You're Entering The Twilight Case
Hey Cassettes and welcome to the season 9 premiere of The Black Case Diaries! As you might’ve seen on social media or on Patreon, we have decided that this will be the last season of The BCD. We loved spending the last 5 years learning and laughing with you. But, all good things must eventually come to an end. We aren’t ready to drop the curtain on The BCD just yet, so we decided to spend one more year with you, talking about some of our favorite movies and shows! And for our last first episode, we’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!
Created by Rod Serling in the late 1950s, The Twilight Zone became one of the most influential series’ in television history. Across its five seasons and 156 episodes, this anthology series delivered biting social commentary masked behind seemingly simple science-fiction plots. In a time when television was considered lesser entertainment to film, The Twilight Zone brought the medium to new heights with its impeccable writing, high quality set design, superb acting, and an unforgettable opening theme.
So let’s investigate this groundbreaking series by taking a detour through The Twilight Zone.
In order to discuss The Twilight Zone, we have to start with its creator, Rod Serling.
Serling was born December 25th, 1924 in Syracuse, New York to his parents Sam and Esther. He grew up in a Reform Jewish household but they still loved and celebrated Christmas. After high school, Rod signed up to be in the army and joined the 511th Regiment Paratroopers.
He did a little flyweight boxing while overseas as well with an impressive 17-1 winning streak.
Fighting in the war is one of the things that truly drove him to write.
In 1946 he attended Antioch College in Ohio! Here is where he met his wife, Carolyn Kramer, and switched his studies from physical education to writing and literature. While in college, he wrote, directed, and acted in several productions for the campus radio station.
Shortly after graduating, Serling got a job in Cincinnati at WLW radio. While there, he started crafting his own stories for radio and TV programming and would send them in, receiving 40 rejection slips in the process. While at WLW, Serling was tasked with writing comedic scripts, but his real passion was drama.
His very first writing credit was for Stars Over Hollywood, a radio anthology series broadcast by CBS. The episode was called, “Grady Everett for the People,” and it aired September 13, 1950.
The origins of his most famous work, The Twilight Zone, began while he lived in Cincinnati in the early 1950s and manifested into a live anthology series called The Storm. The program aired on WKRC-TV and featured plotlines that would later become episodes of The Twilight Zone as well as other projects by Serling, like his 1957 teleplay, Requiem for a Heavyweight.
Serling won a special Peabody Award for television writing–the first award of its kind–for Requiem for a Heavyweight.
He found his first true success in 1955 when he wrote, “Patterns,” a teleplay about a man that went to work at a high-powered New York corporation. His ethics are put to the test as he finds out he is there to replace an older worker that the boss is trying to make miserable so he will be pushed out and retire. It premiered on Kraft Television Theater for NBC and was later adapted into a made-for-TV movie. From that moment on, Serling had less trouble selling his stories.
Serling quickly developed a reputation as “the angry young man” because he was always fighting sponsors and network executives about censors. He never won, but he always went down fighting and these fights were well documented.
Serling continued to write teleplays for Playhouse 90, a 1950s CBS drama series, but was met with constant censorship. For example, he wrote Noon on Doomsday and A Town Has Turned to Dust in response to the horrifying true-life lynching of Emmett Till. Both programs were heavily censored to the point that Serling himself said “by the time ‘A Town Has Turned to Dust’ went before the cameras, my script had turned to dust.”
Much of Serlings’ early work were teleplays written for live performances, meaning that they are lost to time. However, H Michael Sanders, professor and department chair of Media Communications and Technology at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash, has a collection of 50 scripts written by Serling for his show The Storm.
As television’s golden age came to a close, Serling turned his attention back to a script he had written for The Storm in the early 1950s. It was called The Time Element, and it focused on a man that traveled back in time in an attempt to warn people about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He reworked the script, christening it with a new title: The Twilight Zone– “The Time Element.” CBS shelved the project because executives were unsure about showing fantasy and science fiction programming. One year later, it was purchased for $10,000 by a producer named Bert Granet who worked for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. It aired as an episode of CBS’s Desilu Playhouse on November 24th, 1958. The audience reception was overwhelmingly positive. The network hadn’t received such feedback for any dramas produced that year, and CBS agreed to produce a pilot episode for The Twilight Zone.
How the Show started
When CBS asked Serling for another pilot episode of The Twilight Zone, he delivered a script that they considered to be too depressing. His second try, an episode titled, “Where is Everybody?” became the first official episode of the show.
In the late 1950s, networks like CBS tended to be more conservative and didn’t want to show programming that was too far into the science fiction genre. This first episode steered clear of any mention of aliens or talking dolls, but instead focused solely on the effects of extreme isolation.
