's the funny thing. And it's funny that it
existed back in the fifties. Still to this day, you
(24:58):
got the people you know and you look. Don't take offense.
If you are someone who is considering giving me money
and you're listening to the background, this is just you know,
just just chat. But you find these creators and you
want to pay us because you know we're creative. But
there's a little something in you that are that are
(25:19):
afraid of new and kind of things because you're a
creature of science. When you're a suit you're like, I
have the data of the shows that have worked. I
have the data the shows that don't work, but it
isn't until that new hot thing happens usually by either
a fluke, a trojan horse technique, or just finally someone
(25:39):
being like that dude that they get full license. Yeah yeah,
like you know, even though you know now it's he's
you know, not that that in vogue, But like Louie
was able to make Louis because he bought everything, and
that's he was at the point in his career where
he can afford to take that hip because you take
(26:01):
a big financial hit, like yeah, you need to so,
so he really had to go out of pocket and
or you do so like even back then, you have
to do creative techniques to say what you really want
to say as a creative and Rod Sterling use science fiction.
I feel like Rod Sterling, you science fiction. Actually keep
(26:22):
that in so people know how often I've I've said
Sterling instead of Sterling. Danny has kept well, I mean
I have it like it was between no, it was
between the dragon Ball tattoo or I was going to
get Twilight Zone. I'm not comparing the two. I'm just
saying I grew up with them, okay people, and they
both have artwork and walls dedicated to them. But no,
(26:44):
you're right. Actually, Sterling he found the series very difficult
to sell. Actually, few critics felt that science fiction could
transcend empty escapism, as they thought, and enter the realm
of adult drama. But um. There were frequent themes on
The Twilight Zone, which included nuclear war McCarthy is um
that was very popular, UM, and mass hysteria, both I think,
(27:05):
which are tackled and the monsters are due on Maple Street.
I'm gonna have both you Twilight Zone nerds back it
up and explain what happens on Monsters. Oh, I would
love to, because I'm gonna just say, look, we're gonna
explain some of these because I know some of the
nerd family is like, I want to hear this, but
Danny is trying to like save the twist. You know what,
(27:27):
just watch it. It's still good even when you know it. Really,
I think I was just gonna say going forward, UM,
I think it would be easier to just yeah, we're
going to give some of the twists away. I apologize.
You can turn this off and then and watch just
five seasons listen and want to. I know I knew
the twist of the eye to beholder before I saw it,
(27:47):
and it still was so still dope. Also, it's black
and white and it's like creepy as hell. These Wait,
I know all of these twists, and I still watched
them like every month. Maybe I didn't tell you this,
but the last guy that I was dating, I think
you know who it is. I brought him over. We're
not dating anymore, so apparently this technique doesn't work. Um,
But we were sitting on my couch and I actually
made him watch, like do Twilight Zone episode. I am
(28:10):
that guy. I am that guy that will sit you
down and make you watch Reservoir Dogs or something that
I've made him watch. I think The Howling Man and
The Midnight Sun because that's my second favorite. Justus test
on the middle of a date. Yeah, let's talk about
the monsters are doing. Maple Street one of the perfectly executed,
(28:34):
still extremely relevant commentary on mob mentality. You could watch
it tonight and it would still resonate today, probably even more. Uh,
with how humans treat each other, how quickly are to
point fingers and ruin people's lives. Um, And I just
want to read this quote from Rod Serline that's at
(28:57):
the very end of the episode. The tool of conquests
do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to
be found only in the minds of men. For the record,
prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless
fright and search for a scapegoat has a fallout all
(29:18):
of its own for the children, and the children yet
and unborn, and the pity of it is that these
things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone. I've chills
and he was genius in every way, and especially like
this particular episode always feel like was one of the
biggest catalysts in terms of style that I see things
(29:38):
like in a lot of Stephen King stories, Like a
lot of the stories have always builds up in mobs
and everything like that, and it's always from something simple,
And that's exactly where this originated from. In this story,
where it was just an idea from a child, a
small fear, and that fear equals something else inside of adults,
they had the same level of like, oh, is this
(30:01):
the one where the kids afraid of a monster and
gets the whole town like kind of so what happens
and the monsters are doing Maple Street is the lights
go out on Maple Street and and everybody is kind
of like, why did the lights go out? But wait
a second, why is the light on in your house?
Or why is light on in his house? And so
they're all kind of like talking together, and the kid
(30:23):
and the story was like, oh, this is like in
my comic book when there where these monsters or aliens
or whatever he says, and they're like, how did the
kid know? Um? And so they end up really starting
to accuse each other of knowing why, like why is
it light going in your house? And and um, somebody
leaves to go and check and they see this person.
(30:44):
They start to get to this frantic part where they're
just blaming each other where the person starts to walk
back and and um, they can't see them in the darkness,
and they shoot them, and um, you pan out and
you see these two aliens watching and one of them
turns to the other and is like, so is this
(31:04):
how it is everywhere? He was like, yeah, you could
do this on any street. They'll just kill each other. Essentially. Wow,
that's yeah, perfect, And I feel like that is that's
such a commentary. Also, I feel like, um, so I
don't remember any of the deep ones. The one I
remember was where that guy wanted to I think he
(31:24):
like he wanted to go be bigger, remember that, Yeah,
and then everything starts bigger, and the twist is that
he was shrinking, Like that's the one I remember. That's
a that's a classic like surling thing. Um with the
Midnight Sun, which is one of my favorites, is that
they're moving closer to the sun, and that's also kind
(31:45):
of terrifying. It's like, um, them starting to get you know,
more more desperate, and then you wake up and they're
actually moving farther away. So that was his Yeah, he
had a lot of those twists in there. But um, yeah,
the Monsters are due on Maple Street. I actually had
to read that and uh, it was made into a
play and I read that in English class in high school.
(32:09):
But I feel like that's still relevant where people could
be watching. Us are watching, Americans are watching like, yeah,
they'll just destroy each other. You know, we don't even
have to really, we just have to like kind of
poke them a little bit. But it's also funny because
it was like it was the Aliens, like that kid
said it was the Aliens and yeah, it's like a
love layer. It was just like kind of a coincidence
(32:30):
or anything like that. But there's one thing I will
say about certainly that was really great in terms of,
like I think every writer can learn from him in
terms of this. When their budget dropped and CBS was like,
you're going to have to do this in like one
set in the studio, make all these outlandish episodes and
everything like that, the quality actually kind of went up,
and these isolated stories that were driving characters, like the
(32:56):
there's the one story I do not remember the title,
and anybody can direct me online. I got but there's
a lady who is constantly walking and running down a
corridor in hospital and every time she gets to the
end and there's a morgue there and there's a nurse,
and the nurse is just like room for one more.
And it's just this constant fear of dread and death
(33:19):
that and like he's so good at that, like a
regular just like jump scares weren't his thing, but dread,
just like mortality is going to catch up with you.
It's really great in terms of that. But that particular
story is so perfect in terms of like, if you
have a small space. You have a zero budget. This
is how you do it. You got really yeah, I
think so. In season two, due to budgetary constraints, Network
(33:42):
decided against Serling's wishes to cut costs by shooting some
episodes on videotape rather than film, and the requisite multi
camera set up of the videotape format precluded location shooting,
and that severely limited the scope of the storylines, and
the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes. Hdes and
I should say that the season one was thirty minutes long.
(34:04):
Season four, which was from two to sixty three, consists
of one hour episodes. They're kind of long. They're kind
of long. Actually did not want that at all. Yeah, yeah,
and then season five returned to the half hour format.
I would say one and two are my favorite seasons though,
But we'll get into more of the history as well
(34:26):
as the other Twilight Zone revivals in the future. One
right after this break and we're back talking more about
that was weird Europe. Yeah, I thought you were like
(34:48):
brew We are indeed back No no no, no, no
no no no no no no no talking about the
Twilight Zone. Um So I do want to say for
everyone that's mad about re boots or that we're doing
reboots now. I mean reboots have been around forever because
the Twilight Zone was rebooted in the eighties. Actually, the
(35:08):
first reboot ran on CBS UH in nineteen in the
nineteen eighties, and then the second ran on up N
from two thousand two to two thousand three. And now
we have a fourth one that will be on CBS
All Access from Jordan Peel, which we actually know some
of the writers on there. So did you, meloge you
(35:28):
watch any of those eighties ones or any of them
stand out for you? Yeah, seeing a few of the
eighties ones, um, like I believe recently we were speaking
about the Chameleon, and that one definitely stood out to me.
Uh in terms of kind of like strange structure, the
overall the just the alien transforming. It's different things, and
(35:49):
there's like a particular guy that's like chasing after the alien.
But yeah, like a lot of eighties ones. Uh, you're
very very very weird. Yes, yeah, no, no, I can
imagine because it was a wild time. Also, like when
you have like it's funny because I do think you
can reboot things that you know, maybe you weren't that
(36:09):
great or just kind of like left it open or
kind of have the person who helmed it take it
over Alah fury Road, you know. But when you have
something like Twilight Zone, which was this phenomenon that kind
of blew up to try and just simply rebooted, and
he and Sterling wasn't a part of it. He actually
sold his shares, uh, and CBS you know, kind of
(36:34):
did it and they actually stood to earn more. But
they were still kind of a little on the fence
about it, and it seemed like it did okay, like
it didn't have the same popularity, but there were some
episodes that were kind of like they're like the CBS
turned down Okay, So they turned down offers from the
original production team of Rod Sterling and Buck Hounton who
(36:56):
Buck work. They worked so closely together. I think he
worked on almost like every episode of the original Twilight
Zone because his name is all over it. I always
see his name every single time, um, at least in
a lot of the episodes that I watched. And they
also turned down from Francis Ford Coppola, So we could
have had a Twilight Zone from Francis Ford Coppola. I'm
(37:18):
curious of what that would have been. Now what's that discussion? Like? Yeah,
like what what does that take? Yeah? So they ended
up green lighting it in n under the supervision of
Carlos Singer, who was then the vice president of Drama Development. Um.
