Tribute to THE TWILIGHT ZONE (with JJ, Tom, Gil & Mike Ensing!)

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information.

[00:00:12] The Thick of It. I'm your host, Sully, not Sterling. With us today is Mike, Movie Geek Ensing. Yep, I'm here. Yeah, no, this is doing anything for anybody. James, not the planet of the Abe's Bruno.

[00:01:48] Picture, if you will, a man who's doing a podcast. A man who's encapsulated in his own thoughts and his own mind. A man who knows more trivia than anyone else. That man is James Bruno, and he's just stepped into the Twilight Zone. He might have a few skeletons in his backyard, but that's okay. He'll, with the powers of Harry Haasen, he'll make them dance. Tom Lindemann is back at it.

[00:02:13] Smitted for you, a man, on a podcast. When not only of sight and sound, but of mind. We open the door with the key to imagination. When the next stop, the Twilight Zone. Dueling Rod Servings. Perfect. And a heck of cheese, maniac himself. So, this is a long time coming, and before we get into this, those who want to play along with us, this show, of course, is on all platforms.

[00:02:40] If you want to see it on Paramount Plus, you'll be especially entertained, because you'll be able to kind of tell what's an enhanced, like, VHS copy in HD versus what's a TV rep based on the frame rate speed. How did we all get into this show? It's just reference for everything. It's a monument. You know, without this, you don't have pretty much any other anthology or a typical storytelling method.

[00:03:03] I can't remember there were shows like, you know, One Step Beyond and Omnibus, and that was during my grandmother and my mom's time. And then, you know, the Twilight Zone came along when my mom was, you know, in her 20s, and she loved it. And I got to see it in reruns on Channel 11, later in New York. So, it was on Channel 11. I think it was on WSBK, too. So, they'd always run a marathon at the Twilight Zone.

[00:03:32] They still do. Sci-Fi will still do that. GetTV is another one. It's playing on just about every other antenna channel for that matter. So, that was my introduction to Serling, you know. Oh, perfect. It was always kind of in my world. You just had all these memories of just people just like, you know, talking amongst themselves, going crazy, skeleton emerging from the water.

[00:03:57] It's another one. But, The Monsters on Maybel Street was introduced in a junior high class of mine just because we were studying Ray Bradbury. No, I only had three channels, and I'm sure it was a rerun on one of them, and it caught my interest. My mom never liked Sci-Fi, so she didn't like it, but I always tried to check it out. It is pretty airy for older people. I've kind of noticed that. Unless you're a big buff on it, you're not really going to like it.

[00:04:24] For me, it was the movie that initially got me interested. I know they were repeats of the episodes, but it intrigued me, and it truly kind of made me look back at some of the other shows that anthology shows I've seen over the years, like Dark Room, and made me really want to go back and watch some of the old Twilight Zones and see where – just how the mind of Rod Serling worked.

[00:04:54] Is there a place to find the Dark Room? I've always wanted to watch that, and it just seemed like – Is that – it sounds familiar. Is that an older show? Yeah, that was on like the 81, 82s. It was a show they did, and James Coburn was like the – Yeah, was the narrator. Yeah. Rod Serling character. Yep, yep. That one completely slipped me by. I never saw that one. That was before the Twilight Zone started? After the Twilight Zone.

[00:05:24] It was after. Okay. Yeah, and ABC. ABC put it on as kind of like their answer to what – I think the Twilight Zone movie was just about to come out at that time, or they were making it. Dark Room was supposed to be like a horror anthology series, and I remember Billy Crystal being on one. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I can remember, you know. That's kind of atypical for him. He usually – Right. It's like that TV disaster movie where he's on a plane.

[00:05:56] What's he doing here? How about yourself, Mike? How did you get into this? Well, it debuted 10 days before I was born, so I may have heard the first episode in the womb. I don't remember much of it when it first aired, but when we got cable, it was on reruns all over the place, so we caught up to a lot of them then. I remember my mom saying there's always a twist, and there usually is.

[00:06:23] So, and going through these, I'm amazed at the variety of them, the stories, it's – you don't see that anymore. It's different every week, you know. So, although there's some recurring themes and stuff, but different settings. And I made some notes. There's some duds in there, but not too many. All very interesting. I was amazed by looking at Paramount. I mean, because I thought I'd seen a lot of episodes, and I'm looking at what they had on Paramount, and there's a lot of episodes I haven't seen yet.

[00:06:52] To your guys' point, like, these will appeal to you even if you're not much of a sci-fi or horror guy in some cases just because the writing is just so thick. Yeah, it's great storytelling, yeah. And I will admit I did kind of have a few issues rewatching season three. I just found some of them to kind of be kind of bland episodes of Combat or Wagon Train. I was like, hmm. Well, there's – I mean, there was a couple I think they filmed on video. So – Yeah.