The pilot episode of the show was directed by Robert Stevens, who had directed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Playhouse 90. Cinematographer Joseph La Shelle had also worked on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Along with these seasoned television professionals, producers also called on one of the most prominent composers of the time, Bernard Hermann, to write the theme. Hermann scored films like Citizen Kane and Vertigo.
With a budget of $75,000, the pilot episode was filmed over the course of 8 days on a Universal backlot (the same lot that would later see productions like Back to the Future and Gremlins. Although most CBS executives didn’t seem thrilled with the final product, CEO Willliam Paley loved it. However, there were a few changes that needed to be made. First, CBS commissioned UPA (United Productions of America) to create a new title card for the show. Second, they wanted to find a new narrator. The original pilot featured Cornelius Westbrook Van Voorhis, an actor who was known for the March of Time radio and news series. CBS considered other actors, even mentioning Orson Wells, but Rod Serling suggested that he do the narration himself. After a few voice tests, he proved to be the perfect person for the job.
The network signed a contract with Rod Serling’s production company with a deal that he would write 80% of the show’s first season, and The Twilight Zone was officially greenlit.
The episode premiered in October of 1959 to a positive critical reception. Critics loved the story, the acting, and the set design, and they adored Rod Serling himself as the narrator. However good the reviews were, the ratings were dangerously low, and the possibility of cancellation loomed. However, the fans of the show began sending letters to the network. The mailbag for The Twilight Zone and Rod Serling were filled with thousands of letters, proving that there was an audience out there for the series. The show’s sponsors decided to renew their deals, and CBS ordered more episodes after filming completed on the first season.
In January of 1960, the Screen Producers Guild declared The Twilight Zone to be the best-produced television film series of 1959. This led to even more awards, including a Hugo award and an Emmy.
The budget for The Twilight Zone was between $50,000 and $70,000 per episode. The money went to the incredible sets, not to mention that immense acting talent that appeared in the show.
Mildred Gusse and John Erman were the casting directors responsible for bringing in some of the best up and coming actors of the time. Names like Robert Redford, William Shatner, Julie Newmar, Carol Burnett, Cloris Leachman, and Mickey Rooney all appeared on the show.
Rod Serling wrote an impressive 92 of the 156 total episodes of The Twilight Zone! He created, hosted, and was the Executive Producer. He discovered that he was able to find ways around the censor by masking his commentary on current events and the human experience with supernatural elements. Themes he often explored were age vs. youth, sensitivity vs. insensitivity, individual morality vs. mob mentality, and destructive effects of prejudice.
In need of other writers for the show, Serling consulted notable writers like Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, and Ray Bradbury. Beaumont and Matheson became regular contributing writers, delivering classic episodes like Living Doll, and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Bradbury’s relationship with Serling soured after the prominent author’s teleplays were often rejected, presumably because they would be too expensive to produce. According to Stuart Stanyard in his book Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone, Bradbury accused Serling of plagiarism and cut ties with the show. He did however write one episode called, "I Sing the Body Electric.”
Charles Beaumont began using ghostwriters to help him with his workload of episodes, until he eventually discovered that he was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease. He was a mentor to George Clayton Johnson, who became the next prominent Twilight Zone writer. He would go on to write the first-aired episode of Star Trek and the original Ocean’s 11. His first original story for the show was an episode called “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” which is one of Robin’s favorite episodes!
The season 2 premiere began with a new title sequence, and Bernard Hermann’s music was nowhere to be found. In its place was a new theme that would become one of the most recognizable pieces of music in television history.
The new theme was actually two stock music cues written by composer Marius Constant. Music director Lud Gluskin arranged the pieces together to create the iconic theme.
At the time, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) had contracts with studios like CBS, forbidding them from owning stock music libraries. In order to get around the AFM rules, Gluskin traveled to Europe and paid composers there to write and record musical cues, sending the tapes back to the US. Marius Constant was reportedly paid a total of 700$ for his work, and CBS had all rights in perpetuity.
Constant didn’t even know that he had written the theme for the show until years later, and he didn’t receive any royalties. Once the new theme existed, every repeated broadcast of the first season episodes used the new theme, effectively erasing Bernard Hermann’s theme. But, Constant was never credited throughout the show’s original run. Because of this, Hermann got credited for writing the theme.
It wasn’t well-known that Constant wrote the music until almost exactly twenty years later, when Warner Brothers Records was preparing to release the soundtrack to Twilight Zone: The Movie. Constant finally got credit, but no money. CBS sued Constant in January of 1984 to establish their rights to the song. They reached a settlement that ensure that Constant would have future rights to his work as long as he relinquished any claim to past owed royalties.
Buck Houghton served as producer for the first three seasons of the show. He helped Serling select which episodes to produce for the series. He had several criteria that each episode had to fulfill, with the most important ones being that the characters in the story needed to be ordinary people. The conflict had to resonate with the fears of the audience, even if the characters were facing something completely fantastical.