I wasn't a big fan of them, but you know
(37:38):
I there was also we have talked about Twilight Zone movie,
which I liked parts of it. Um so kind of
had a similar feel to me. Oh you liked it? Yeah,
actually love the Twilight Zone movie, but what was it?
I like the Spielberg chapter as well as I like
the revival of the ten thousand foot feet nightmare scenario,
(38:01):
which h it was a big improvement over the what
how dare you all right? If you're listening to this
Google image William Shatner Twilight Zone, every image you'll get
from that is hilarious of his reactions hamming it up
at like just um, the costume yet in the window,
it's so good. I'm sorry, don't know, speak your truth.
(38:25):
I'm sorry, I'm not trying. I'm not trying to hide
daggers at you. Um nightmare feet? Yes, is the infamous
William Shatner episode of the original Twilight Zone which chronicled
a man who was actually just done from being hospitalized
for a breakdown, So that that was also a part
of it. Also, could I just say so he was
(38:48):
he was completely terrified on this flight. Not only did
he see a yetty ish type of figure on the wing,
which inspired the very famous Jim Carrey um scene from
a Nature calls there's something on the wing. He doesn't
sound like that if you go back and watch it.
But um, what I was gonna say is also, hello,
(39:11):
flying back then, was terrified? He Okay, now you think like,
oh yeah, flying is terrifying for people. Now think back then, Okay,
it was. I mean, one, they could smoke, so that's cool,
But like also your playing can catch on fire. Um,
because they were smoking, I think in it, as they
were in all of these Um, this is not an
anti ps A for smoking. You can do whatever you
want with your body. I just think on a flight,
(39:34):
you know. Um yeah, yeah. So that was also a
part of it that I think a lot of people
forget is that this man was coming off of having
a breakdown, So it was did he actually see this
creature on the wing or wasn't in his head. So
but yes, speaking of the film, they did. So the
Twilight Zone movie came out in they did recreate that scene.
(39:56):
So it started. Dan Ackroyd, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Um,
the late Vickmorrow, and Scott Man. Cruther's John Lennons directed
the prologue and the first segment. Steven Spielberg directed the second,
Joe Dante the third, and George Miller directed the final segment,
which I didn't know. Um. Landis's episode became notorious for
a helicopter accident during filming that caused the death Tomorrow
(40:16):
and and two child actors. I just found out about.
I forgot about that. I was talking about that. Um. Yeah,
I guess we should move on, yeah, to the second revival,
because there was many more well before there. Before the
Second Revival, there was Rod Serling's Lost Classics, when uh,
(40:40):
basically Richard Matheson and Carold Sara Ling produced a an
outline for a two hour made for TV movie which
would feature you know, Matheson's adaptation of three yet unfilmed
Rod Serling. Short stories and outlines for the production were
rejected by CBS until early when Sterling's widow discovered a
(41:01):
complete shooting script for Where the Dead Are authored by
Sterling himself, and while rummaging, she found that while rummaging
through her garage, like He'll imagine just having like just scripts.
The man was a genius, Like man it is, I'm
angry and how good it was just constantly just like
(41:22):
I have an idea I can form. Also, like in
the digital age, that's never gonna happen unless I found
this random thumb drive they don't look at it, found
his very dropbox. Yeah. Yeah. So then there was a
second revival from two thousand two to two thousand three,
and that was on up N. It was hosted by
Force Whittaker. Actually do remember that one um it was
(41:44):
a one hour format where are you Giggily? Within two
half hour stories. It was canceled after one season. It's
Still a Good Life is a sequel to It's a
Good Life? Is that what you were talking about? Okay?
The Monsters are doing a Maple Street is an adaptation
of The Monsters are Doing Maple Street and I Have
the Beholders, the remake of an episode from Riginal series. Yeah,
(42:06):
so they had some of the same uh ones and
they had certain still credited as a writer as he
was because he came up with a lot of those concepts,
a lot of those stories. Actually, uh like what we
were saying, there's sequels to the original stories. Uh UM
let the audience decide if they lived up to him
or not. UM. In terms of it's still a good life, UM,
that one is incredibly dark where the like UM, we
(42:30):
we touched on a little bit where it's the little
boy who has the psychic ability where he is actually
reading people's minds and is actually judging if they are
having good thoughts or not, and it's of his own
accord of that. He's just like, I don't like what
you're thinking, and then he would point at someone and
they would end up in a cornfield. And that was
the original one. UM. In the sequel, he's actually a
(42:52):
full grown adult. He has a child. He is worse.
He has recreated ironically enough, this is if you could
find this on like YouTube or anything like that, go
for it. It's still a good life. He has created
basically a UM like Trump's America. Using psychic powers. He
decided like I don't like tall buildings, got rid of them.
(43:13):
I don't like cars, I don't I got rid of them,
and he's actually changed the world in a way where
he's just murdering things way worse than he was before.
And now he has a daughter with power stronger than his. Um.
It is a very strange watch. The ending is super
off putting. Um. The last line of dialogue, UM will
(43:37):
make you probably angry, and uh it is. It is
quite a thing to watch now, I'm gonna have to
watch that. And then um, the monsters are due on
Maple Street. The sequel for that, which is just the
monsters are on Maple I read it wrong, No, you're
that one right there is particularly Um I'll put like this,
(44:01):
if you remember what we just said about the plot
of that, imagine someone writing a sequel to that post like, well,
it's it's very much. Uh it's a mob that looks
very familiar, if you know what I mean. But yeah, no,
it's it's Uh. It is like interesting because like both
(44:25):
those things that were created sequels for it's funny because
you don't need the sequels. It seems like it's saying
the same thing, like there's no added context because the
thing that is being said in the original is just
all unique and the the other thing about that particular
run was listen, you can you can come at me
(44:47):
in my mentions if you like it. But there's episodes
that border on like unintentionally funny, like um, the I'll
share as a as a police officer episode where he's
fighting a ghost pill and uh that that leads to
a conclusion where you're just like, Okay, does that happened where?
(45:10):
And like it's very very early two thousand's filming, and
where it's like why is the trash kids c g
I in the background, the kind of have the technology
they're going to use it, like just do it. We've
got that upn money, you know. And then um, there's
oh man, it is classic the Katherine Heigel will she
(45:33):
kill Baby Hitler storyline? She just she goes back in time.
It's a question asked yes, and the ending to that like, uh,
like I just had to go for a walk because
of like it it's so ridiculous, Like I feel like
people are gonna watch this new reboot for a completely
(45:53):
different reason than they might go watch the original after
listening to that. The best part about it is that
you can't look up the things You've just got to watch. Yeah, Um,
I did want to talk about a couple of things.
So there was the twilight Zone game. In nineteen sixty four,
Ideal released a board game, the twilight Zone Game, at
the height of the show's popularity. That's kind of fascinating.
(46:15):
So the game consisted of a cardboard playing surface, four
colored plane, pieces of colored spinning wheel, and twelve door
playing cards. There was also very popular was the Twilight
Zone pinball game, which I love I always. I actually,
being the nerd that I am, was googling Twilight Zone
on eBay as you do when you're Danny Fernandez on
(46:35):
a Friday night, and I found somebody had like a
piece of the pinball uh game that has wrought Sterling
with like his arms crossed, and so I have that
framed on my WALLA. Yeah, it's also really cool. It's
really cool. And they're also comic books, which are this
is this is such an insight into my life. I
(46:56):
was gonna say comic books, which you can also find
on eBay. They're very chee. You can look up the
Twilight Zone comic books. They for me just make good art. Um.
I keep some of them intact, so don't freak out.
But they're also worth like five dollars um, so yeah,
you can. You can pick up some of the They
actually had different, um, different stories than than what was
(47:18):
just in the in the show. Have a favorite comics
out of the list, They're so absurd, like all of them.
I'm like, what is gonna look at as good now
that I'm thirty, because that's like my art. I'm like,
I needed to you know, be kind of nerdy but
also speak to me and be eloquent. And it's all
just like you know, some like tentacles coming out or something,
(47:39):
um or whatever, like they just like the old school
uh comics from the sixties, which they were, but but
a lot of them are kind of crazy looking. It's
like no budget restraints. Yeah yeah yeah. Uh. And I
think one of the most known attractions for the Twilight
(47:59):
Zone and outside of just the show itself, would be
the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which was a theme
park attraction based on the original Twilight Zone series designed
by the Walt Disney Imagineers, and the attraction is a
fixture at two It was at the Disney's Hollywood Studios Florida,
and uh and the Walt Disney Park in Paris and
(48:23):
UH there was one at Disney California Adventure, but it
has been altered to adopt a theme for the Guardians
of the Galaxy franchise, which I have yet to ride.
