The Twilight Zone

"Eye of the Beholder"

"The Obsolete Man"

"The Masks"

Those teeth, tho.

I envy people who watched it when it was first broadcast.

Talky TIna.

A younger and even sexier Serling...

The After Hours

The Trade Ins. Joseph Schildkraut is outstanding.

I forget the name, but the one where Gladys Cooper receives those frightening phone calls. She is absolutely stunning.

Willoughby

To Serve Man

Agnes Moorhead with the tiny astronauts. There was no dialogue at all. I was six years old when I watched it, and had nightmares afterward.

[quote]I envy people who watched it when it was first broadcast.

I was only a kid...but I remember being scared out of my wits over the intro:

Nothing in the dark, with a young Robert Redford!

The After Hours was always so haunting to me. Tales From the Darkside did a similar episode called Miss May Dusa implying that the mannequin was Medusa who was turned into a mannequin by looking at her own reflection in the mirror. It was pretty cool and one of that show's more interesting episodes. A real downer, too, if I recall correctly.

The Twilight Zone is one of those shows that's aged so well. You could probably take most of those scripts and shot them word for word in this day and age and they'd still work. Simply brilliant storytelling.

I'm also a big fan of Twilight Zone: The Movie. I remember seeing that as a kid and it became one of my all-time favorite movies.

Ring a Ding Girl

Rod Serling was an interesting guy. He is best known for THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but also wrote screenplays like REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. He was a SIX pack a day smoker and usually had a lit cigarette in his hand onscreen. During WWII he served in the Pacific; one day he and a friend were posing for a photo on the deck and at that exact moment an Air Force plane flew over and dropped a load of extra ammunition squarely onto his friend, who was so flattened he couldn't even be seen under the box. Experiences like this, dictated by fate, where things can change in a splt second, heavily influenced his thinking and writing. He was also obsessed with nuclear war and the possibility of humanity's annihilation.

I grew up watching THE TWILIGHT ZONE; it was on Friday evenings and was the highlight of my week. I was also reading Ray Bradbury stories at the time, like THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, and stories with a "twist" really appealed to me and my friends. But I LOVED TZ; Serling had a real knack for touching on man's humanity (or at times inhumanity) to his fellow man.

My favorite episodes are too many to list, but the top ones include:

--the one where nuclear war is coming, and this wealthy guy has built a bomb shelter miles below the earth; he brings three people from his past down to it (on an elevator!): his former grammar school teacher, boy scout leader, and Army sergeant. He reminds each one of how they have wronged him in the past, and then tells them that he will save their lives if they will only apologize to him. All three refuse and get back on the elevator to go back up and face the bomb rather than apologize to (this very Trump like!) guy.

--the one that takes place in a posh gentleman's club, where an old guy is bothered by the constant talking of a younger guy. He makes a bet for like $10K that the guy can't keep totally silent for a year. They build a special glass enclosed room inside the club (with no toilet!) to monitor the guy. The months start to go by and the guy is keeping silent; the old guy tries to tempt him, telling his wife is cheating on him, etc etc, to no avail. Finally the year is up and the guy is let out of the room to collect his money. The old guy humbly confesses that he doesn't have the money and can't pay, at which point the younger guy rips off his ascot to reveal that he has cut his vocal cords so he couldn't talk!!

--and the great one hour episode with James Whitmore, who is the leader of a colony of people from Earth who have settled on a dusty barren planet. He is the leader of the society, tells everybody what to do, and often reminisces to the group about Earth and how beautiful it was. One day a rescue ship lands from Earth to take everybody back. The colonist all flock to the commander of this ship, asking questions about Earth, and Whitmore becomes jealous of his leadership over his people. They only have a small window of time to take off, and the entire population boards the ship except Whitmore - despite the commander's pleas to get onboard, he goes and hides in a cave and sulks. The ship takes off without him, and as it ascends into the sky, Whitmore suddenly realizes what a mistake he's made, and starts yelling, "Wait! Come back!"

--and of course, the all time classic, EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. We used to watch TZ on a screened sunporch at my parents' house. I had friends over that Friday evening, and the windows were open. Neighbors could hear us SCREAMING three houses down when those pig faces were revealed!!

Serling died an only 50; I think he had a lot more in him and might have become a greater writer. But those cigs were his personal nuclear bomb.

The top ten -

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Also The After Hours, Talky Tina, the one where the little girl goes into the 4th dimension, and the Gladys Cooper one mentioned above and the one where the little boy talks to his dead grandmother on a toy phone. Rod Sterling must have had a thing about talking to dead people on the phone.

The one with the bus passengers stranded in a diner during a snow storm.

The evil kid who banishes people to the cornfield.

The couple who become obsessed with a slot machine that predicts the future

On the film...I can only remember the three people killed and the director who got away with it.

It's unfortunate that the tragedy in the Landis segment casts a large shadow over the movie, because I always thought it was rather good (although, unsurprisingly, the Landis segment is the least gripping - perhaps due to being incomplete?). I think even the cutesy pie Spielberg segment is sweet and charming (it even makes me well up a bit when I watch it), but it's a big tonal shift compared the fairly dark final two segments (which are both excellent and imaginative).

Agree it's the best show ever made. The early seasons of Black Mirror were great successors but they went off the rails

There would be no Twilight Zone without me, of course!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Except for a couple of examples, the one hour episodes were crap.

[quote]There would be no Twilight Zone without me, of course!

What the hell did Lucy have to do with "The Twilight Zone?"