Serling was the master storyteller, but Houghton knew what it took to get a story on the screen. He had various duties, like casting, securing filming locations, and buying scripts for episodes not written by Serling.
Cinematographer George T Clemens was part of the regular crew that contributed to the magic of the series. He shot more episodes of The Twilight Zone than any other cinematographer, and earned an Emmy for his work on the series.
Houghton, Serling, and Clemens created a list of directors from popular series of the time, like The Outer Limits, Green Acres, and Playhouse 90. The list included several names, like Mitchell Leisen, Douglas Heyes, and future Goonies director, Richard Donner.
After the first three seasons, The Twilight Zone was starting to reach pop culture status. However, the series had no sponsors lined up for the fourth season, and CBS did not include the show in its upcoming Fall lineup. With the show effectively canceled, Houghton and Serling both accepted jobs elsewhere. But, CBS decided to bring the show back midseason, and the fourth season of The Twilight Zone had to carry on without most of the team that made the first three seasons so successful.
For its fourth season, the show dropped the The from its title. Fewer episodes were ordered, and these episodes were lengthened to an hour. These changes proved to be a mistake, as the series worked best with its half-hour pacing. Serling still wrote episodes from a distance, as he was teaching in Ohio at the time.
Two producers oversaw the fourth season. One of them was Herbert Hirschman, who designed and directed the new opening sequence. He included various props and had them seemingly float on the screen. This opening is possibly the most famous and of all the openings created for the show.
Twilight Zone was renewed for a fifth and final season. The show returned to its original half-hour format, but Serling admitted to feeling burnt out by the amount of writing required for the series. The final episode of this original show aired June 19, 1964.
Famous/ Favorite Episodes
So many episodes are thought provoking and wonderful. We will only get to talk about a select handful out of the series, but know that there are many more that may have influenced writers and tv/movie makers alike.
Time Enough at Last (Season 1, Episode 8)
After a nuclear war a booklover finally gets all the time in the world to read. Or does he?
This episode is mentioned in an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Burgess Meredith starred in the episode. He was a renowned actor known for playing “The Penguin” in the 1960s Batman series, as well as Mickey in the Rocky franchise.
This episode was directed by John Brahm and written by Rod Serling and Lynn Venable.
Nightmare As A Child (Season 1, Episode 29)
School teacher Helen Foley meets a strange little girl in her apartment building. This child soon brings back unwanted memories of when Helen was a child, and she witnessed the murder of her own mother. This episode is about repressed trauma and disassociation. It was written by Rod Serling and directed by Alvin Ganzer.
The After Hours (Season 1, Episode 34)
When Marsha goes into a department store to buy a thimble she finds out who she really is.
Come off it Marsha! You know what you are, Marsha!
Sadly just a week before this episode aired TV Guide ruined the twist by publishing a still of Anne Francis with her mannequin double with the caption “Miss Francis plays a Mannequin who comes to life in CBS’ Twilight Zone.”
Even DJ McHale took inspiration from this episode.
There have since been several other mannequin episodes of shows.
The Howling Man (Season 2, Episode 5)
A man speaking shelter from a storm, stumbles upon a hermitage of brothers who claim to have captured the devil and have him locked up.
Eye of the Beholder (Season 2, Episode 6)
A young woman is awaiting the results of her surgery to see if the last attempt has succeeded in making her ‘normal’. She awaits these results in bandages that cover her entire head until near the end of the episode.
This is one of the highest rated and most famous episodes of the show.
Nick of Time (Season 2, Episode 7)
A couple (man and a woman) get stuck in small town Ridgeview, Ohio when a small Mystic Seer box preys upon their superstitions. The box seemingly predicts the future and the man, Don Carter (played by William Shatner), becomes obsessed with the box.
Notable quote from the episode: “It doesn't matter whether it can foretell the future. What matters is whether you believe more in luck and in fortune than you do in yourself. You can decide your own life. You have a mind, a wonderful mind. Don't destroy it trying to justify that cheap penny fortune machine to yourself. We can have a wonderful life together... if we make it wonderful ourselves. I don't want to know what's going to happen. I want us to make it happen together.”
The Silence (Season 2, Episode 225)
A man who talks too much for the likes of one of his club members, takes a bet for $500,000 to remain silent for a whole year. He takes the wager only on the word of the man who bet him. He locks himself in a glass case in the basement of the club. But does the man that made the wager even have the money to pay him?
The Shelter (Season 3, Episode 3)
A friendly neighborhood birthday party turns sour when an announcement is heard on the radio that there is an impending possible nuclear attack coming due to unidentified aircraft flying above. They all turn on the one man who is ready with a bomb shelter because everyone else is unprepared for such an occurrence.