The Guardians of the Galaxy one. I was very line
over there. Yeah, I was very bummed from Missing Tower
Terror because it always had just the right level of
(48:44):
creepiness where even if you're even if you've written it
a million times, there's still like just this unexplainable creepiness
of being in that hotel room hearing Rod Serling tell
you the story of this elevator and you getting in
it and then seeing the ghost of everyone waving goodbye,
(49:05):
like they're like, you know the I remember the first
time I wrote it, it was like legitimately scary, and
then after it's not as scary, but there's still like
a level to it that has like that kind of
like in the same way that you some some twists
still get that like tingly feeling on you when you
think about it. I need to tell you something as
big of a Twilight Zone head. I can't say Twilight
(49:25):
Head because that's the wrong franchise. As big of a
Twilight Zone head as I am, uh and grew up
with I kind of like Bernstein. Bernstein retroactively remembered this
as an episode, and it wasn't. This was created for
this ride. This was not a real episode. Yeah, and
(49:48):
I know. I mean you can tell when you watch it,
when you're in the ride, you can tell. I, Oh no,
this was made from like, you know, more recent actors
or whatever. But I always just assume they're recreating it. No,
there was no Tower of Terror episode. And I don't
know why I forever because I was on a Twilight
Zone episode. I was on a like a podcast. We
were talking about it like a year or so ago.
Um and and uh, I was talking about the episode,
(50:09):
and then later nobody, by the way online corrected me.
So God blessed them or else nobody listened to that. Um.
But but later when I got home read, oh, um,
that wasn't a real episode. I never actually watched it,
And uh, well it feels so real when you're watching
(50:30):
this has to be based on an episode. No, yeah,
I remember seeing it and then the people like they
get stuck in both Nope. No, um, that's not at
all embarrassing. But what I do want to say is
the way that I was introduced to it, which I
think a lot of people around our age was the marathon,
(50:50):
the Twilight Zone Marathon. UM. So here's a little lore
on that as far as it being a history of
holiday tradition because it was only normally run as a
marathon during the holidays. UM. Still kind of so the
origins of the New Year's Eve Twilight Zone Marathon are
kind of unknown. No one knows which regional TV station
started syndicating the Twilight Zone reruns during that time, um,
(51:15):
or whether they began on New Year's at all. The
first one. So this is a quote from kt l
A program director Mark Sunnenberg UM and in article in
The l A Times, he said, the first one we
did was on Thanksgiving in nineteen eighty and so the
first Thanksgiving marathon was only eight hours long and received
(51:36):
a sixteen percent share. So that's kind of fascinating. So
the Twilight Zone Marathon that we all know and love
was actually a Thanksgiving marathon. Very fitting, I might say,
since you're around your family and it seems, yeah, that's
kind of like very Twilight zony depending on the relationships.
(51:56):
Man um has to be expected for one of dan
these favorite properties, we are running on time a little over.
I mean, I guess we know the future of Twilight
Zone technically because we know we have the Jordan Peel show. No,
but also if he um Leonardo DiCaprio, who were interested.
(52:17):
I don't know if you saw that in our notes,
Leonardo DiCaprio is interested and possibly doing a feature a
future film, which who knows if he's actually going to
do that now that Jordan Peel is going to be
and I think he's like, I'll step down, but it
would be interesting because on first thought I'd be like what,
But also seeing how like Leonardo or as I like
(52:39):
to call him, Leo Dio, is a huge, huge, huge
activists for like environmental stuff that I think it's that
type of brain that's going to be able to like
make that kind of like thing. But you can also
end up with the happening and we all know how
that went. Um. I enjoyed that film. You know what,
(53:01):
You're not the only person who told me that. I
actually never seen it. I asked to know, here's what
I do with a lot of m Night Shumlans films now,
I asked people with the twist start and it seems
wild now and the only one that I've heard and
been like, Okay, I have to see it is split
Like I was like, oh oh that's oh, I gotta
(53:23):
go every other one. I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I
think that's because like that triggles that that just triggers
the Marvel button. Man, I want that really to blow out,
Like I need that whole universe just well, yeah, I
need after credits for this next one. I'm coming out.
(53:44):
Um but yeah, if god, there's so much to cover.
We didn't tackle like most obviously we're not going to
go through all of the episodes, but even the most
iconic ones. Um, I think we named I would say
time Enough at Last is most people. A lot of
people say it's at least in their top five. It's
one of the most onnic Wares where he steps on
his glasses, which, by the way, um, I just want
to correct a couple of things here. Everyone who thinks
(54:05):
he's a librarian, he's not. He's a banker. Oh gosh,
I'm like, actually, people. But another thing is that he uh,
he just wants to read, and his wife is so
and everyone in his life is so like rude to him. Um,
and so they all die. Uh, and he's left alone
because he went into a vault. He's left alone and
(54:26):
to now he finally has time to read, he steps
on his glasses. That's the end. I don't understand why
that's everyone's favorite, because that man did not deserve that
to happen. Typically like look at you know, it's so
funny that everyone's like, yeah, and I love that. And
then he stepped on his glasses and he was like
then he didn't have any time, like you had all
this time, but he can't read. He was like, yeah
he was. He was bullied his whole life and then
(54:48):
this and he's the only man left alive. And then
he steps on his glass. Like it doesn't make sense.
I mean it does. I love you Rod Certling, but um,
it's funny to me that it's everyone's favorite when if
you actually think of it, he wasn't the one that
should have had that happen exactly. It's just like a
kind of Stopwatch has a similar theme, where um, the
ending has him breaking the stopwatch and the whole world
(55:11):
is frozen. He's just stuck it like that from here
on out. He previously had the ability to turn it
on and off. But the minute to stop Watch breaks,
he no longer is able to leave that universe. But
the bigger thing about that was that he was ribbing
a bank when it broke, so he totally deserved that.
It's happening some like these things did at morals. Yeah,
(55:33):
I mean, yeah, it's just so. But I guess what
is more of the commentary is how unfair life is. Yeah,
I think that's a commentary is even the good guy
in the situation is getting screwed over? Um? So, yeah,
we'll have to do another one of these where we
can actually tackle. Maybe we'll have someone on and we'll
kind of like debate and tackle some of our our
favorite episodes because there's so much to cover. I definitely
(55:54):
highly recommend the Twilight Zone companion. Um, there's just so
much lore in history, but about each of these episodes
and Rod Serling himself. Um yeah, but I think we
have to tap out. Yeah, we have to hit that
tap button. So where can people find you? Know? Um? So,
the funny thing about screenwriting is that you actually can't
(56:15):
say most of the things that you're working. So find
me at like a coffee shop on its doing big
things people bedlines and panicking American God. Season two is
going to be out next year, so yeah, I appreciate that,
and um yeah. Other than that, you can always find
me at on Twitter at mellow Marketer and uh, you
can find a lot of my work on the fanbros
(56:37):
dot com as well. Oh nice, nice and you know
me if you wid the way on Twitter and Instagram.
I have y n W I D i w e
if d's on Twitch, lots of hashtag nerd fam showing
up dropping them Twitch Prime sums. I gotta thank you
all for that, but keep listening. Also, we have a
discord now have the official discord which you just mind
(57:00):
court that I share with two other streamers, but we
have a nerdificent chat where you can chat it up.
I've had people come in the Twitch chat asked me
to reserve a spot, but you only talking in there.
Granted the last episode was just a movie that just
came out spoiler, so you can't talk. But I'll see
(57:20):
you in there after this episode. Tell us your favorite
Twilight Zone apps please. I'm so I'm gonna have to
like make uh yeah, I'll have to pop in there too,
or like I know, for Infinity War, we made um
on our notificent Twitter page. We made like a little
group chat for all of us to kick out on
Infinity War. So I might do that for twilight Zone
because it's just so much to cover. And also just yeah,
(57:42):
and and I guess we didn't. We didn't mention. I
was like, and it's an anthology, meaning we didn't. We
should have said that up top, meaning you can like
watch any episode and they're not um you know, you
don't have to watch them in order. What I was
gonna say is, Hi, I'm Danny Fernandez at um MS,
Danny Fernandez on all of the socials, and Iffie and
(58:03):
I will be together on a couple of panels. I think,
I know. At least we have a panel at four
pm Friday at as at a San Diego Comic Con,
which is this week. And check the Twitter because we're
both posting all of our our comic con panels. And
we have some cool merch now which you can get
(58:23):
at te Public and you can also find us at
comic con and we might give you a shirt yea yeah,
whild supplies last, and of course before we head out
of here, I want to shout out a couple of people.
I want to shout out super producer and a host
who has always uh elding our back. You know, Zach
McKeever in the booth and our researchers Eaves check coat
(58:46):
and Christopher Hasis. I don't know, we're not that close. Yeah,
I can't call it. Chris, I don't know. Maybe we are.
I'll email. All right, y'all, stay neary
How's it going, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Narratives
and I'm if you way. It's in acrost from Danny
Fernandez and we are joined up top by Mellow Brown,
who's a writer and tech editor at fanbros dot com
and also a writer on American Gods. How's it going everyone? Hey,
and you are also a listener of the show. Yes, wow,
(00:31):
Like I'm actually you know that's having my feet to
the theme song now, I love it. I know we've
had a couple of people ask us about the theme song.
I don't know if they can get it somewhere. I
mean there's still people who were asking me what the
song is for World Cup date and Anna never found out.
And I don't think anyone knows because I've asked Miles
and he kind of brushed it off. Well, both of
(00:52):
our our artwork and our our yeah, our song were
created in house by someone at how Stuff Works. I
imagine in Atlanta, in there, in there big I haven't
been over there, but I am one day if he
one day, I'll make it out there. Yeah, one day
we'll get flown out there at the Big House House
Stuff Works headquarters. For some reason, that's true. I'd probably
(01:17):
spend a month. I'd probably spend a month in Atlanta.