I bet no one can guess Rod Serling's last onscreen appearance - well, it was really a voice over.

Hint: "Swan. He has no other name...."

The Hitch-Hiker scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. I was home from school for some reason and one of the stations showed The Twilight Zone in the afternoon. I caught that episode and was scared to death that night. Luckily I shared a room with my older brother. I don't know that I'd have gotten to sleep that night if he wasn't there. For days, I kept waiting for the hitchhiker to appear in the car's rearview mirror.

A World of His Own with Keenan Wynn and the Divine Phyllis Kirk, who out Morticias Morticia. Keenan Wynn plays a writer whose character descriptions are so vivid, his characters come to life. When he burns the tape that he has used to record their descriptions, they disapperar. In this sequence, he makes Rod Serling disappear. Cute and funny.

And for the fun of it, here is a little Phyllis Kirk.

Interesting article about Owl Creek Bridge. Not the usual TZ episode.

It's unforgettable once you've seen it.

That was an Ambrose Bierce story, though.^^

As is clearly explained IN THE ARTICLE.

My favorite is still the very first episode I ever watched: Eye of the Beholder

"Eye of the Beholder" and "The Invaders" are classics of television, not just of the Twilight Zone.

My favorite was Stopover In A Quiet Town. Very creepy story of a couple who wake up in a deserted town after getting into a car crash.

True Detective number 2?

OP no

Talky Tina with the very hunky Telly Savalas. One of my first crushes when I was very young.

Anne Serling wrote a nice book about her father. I believe it's called "As I knew him".

The Hitchiker with the GREAT Inger Stevens, The Midnight Sun with Lois Nettleton was awesome as well, but actually so many classic episodes............

I love the one on video where the daughter (was it Inger Stevens?) realizes she is not a human girl - her father builds computerized people - wow it's late -- I can't think of the word - anyway - at the end the daughter has been deprogrammed and is wearing the maid's uniform .... Oh - and it is repulsive - the old mother groans with pleasure from her neck massage - ick!!

Is Earl Holliman gay? He was the star of the very first episode and I was sure he was openly gay but I can't find anything online to confirm. I know he played Lee Van Cleef's lover in THE BIG COMBO. Any other gay actors on the show?

r26 She and Desi produced Serling's proto-Twilight Zone episode "The Time Element" for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. It was basically the pilot which got CBS interested in greenlighting the whole series.

Me too, r12. The floating eyeball scared the crap out of me.

I'm not a big Rod Serling fan but I like seeing the old MGM lot in some of the episodes.

Earl Holliman did a GREAT job in the episode WHERE IS EVERYBODY? And speaking of gay actors, Roddy McDowall did a nice job as an astronaut who lands on an alien planet and is given very comfortable and familiar accommodations, only to find that he has been placed on exhibit like a zoo animal and cannot escape.

Not sure if Sebastian Cabot was gay or not, but I liked him in the episode with Larry Blyden as a small time thief who is shot by cops and then finds himself in an afterlife where he gets everything he wants: girls, drinks, always wins at gambling, etc. He thinks Sebastian, decked out in a white suit, is his guardian angel, and that he is in heaven, but soon tires of getting everything he wants and always winning. Finally, in frustration he tells Sebastian that "if this is heaven, I'd rather go to the other place" - only to have Sebastian start laughing maniacally and telling him, "This IS the other place!"

A lot has been written about THE TWILIGHT ZONE's distinctive "look" - for a black and white series, it made great use of camera angles, cuts, shadows, and closeups. THE AFTER HOURS is a great example of this, with those jump cuts of all those mannequin faces whispering to Anne Francis.

Many truly amazing storylines, but ugh the dialogue — speechy and didactic. Typical 50s-60s “message” programming, beating you over the head with the moral of the story.

Also Serling was a snob — either patronizing or sneering at working class people. His most common description of an urban criminal was a sneering “little man.”

r41, Earl Holliman is nothing now because he's deceased, but in life he was indeed of the homosexual variety.

I was going to nominate The Architects of Fear with Robert Culp but when I looked it up I discovered that it was an episode of The Outer Limits.

My favorite episode is "The Invaders" starring Agnes Moorehead. A single woman living in a crude farmhouse is terrorized by little aliens.

She does the entire episode without uttering a single word, conveying everything through her body language and facial expressions. It's a very physical performance.

If you want to know what a genius performer she was, compare this performance to when she did "Sorry, Wrong Number" on the radio show Suspense. Nothing visual about it, she does the entire thing with her voice. She was a true talent who did way more than just Endora on Bewitched.

[quote]Earl Holliman is nothing now because he's deceased...

No, he's still with us. 90 years old.

"Little Girl Lost" That episode terrified me as a child. “The Bewitchin’ Pool” 'Time Enough at Last" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"

And Angie Dickinson is still alive too. They should do a Police Woman reboot and chase the bad guys in their wheelchairs.

I'm looking forward to Jordan Peele's reboot of the series.

[quote] The Twilight Zone is one of those shows that's aged so well.

I have to disagree. I watched the show when it first aired, have watched a few marathons and am watching it every night now on a NJ TV station, where it’s followed by Alfred Hitchcock.