[00:07:23] You can definitely tell, yeah. They don't feel – yeah. Night of the Meek is one of them. Yeah. With Art Carney playing the department Santa Claus who's a drunk. And all of a sudden he finds out he really is Santa Claus. Yes. You should play that every Christmas. And there's one that they did that I think is a classic called There's Room for One More where this woman, she's a singer and she's exhausted.

[00:07:51] And she goes to the hospital and she keeps having this dream about this woman. She goes down to the basement and this woman is at a door. She says, come on in, honey. There's room for one more. And she says – she tells the doctor who's actually Jonathan Harris saying, what was the room? She says, that's room 125. She's like – she's like, oh. Room 22. Room 22. She says, oh. Sorry. Sorry.

[00:08:20] He's like, oh, that's the morgue. So she gets over her exhaustion. She's going to go back on the road again. And she gets on a plane and the steward's there. She's about to go on and she goes, come on in, honey. There's room for one more. And she runs off the plane screaming. And the plane takes off and explodes in midair. Yes. Oh, my God. And it's Flight 22. Flight 22, yeah. I thought it was Flight 33. But – oh, yeah.

[00:08:50] Oh, okay. But either way, like this is – or no, I'm thinking of Flight 33, which takes them a billion years ahead of schedule and they encounter dinosaurs. Yeah. Okay. But I know what you mean. Like a lot of these are just so wild because it does kind of make you wonder what were people thinking, you know, prior to, you know, 70s era Ansems in the Air or, you know, pre-911. It's like what was going through their minds if some inevitable mistake like that was happening.

[00:09:19] And I think these perfectly convey your fears, which says a lot because if you were to do this nowadays, you would just have a gory mess and not much creativity. And the thing was is that a lot of it was psychological. Like – Yes. You didn't see what was going on, but you had the feeling something was going on. Oh, look at it in season five where the ventriloquist dummy starts doing robberies. Yeah. Yeah, that's – There's a few Nazi brainwashing episodes.

[00:09:50] There's the one with Dennis Hopper that scares the shit out of me. Yes. And then there was one they did where the old Nazi went back to the concentration camp. Mm-hmm. And he started seeing ghosts of all the people that he killed. Yep. And he eventually goes mad. Oh, yeah. Didn't they have that one for the Twilight Zone movie too? The one where – It was similar but not the same. It was a racist bigot. Right. Yeah. I didn't know what you mean though.

[00:10:16] I would totally, if I had creative control – I do think season three is probably the strongest even though it's a little shorter. But I would totally make the Liz Smith, Montgomery, and Charles Bronson post-apocalyptic episode into a movie. That's an interesting one because she has like one word. Yeah. Yeah. And he barely shows anything else. When Bronson hits her, it's awful.

[00:10:44] But this theme comes up and it's the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Yes. Yeah. That's the only time you hear it. And some of the other music you hear on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, but that's the theme that introduces every episode. It's CBS. Very meta. It's not music at CBS. I actually watched that episode tonight.

[00:11:08] And I was actually surprised because I was talking to my wife because I noticed there was the episode, which I can't think of the title of. It's called maybe Visitors or something where it's got the witch mom, Agnes Morehead. Oh, yeah. The Invaders. Then when I get out on the screen, I'm looking at like the next episode. It looks like Darren is in it. Interesting. And then after that –

[00:11:38] The coin. He's rolling the coin. The coin lands on the side. You can read everybody's minds. Yes. And then after that, I just picked a show at random, and it was one that had Elizabeth McGovern. I picked it because Charles Bronson was in it. And they're like, Elizabeth McGovern was in it. I was just talking about two other bewitched characters. Totally. That's the thing about Twilight Zone in itself. You look at two of the main writers we mentioned earlier, Sterling and Matheson. Yeah.

[00:12:04] Those two people, they had just an amazing way of sending a mirror up in front of humanity. Yep. And making us deal with what we took for granted or what we take for granted. And somewhere along the way, we screwed up because I'm seeing people kind of go back to, I don't want to talk about unpleasantries. It's like, well, you have to face them sooner or later. Exactly. Go ahead.

[00:12:32] And the thing about that, and with Matheson too, you have somebody who was responsible for the name of I Am Legend. Yep. Running I Am Legend, which is another piece of humanity versus, in this case, it was a vampire. But you have to see the human condition and how he shaped his world. We will become animals in the future, whether we like it or not. Yeah. I think he also did, if I remember correctly, he also wrote The Incredible Shrinking Man. I think so.

[00:13:02] Did you ever hear his hysterical conversation with George Romero? No. So basically, you know, people were complaining at first, oh, and I am living dead. That's an I Am Legend knockoff. And Matheson met Romero. Romero apologized. Hey, man, I'm sorry. It is true. I did rip you off. Matheson's like, don't worry about it. Don't shed a tear. You didn't make any money off it. This was a low budget. Yeah, the zombies outside the door scene. That's very, very rare.