I phone out there. Um, today we are talking about
the Twilight Zone. This is a series that is extremely
near and dear to my heart. But Melo, did you
grow up with it? Um? Actually, yes, what was it?
I've been a long time watcher. My dad got me
into it and um allowed like the social political issues
(01:37):
hit immediately along with my nightmares. True true, Um, off
the top of your head, what would you say is
like your favorite episode? I would definitely say It's a
good Life. Oh yeah, like that one is terrifying. What
was currently? Yea currently that? Um, yes, so we'll get
into it. But yeah, It's a good Life is often
(01:57):
referenced because of Donald Trump. I've seen a lot of
political cartoons that have referenced him and the and the
Little Boy. Yeah, like you said, we'll get into a
bit later. But there's a sequel to that. It makes
it even worse. Really is it in their original series?
It is in uh the two thousand two. Okay, I
(02:18):
don't always count the like there was one. Yeah, they
we'll get into it, but I don't always count I
count the original Star Original Star Wars. I get the
original Star Wars big you have that whole just petition
to remake the news up and I read, which is
also great because I love that myself subconscious went there.
(02:42):
I love the New Star Wars. I actually do very
much love the New Star Wars um because I get
to see more people, more women and people of color
degree and this Villa, the villain of that story for
the sequel, actually is the epitome of a New Star Wars.
Uh if you if they prefer to call themselves up? Um? Yeah,
(03:07):
so so Twilight Zone, Um yeah. I thought we'd kick
it off with talking just a little bit about Rod
Sterling's history, because I actually found out before I even
we cranked out this early additional research to the topic.
I saw this in a Twitter threat where he has
(03:28):
this quote where Danny was shaking her head because she
remembers it, where he was like, I don't care. I
think it was something along the lines if I don't
care what it is, I just want my writing remembered
and to last longer than me, And which is dope
because it is and it's not only remembered, but it's impactful.
And then someone went on and talked about kind of
(03:50):
the history of Rosterling, about how he was a war
vet and how he created Twilight Zone because he wasn't
allowed to kind of talk about those social issue is
at the time just so openly. So he did it
deceptively through the Twilight Zone. And and that's why I think, uh,
and not to be this guy. Even though I like
(04:12):
all the Black Mirrors episodes, I like them all, but
I feel like the earlier ones are stronger because the
earlier ones are kind of really making that like, you know, technology,
we're letting it get ahead of us point, and I
feel like the later ones is more just kind of
like I don't want to, you know, undercut a lot
of the stories, but you know, because there are some
that really are very like current. But I feel like
(04:35):
the newer ones are more just kind of adding on,
just kind of exploring the idea of the world and
story building that they've kind of um set up. Where
those first ones, like it really did feel like Booker
was like saying something to us funny enough. Booker normally
a comedian, Ron Sterling actually had a comedy background. But
(04:55):
I don't want to get too ahead of myself. I
want to start just with the the War because it's
very interesting. It's it's almost like you know when you
read some people's biographies and you're like, oh, this is
this is going to be a good movie one day.
I feel like Rod Serling has one of those. Yeah,
that's kind of fascinating. I guess he hasn't. No one
(05:17):
has played him yet, like and officially in a huge film.
I agree. He is so instrumental. I feel like in um,
not only science fiction, but just yeah, I know that
he gets compared Black Mirror gets compared a lot to
Twilight Zone, and that's accurate. And then and of course
we're gonna also visit the fact that Jordan Peel is
now making which I think he's perfect for. It is
(05:38):
going to be on the CBS platform. Yeah, because like
get Out would have been the perfect like episode of
Twilight Zone in the same like cutting just um, what's
the word I'm looking for criticism? What I was gonna
say is actually, Durassic Park fits a lot people forget,
but that fits a lot of like, yeah, the original
(05:59):
Drastic Ark well and I would say Drastic the last one,
Durassic World, Falling Kingdom, um where they start to kind
of or or they hint at using dinosaurs as weapons.
That to me is also kind of like what would
we do with this technology? Um, where it could also
be like a Black Mirror episode. But yeah, Rodster as
far as me, like I grew up with the Twilight
(06:19):
Zone marathons, my parents would party and essentially leave us alone.
On New Year's Eve, we watched on Sci Fi my
brothers and I. I now, if he has been to
my place, Melo, you are welcome to come to my place.
I have a Twilight Zone wall um which I will
tweet with different artwork and original artwork that's signed by artists.
(06:40):
I have rod Sterling up there. I have um many
of the episodes, including one of the most famous ones,
which is I have the Beholder. But also I had
an artist. Uh. A lot of the other ones don't
have as much artwork, so I commission an artist to
do my favorite. Well, it changes as the years go on,
but my favorite is The Howling Man is one of
my absolute favorite episodes. Uh. And also Satan's kind of hot.
(07:04):
He's kind of hot in it, ah he is, he
looks good. Um. So yeah, so let's talk about the
history of rod Serling. Yeah, I was I just wanted
to start in high school. He funny enough, he's always
been a writer. Not funny, I mean just I guess
as expected. Always he was writing for the school newspaper
and he was kind of like amped up about World
(07:25):
War Two and he was kind of encouraging other students
to enlist. And he actually wanted to enlist before he graduated.
But then it was actually his Civics teacher, Gus Youngstrom,
who said war is a temporary thing. It ends an
education doesn't. Without your degree, where will you be after
the war. So he actually finished school, graduated, and as
(07:46):
soon as school ended, enlisted. Now there's a fun detail
in his enlistment that kind of really I think sets
up who Rod Serling is. So originally he was sent
to um California, which man, he was going to fight
the Japanese instead of you know, the the Germans, and
(08:07):
he was actually angry about it because he wanted to
fight Hitler and so so he was like, forget the Japanese,
I need to fight this guy, this horrible, bigoted, racist guy,
Like that's who he wanted. And I feel like that
kind of set the tone for his life. Eventually, he
actually grown bitter about the war because it seemed like
(08:27):
such a young thing to do, to be like, oh,
I'm gonna go join the army, I'm gonna fight the
bad guys. But he found out that, you know, he
was seeing death every day. And then there were a
lot of freak accidents. There was this huge freak accident,
like there was there was a Jewish private name Melvin Levy,
and Levy was delivering a comic monologue for the platoon
(08:47):
as it as like he was standing under a palm
tree and a food crate was dropped from a plane
above and it decapitated him. And so Startling actually let
the funeral services for Levy and placed the Star of
David over his grave. So like, not only are you
seeing the death of the war, but you're also seeing
freak accidents like that. I can imagine that's not only
(09:08):
kind of making you better towards the war, but that
I feel like there's no way to not have this
kind of morbid, kind of creative thought when you see
things like that. You know, like, yeah, I would say
also during the time, I think like you were saying too,
that he was exposed to this idea of good versus evil.
(09:29):
And then evil, not necessarily being evil or are we
the evil? Actually? UM was something that I think that
he tackled a lot pretty often, UM human nature as
well as during this time. Just the amount of racism
that he saw was definitely influential in his writing. And
something that's really fascinating is we can we can link
(09:50):
this in our footnotes. But I watched a YouTube video
of him a couple of years ago. Uh, that sounded weird.
It wasn't a YouTube video of him, It was him
doing an interview that was help on YouTube. Okay, Uncle
Rod doing an unboxing bid. Uh. Here can you imagine?
(10:10):
Can you imagine him like doing having a selfie stick.
I would love to see him nowadays, like his commentary
on us UM would be so fast. His daughter is
still alive. But what I was gonna say is I
watched a video on YouTube of him where he was
(10:31):
talking about censorship and how CBS had censored the writers
and what they were trying to get away with in
a lot of the times. Of course, his commentary was
on on people of coming, the treatment of people of
color in marginalized groups in general, where they would end
up having to make them like an alien or you know,
a monster or something for you to like feel for them,
because they weren't they weren't able to make them people
(10:53):
of color. And uh, he actually says that you eventually
start to censor yourself where you're not even writing those stories.
So if you already know it's it's kind of fascinating,
like the brain will just start to center and and
not even create those stories anymore. It was it's a
really fascinating interview, and we'll link it. But yeah. He
ended up volunteering at w NYC in New York as
(11:15):
an actor and writer in the summer of nineteen forty six,
and then the next year he worked at a station
as a pain intern in Antioch work study program, and
then took a couple of odd jobs and other radio
stations in New York and Ohio. He said, I learned
time writing for a medium that is measured in seconds.
He also worked at the Antioch Broadcasting Systems Radio Workshop
(11:36):
and was managing the station within a couple of years.
Dan Len, He's moving up. He was a hard worker.
He wrote and directed the programs and acted in them
as well. Um, this is kind of fascinating. So I
actually read the Twilight Zone companion highly recommended. There's a
couple of different Twilight Zone books out there. Have you
read that one? Mellow? Oh, I think you would like it.
(11:57):
There's so much behind the scenes for each they go
through each episode. So I actually got an inaudible and
I would listen to it when I would clean and
drive and stuff. But it's behind the scenes of like
how did this get made, how this almost didn't get made?
Other freak accidents that happened in the episodes. Uh. And
also he didn't write all of them. Um. I know
(12:19):
a lot of people think that he wrote all of them,
but a lot of them were actually bought from Uh.