A lot of the stories are so full of padding that you can barely sit through them. The acting is over the top in many episodes. And it’s way too preachy, hitting you over the head with it’s message. Everyone who knows Rod Serling knows that he was in the military in WWII and that he became a pacifist and was very much against bigotry and fascism. Those are admirable qualities, but he really turned them into a bludgeon in a lot of his shows. For every The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street there are a dozen poorly crafted episodes slamming the audience with A Message. Everyday people deliver ridiculously lengthy, erudite soliloquies on the essence of humanity. Seeing people who later becam celebrities is fun, but did we really need to sit through that whole episode with Dennis Hopper as a neo nazi being tutored by a man in the shadow who was obviously Hitler? How ‘bout that plastic dinosaur in The Odyssey of Fliggt 33?

When I watched the show as a kid, the one that scared me the most It’s a Good Life, where a spoiled boy who is a walking id has been given the power to rule the world around him. There was a boy on my block who was a few years older than I was who was a creepy bully I tried to stay away from (he wound up in a mental institution for the rest of his life after he attacked his mother, kicking her head in and leaving her permanently brain damaged). I was terrified there were real Anthony Fremonts and that my neighborhood bully had the power to point his finger at me and envelope me in flames.

I wonder what adults thought of the show, who watched when it first aired? Did they think of it as a chikdren’s show?

I apologize for my typos, I haven’t finished my morning coffee

He was an anti-gay bigot who refereed to a couple of actors on set as "fags".

A lot of those sci-fi guys from that time period were raging homophobes.

A lot of everyone from that time period were homophobes because that’s what society taught and why law enforcement trapped & arrested people.

How could you bitches for get me?

TZ ran from 1959 to 1964, a totally different era in American life and television. Yes, there were some preachy and treacly clunkers: I don't like the "Willoughby" episodes at all, or most of the ones with children (including the Billy Mumy one), or THE MONSTERS ARE DUE ON MAPLE STREET, and worst of all, that Santa Claus one with Art Carney - BLECHHH! But IMO the classics far outweigh the failures - remember the Pirandello like "six characters" one, with the ballerina, the solder, and that CREEPY clown all trapped in that smooth white prison? TZ was pretty prescient on a lot of issues: the impact of technology, robotics, prejudice, the threat of nuclear war, and most of all, man's humanity (or lack thereof) to his fellow man. Not too bad for the post WWII/Kennedy/Cold War era.

Of course there were some clunkers...it was a weekly show and it was aiming high.

R59 "And the meek shall inherit the earth" with Art Carney is one of my fave episodes. The remake with Richard Mulligan was great too.

Remember the post-apocalyptic one with the cave computer? It made no sense.

Is that the one that had a pair of horses towing a car? truck? because there was no more gasoline?

They also mixed eras in Twilight Zone & Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Someone will be wearing clothes from 1910 while the person next to them is wearing clothes from 1890. They both get into a 1926 Model T.

I never realized that Hitchcock’s daughter is in at least 1/3 of his show’s episodes. And I’m amazed that I immediately remember the names of character actors who pop up on these two shows.

That’s Nehemiah Persoff, isn’t it? Oh, and there’s Joseph Opatoshu. There’s Henry Jones again, that’s the third show I saw him in this week on the oldies network. ...there’s Robert Emhardt...and Hugh Marlowe..

I can’t remember what day if the week it is half the time, but automatically think, “that’s John Anderson’s voice”

Sometimes I can’t remember the name of the actor, but remember other roles “Oh, that’s Eula May, She’s the one that done want that boy to bust up that chifforobe!”

Twilight Zone managed to hold up because the old, black and white show has an inherent creepiness, the same way low-budget horror movies have.

"when I looked it up I discovered that it was an episode of The Outer Limits."

Twilight Zone inspired quite a few knock-offs. My brother and I looked forward to the debuts of all of them, but none of them were as great as the original.

Don't forget Bernard Herrmann's music, especially in The Lonely.

I was wondering why people were talking about the Hitchhiker, the creepy 80s anthology on HBO. Now, I realize there was a TZ episode entitled that. Yep, it was chilling and hard to shake off.

It’s a COOKBOOK!!!

I think for a show to have such a short run and be pretty universally well known half a century later is pretty iconic.

I actually personally liked "The Time Element," the unofficial "pilot" of TTZ. It explored some interesting themes about going back in time and trying to change the future, plus had the first Serling "twist" at the end, whereby you don't know what was real and for who.

I also enjoyed "One for the Angels." Ed Wynn is one of those actors you just like and he gives a marvelous performance distracting death from taking the little girl.

The second rebooted version on UPN with Forest Whitaker was never as good, but it did have some good episodes.

To Serve Man - "IT'S A COOKBOOK!"

[quote]I also enjoyed "One for the Angels." Ed Wynn is one of those actors you just like and he gives a marvelous performance distracting death from taking the little girl.

Agreed R70. The way he nonchalantly sets up his case and then gets Death enthralled with all the stuff he's selling.

Mirror Image, with Vera Miles and Martin Milner, is creepily effective

Btw, someone upthread claimed Earl Holliman was dead which is NOT true. He turned 90 this year and is still with us.

Exactly

I remember one where a guy stole a pocket watch and discovered it stopped time. He was having a blast till he dropped it and realized he was alone in the world.

The one where the guy buys a paper and the coin lands a certain way. After that he can read people's minds.

The guy who loved to read. Something happened and he had all the time in the world and no one to bother him. He walks out of the library and sits down to read only to drop and break his glasses.