[00:13:28] I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone because twice I've heard tonight, wasn't it Rod Serling? It was Serling, yeah. Rod Serling. Yep, Mr. Night Gallery. Yep. Okay, because I've heard Rod Sterling twice tonight from two of you guys. Wait a minute. Was it Serling? Serling. Surely. Yeah. Don't call me Serling. Surely. All right. I think the thing that gets me the most is like, you got to think Serling wrote one

[00:13:57] of the best TV movies of all time, Requiem for a heavyweight. Is that correct? Yes. Which was based on Prima Panera. What an emotional movie. He wrote the script for The Planet of the Apes, the first, the original in 68. You know, he was, he said he did a movie called The Last Time I Saw. I think I know the one you're about to mention. Yeah. I'm trying to remember that. And he was one of these guys that was very academic.

[00:14:23] But he had this thing, from what I find out later, he had PTSD because he was in the war. Mm-hmm. Yes. And his thing was, there was one episode they called Incident at Owl Creek Bridge. Yes. Which was a French movie. There's a French movie. That was an hour long. And that was an hour long. He says in the beginning of the show, he's like, we're not going to show you our usual episode tonight. Tonight, I'm going to show you an Oscar-winning documentary, a film called Incident at Owl Creek Bridge. Sorry, I hate to keep, it's occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

[00:14:53] Occurrence, I'm sorry. Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. I feel like a teacher or something. I'm sorry. I did sometimes. I saw that first in school, in English. Whoa. Yeah. Man, they were ballsy back then. It's an Ambrose Bierce short story. Yeah. Just a quick highlight on this, the National Lampoon Radio Hour, if any of you remember that, they did a Currence at Owl Creek Bridge edited for radio. You hear silence. Hoo-la!

[00:15:23] And that was it. That's definitely Michael Donahue's. Not to get by, yeah, Mr. Mike, you know. Anyway, go ahead, JJ. That episode has always stuck with me. You think it's happening this way, and then all of a sudden, the ending comes, and it's like, nope, bang, you know, you're brought back to the reality of things. And that's the thing some of those episodes do. They, you know, like, To Serve Man, which is one of my favorite ones.

[00:15:50] You see in the beginning, you know, now we're just trying for you to, you know, to, and then you hear how it all happened. And then the ending is the guy, the woman running going, To Serve Man! It's not, it's a cookbook! A cookbook! A cookbook! And you're just, my mother and my mom and me were watching, right? My mother started cracking up. What about the Burgess Meredith one where, uh... Oh, yeah! All the time in the world. All the time in the world. Yep. There was time. There was time.

[00:16:19] Oh, that's, that's heartbreaking. It really is. Yeah, that, that was my favorite. Yeah, that one was, that one was my favorite because I, at the time I watched it, I was a bit of a reader. I still am. But I also could see, yeah, somebody so consumed with books and then having to deal with people, but then having nobody around, knowing to bother him and his only source, the only thing he can do, he has his glasses break. The only thing I can do.

[00:16:49] I always think, does he find another pair of glasses eventually, you know, give him a little hope? Probably. That would ruin the ending. Hopefully. Yeah. But that's part of the... The sets on that are really effective, too. It looks like, it looks like the world blew up. It's really, they really did a good job. Oh, don't worry. So, so realistic, Charlton Heston ran around and said, you maniac! You maniac! You stole my movie! It's not even out there.

[00:17:18] I kind of wondered if they borrowed some sets for these shows from other shows or other movies. I would not doubt it. I know. I wouldn't doubt it either. The closest I know is that the props and sets were used from the original Outer Limits on Star Trek, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some other studio at Sony Pictures or CBS. There are so many varied, yeah, there are so many varied locales for their stories and stuff.

[00:17:44] The season one episode where Jack Warden, Sunila Mae's favorite, as the man stranded on an asteroid with a human being. That's another one I watched. That's another one I watched tonight. That one and the... Wait, wait, what was that one? When he's... He gets a robot, he gets a robot companion because he's like, he's a convict in his prison sentences. He has to stay on this large asteroid by himself for like 50 years. Oh, okay.

[00:18:12] So when this guy comes by that delivers stuff for him, drops it off, you know, because he's feeling sorry for him. They make great use of bots in this, but like there was that, there was the... I sing the body electric. I think so. That might be... Yeah. Is that the one with the robot servants? No, that's the one with the grandmother. Yeah. Oh, okay. Machines in the house. That's the Bradbury one. Where the kids pick out the eyes and the arms. Yeah. Oh, that's right.