They were teleplays or they might have been a short
story in a magazine, and he would buy the rights
to it and then adapt it. Uh, sometimes he would,
and and then he had other people working on his
team as well. And I canna imagine, like he wrote
like an insane amount or believe at the age of
hed written forty or forty nine episodes by that point,
(12:42):
and he was like, Okay, I finally need another writer. Yeah, yeah,
And well he just wanted to be a writer. I
don't know if you know that, but they talked about
that in the book where he just wanted to be
a writer for the Twilight Zone and he didn't intend
to be the host and looking at him like, you
were the perfect host. You're like handsome, you're creepy, and
you're like stern and have like a parental thing to you.
(13:04):
But you're also like, you know, ominous and uh yeah,
I think, And he has gorgeous, lush eyebrows. Um, so
yeah he But originally he actually just wanted to be
a writer, and he didn't because when he was hosting,
he didn't have an acting like he didn't have as
much time to dedicate to writing. Uh and I know
that that bothered him. But hopping back into the past.
(13:29):
While in college, Serling won his first accolade as a writer.
The radio program Dr Christian is starting an annual scriptwriting
contest eight years earlier. Thousands of scripts were sent in annually,
but very few can actually be produced. So certainly want
a trip to New York City and five hundred dollars
for his radio script to live a dream. He and
his new wife attended the awards broadcast on May eighteenth
(13:51):
of nine, where he and the other winners were interviewed
by the Star of Dr Christian Geene Herschel. One of
the other winners that day was Earl Hamner Jr. Who
also earned prizes in previous years, and later Hamner wrote
scripts for Sterling's The Twilight Zone. Also, I just want
to drop this fun fact. Five hundred dollars has the
(14:13):
same buying power as five thousand, one hundred and fourteen
dollars has today. It's something you came up. I mean,
you get that much in college, you like. Hold up,
that's true, that's true. Hold up, We're about to throw
a dorm party. I would love to see Rod Sterling partying.
Oh yeah, yeah. I wonder if any of those cigarettes,
(14:34):
who's always so, if any of them were Blunt's ever
You never know, uh so, Sterling said of his time
as a staff writer for radio. From a writing point
of view, radio ate up ideas that might have put
food on the table for weeks at a future freelancing date.
The minute you tie yourself down to a radio or
TV station, you write around the clock, you rip out ideas.
Many of them irreplaceable. They go on and consequently can
(14:55):
never go on again. And they sold them for fifty
dollars a week. Gosh and he was saying that back then.
I mean that seems small to us, but you can't
afford to give away ideas. They're too damn hard to
come by. If I had to do it over, I
wouldn't staff right at all. I'd find some other way
to support myself while getting a start as a writer.
Holy Craft, I'm like going through a midlife crisis as
(15:16):
we're as we're discussing this right now. Yes, I know
how many writers in our lives do you think would
agree with this as well? That you're kind of just
giving your ideas over to a studio for like such
little pay, and especially his because he was so like transformative,
like the thought that he wrote forty nine scripts by himself,
and all of them anthology episodes. It's pretty much on
(15:36):
the equivalent of like you wrote a pilot like twice
a week. So we'll we'll just jump all the way
to what we're here to talk about, which is, uh,
the Twilight Zone. And it had an interesting kind of start,
just kind of shows you how old Hollywood used to work.
I don't think the w g A existed at this
point because Sterling submitted the time element to CBS, intending
(15:59):
it to be a pilot for his new weekly show,
The Twilight Zone, but instead CBS used the science fiction
script for a new show produced by Desi Arnaz and
Lucille Ball the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in ninety eight. The
story concerns a man who has vivid nightmares of an
attack on Pearl Harbor. The man goes to a psychiatrist,
(16:19):
and after the session, the twist ending, a device which
Sterling became known for, reveals the patient had died at
Pearl Harbor and the psychiatrist was the one actually having
the vivid dreams. The episode received so much positive fan
response that CBS agreed to let Serling go ahead with
his pilot for The Twilight Zone. Oh I'm sorry. I'm
(16:39):
sorry that my work that you yank for me did
so well that you agree to let me keep making
this thing that people are excited. I'm sorry. I couldn't
stop laughing at the idea of Lucio Ball in this
like serious What's so interesting here is that that's such
a sandwich and it's such a perfect like wrap up
(17:01):
to who Sterling was and into Twilight Zone because I
mean dreams about a World War two, Like he said,
the war left him with nightmares. So this is really him,
like just the beginning of him taking what he was
actually dealing with, putting it on paper, and then making
it into something amazing. I also just wanted to be like,
(17:23):
what a twist that was? All of the No, not
all of them, but that was a lot of his
his most famous ones, I feel like had a pretty
big twist. Um, and some of them I still feel
like you can't always tell. Some of them you can
tell that, some of them you can't. And that was
always my favorite things about a lot of the He
was just so what a fascinating, interesting man. Um. But yeah,
(17:45):
let's talk about the Twilight Zone. Um, after these messages. Yeah,
let's do it. After these messages. Welcome back to Nottificent.
We are joined by Mellow Brown, and we were talking
about the Twilight Zone. Um, what would you say is
(18:07):
your second favorite episode? Second favorite would be uh five characters?
Yeah that one. Oh. I have a fun fact about that.
So this movie that not too many people may be
aware of, called The Cube, which is a that is
that that episode? It inspired that movie? You know what
(18:30):
I always say that is the perfect Um. Yeah, I
just left Netflix play and then like now I'm watching this. Yeah.
The way I found it is I was with um
a friend of the pod, Kyle Lewis. He took me
to this bar in New York. When I was there
from New DCM. This bar, I wish I remember the name.
It was everything. It's just a shot bar, which normally
(18:52):
I'm like hard pass, but every shot is themed and
there is a song and prop that goes with every shot.
So he did he did the like Bret Hart like
a shot and he comes out so he starts playing
sexy Boy and the bartender comes out with this mike
(19:14):
and I'm I don't know that's the gimmick of the
bar yet. I'm just thinking, Oh, this guy really knows.
And he hands Kyle the microphone. He's like putting him
like what is going on here? And then like after
like seeing everyone kind of do theirs, uh their songs,
I figured out that was it. But in the background
(19:35):
on the TV Cube was playing on the l Ray
Network and that's when I was watching it and with
no sound but enthralled, and then it went straight to
Cube two. I want to say l Ray Network is
like the other channel that's not sports in every bar,
like let's have it on. You have a chance of
(19:57):
either Luja underground or from Yeah. But I was like
super into it, Like Kyle was blown away by how
into the Cuba was and I had the Wikipedia opens. Yeah,
I love it so not present at the bar. This
is what happens when you're married and you go to
a bar and you start Wikipedia. Yeah, bringing up some facts,
(20:19):
some cool facts. If I ever got to tell you earlier,
because you know how I love dropping facts about my
family and they appreciate when I do it on here.
But you know how Rod Sterling, they said, no, finish
your school instead of enlisting. So my mom, um, this
is kind of Twilight Zony. My mom wanted to be
a nun. My family was so religious. There's so so
hard core Catholic. My family is so hard for Catholic
(20:41):
that my mom wanted to be a nun. When she
was sixteen and she talked to a nun. She wanted
to join the nunnery, the monastery, whatever, it's the nunnery
um where they make nuns. And the nuns told her
finished school, like go to college and and then come
back and if you still want to be a nun,
you know we'll talk. So my mom went to college
(21:02):
and she never came back. I would not be alive.
I would not be alive, didn't exist. Isn't that crazy?
My mom went to college and was like, nope, this
is too good. Well she didn't meet my dad in college.
But um, yeah, it's not crazy. It's actually kind of
a decision that wrote Sterling would probably roll with. Um
If you've noticed in a lot of themes in Twilight Zone,
(21:22):
he is constantly afraid of isolation. Yeah, like that is
always like a femine. What was it the Stopwatch the
I forgot the name of the one where the guy
that broke his glasses, the one everyone knows at last?
Was it there? Big? Yeah? Everything that was like his
(21:42):
big fear. It feels like he was writing in a
room and just like I hate being alone and I
was always the mise of some of his best characters.
Um So, speaking of Rod Serling, he said that he
was compelled by the need to not just entertain, but
too enlightened. So he wrote nine three of the series
a hundred and fifty six episodes over the course of
(22:05):
its five season run, which began on CBS in nineteen
fifty nine. Yeah. So, So at ten pm on Friday
October two, nine, CBS Television broadcast the pilot episode of
a new series, The Twilight Zone. So the copy and
CBS is newspaper ad for the debut episode. Where is
(22:25):
everybody remember that one um that started a phenomenon. It's
kind of fascinating too that it was on some of
the episodes I feel like would be kind of scary. Well,
I guess it was late. Ten pm is late for adults,
but I you know, I watched him when I was younger.