Walking Distance

Eye of the Beholder

The Hitchhiker

Five Characters in Search of An Exit

A Penny for Your Thoughts

A Stop at Willoughby

Nick of Time

Number 12 Looks Just Like You

The Midnight Sun

Third From the Sun

The Masks

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street

Person or Persons Unknown

On Thursday We Leave for Home

It's a Good Life

Jesse-Bell

I remember the One Step Beyond episode about the murdered clown who kept showing up behind the guy who killed him. But I missed 5he first part of the episode and thought 5he clown was evil. I didn’t realize he was the victim getting revenge

The episode where a guy runs someone over killing him and his car starts harassing him until he gets inside and the car drives him to the police station. Freaked me out as a kid.

r64 Yes! The chiffarobe and Henry Jones, all those things you said!

Those [italic]relatives[/italic] of his!

^ An evening with the Trump family!

I remember that one R81 and the evil chubby son would go on to costar in several low budget horror/sci-fi movies.

Thanks r50, oops, my mistake, killing off poor Earl Holliman before his time. Sorry Earl!

But he is gay, to the one who asked.

You better be right this time!

r83, Alan Sues, he was a regular on "Laugh In" only a few years later.

Alan Sues was family

One of my favorite episodes was called Spur of the moment. A young woman on horseback is terrorized by witch like woman chasing her. Turns out the woman chasing her is her future self trying to warn her. Of course she never catches her but doesn't stop trying.

^ The lead actress in Spur of the Moment was Diana Hyland, John Travolta's dead "girlfriend"

[quote]The one where the guy buys a paper and the coin lands a certain way. After that he can read people's minds.

They made a gay porn out of that story.

“I’m talking Tina, and I’m going to kill you.”

Both the episodes with Jack Klugman, although I like the trumpet episode the best.

Here's the other one.

Jack Klugman was actually on 4 original Twilight Zones.

So was Burgess Meredith, remember him?

I liked the Talky Tina episode but why does she threaten the mom at the end?

She's telling the mom who's in charge.

It's a terrifying ending.

Jesus fucking Christ, some of you are insufferable and miserable. Breaking down twilight zone like you're writing your fucking thesis for your doctorate. It was a pretty decent t.v. Show for the times. Most of them were pretty good, some very memorable/iconic. Move along.

Were just giving our opinions, R97, just like you are.

Move along

R3, don't envy us. We're old. You're young, presumably.

Among my favorites--Ida Lupino as the wacko faded movie star.

Gig Young as the harried exec. who goes back in time to his childhood. ("Walking Distance")?

Lois Nettleton and the end of the world

Rod was hot--all 5'4" of him.

R15, I find that one especially poignant in retrospect, since poor Maggie McNamara was in that.

R the three guys developed a time machine to take them into the future. They stole some bricks of gold then travelled ahead in time. They ended up dying of thirst and it turned out gold was no longer considered of value.

Weren't there several episodes with that kind of O'Henry twist?

r97, holy shit, you need to lighten up. No one is writing a thesis, this is a thread on a message board.

There is a really disturbing one called DEATH'S HEAD REVISITED, in which an arrogant and unrepentant Nazi returns to visit a deserted concentration camp. There he is confronted by the ghosts of the Jews he tortured and killed, and placed on trial for his crimes. It's pretty graphic, and Serling gives a big long speech at the end. It's uncomfortable to watch, but that's the point.

[quote]Among my favorites--Ida Lupino as the wacko faded movie star.

Directed by the great and underrated (and gay) Mitchell Leisen.

As mentioned above, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was a special case. It had been an indie French film and won several awards. Sterling saw it and thought it was great and convinced his producers and CBS to license it as a TZ episode. But they didn't buy the rights outright; they licensed it for two network broadcasts, the original showing and one rerun. Thus for years it was never included in the syndication packages or home video releases. I don't know its current status but it does show up frequently on youtube.

Also, several minutes had to be cut from the TZ showings to make room for commercials and Sterling's opening and closing monologues.

BTW, didn't Billy Mumy appear in 3 or 4 TZ episodes?

^ BTW, I meant to add to add that CBS didn't mind licensing Owl Creek Bridge because TZ frequently went over budget and the licensing fees were cheaper than producing a new episode.

My sister and I laughed hysterically at Owl Creek Bridge. We were really little kids and had never heard Louis Armstrong’s voice before and the non-linear story line didn’t make sense to us. Occasionally one of us would say, “Remember that TZ episode with the swimming guy and that song that was like, ‘I see the flowers, I see the trees’ or something like that? How come they never showed it again?”

Then, in my 11th grade theology class, the teacher showed us a film and...it was Owl Creek Bridge. Everyone in the room, upon hearing Louis Armstrong’s voice said, “It’s that weird Twilight Zone!” We were probably 5 or 6 years old when we’d seen it, but we remembered it. Obviously, we didn’t get it the first time around.

R106 I LOVE Leisen. Midnight, Kitty, To Each His Own (Livvy's first Oscar) No wonder I liked that TZ episode.

I could be mistaken, but I seem to recall something: Didn't Ida Lupino actually direct the 5th season episode "The Masks"?

I believe she did. And she did a damn good job of it too.

Mr. G. says yes. Ida was amazing.

I saw OWL CREEK BRIDGE in high school as well, R109, and I had a very different reaction. I wasn't familiar with the story, and I found it mesmerizing, especially the "Livin' Man" song (I'm not sure that was Louis Armstrong, though). And I found the wife coming toward him a little spooky. Very well shot.

Ida Lupino also starred in one of the better episodes: "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine". about an aging actress who can't let go of the past. She was both the only person to have acted in one episode and directed another, and the only woman to direct a Twilight Zone episode.

r107 His name is SERLING, not Sterling.