[00:18:42] He did do another one. Yes. Yes, it is. And they brought it... The episode, the idea just kind of... Okay, they go off and they leave and there wasn't much to the ending, I thought, but... No, it did seem like an afterthought, like they just needed to wrap it up. It might have been too room for TV, but I loved how there was... In season four, they definitely get very outer limits there. There's a man who finds a created copy of himself. There's an interplanetary ship in its duplicate. There's a genie.

[00:19:12] And do you guys remember the planetary colonies with two sons that are rescued by another mysterious ship? I remember the one with the guy who was like, they're on a planet, people like the size of like, you know, little people. And the guy starts thinking he's a god. I think that might be... One of those two is definitely the one. And when I saw him, I think Robert Lojo was in one, but I was just like, see, that would have made an epic, like, Flash Gordon type movie right there.

[00:19:40] And he made a comparison to Outer Limits with season four. I think season four, they did hour-long episodes in season four, whereas the other seasons were a half hour. And Sterling didn't like that. He didn't like that. He said in an interview, he says, now we got to think everything like a soap opera. And I'm not like that, you know. I want to do everything within a half an hour, and then bang, that's it. Sounds like he was pretty close. There's too much filler. Some of them are good, but there's...

[00:20:10] I think they try to... There's too much filler. There's definitely some of these you want to take five years off. And there's others where you kind of want to just go straight to the plot twist, just because it's very long. But what about the evil computer, Agnes? Oh. Or the haunted car? Yeah. No, my favorite was... Oh, that... Yeah, I'll drive. Or you drive, I think. I think so.

[00:20:36] And it's just making me wonder, is this the future Tesla? Did it inspire Christine, Stephen King's person? Oh, there you go. It probably did. There's one that I love with John MacGyver, where he plays a guy who builds ships, right? And he loves noise. And he starts to tune everything out, and he realizes he becomes deaf.

[00:21:02] And then there was one where they're building a spaceship, right? Yes. And they have to get off the planet because the sun's about to explode. That's the one with the two suns. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what happens at the end of the twist is they were on another planet. They're coming to Earth. Correct. Yep. I remember, because what's his face was in that? I thought it was Robert. Rick Weaver was in that. Yeah, but I thought... I could have sworn Robert Loja was in one as well. He was.

[00:21:32] I'm trying to think which one, though. There's one where they, like, they... Like, there's these three robbers, and they, like... They steal gold, like this whole gold thing of gold bullion, and they can cast themselves away for, like, 50 years. I'm thinking power limits. Okay. Yeah, they keep themselves asleep for 100 years, yeah. Yeah. Then they come back. They're going to be rich. They're going to be rich. They're going to be rich. They're going to be rich. Very rich. Before they were doing it in Alien, where they, you know, you put yourself in, like, a freezer.

[00:22:04] There's another classic episode that everybody should know. It's the Eye of the Beholder with Ellie Mae Clampett. Yeah. I think so. I mean, I did go for the balls, so it is hard to take notes on all of them. Don't definitely. Don't watch these if you're not in the mood. There's also one that they did called Six Characters in Search of an Exit. Yeah. These six people, you don't know who they are. I mean, they're just all together.

[00:22:31] So there's a ballerina, I think a cowboy, a soldier, a guy dressed up like a general who's William Wyndham, a clown. And the clown is freaking freaky. Yeah. And all they hear, they're in this room. They're trying to get out. And all they hear is this bell going off, right? Like every, like, five or ten minutes, right? Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it turns out there are toys in a goodwill bin for the Salvation Army. A barrel. Yeah. A barrel.

[00:23:00] So there's a clue in that episode because Serling's introduction, he's looking over the lid of the barrel down into it. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. They give it away. But if you didn't know, you know. Oh, very true. And I did, unfortunately, I did not take notes on that one, but I did find it easy to mistake for some of the other ones where people are trying to, you know, run away from an inescapable town.

[00:23:26] But that one, yeah, that bell noise they make is very unsettling. Yeah. I got to mention, and I think this is a very cool parallel to today's world. The final season, episode 33, where the despicable drunk CEO fires his factory workers and their violent outcomes.

[00:23:49] And it's set in 1967, and he decides, I'm going to have this factory be worked on by computers. Okay. Yeah. It's a big parallel to today's world where we're trying to have AI do everything for us. If you think about it. A Terminator, sure. Yeah, a Terminator. I mean, I was already noticing there was a lot of people who were, I mean, look at Walmart and Target. Half the time, they were just like, yeah, no, I'm just going to have this be automated and have there only be one operator guy checking on the bags.

[00:24:18] But Robbie the Robot also makes a cameo in there. Does anybody remember, will the real Martian please stand up? I think so. Yes. With the eyeball on the forehead. Spoilers. Yeah. That's when the two aliens are talking to each other. Yeah. One guy's got an eyeball on the forehead. Only one of them, Jack Elam, can see them, and the other guys are oblivious. And the thing is, in the end. Where am I getting that mixed up with? No, no, no, no. It's true. It's true. Okay. That's the one with the two heads.