My mom was most afraid of the Invaders because that
(22:46):
is an episode which, by the way, fun fact, there's
no dialogue. There's no dialogue in The Invaders except for
the very end um. But yeah, it's a tiny little
robot people um with a twist. I don't know. I
guess we we have to have some spoilers in this
in order to time. Yeah, is that? Were you trying
(23:06):
to like avoid spoilers? I feel like, well, I told
you about the Twilight Zone. I looked up because like,
I'm always fascinated to see what are what are ranked
as the top Twilight Zone episodes. To find change for
me all the time, depending on what I'm going through
in my life. And um, I was reading an article
that had like the top ten best Twilight Zone episodes
and at the bottom of the article. So when wrote,
(23:27):
way to spoil it, man, and the author was like,
it's been out for over fifty years. It's half a
century old, my guy. And also just referenced in like
Futurama the Family, like you're going to get up for everything. Yeah,
people just want to just point that finger and it's like,
whoa the Titanic sink love it. So during the original
(23:51):
series Twilight Zones writers frequently used science fiction as a
vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored
counter rsual material from the live dramas were less concerned
and seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci fi stories. It's the
age old creator's trick. It's even used to this day,
like how you might be wondering, how did Donald Glover
(24:13):
get a show as weird as Atlanta made? Well? The pilot,
if you notice, is very like, it seems very linear,
seems very narrative, and it seems like it's presenting a
different story that we never get to see. That was
how they got it. Greenlight. If you should look at
the script. It's even more so. They give a whole
background about him being in college as an intro. It's
(24:36):
a it's a trojan horse technique that's so bamboos. But
like at the end of the day, kind of like
with the original pilot, you know, the network can't argue
with popularity. If it's popular, they're gonna let you do
whatever they want, even if they would have blocked you otherwise. Yeah,
that's that's the funny thing. And it's funny that it
existed back in the fifties. Still to this day, you
(24:58):
got the people you know and you look. Don't take offense.
If you are someone who is considering giving me money
and you're listening to the background, this is just you know,
just just chat. But you find these creators and you
want to pay us because you know we're creative. But
there's a little something in you that are that are
(25:19):
afraid of new and kind of things because you're a
creature of science. When you're a suit you're like, I
have the data of the shows that have worked. I
have the data the shows that don't work, but it
isn't until that new hot thing happens usually by either
a fluke, a trojan horse technique, or just finally someone
(25:39):
being like that dude that they get full license. Yeah yeah,
like you know, even though you know now it's he's
you know, not that that in vogue, But like Louie
was able to make Louis because he bought everything, and
that's he was at the point in his career where
he can afford to take that hip because you take
(26:01):
a big financial hit, like yeah, you need to so,
so he really had to go out of pocket and
or you do so like even back then, you have
to do creative techniques to say what you really want
to say as a creative and Rod Sterling use science fiction.
I feel like Rod Sterling, you science fiction. Actually keep
(26:22):
that in so people know how often I've I've said
Sterling instead of Sterling. Danny has kept well, I mean
I have it like it was between no, it was
between the dragon Ball tattoo or I was going to
get Twilight Zone. I'm not comparing the two. I'm just
saying I grew up with them, okay people, and they
both have artwork and walls dedicated to them. But no,
(26:44):
you're right. Actually, Sterling he found the series very difficult
to sell. Actually, few critics felt that science fiction could
transcend empty escapism, as they thought, and enter the realm
of adult drama. But um. There were frequent themes on
The Twilight Zone, which included nuclear war McCarthy is um
that was very popular, UM, and mass hysteria, both I think,
(27:05):
which are tackled and the monsters are due on Maple Street.
I'm gonna have both you Twilight Zone nerds back it
up and explain what happens on Monsters. Oh, I would
love to, because I'm gonna just say, look, we're gonna
explain some of these because I know some of the
nerd family is like, I want to hear this, but
Danny is trying to like save the twist. You know what,
(27:27):
just watch it. It's still good even when you know it. Really,
I think I was just gonna say going forward, UM,
I think it would be easier to just yeah, we're
going to give some of the twists away. I apologize.
You can turn this off and then and watch just
five seasons listen and want to. I know I knew
the twist of the eye to beholder before I saw it,
(27:47):
and it still was so still dope. Also, it's black
and white and it's like creepy as hell. These Wait,
I know all of these twists, and I still watched
them like every month. Maybe I didn't tell you this,
but the last guy that I was dating, I think
you know who it is. I brought him over. We're
not dating anymore, so apparently this technique doesn't work. Um,
But we were sitting on my couch and I actually
made him watch, like do Twilight Zone episode. I am
(28:10):
that guy. I am that guy that will sit you
down and make you watch Reservoir Dogs or something that
I've made him watch. I think The Howling Man and
The Midnight Sun because that's my second favorite. Justus test
on the middle of a date. Yeah, let's talk about
the monsters are doing. Maple Street one of the perfectly executed,
(28:34):
still extremely relevant commentary on mob mentality. You could watch
it tonight and it would still resonate today, probably even more. Uh,
with how humans treat each other, how quickly are to
point fingers and ruin people's lives. Um, And I just
want to read this quote from Rod Serline that's at
(28:57):
the very end of the episode. The tool of conquests
do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to
be found only in the minds of men. For the record,
prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless
fright and search for a scapegoat has a fallout all
(29:18):
of its own for the children, and the children yet
and unborn, and the pity of it is that these
things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone. I've chills
and he was genius in every way, and especially like
this particular episode always feel like was one of the
biggest catalysts in terms of style that I see things
(29:38):
like in a lot of Stephen King stories, Like a
lot of the stories have always builds up in mobs
and everything like that, and it's always from something simple,
And that's exactly where this originated from. In this story,
where it was just an idea from a child, a
small fear, and that fear equals something else inside of adults,
they had the same level of like, oh, is this
(30:01):
the one where the kids afraid of a monster and
gets the whole town like kind of so what happens
and the monsters are doing Maple Street is the lights
go out on Maple Street and and everybody is kind
of like, why did the lights go out? But wait
a second, why is the light on in your house?
Or why is light on in his house? And so
they're all kind of like talking together, and the kid
(30:23):
and the story was like, oh, this is like in
my comic book when there where these monsters or aliens
or whatever he says, and they're like, how did the
kid know? Um? And so they end up really starting
to accuse each other of knowing why, like why is
it light going in your house? And and um, somebody
leaves to go and check and they see this person.
(30:44):
They start to get to this frantic part where they're
just blaming each other where the person starts to walk
back and and um, they can't see them in the darkness,
and they shoot them, and um, you pan out and
you see these two aliens watching and one of them
turns to the other and is like, so is this
(31:04):
how it is everywhere? He was like, yeah, you could
do this on any street. They'll just kill each other. Essentially. Wow,
that's yeah, perfect, And I feel like that is that's
such a commentary. Also, I feel like, um, so I
don't remember any of the deep ones. The one I
remember was where that guy wanted to I think he
(31:24):
like he wanted to go be bigger, remember that, Yeah,
and then everything starts bigger, and the twist is that
he was shrinking, Like that's the one I remember. That's
a that's a classic like surling thing. Um with the
Midnight Sun, which is one of my favorites, is that
they're moving closer to the sun, and that's also kind
(31:45):
of terrifying. It's like, um, them starting to get you know,
more more desperate, and then you wake up and they're
actually moving farther away. So that was his Yeah, he
had a lot of those twists in there. But um, yeah,
the Monsters are due on Maple Street. I actually had
to read that and uh, it was made into a
play and I read that in English class in high school.
(32:09):
But I feel like that's still relevant where people could
be watching. Us are watching, Americans are watching like, yeah,
they'll just destroy each other. You know, we don't even
have to really, we just have to like kind of
poke them a little bit. But it's also funny because
it was like it was the Aliens, like that kid
said it was the Aliens and yeah, it's like a
love layer. It was just like kind of a coincidence
(32:30):
or anything like that. But there's one thing I will
say about certainly that was really great in terms of,
like I think every writer can learn from him in
terms of this. When their budget dropped and CBS was like,
you're going to have to do this in like one
set in the studio, make all these outlandish episodes and
everything like that, the quality actually kind of went up,
and these isolated stories that were driving characters, like the
(32:56):
there's the one story I do not remember the title,
and anybody can direct me online. I got but there's
a lady who is constantly walking and running down a
corridor in hospital and every time she gets to the
end and there's a morgue there and there's a nurse,
and the nurse is just like room for one more.
And it's just this constant fear of dread and death
(33:19):
that and like he's so good at that, like a
regular just like jump scares weren't his thing, but dread,
just like mortality is going to catch up with you.
It's really great in terms of that. But that particular
story is so perfect in terms of like, if you
have a small space. You have a zero budget. This
is how you do it. You got really yeah, I
think so. In season two, due to budgetary constraints, Network
(33:42):
decided against Serling's wishes to cut costs by shooting some
episodes on videotape rather than film, and the requisite multi
camera set up of the videotape format precluded location shooting,
and that severely limited the scope of the storylines, and
the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes. Hdes and
I should say that the season one was thirty minutes long.
(34:04):
Season four, which was from two to sixty three, consists
of one hour episodes. They're kind of long. They're kind
of long. Actually did not want that at all. Yeah, yeah,
and then season five returned to the half hour format.
I would say one and two are my favorite seasons though,
But we'll get into more of the history as well
(34:26):
as the other Twilight Zone revivals in the future. One
right after this break and we're back talking more about
that was weird Europe. Yeah, I thought you were like
(34:48):
brew We are indeed back No no no, no, no
no no no no no no no talking about the
Twilight Zone. Um So I do want to say for
everyone that's mad about re boots or that we're doing
reboots now. I mean reboots have been around forever because
the Twilight Zone was rebooted in the eighties. Actually, the
(35:08):
first reboot ran on CBS UH in nineteen in the
nineteen eighties, and then the second ran on up N
from two thousand two to two thousand three. And now
we have a fourth one that will be on CBS
All Access from Jordan Peel, which we actually know some
of the writers on there. So did you, meloge you
(35:28):
watch any of those eighties ones or any of them
stand out for you? Yeah, seeing a few of the
eighties ones, um, like I believe recently we were speaking
about the Chameleon, and that one definitely stood out to me.
Uh in terms of kind of like strange structure, the
overall the just the alien transforming. It's different things, and
(35:49):
there's like a particular guy that's like chasing after the alien.