Some of my favorites have already been mentioned- Jess-Belle, The Wishin’ Pool, the Burgess Meredith episodes

Anybody remember the episode where the yokels (including Jane Dawell) stare at a jar with a bunch of string floating in it?

Hot little daddy otter.

Excellent list, R77. I watched it as a child when it was first broadcast. Many of the episodes revolved around the Cold War and nuclear holocaust. But Billy Mumy was so cute so that’s my favorite episode.

Then The Outer Limits came on and that was even scarier, since it was alien stuff.

The mouth reminds me Prez 45.

That wasn't a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, R116 - that was an "Alfred Hitchcock Hour" episode called THE JAR, based on a Ray Bradbury story. It starred Pat Buttram (Mr Haney) as the cuckolded husband, and DLfav Collin Wilcox Paxton (Mayella Ewell) as Thedy Sue Hill.

The ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR had some pretty good episodes, including AN UNLOCKED WINDOW, with the truly frightening male nurse in drag. But the half hour ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS were generally not that great, imo. And the early shows from the late 50s are all so British.

One of the most amazing things about To Serve Man was it showcased a female as an independent, intelligent scientist. That was pretty rare to see. The movie, Thing from Another World, made 11 years prior, also showcased a smart independent woman. It wasn’t common to see women in these roles.

A pity (for me) that MeTV shows TZ but at a late hour. Wish it was shown during prime-time hours. I'm surprised it isn't, I would think it's a popular show for MeTV audience.

I liked “Two” starring Elizabeth Montgomery (who had no dialogue) and Charles Bronson.

“The Masks” was my favorite. I would love to turn all the Trumps’ faces into those masks. It would be fitting.

Oh, I know many things....I'm Maya.

I wasn't a fan of most of the Western-themed episodes of TZ, but one I really like is "The Grave." Good old-fashioned ghost story with atmosphere to burn; Lee Marvin's character trying desperately to keep up the Strong, Silent Type facade in the face of supernatural circumstances; and my favorite character, Ione, sister of the outlaw Pinto, who carries the torch for him, and therefore has all the episode's best lines.

[italic]You been chasing him for so long, Conny, you ought to feel lucky tonight. You know right where he is. All you got to do is just walk out there. Isn't that nice?[/italic]

I hope the SyFy channel has the New Years marathon all ready to go.

Twilight Zone is on Netflix

I like The Bewitchin Pool. Remember how weird the little girl's voice was when she was on the "real" side of the pool? I noticed it as a kid, and recognized the voice from other animated shows, like Riki Tiki Tavi and Rocky and Bulwinkle. I HATED that lady's voice. It still grates on me. The lady's name was June Foray and she seemed to be the go-to voice back then.

Serling also wrote the screenplay for the original PLANET OF THE APES, which alone makes him a God.

I loved June Foray. She recently croaked (pun intended) at a venerable age. Parrots DO live a long time.

Any homo rumors for the short cutie?

The one where Ernest Borgnine and a crew of astronauts believe they're stranded on an unknown planet, hungry and dying of thirst, and then, at the end, the camera pulls away and short distance away are telephone poles and a car driving along a road...

the one with "Franklin" the living slot machine.

In "The Bewitchin' Pool" Mary Badham's voice had to be dubbed because her Southern accent was so thick you could hardly understand her. June Foray provided the voice, which was unfortunate, because the voice she gave her sounded more like that of a cartoon character than a human being. But then that's understandable; Foray was a voice actor who did the voices for animated characters, not real ones.

R125's post makes me want to post some memorable lines from TTZ:

"And the best thing is, there's time now... all the time I need."

"My flesh and blood... my soul... my brain... my dreams... my hands."

"I just wanted... I just wanted people not to scream when they looked at me."

"It's as if every superstitious feeling you ever had is wrapped up in that one machine."

"Gresham and I...we're finished! Finished! Stay away. Stay away..."

"Nothing's impossible. Some things are less likely than others, that's all."

"The rest of the book, To Serve Man, it's... it's a cookbook!"

"And tomorrow - tomorrow's going to be a real good day!"

"I only wanted to tell you that this is a wonderful time for you. Now. Here. That's all, Martin. That's all I wanted to tell you. God help me. That's all I wanted to tell you."

"My Name is Talky Tina, and you'd better be nice to me."

"I believe you're going... my way?"

There was also a show called Night Gallery, involving Rod Serling.

Re The Night Gallery - the episode 'The Sin Eater' was one of the scariest things I have ever seen.

To serve man

Fun fact - Keith Richards said that he composed the intro to Gimme Shelter after hearing the intro to The Twilight Zone.

Many upthread have mentioned the Billy Mumy episode. It was called "It's a Good Life". What a lot of you don't know is they made a sequel to the episode when the CW revived The Twilight Zone in 2003. It was called It's Still a Good Life". It brought back Bill Mumy as the adult version, Cloris Leachman as his mom, and cast Bill's daughter to play his character's daughter - who discovers she has the same power as her dad. It wasn't great, but it was decent enough.

Hope you all enjoy it....

This companion has some good stuff in it.

No one has mentioned my favorite yet, The Lonely. I believe it was the forerunner to Westworld.

Here's a memorable clip.

The Suzy Parker one.

How could anyone smoke 6 packs of cigarettes a day? You wouldn't have time for anything else.

Tobacco addicts are notorious multi-taskers.