[00:24:48] The one's got three arms, and the other one's got an eyeball on the head. Okay. Yes. Which he reveals when he lifts his hat. Yes. Yeah. That's the one. Yeah. And it is interesting seeing which ones Rod actually is literally, as a transition, he's talking in the room where everything's happening. You know? I think that is a good precursor to the whole breaking the fourth wall kind of, even though it's not meant to be funny.

[00:25:18] I think with him doing that, it's kind of like an author saying, you know, here's what we're going to do tonight for you. Take my hand. Let me lead you on a journey. Yeah. Let me show you what's going to happen. I'm going to leave you here for about a half an hour. Then I'll come back. I'll tell you what I think. And then you just go home and take what I give you. That's all. There's some good stuff here, and I do wish more people would keep rediscovering it over the years.

[00:25:48] I mean, I do, but sometimes I'll see other people who they're still, they don't want to see anything in black and white. I'm like, come on. I love black and white because every frame of a black and white movie or TV show looks like you don't see in black and white. So it looks like somebody hand drew it. There's a light and dark art thing to it that's really nice, you know. I'm supposed to be dreaming black and white, I guess, from what I've heard.

[00:26:18] That's what we've been told. I'm supposed to be dreaming black and white, yeah. But I'm discovering, you know, going through the episodes that are on Paramount, just how many that I haven't watched. I'm like, oh, I've got to go back to this and watch some of these episodes I have never seen. Because I thought I'd seen a lot of them. Yeah, but here's the thing about black and white. It works as an allegory to what we're watching. Yes.

[00:26:46] I mean, there's a lot. I mean, I swear if Sterling had his choice, he would have done the entire run. Even if anybody had the choice to do color, he would have done everything in black and white because it works so well. Plus, going back to the point where he would pop in, it's almost like he's doing it, like we said, just an author. Here's what we're going to watch tonight. But it's also kind of a nod.

[00:27:16] Recourse. Yeah, exactly. It's a nod. It's recourse definitely. But it's also sort of a, yeah, what you're about to see is fantasy. But here. It could be real. But it could happen. Because I'm here and I'm a real person. This is anti-TV. This is on a typical sci-fi and horror industry. This is, like you say, it's an allegory.

[00:27:42] But it's also, we want you to be able to actually have food for thought at the end of this. He made it sci-fi so he could get some of his ideas across. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of the same kind of stuff. It's drama. They won't play. They won't allow it. Yeah. No, it's totally like Roddenberry. Roddenberry did the same. Yeah. Same thing. You got to dress it up so they listen. Yeah. He wrote a great, great thing during the run of the Twilight Zone. I think it was after it was called Carol for Another Christmas.

[00:28:12] I think so. Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden. He did it for UNESCO. Oh, wow. It was supposed to be about a guy who basically, I think something happens. You know, he thinks Christmas is bullshit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a TV movie. It's a TV movie that he wrote. So it's one, it's a really good, good thing to watch. I watched it one time on Turner and it was really amazing. So it showed you that he could do more than just like.

[00:28:42] One thing. Yeah. One thing. Dana Gould talks about that on one of his podcasts, that episode. That movie. And Gould is the perfect example of a famous celeb who loves all kinds of arts, you know, from the radio days to stage plays to actor studio. Did you ever hear the thrilling adventure hour podcast or whatever? I've heard of it. I have never really. Yeah. Yeah. We were talking a bit about it, I think, plus few episodes back.

[00:29:12] Yeah. One thing. The one thing that, that we, it's always struck me about Serling was that Twilight Zone had its own version of divine justice. Yes. When you saw the person who, when you saw the person who we are supposed to hate, get his or her comeuppance or, or, but we get to see somebody who, who we think should get

[00:29:38] something more than just a slight tap in the wrist. Right. And they get, they get it. But here's the thing. I also think that in contrast, Serling was very much of a cynic. I would buy that, especially if he's seeing just, you know, he's coming into the early sixties and he's seeing all the, you know, all these times are changing, the communists and other witch hunts that are going on.

[00:30:06] And he's seeing how we're destroying each other as a society. Yeah. And his daughter, his daughter wrote a book about her dad and includes a lot of great quotations in them. And I, I'm not sure what happened to him, but I used to get them on Facebook all the time. And I would read them and it was like, oh my God, he, he was on something. He was, he was such a visionary in so many ways.

[00:30:35] But I think it was also because he was a visionary because he was a cynic. I have no doubt. I'm sure he wasn't pleasant to be around. Well, that's the clock. Yeah. That's probably what led to some of the darker episodes. Yeah. Well, his daughter was said that, well, he was a world war two veteran and he would wake up screaming. Oh yeah. And she'd ask him why. And he says, I thought they were after me, you know, in the Philippines and Japan, I guess.