But yeah, like a lot of eighties ones. Uh, you're
very very very weird. Yes, yeah, no, no, I can
imagine because it was a wild time. Also, like when
you have like it's funny because I do think you
can reboot things that you know, maybe you weren't that
(36:09):
great or just kind of like left it open or
kind of have the person who helmed it take it
over Alah fury Road, you know. But when you have
something like Twilight Zone, which was this phenomenon that kind
of blew up to try and just simply rebooted, and
he and Sterling wasn't a part of it. He actually
sold his shares, uh, and CBS you know, kind of
(36:34):
did it and they actually stood to earn more. But
they were still kind of a little on the fence
about it, and it seemed like it did okay, like
it didn't have the same popularity, but there were some
episodes that were kind of like they're like the CBS
turned down Okay, So they turned down offers from the
original production team of Rod Sterling and Buck Hounton who
(36:56):
Buck work. They worked so closely together. I think he
worked on almost like every episode of the original Twilight
Zone because his name is all over it. I always
see his name every single time, um, at least in
a lot of the episodes that I watched. And they
also turned down from Francis Ford Coppola, So we could
have had a Twilight Zone from Francis Ford Coppola. I'm
(37:18):
curious of what that would have been. Now what's that discussion? Like? Yeah,
like what what does that take? Yeah? So they ended
up green lighting it in n under the supervision of
Carlos Singer, who was then the vice president of Drama Development. Um.
I wasn't a big fan of them, but you know
(37:38):
I there was also we have talked about Twilight Zone movie,
which I liked parts of it. Um so kind of
had a similar feel to me. Oh you liked it? Yeah,
actually love the Twilight Zone movie, but what was it?
I like the Spielberg chapter as well as I like
the revival of the ten thousand foot feet nightmare scenario,
(38:01):
which h it was a big improvement over the what
how dare you all right? If you're listening to this
Google image William Shatner Twilight Zone, every image you'll get
from that is hilarious of his reactions hamming it up
at like just um, the costume yet in the window,
it's so good. I'm sorry, don't know, speak your truth.
(38:25):
I'm sorry, I'm not trying. I'm not trying to hide
daggers at you. Um nightmare feet? Yes, is the infamous
William Shatner episode of the original Twilight Zone which chronicled
a man who was actually just done from being hospitalized
for a breakdown, So that that was also a part
of it. Also, could I just say so he was
(38:48):
he was completely terrified on this flight. Not only did
he see a yetty ish type of figure on the wing,
which inspired the very famous Jim Carrey um scene from
a Nature calls there's something on the wing. He doesn't
sound like that if you go back and watch it.
But um, what I was gonna say is also, hello,
(39:11):
flying back then, was terrified? He Okay, now you think like,
oh yeah, flying is terrifying for people. Now think back then, Okay,
it was. I mean, one, they could smoke, so that's cool,
But like also your playing can catch on fire. Um,
because they were smoking, I think in it, as they
were in all of these Um, this is not an
anti ps A for smoking. You can do whatever you
want with your body. I just think on a flight,
(39:34):
you know. Um yeah, yeah. So that was also a
part of it that I think a lot of people
forget is that this man was coming off of having
a breakdown, So it was did he actually see this
creature on the wing or wasn't in his head. So
but yes, speaking of the film, they did. So the
Twilight Zone movie came out in they did recreate that scene.
(39:56):
So it started. Dan Ackroyd, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Um,
the late Vickmorrow, and Scott Man. Cruther's John Lennons directed
the prologue and the first segment. Steven Spielberg directed the second,
Joe Dante the third, and George Miller directed the final segment,
which I didn't know. Um. Landis's episode became notorious for
a helicopter accident during filming that caused the death Tomorrow
(40:16):
and and two child actors. I just found out about.
I forgot about that. I was talking about that. Um. Yeah,
I guess we should move on, yeah, to the second revival,
because there was many more well before there. Before the
Second Revival, there was Rod Serling's Lost Classics, when uh,
(40:40):
basically Richard Matheson and Carold Sara Ling produced a an
outline for a two hour made for TV movie which
would feature you know, Matheson's adaptation of three yet unfilmed
Rod Serling. Short stories and outlines for the production were
rejected by CBS until early when Sterling's widow discovered a
(41:01):
complete shooting script for Where the Dead Are authored by
Sterling himself, and while rummaging, she found that while rummaging
through her garage, like He'll imagine just having like just scripts.
The man was a genius, Like man it is, I'm
angry and how good it was just constantly just like
(41:22):
I have an idea I can form. Also, like in
the digital age, that's never gonna happen unless I found
this random thumb drive they don't look at it, found
his very dropbox. Yeah. Yeah. So then there was a
second revival from two thousand two to two thousand three,
and that was on up N. It was hosted by
Force Whittaker. Actually do remember that one um it was
(41:44):
a one hour format where are you Giggily? Within two
half hour stories. It was canceled after one season. It's
Still a Good Life is a sequel to It's a
Good Life? Is that what you were talking about? Okay?
The Monsters are doing a Maple Street is an adaptation
of The Monsters are Doing Maple Street and I Have
the Beholders, the remake of an episode from Riginal series. Yeah,
(42:06):
so they had some of the same uh ones and
they had certain still credited as a writer as he
was because he came up with a lot of those concepts,
a lot of those stories. Actually, uh like what we
were saying, there's sequels to the original stories. Uh UM
let the audience decide if they lived up to him
or not. UM. In terms of it's still a good life, UM,
that one is incredibly dark where the like UM, we
(42:30):
we touched on a little bit where it's the little
boy who has the psychic ability where he is actually
reading people's minds and is actually judging if they are
having good thoughts or not, and it's of his own
accord of that. He's just like, I don't like what
you're thinking, and then he would point at someone and
they would end up in a cornfield. And that was
the original one. UM. In the sequel, he's actually a
(42:52):
full grown adult. He has a child. He is worse.
He has recreated ironically enough, this is if you could
find this on like YouTube or anything like that, go
for it. It's still a good life. He has created
basically a UM like Trump's America. Using psychic powers. He
decided like I don't like tall buildings, got rid of them.
(43:13):
I don't like cars, I don't I got rid of them,
and he's actually changed the world in a way where
he's just murdering things way worse than he was before.
And now he has a daughter with power stronger than his. Um.
It is a very strange watch. The ending is super
off putting. Um. The last line of dialogue, UM will
(43:37):
make you probably angry, and uh it is. It is
quite a thing to watch now, I'm gonna have to
watch that. And then um, the monsters are due on
Maple Street. The sequel for that, which is just the
monsters are on Maple I read it wrong, No, you're
that one right there is particularly Um I'll put like this,
(44:01):
if you remember what we just said about the plot
of that, imagine someone writing a sequel to that post like, well,
it's it's very much. Uh it's a mob that looks
very familiar, if you know what I mean. But yeah, no,
it's it's Uh. It is like interesting because like both
(44:25):
those things that were created sequels for it's funny because
you don't need the sequels. It seems like it's saying
the same thing, like there's no added context because the
thing that is being said in the original is just
all unique and the the other thing about that particular
run was listen, you can you can come at me
(44:47):
in my mentions if you like it. But there's episodes
that border on like unintentionally funny, like um, the I'll
share as a as a police officer episode where he's
fighting a ghost pill and uh that that leads to
a conclusion where you're just like, Okay, does that happened where?
(45:10):
And like it's very very early two thousand's filming, and
where it's like why is the trash kids c g
I in the background, the kind of have the technology
they're going to use it, like just do it. We've
got that upn money, you know. And then um, there's
oh man, it is classic the Katherine Heigel will she
(45:33):
kill Baby Hitler storyline? She just she goes back in time.
It's a question asked yes, and the ending to that like, uh,
like I just had to go for a walk because
of like it it's so ridiculous, Like I feel like
people are gonna watch this new reboot for a completely
(45:53):
different reason than they might go watch the original after
listening to that. The best part about it is that
you can't look up the things You've just got to watch. Yeah, Um,
I did want to talk about a couple of things.
So there was the twilight Zone game. In nineteen sixty four,
Ideal released a board game, the twilight Zone Game, at
the height of the show's popularity. That's kind of fascinating.
(46:15):
So the game consisted of a cardboard playing surface, four
colored plane, pieces of colored spinning wheel, and twelve door
playing cards. There was also very popular was the Twilight
Zone pinball game, which I love I always. I actually,
being the nerd that I am, was googling Twilight Zone
on eBay as you do when you're Danny Fernandez on
(46:35):
a Friday night, and I found somebody had like a
piece of the pinball uh game that has wrought Sterling
with like his arms crossed, and so I have that
framed on my WALLA. Yeah, it's also really cool. It's
really cool. And they're also comic books, which are this
is this is such an insight into my life. I
(46:56):
was gonna say comic books, which you can also find
on eBay. They're very chee. You can look up the
Twilight Zone comic books. They for me just make good art. Um.
I keep some of them intact, so don't freak out.
But they're also worth like five dollars um, so yeah,
you can. You can pick up some of the They
actually had different, um, different stories than than what was
(47:18):
just in the in the show. Have a favorite comics
out of the list, They're so absurd, like all of them.