“I kept telling you, Jerry. You get ready, build a shelter, forget the card parties and the barbeques for maybe a few hours a week. Forget them and make the admission to yourself that the worst was possible. But you didn’t want to listen, Jerry, none of you wanted to listen. To build a shelter was to admit the kind of age we lived in and none of you had the guts to face that so now you gotta face something far worse Jerry.”
Mob mentality and nationality/the other
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (Season 1 Episode 22)
When all electrical items suddenly are not working on Maple Street the citizens decide that there must be an alien among them that is creating such a disturbance. Their paranoia turns them all against each other.
Five Characters in Search of an Exit (Season 3, Episode 14)
A ballet dancer, a major, a clown, a tramp and a bagpipe player find themselves at the bottom of a cylindrical enclosure with no way out. The major can’t stand being trapped and continues to look for a way out while the rest try to convince him it’s no use.
To Serve Man (Season 3, Episode 24)
Aliens from a far distant planet come to Earth to share their prosperity and knowledge. However no one is quite convinced they don’t have ulterior motives.
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Season 5, episode 3)
A man that has recently been released from a facility for a nervous breakdown is convinced there is a monster outside the plane.
This episode was shot in an empty water tank and the plane was about 30 feet off the ground.
William Shatner makes another appearance!
He and Edd Byrnes ended up playing a prank on Director Richard Donner by having a fake fight on one of the wings and throwing a dummy that was the size of Shatner down to the ground!
Living Doll (Season 5, Episode 6)
A stepfather is frustrated when his new wife and step-daughter bring home a doll from the store. The Talky Tina doll continues to upset him as it begins to tell him things when only he is in the room, like “I don’t think I like you.” and, “I’m beginning to hate you.”
We discussed this episode in our June Foray case!
You Drive (Season 5, Episode 15)
After Oliver Pope is involved in a hit and run, his car will not let him forget what happened.
Stephen King was a fan of the show and this episode very well may have been the inspiration for his novel Christine.
The Masks (Season 5, Episode 25)
During Mardi Gras a dying man requests that his loved ones wear masks until midnight to gain his inheritance after his death.
Lasting Impact
When we say that The Twilight Zone is one of the most influential TV dramas of all time, we really mean it. It became a cultural phenomenon, introducing audiences all over the country to the science fiction genre. It carried on the tradition of anthology storytelling, and inspired generations of storytellers.
Shows like Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Black Mirror were also inspired by the show.
Countless TV shows and films have referenced the show, with Futurama even having its own version called, “The Scary Door.”
Since the show ended in the mid-1960s, there have been several reboots.
In 1983, nearly twenty years after the original show ended, Twilight Zone: The Movie hit theaters. It featured four segments, directed by John Landis, Joe Dante, George Miller, and Steven Spielberg. Each story was a remake of an original episode, except for the one directed by John Landis. The film was narrated by Burgess Meredith, a famed TV actor that appeared in the original show.
After the 1980s film, the series was rebooted from 1985 to 1989. Like the original, this version attracted a lot of top writing and directing talent from the era. Wes Craven and George RR Martin were among the contributors to the show.
There were two more reboots, one in 2002 that lasted one season, and the most recent one in 2019. The 2019 reboot was two seasons long and narrated by director/comedian Jordan Peele. Peele also co-created the remake with Simon Kinberg and Marco Ramirez.
The last interview Rod Serling ever did was for reporter Linda Brevelle who asked him what he wanted people to say about him in 100 years. He said “I don’t care that they’re not able to quote any single line that I’ve written. But just that they can say, ‘O, he was a writer.’ That’s sufficiently an honored position for me.”
The Twilight Zone is a show that has such staying power, it’s hard to believe it was created 65 years ago. In the great tradition of horror and science fiction, it found a way to express the anxieties of the people watching, all while inspiring generations of creatives to continue its mission.
Although the series may appear dated in some ways, with its black and white imagery and 1960s clothing, it’s largely timeless. Instead of special effects, the show often relied on its writing to pull the audience in. Sure, there are creatures of outer space and robots, but the fear lies in the mind of the viewer, and the show just knew how to draw it out.
So if you’re ever looking to get lost in a good story, or to be reminded of the terrors that live within, we suggest you take your next vacation in The Twilight Zone.
Sources:
Dimensions Behind The Twilight Zone by Stewart T. Stanyard
Rod Serling: His Life, Work, And Imagination by Nicholas Parisi
The Twilight Zone FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Fifth Dimension and Beyond by Dave Thompson
Rod Serling Submitted for Your Approval
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1603000389/BIC?u=cmlweb&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=683d137a
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/history/2014/05/27/rod-serling-twilight-zone-wkrc-tv/9624063/