[00:31:02] And the thing was, was that with him, his, his, there's a great picture I have of him on Davis Suskind. It's a bunch of people that are in television. There's him, there's Ernie Kovacs. There's some other people on there. And all I can say to myself when I'm looking at this picture is these guys were visionaries. He was a visionary because he saw television as a way of making people think where it was called the vast wasteland, you know, a lot, some of these guys that were in there, including,

[00:31:32] you know, including Roddenberry and including Sterling, you know, they saw it as a way to communicate their ideas, their thoughts, how they, how the world looked. The right people will know it. Yeah. Yeah. A lot like Edward R. Murrow. He knew, he saw both sides of the television industry, but he knew that it, and he, and he nailed it. It was either something that could entertain you or something that could inform you. Yeah. And I'll say that.

[00:32:02] The mic is his weapon. Yeah. And he knew that with Sterling because he knew that he could entertain, but he could also inform. And you keep seeing that every so often, they're at least once or once or twice a generation, you're going to find somebody who gets it to that level and then finds a way to dress up the social commentary in a way that comes off as entertainment.

[00:32:29] There's times where the way he's standing, he almost looks like he's about to give like a news broadcast. Yeah. Yeah. And that voice he had, you know, and I gotta say, it wasn't heavy handed. I would watch a TED Talk with reanimated monster. You know, it wasn't heavy handed. And if you look at something like what came in the wake of that during that time, The Outer Limits, which was the other anthology show that ABC had, that was more science fiction,

[00:32:59] you know, Monster of the Week kind of stuff. Yep. You know, granted it was good. I mean, like, you know, there are, but it didn't have that, that, I mean, I don't want to say it was unintelligent, but it didn't have that academic feel that the Twilight Zone had, you know? I agree. It was kind of more free cyberpunk, steampunk kind of concepts of bots and future worlds. But I am still in the process of going through both of those again.

[00:33:29] And it is interesting which ones have aged well and which ones are kind of dull X-Files Twilight Zone episodes. But yeah, you had Out One Step Beyond, you had Amazing Stories, which was a story. There was an anthology series on HBO. Yeah, HBO, they did something that sort of... The Hitchfiker. Nope, that wasn't the one.

[00:33:54] It was one where it kind of poked fun at it while at the same time giving homage to it. Wait, was that the one with like all the people from SCTV in it? Yes, that's the one. Oh, I need to look at this one. Because that's the one where John Candy plays the alien who can make money for everybody. I think so. The one that I remember was with Martin Short. Yeah. He's like a real interesting guy. And he falls in love with this woman.

[00:34:23] And the only thing is she's a robot. Interesting. Going way back there. Did you look at... Was it Martin Short? Thriller, yes. Thriller. Thriller, yeah. Yes, okay. Morris Carlock. I've got the box set of those. And Stephen King said the most terrifying thing I ever saw on TV was a thriller. The Pigeons from Hell episode. Oh, it's super creepy. I can only imagine. Yeah. I've been seeing... You're reminding me that there's other shows like...

[00:34:53] I think it's Boris Karloff. And we've seen him on Riff Tracks. They did The Veil is what they were called. I believe so, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. For sure. And also, I have to go back to something even further back. Sterling didn't invent the anthology series like that. A lot of that stuff was going on in radio well before Sterling brought it to TV. He was testing the wires.

[00:35:20] Yeah, but at the same time... Was Twilight Zone on the radio? I think he was just saying Sterling got his start in radio and tried out his broadcasting approach. I want to... Not to mention it, I'm not positive. I know there were shows like it, but I'm not sure if there was an actual Twilight Zone. Hard to say yes, but don't hold me to that. Okay, well... There's a pilot episode of the Twilight Zone that wasn't in the series. Okay, so you guys are kind of half right.

[00:35:50] Desi Arnaz hosted, but we better not. So you guys are kind of half right. It wasn't a radio show first, but there was a syndicated 2002 show for the BBC on Radio 4. I think I've got a collection of those. Oh, wow. Yeah. Did they adapt? They were adapting some of the biggest ones, yeah. Yeah, but then you look at... With radio to TV, movies and stuff like that, and other TV shows, other forums.

[00:36:19] The point is, the anthology series, there's something there. There's something that transcends a sitcom, or everything can get wrapped up in 22 minutes, or a medical drama, or a cop drama. The anthology series will be different every time. Yeah. And even then... You can't grow attached to anybody, because they're not going to be for the rest of the season. They're laying that one shot. Exactly. And something else, too.

[00:36:47] NBC did something kind of similar to that with a little show called Cliffhangers. Yes! In the 70s, yep. Yep. Yes. Michael Morey is regular. I think it ran for one series, one season. They had, like, three recurring storylines all... One was Dracula, one was... There was, like, one other Western adventure show, and then there was, like, one other one. But, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people would get them mixed up, or they would see one of the three, and they're, like...