I'm like, what is gonna look at as good now
that I'm thirty, because that's like my art. I'm like,
I needed to you know, be kind of nerdy but
also speak to me and be eloquent. And it's all
just like you know, some like tentacles coming out or something,
(47:39):
um or whatever, like they just like the old school
uh comics from the sixties, which they were, but but
a lot of them are kind of crazy looking. It's
like no budget restraints. Yeah yeah yeah. Uh. And I
think one of the most known attractions for the Twilight
(47:59):
Zone and outside of just the show itself, would be
the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which was a theme
park attraction based on the original Twilight Zone series designed
by the Walt Disney Imagineers, and the attraction is a
fixture at two It was at the Disney's Hollywood Studios Florida,
and uh and the Walt Disney Park in Paris and
(48:23):
UH there was one at Disney California Adventure, but it
has been altered to adopt a theme for the Guardians
of the Galaxy franchise, which I have yet to ride.
The Guardians of the Galaxy one. I was very line
over there. Yeah, I was very bummed from Missing Tower
Terror because it always had just the right level of
(48:44):
creepiness where even if you're even if you've written it
a million times, there's still like just this unexplainable creepiness
of being in that hotel room hearing Rod Serling tell
you the story of this elevator and you getting in
it and then seeing the ghost of everyone waving goodbye,
(49:05):
like they're like, you know the I remember the first
time I wrote it, it was like legitimately scary, and
then after it's not as scary, but there's still like
a level to it that has like that kind of
like in the same way that you some some twists
still get that like tingly feeling on you when you
think about it. I need to tell you something as
big of a Twilight Zone head. I can't say Twilight
(49:25):
Head because that's the wrong franchise. As big of a
Twilight Zone head as I am, uh and grew up
with I kind of like Bernstein. Bernstein retroactively remembered this
as an episode, and it wasn't. This was created for
this ride. This was not a real episode. Yeah, and
(49:48):
I know. I mean you can tell when you watch it,
when you're in the ride, you can tell. I, Oh no,
this was made from like, you know, more recent actors
or whatever. But I always just assume they're recreating it. No,
there was no Tower of Terror episode. And I don't
know why I forever because I was on a Twilight
Zone episode. I was on a like a podcast. We
were talking about it like a year or so ago.
Um and and uh, I was talking about the episode,
(50:09):
and then later nobody, by the way online corrected me.
So God blessed them or else nobody listened to that. Um.
But but later when I got home read, oh, um,
that wasn't a real episode. I never actually watched it,
And uh, well it feels so real when you're watching
(50:30):
this has to be based on an episode. No, yeah,
I remember seeing it and then the people like they
get stuck in both Nope. No, um, that's not at
all embarrassing. But what I do want to say is
the way that I was introduced to it, which I
think a lot of people around our age was the marathon,
(50:50):
the Twilight Zone Marathon. UM. So here's a little lore
on that as far as it being a history of
holiday tradition because it was only normally run as a
marathon during the holidays. UM. Still kind of so the
origins of the New Year's Eve Twilight Zone Marathon are
kind of unknown. No one knows which regional TV station
started syndicating the Twilight Zone reruns during that time, um,
(51:15):
or whether they began on New Year's at all. The
first one. So this is a quote from kt l
A program director Mark Sunnenberg UM and in article in
The l A Times, he said, the first one we
did was on Thanksgiving in nineteen eighty and so the
first Thanksgiving marathon was only eight hours long and received
(51:36):
a sixteen percent share. So that's kind of fascinating. So
the Twilight Zone Marathon that we all know and love
was actually a Thanksgiving marathon. Very fitting, I might say,
since you're around your family and it seems, yeah, that's
kind of like very Twilight zony depending on the relationships.
(51:56):
Man um has to be expected for one of dan
these favorite properties, we are running on time a little over.
I mean, I guess we know the future of Twilight
Zone technically because we know we have the Jordan Peel show. No,
but also if he um Leonardo DiCaprio, who were interested.
(52:17):
I don't know if you saw that in our notes,
Leonardo DiCaprio is interested and possibly doing a feature a
future film, which who knows if he's actually going to
do that now that Jordan Peel is going to be
and I think he's like, I'll step down, but it
would be interesting because on first thought I'd be like what,
But also seeing how like Leonardo or as I like
(52:39):
to call him, Leo Dio, is a huge, huge, huge
activists for like environmental stuff that I think it's that
type of brain that's going to be able to like
make that kind of like thing. But you can also
end up with the happening and we all know how
that went. Um. I enjoyed that film. You know what,
(53:01):
You're not the only person who told me that. I
actually never seen it. I asked to know, here's what
I do with a lot of m Night Shumlans films now,
I asked people with the twist start and it seems
wild now and the only one that I've heard and
been like, Okay, I have to see it is split
Like I was like, oh oh that's oh, I gotta
(53:23):
go every other one. I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I
think that's because like that triggles that that just triggers
the Marvel button. Man, I want that really to blow out,
Like I need that whole universe just well, yeah, I
need after credits for this next one. I'm coming out.
(53:44):
Um but yeah, if god, there's so much to cover.
We didn't tackle like most obviously we're not going to
go through all of the episodes, but even the most
iconic ones. Um, I think we named I would say
time Enough at Last is most people. A lot of
people say it's at least in their top five. It's
one of the most onnic Wares where he steps on
his glasses, which, by the way, um, I just want
to correct a couple of things here. Everyone who thinks
(54:05):
he's a librarian, he's not. He's a banker. Oh gosh,
I'm like, actually, people. But another thing is that he uh,
he just wants to read, and his wife is so
and everyone in his life is so like rude to him. Um,
and so they all die. Uh, and he's left alone
because he went into a vault. He's left alone and
(54:26):
to now he finally has time to read, he steps
on his glasses. That's the end. I don't understand why
that's everyone's favorite, because that man did not deserve that
to happen. Typically like look at you know, it's so
funny that everyone's like, yeah, and I love that. And
then he stepped on his glasses and he was like
then he didn't have any time, like you had all
this time, but he can't read. He was like, yeah
he was. He was bullied his whole life and then
(54:48):
this and he's the only man left alive. And then
he steps on his glass. Like it doesn't make sense.
I mean it does. I love you Rod Certling, but um,
it's funny to me that it's everyone's favorite when if
you actually think of it, he wasn't the one that
should have had that happen exactly. It's just like a
kind of Stopwatch has a similar theme, where um, the
ending has him breaking the stopwatch and the whole world
(55:11):
is frozen. He's just stuck it like that from here
on out. He previously had the ability to turn it
on and off. But the minute to stop Watch breaks,
he no longer is able to leave that universe. But
the bigger thing about that was that he was ribbing
a bank when it broke, so he totally deserved that.
It's happening some like these things did at morals. Yeah,
(55:33):
I mean, yeah, it's just so. But I guess what
is more of the commentary is how unfair life is. Yeah,
I think that's a commentary is even the good guy
in the situation is getting screwed over? Um? So, yeah,
we'll have to do another one of these where we
can actually tackle. Maybe we'll have someone on and we'll
kind of like debate and tackle some of our our
favorite episodes because there's so much to cover. I definitely
(55:54):
highly recommend the Twilight Zone companion. Um, there's just so
much lore in history, but about each of these episodes
and Rod Serling himself. Um yeah, but I think we
have to tap out. Yeah, we have to hit that
tap button. So where can people find you? Know? Um? So,
the funny thing about screenwriting is that you actually can't
(56:15):
say most of the things that you're working. So find
me at like a coffee shop on its doing big
things people bedlines and panicking American God. Season two is
going to be out next year, so yeah, I appreciate that,
and um yeah. Other than that, you can always find
me at on Twitter at mellow Marketer and uh, you
can find a lot of my work on the fanbros
(56:37):
dot com as well. Oh nice, nice and you know
me if you wid the way on Twitter and Instagram.
I have y n W I D i w e
if d's on Twitch, lots of hashtag nerd fam showing
up dropping them Twitch Prime sums. I gotta thank you
all for that, but keep listening. Also, we have a
discord now have the official discord which you just mind
(57:00):
court that I share with two other streamers, but we
have a nerdificent chat where you can chat it up.
I've had people come in the Twitch chat asked me
to reserve a spot, but you only talking in there.
Granted the last episode was just a movie that just
came out spoiler, so you can't talk. But I'll see
(57:20):
you in there after this episode. Tell us your favorite
Twilight Zone apps please. I'm so I'm gonna have to
like make uh yeah, I'll have to pop in there too,
or like I know, for Infinity War, we made um
on our notificent Twitter page. We made like a little
group chat for all of us to kick out on
Infinity War. So I might do that for twilight Zone
because it's just so much to cover. And also just yeah,
(57:42):
and and I guess we didn't. We didn't mention. I
was like, and it's an anthology, meaning we didn't. We
should have said that up top, meaning you can like
watch any episode and they're not um you know, you
don't have to watch them in order. What I was
gonna say is, Hi, I'm Danny Fernandez at um MS,
Danny Fernandez on all of the socials, and Iffie and
(58:03):
I will be together on a couple of panels. I think,
I know. At least we have a panel at four
pm Friday at as at a San Diego Comic Con,
which is this week. And check the Twitter because we're
both posting all of our our comic con panels. And
we have some cool merch now which you can get
(58:23):
at te Public and you can also find us at
comic con and we might give you a shirt yea yeah,
whild supplies last, and of course before we head out
of here, I want to shout out a couple of people.
I want to shout out super producer and a host
who has always uh elding our back. You know, Zach
McKeever in the booth and our researchers Eaves check coat
(58:46):
and Christopher Hasis. I don't know, we're not that close. Yeah,
I can't call it. Chris, I don't know. Maybe we are.
I'll email. All right, y'all, stay neary
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Ify Nwadiwe
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