I have read online once that Rod Serling was bisexual? Is that true? He was very good looking and manly.

R141: "The Lonely" is a BEAUTIFUL episode, kinda breaks my heart. That moment when Alicia (a very young Jean Marsh) turns to Corey with tears in her eyes and says, "I can feel loneliness too..."

R134: I would add to the list:

"And the best part of all, Val... I look [italic]just like you!"[/italic]

June Foray is also the voice of Talking Tina in Living Doll.

Didn't she also do the voice over for the little girl who falls into another dimension in "Little Girl Lost"? They had to over dub her as well.

And here's a weird coincidence, the little girl in the "Little Girl Lost" is the same actress as the daughter in "Living Doll."

Another vote for the Willoughby episode.

Robert Redford got his start in the TZ episode Nothing in the Dark (1962).

I preferred Serling's Night Gallery to TZ. Far better written, more macabre and scarier.

R139 thank you for that, I had no idea! What a mindfuck.

r139 UPN, not CW.

[quote]Re The Night Gallery - the episode 'The Sin Eater' was one of the scariest things I have ever seen.

Apparently you missed the Joan Crawford episode.

The Laurence Harvey episode is great, too.

Spielberg directed that Night Gallery episode with Crawford. It was his very first professional directing job.

Didn't Spielberg basically sneak into the studio and blag his way to a directing job?

That's overstating it a bit, 156. He did get a low level job at Universal just to get his foot in the door. But he was very open about his desire to direct and everyone he met was so impressed with him that he eventually was given a chance with some tv projects, the first of which was the Night Gallery episode.

I hated the sequel to It's A Good Life, the whole time they set it up like his daughter was going to fight him to protect her grandmother only for the daughter to be the one to kill her and seemingly not even care afterward...and Billy Mummy's daughter is/was a Terrible child actress.

Yeah, the "sequel" to "It's A Good Life" really was shit. But then sequels and reboots usually are. "The Twilight Zone" movie was a terrible idea, too. Oh, a few things about it were good (the opening sequence, John Lithgow's performance and the terrifying little demon/gremlin in the "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" segment) but mostly it sucked. And three people in the movie died, Vic Morrow and two Asian children who were working on the film illegally. They died due to the ego of John Landis, who wanted his segment to be filled with action and fire and explosions. One of the explosions took part of the wing off a helicopter that was dangerously close to the Morrow and the children; it came right down on them, crushing and decapitating Morrow. Landis should have gone to jail for manslaughter but a star struck jury acquitted. That movie never should have been made. It had bad karma all the way around. You don't mess with The Twilight Zone.

Apparently, John Landis and his son are Huge assholes who end up being loathed by most of the people they work with.

Spielberg has been telling that bullshit story for years. He had relatives in the film business and they got him his start.

I hate to be pedantic r159 since you are 99% percent correct, but the explosion took off part of the helicopter's tail causing it to lose stability. Helicopters don't have wings.

I re-watched Time Enough At Last. Jacqueline de Wit is delicious as Burgess' hateful wife. And she has a lisp.

R163, I’m rewatching it now as I type. My friends and I never liked this episode as we’d ask, why couldn’t Burgess just find an optician shop and go through the glasses on display? Or break some coke bottles and use the ends? Lol, such are the curious minds of little kids.

You have to admire the time it must have taken his wife to cross out all the pages in his poetry book. Looks like a big job.

Bitch didn't work, she had the time.

I love this thread.

Love so many. But I can't watch The Shelter without my blood pressure rising to dangerous levels. I want the doc to beat his neighbors senseless and then tell the wives and spawn to fuck off back home. Can't explain why that episode turns me psychotic.

R166 - Burgess doesn't work much either because of his reading.

[quote] Helicopters don't have wings.

They get them after a bell rings. That's why they're called Bell Helicopters.

For the person who mentionned the Sin Eater story (Sins of the Father) in NG. Yes, it was upsetting and unforgettable.

Because we react to despair and injustice ? Because we got caught off guard ? We thought it was a ghost story and it ended being kind of a Tales of the Unexpected (in the Middle Ages) story ?

America was still mostly rural when Twilight Zone was broadcast. Suburbanization had started, but didn’t go into hyperdrive until the mid-late 60s. My town had a few blocks of small, modern housing developments but we still played barefoot in summer and walked to town by crossing a highway. That highway today is a death trap that no one would try to cross and we did it all the time. We still had farmstands, mom and pop shops, small roadside diners catering to truckers, telephone party lines.

Many TZ episodes took place in rural America. Must look as strange to modern viewers as the world of Westerns looked to us.

I just watched The After Hours. I gasped when the arm of the mannequin moved.

r173, MARY!!!

Maxine Stuart, the voice of the woman in bandages in Eye of the Beholder.

Billy Mumy was outed as bisexual by someone on the internet -- I always believed Rod Serling may have been as well

I'm not sure about now but back in the 80's Billy Mumy was weird.

Billy Mumy is weird. He and cast members of Lost in Space were offered tickets to see The Beatles and he refused, saying the Beatles were terrible and just a fad. He liked the Kingston Trio.

I was referring to him being the guy or one of the guys behind that bizarre 80's song and video Fish Heads.

The other night they showed the episode called "Twenty Two". But I always think of it as "Room for One More." Barbara Nichols, who usually played a dumb blond type, plays a woman having a frequent bad dream while she is in the hospital. The dream ends with a nurse opening the door to the Morgue and saying "Room for One More". If you saw it, you remember the ending.