[00:37:15] I remember a short-lived NBC series called Ghost Story in the early 70s. Oh, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. I've heard about that one. Yeah. I just remember one episode at the Cradle Foot or something. Yep. You got it. Okay, so I got that. That one is a Richard Madsen production. But, see, I got that mixed up with Hammer Horror's anthology show that was also on in the 70s. Oh, Tales of the Unexpected? That's the one. Yep. Okay.

[00:37:45] There's actually two of them there. There's Tales of the Unexpected, and there's another one that came out in the U.S., but it was something else. It had Tales of the Unexpected in it. Tales of the Unexpected was something like... They did one called... Where Derek Jacoby plays an old man, and you find out he sold his skin in order to... It was just something really weird. That's their middle name. Yeah.

[00:38:13] I do remember Tales from the Unexpected for some strange reason. But it's like Twilight Zone is like this gold standard for every anthology series I've seen. Everything to measure up to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, if they've tried to do anthology series like the Twilight Zone, there's one thing that's missing, and that's Rod Serling. His creativeness and his working with the writers, and him being a writer also, kind of put a perspective on things.

[00:38:42] You know, nowadays, the anthology series are just like, you know, 15 different people working on one script. But... Yeah. And it comes. And there it is. No, no. You're not wrong. Because I feel like a lot of these get out of whack because there's too... There literally is too many cooks in the kitchen to where you're just like, okay, everybody had a little too much freedom. You're kind of deviating from the formula you established in the first three episodes. Yeah. I found out something recently. I had...

[00:39:09] Did you guys realize in the first season, Serling does not appear on screen? Nope. He doesn't. Yeah. He does at the end. He does at the end introducing... Right. But I know what you mean. But he doesn't walk into the set like he did later. Right. He kind of foreshadows what's to come and then eventually comes out of the corner. But no, that is a good point compared to what we all remember where he's like, good morning, you know, good evening. Or he pulls the Hitchcock. Yeah, he started being part of the set the second season on. Yeah.

[00:39:39] Yeah. I think the thing that gets me too is like he had it again with Night Gallery, you know? Yes. Which was... That was short-lived though, wasn't it? Yeah, that was very short-lived. He didn't have creative control on that show either. He wasn't a big fan. But they wanted to bring that aura back. Yeah. And I think he just said, no, this is not... No. You know, because...

[00:40:06] And he did something I never thought he would do. He actually sold the Twilight Zone not thinking about the money he would have made off of syndication. So basically, he was well off, but if he had kept the Twilight Zone and not sold off the syndication rights, he probably would have been, you know, rolling in dough. But I don't think he was one of those people that... Well, when did he pass the money? He didn't sell out. He just wanted his message across to the freedom he did. Yeah.

[00:40:36] But that's true. I think he died like a day... What was the day he died? Rod Sterling. Rod Sterling, 1975. I keep thinking... June 28th. Wow. When did he die? June 28th. So... Okay, yeah. So... Yeah. My... He had a heart attack, I think. Hmm. Because, you know... Heavy smoke. And he was...

[00:41:03] I just heard his daughter talking on Gilbert's podcast. He was undergoing open-heart surgery back then. That'll do it. They thought he'd pull through it. He didn't. It's very sad. The cigarette smoke, he didn't help him. That's true. But everybody smoked back then, too, you know. Indeed. I'll mention off some of the key directors on this.

[00:41:29] We had actor-turned-director Lemont Johnson, who won a bunch of Emmys. Stuart Rosenberg, who you'll probably know from Cool Hen Luke and the original Amityville Horror. Mm-hmm. Don Siegel, the original Body Snatchers, and Clint Eastwood's... Richard Donner? Yes. He did quite a few. Elliot Silverstein, who you might know from A Man Called Horse and the Car. Yep. Did Richard Donner also do the same episode for the Twilight Zone movie?

[00:41:59] I think he did. No. No, no. I don't know. I wasn't... You didn't direct both? I don't think he did. No. I thought he did. All I remember is... I had a post from the Planet of the Apes sequels worked on. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. All I remember is that movie coming out and the controversy around it because of what happened with Vic Morrow. You definitely get a feel that Spielberg just wanted to move on. He's just like, wasn't supposed to come to this. Now it came to this.

[00:42:28] So let's just move on. Landis was doing a shoot. Get the fuck out of here. Landis was doing a shoot that day, and the helicopter basically... They shouldn't have had the kids... I hear they still send that... They still show that footage for people joining the Stuntman or Directors League. Yeah. They'll show it as an example of how not to run a film set. That's how infamous it's become. Yeah. And, you know, I just remember they stopped at the Vietnam...