Also the terrifying episode with William Shatner, playing a man recently released from a mental home, traveling home by plane with his wife during a thunderstorm. Shatner is the only one on board who notices a creature on the wing, damaging the plane. When I saw it as a kid, it was very scary and it's still creepy today.

Did anyone else like that TZ tribute episode they did on Felicity? I never cared for Felicity much but that episode was great. I believe it was actually directed by some guy who also worked on TZ decades before that.

Anyone remember the episode about a bunch of crooks who find a camera that takes photos a few minutes into the future and the photos end up predicting all their deaths?

The Hitch-Hiker was originally a radio play. The scene where Inger Stevens pleads with the gas station owner in the middle of nowhere to help her has always disturbed me. The whole scenario is nightmarish but that horrible man who just refuses to help her... ugh. The TZ universe has some serious assholes lurking in it.

Most definitely 'Queen of the Nile.' A reporter investigates an actress who never seems to age.

The episode where the daughter turns out to be one of her father's androids was genuinely sad and creepy, in the end, she wants him to essentially kill her but instead, he turns her into a maid.

[quote] A reporter investigates an actress who never seems to age.

So the episode was about Catherine Zeta-Jones?

In His Image is one of the long episodes when TZ went to a one-hour format. The writing is fantastic and George Grizzard is wonderful-- amidst the fantastical and sinister events happening to him he is totally believable.

R180 - Twenty Two is one of the kinescope episodes, and it also has Jonathan Harris as the doctor. Did you note how at the airport Barbara crashes into the woman holding a vase and doesn't even apologize and then the airport staff just leave the broken glass on the floor for other people to walk-crunch over. Barbara acts disturbed by rubbing her face, but she gets a good line telling a leering man at the airport he has eyes liked a tarantula.

... like a tarantula.

Well, guess what -

"Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" was the Shatner on the plane episode.

Someone made a cute little gif of Donald trump on his jet, Melania sleeping next to him. H looks out the window and sees a figure out on the plane’s wing. He tries to get others to look. When he turns back to he window, he sees Muellers face up against it. I wish I could find it again

They're remaking "NIghtmare at 20,000 Feet" again? It's already been done twice. The 1963 original with William Shatner, and the remake in the ill-fated Twilight Zone movie.

I was hoping this reboot would have more original stories.

[quote]Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" was the Shatner on the plane episode.

20,000 feet

"The Twilight Zone" must still have drawing power if there's going to be yet another reboot of it. But it probably will be crap, like all ersatz versions of TTZ are.

R133 June also provided the voice of 'Talking Tina'

Earl Hamner who used his childhood in Depression Era Virginia as the basis for THE WALTONS wrote a handful of episodes including The Ring A Ding Girl, Jesse-Belle, and one of my favorites : A PIANO IN THE HOUSE which features Barry Morse as a real cunt of a theater critic who is unnecessarily acerbic with everyone buys a player piano for his wife's (a young Joan Hackett) birthday. Each roll of music makes different guests at the birthday party reveal their true selves. Interesting.

QUEEN OF THE NILE starring Ann Blythe (Veda Pierce) was an interesting episode.

I'm not her mother. I'm her DAUGHTER!

And it keeps happening

R171, I posted about The Sins of the Father. I was really young when I saw it. Why was it so upsetting to me? Because of the concept of consuming lifetimes of sin, everything negative and evil in human capability - hate, greed, violence, every possible crime including murder. It would be like injecting yourself with AIDS, cancer, the plague, Ebola, etc etc.

But it was a brilliant and original teleplay.

Living Doll is ridiculous, funny and creepy, and brilliantly directed. Like Annabelle's line, "You better see a good psychiatrist. Tell him you tried to kill a doll."

[quote] and Billy Mummy's daughter is/was a Terrible child actress.

She was in those Santa Clause movies.

[quote] An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was a special case

That was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, not Twilight Zone

[quote]That was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, not Twilight Zone

Yes, it WAS Twilight Zone.

This had the better backup dancers.

I was given a TZ episode guide for my 16th birthday, one of my favorite gifts ever. TZ was just one of my favorite shows to watch stoned. I'll go with Midnight Sun as my favorite episode, one of the best known and highly rated. I haven't seen the show regularly in decades, so I can't come up with a nice obscurity instead.

Ring a Ding Girl is especially touching in retrospect, as it stars doomed Maggie McNamara. Same with the Inger Stevens and Gig Young ones. All three were suicides.

I think the very first episode might have been the one with Ida Lupino as a kind of Norma Desmond ex star. And, IIRC, it was directed by the great Mitchell Leisen.

r203, r204, Girls, girls, you're both whores!

It was both.

r207, The very first Twilight Zone is the pilot episode that sold the series; "Where Is Everybody" starring the very hot Earl Holliman.

Who is very much family, and very much still alive.

R149, the voice for Tracy Stratford in "Little Girl Lost" was Rhoda Williams, not June Foray. Williams was also the voice of Drizella, one of the stepsisters in Cinderella.

R132, Ernest Borgnine was not in the original "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air." It was Dewey Martin, Edward Binns and Ted Otis.

R133, according to IMDb, all the outdoor scenes (by the pool) had to be re-recorded, including the parents. Mary Badham wasn't brought back and they used June Foray instead. (I've never understood why the parents don't have Southern accents while the kids do.)

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is BOTH Alfred Hitchcock AND Twilight Zone.