[00:42:57] In the movie, they stopped at the Vietnam one, and then he was in a cattle car going off to Auschwitz. And then it's in front of a bar, and the bar is where the woman meets the kid for, you know, the wish away and stuff like that. And I think the one thing that gets me about that episode is, like, when you watch it, the kid who wishes everybody into the cornfield, there's one scene that spooks everybody out. The guy becomes the jack-in-the-box. Oh, jeez. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:43:26] The way they do the shadow to show that transition. Yeah. And that's Chloris Leachman. Of all people they picked. I mean, she was like... I mean, she had to be, like, in her, what, her 30s when she did that? Probably. And she was like, does that scene... I'm like, holy fuck, that's Chloris Leachman, man. And, you know, the Simpsons did a takeoff on that, too, I believe. On one of their Halloween... Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:54] More than once they've referenced the Twilight Zone on there. And I know they mentioned, they've also referenced Night Gallery. Okay. Yeah. Dogs playing poker? Yeah. My favorite episode was... They did an episode of Saturday Night Live and Ricky Nelson was on it. And, of course, Dan Aykroyd does the best... You know, one of the best Serling impressions I've seen.

[00:44:21] And it has Ricky Nelson going through, like, every 50s sitcom. Like, it's like, I Love Lucy. Father Knows Best. I forgot the other one. But, yeah. It's basically a precursor to Tim and Eric. This is TB from hell. Oh, and the Danny Thomas show. They have it winding up in the Danny Thomas show. Yes. There's John Belushi made up, like, friggin' Danny Thomas going, Oh, I see Uncle Tanuz is coming back into town. And they start playing all the theme songs from the shows. True.

[00:44:51] They did good on that. It's kind of a hit-or-miss movie, but it should totally be seen, I think. I want to bring up something because of the meta-joke quality of it. You know, William Shatner played a character called the Big Giant Head on Third Rock. Oh, boom. And him and John Lithgow were on a plane in a scene. And they freak out. They go, I'm on the wing of the plane. And they both said it at the same time.

[00:45:18] And, of course, the meta-joke is because John Lithgow did the same role that William Shatner did. Oh, that's true. Yeah. That's right. I never thought of it. That's awesome. He comes off the plane and he says, I was just on a flight before and there was something on the wing of the plane. That happened to you, too? Man. People thought they were joking about one thing and it actually went on. Yeah.

[00:45:41] The one takeaway that I think anybody who watched The Twilight Zone should get is that this is intelligent writing. Not just science fiction. Not just horror. It is intelligent writing. Not just shock value. Yeah. Yeah. And it inspires so many others or at least you could see the influence kind of playing out in other shows.

[00:46:06] The first season, just how smart it was, the first season of Space 1999, I think, drew a lot from Sermon. And then you had so many others that followed it. Yeah. Yeah. Because the first season. Even Doctor Who, as we talked about, the whole just kind of going through the cosmos and doing all the cerebral kind of thinking on the quality of life.

[00:46:32] And I mean, you look at today's world and you can kind of tell who's a big Twilight Zone fan when they'll have some kind of meta humor saying, hey, here's how you spot a fascist at your church group. Here's how you can tell if your neighbor, one of your neighbors is a psycho. So, you know, just – or your boss has a really bad idea that's going to drive all of you insane and make you want to kill him. And the thing about it is that we mentioned earlier that one of the reasons why reboots of the Twilight Zone don't work is because it's missing Serling.

[00:47:02] And I think that that – I think that is a valid point. I also think there's also a lack of truly intelligent science fiction writers who are willing to jump into that – into the television genre. They're not afraid to get their hands dirty or they just want to – like you say, they just want cheap frills and nothing really that just sticks with you afterwards. You're like, what? Exactly. That was just down.

[00:47:28] Yeah, science fiction is one of the best ways to bring about societal change. We saw that with Star Trek. We saw that with Twilight Zone. We've seen that happen time and time again, but more often than not, we're so enamored by the flashy – with a flashy laser. Style, not the substance. Exactly. You're getting the sizzle, but you're lacking the state. The best science fiction is supposed to make you think. Always. You think about iRobot.

[00:47:58] Asmob, it must be objective. Not objective. Objective. Gents, this has been a lovely chat. This has been very insightful, and hopefully we got people's heads out of their asses and made them want to actually take the ride. We'll return after these messages. If you like small town mystery, crazy news, and wild history, then the Florida Men on Florida Man podcast is for you.

[00:48:26] Each week, Josh Mills and Wayne McCarty bring you the absolute best Florida has to offer. So if you're looking for a show that's safe for the family but funny enough to help you escape everyday life, then listen to the Florida Men on Florida Man podcast. That's Florida Men, plural, on Florida Man podcast. Hey, it's Brent Pope, the host of Breakfast with Brent Pope. You've seen me on some of your favorite TV shows saying things like, give it up, Jimmy. You've got to sink this putt to win.

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