The story was written by Ambrose Bierce. Alfred Hitchcock Presents filmed a version of the story and aired it in 1959. It starred Ronald Howard, the son of actor Leslie Howard (Ashley in Gone Woth the Wind).

A French filmmaker made a version of it and a producer named William Froug bought the right to air it and it was aired twice on Twilight Zone. The first airing was in February 1964.

Yeah, Owl Creek Bridge was licensed only for two network showings, so it was never included in the TZ syndication packages (unless it's been added recently). The TZ version had to cut several minutes to allow time for commercials and Serling's opening and closing.

I saw the unofficial TZ pilot The Time Element. I woke up with a sore throat in what I thought was the dead of night. My parents were still up watching TV and my mother made me tea with honey, which was disgusting. I watched the “movie” that was on TV. I saw what I though was a man running around, yelling, singing and bothering people. The next thing I remember was seeing low flying planes through a window. The planes started shooting & killed the crazy man who had been looking out the window. This scared the shit out of me & for months I had fears that planes would come while I was asleep & would shoot bullets through the walls and windows and kill me. One of the reasons I was so terrified was because I had watched lots of westerns and when someone hid behind a door, they were safe. They could shoot back at anyone just by quickly whirling around, stand in the doorway, shoot and then hide behind the door again. I had no idea bullets could go through walls or windows.

Oh yeah — according to Wikipedia, I was 3 years old The Time Element aired. It made a big impression on me

r212, about a million years ago (ok, the early 90's) I had a subscription and received videotapes with complete, uncut original Twilight Zone episodes on them. The cut version of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" that aired on Twilight Zone in 1964 was included in the package. In fact, all 156 episodes (even the hour long ones) were included in the subscription.

I used to love watching them. Not even sure where they are these days. Not that I even own a VCR to play them on anymore.

"Twenty-Two" with Barbara Nichols

A couple of years afterward the nurse/stewardess who kept scaring Barbara got a role with more lines

Arlene Martel (billed as Arline Sax) also had a small part in 'What You Need.'

Isn't Hilary Mantel's final installment of her Wolf Hall trilogy due to publish in 2019?

God be kind and not allow it to be a letdown as Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies are brilliant.

I'm watching Alfred Hitchcock and Neile Adams is married to a white guy in this episode. Did they often have interracial couples on tv back then?

She passed for white

Did she? People didn't know she was from the Philippines?

Its Hitchcock!

SLAP

Its Twilight Zone!

SLAP

Its Hitchcock!

SLAP

Its Twilight Zone!

SLAP

Its Hitchcock and Twilight Zone!

Lots of people think certain Alfred Hitchcock episodes were TZ episodes. And they were often similar in plot. In a TZ episode, some men steal gold bars and project themselves into the future. They end up in a desert and die of thirst. A futuristic couple stop by, check the dead bodies and note they have gold bars with them, which are worth nothing in the future.

Alfred Hitchcock had an episode where kidnappers hijack a truck and leave the truck drivers & their hostage in the desert to die. The truck breaks down. One hijacker kills the other for a bag of water. Eventually though, the killer dies of thirst. Police discover their dehydrated bodies and wonder why they didn't check the cargo of the hijacked truck. It was delivering water.

Hitchcock episodes always had suspense or a twist ending, but I don't think they ever had anything supernatural or sci-fi about them.

There were a few Hitchcocks that had supernatural elements. This is one of them:

I was shocked when I saw Jean Marsh turn up in a TZ episode.

Hitchcock had some supernatural episodes. Monkey’s Paw, the Case of Mr Pelham, Into Thin Air, Strange Miracle...

I’m at the saturation point with TZ. I’ve seen every episode like 10 times. It’s time to change it up with One Step Beyond. Same with the b/w episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. Mayberry RFD please......

Add Science Fiction Theater to the list. I've downloaded several and they held very nicely for their vintage.

Hitcoc's unlocked Window is one of the greatest scare hours in TV history.

No kidding, R231!! And that's DL fave John Kerr playing the patient the nurses are taking care of.

I like watching drama shows that have a host. It’s a lost bit of genteel TV. Notice Hitchcock, in introducing his show, often referred to it as a play. TV dramas originally were plays. Playhouse 90, Texaco Star Theater, philco Television Theater, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. Eventually, greed got rid of the hosts, the same way it’s gotten rid of TV theme songs, introduction credits & end credits. Gotta pack in those ads for Progressive Insurance, cars and prescription medicine.

r229, I love One Step Beyond. Here's one with a pre-famous Suzanne Pleshette

Has anybody figured out what the fuck "Come Wander With Me?" is supposed to be about?

Little tidbit for the DL. Liza Minelli was up for the role of the girl in the episode, but bombed her audition because she was nervous.

Teaser for the reboot.

The main man in the episode in R234 is Norman Lloyd. He was the producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents & appeared in Hitchcock’s shows & some of his films. He was famously the guy who fell from the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur. He played Dr Auschlander in St Elsewhere and is still alive today, at age 104.

More trivia — Bonnie Beecher, who appears as the singer in Come Wander With Me, mentioned in R235, was friends with Bob Dylan early in his career. He recorded some of his early songs at her home. She married hippie Wavy Gravy, founder of the Hog Farm. Wavy started his career in the Village; where his manager was Lenny Bruce. He moved to the West Coast and hooked up with The Grateful Dead, merry pranksters, Jimi Hendrix, Jackson Brown, Jefferson Airplane. . He was the Master of Ceremonies at Woodstock.

The 60s were weird, man.