Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: “Twilight Zone” 60th Anniversary Panel with Gary Gerani, Nick Parisi and Anne Serling

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

GGACP marks the 60th anniversary of the FINAL episode of CBS' “The Twilight Zone” (aired June 19, 1964) by revisiting this panel discussion from 2019, featuring author-historian Gary Gerani, Rod Serling Memorial Foundation founder Nick Parisi and Rod Serling’s daughter Anne Serling. In this episode, the panel looks back at one of the most groundbreaking and influential programs in television history — and the visionary behind it. Also: Desi Arnaz leads the way, Ray Bradbury lends a hand, Richard Matheson joins the team and Anne reveals her dad’s favorite Twilight Zone actors. PLUS: “Rod Serling’s Night Gallery”! The brilliance of Bernard Herrmann (and Jerry Goldsmith)! Gilbert sends up Ed Wynn! And the panel picks their most underrated TZ episodes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TV comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal Classic Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and our engineer Frank Fertorosa.

Well, we had so much success with our recent Mocks Brothers panel that we're trying something similar this week to mark the 60th anniversary of a TV series that made its debut way back in 1959 and a show we've talked about extensively on this podcast, a little program called The Twilight Zone. Author, screenwriter, trading card king and former podcast guest Gary Giorani has written about The Twilight Zone, most notably in his essential 1977 book, Fantastic Television. He's also provided audio commentaries for The Twilight Zone Blu-ray editions. On episodes including Living Doll, The Howling Man, Night of the Meek, Eye of the Beholder. Writer, editor and author Nicholas Parisi serves on the board of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation dedicated to preserving and promoting Rod Serling's legacy and is the author of a terrific comprehensive volume on Serling's

prolific career, 2018's Rod Serling, a teacher, lecturer, writer who has adopted two of her father's teleplays into short stories. One for the angels and the changing of the guard. She's also the author of a very touching and enlightening memoir about our father as I knew him. My dad, Rod Serling. And now we all step into the Twilight Zone. Here we are. Hey guys, hello everybody.

Hi everybody. Hi Anne. We're doing something different too. We have Gary on Skype, we have Anne on the phone, and Nick is right here with us in person. Touching all bases. In the New York studio. And we've been sitting here, Anne, talking about favorite episodes. Which is a great way to begin, actually. Which is a great way to begin.

Yeah. So, tell us something, too. I wanted to ask you something from the book, Anne, which is, I'm going to start off with something touching. You wrote in the book, in Twilight Zone reruns, I search for my father in the man on the screen, but I can't always find him there. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Because it's really at the heart of what the book is about.

Right. Well, you know, that black and white image is not the father that I knew. That's the man that the public knew. But the father that I knew was so completely different from that image. He was brilliantly funny, warm, just a kind, kind guy and I think people are intimidated by, you know, who the person that they see on television. I know my friends were and then when they would meet him in person it was it was so very different. He really comes across as a funny person if you read the book. I mean... Right, which he was, which he was. Although it must have been so real,

especially back then coming face to face with Rod Serling for someone who didn't know him. Yeah, because, well, I guess you would buy the image of the man from television. It would be like meeting Boris Karloff or someone, like, oh my God. Or Alfred Hitchcock, yeah. Or Hitchcock, yeah.

A friend of mine, we were going out to dinner with my dad and she was so afraid to meet him because as I said, I thought that he was going to be the Twilight Zone guy. And she was so surprised. And she wrote me, you know, within moments, her impression was so very different from what she anticipated. Now your father was trying to carve out a meager living as like what I think a copywriter early on? Right, right and he wrote several script but he would be with trying to to make it mark and and

uh... nick could nick could probably speak to this with a lot of interest well yeah essentially copyright here he worked in radio so he was writing uh... continuity patter for for dj's and things like that he was writing you know uh... commercials and uh... endorsements and you know things like that uh... in cincinnati radio in cincinnati but at the same time he was writing, you know, commercials and endorsements and, you know, things like that in Cincinnati, in radio in Cincinnati, but at the same time he was writing his own scripts and sending them out and constantly getting rejected as, you know, most novice writers are. And eventually he finally broke through.

How many scripts did he submit before? He said he had at least 40 rejection slips, and I think that's not an exaggeration. He had at least 40 rejection slips from radio and television before he sold really anything, and it was much longer before he really broke through and became a real success, but before he sold anything, at least 40 scripts were rejected by TV and radio. How about that?

You have to have a real thick skin as a writer because you're going to get a lot of rejections, particularly if you're a fiction writer. I mean, you can try to squeeze in with non-fiction, it's a little easier, but fiction is very, very hard and you got to get used to the rejections because it may take some time. But you know, you keep going because you have the love

and the crazy passion for it. I just wanted to add that my dad did not set out to be a writer. Before he went into the war, his plan was to, when he went to Antioch College to major in physical education because he wanted to work with kids. And as he said, the war changed all of that. He was so traumatized as any vet is. He said that he had to get it out of his gut.

He had to write it down. And that, he had to write it down, and that's when he changed to language and literature and became a writer. That there was that one Twilight Zone Death's Head revisited that takes place in a concentration camp. Right. And that was one of the few episodes where he closed, the closing narration said a lesson not only to be learned in the Twilight Zone, but wherever man walks on earth. It's very powerful. Yeah.

And that had that actor who was in another Twilight Zone, Oscar Beregi. I always get it. Beregi. Oscar Beregi. Yeah. Yeah. I always get Reggie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was in another Twilight Zone.

There he played like the Nazi officer who revisits Dachau. He was very good as a Nazi, that actor. He played a lot of Nazis. While we're on the subject of Nazis, I want to move to... And he was a Jew! He was. While we're on the subject of Nazis, I want to move to... And he was a Jew! Oh, sorry, he was a German Jew. And Ted, what sitcom did your father hate more than any other sitcom? Oh, it was, uh, Hogan's Hero.

Yes! I found that in Ann's book, and it was very interesting. Yeah. He had a great distaste for it, for treating Nazi Germany with levity. Right. Any kind of humor, he found that completely inappropriate. Yeah. Yeah, clearly.

And since we're talking about his war experiences and how it changed him, it was fascinating. I didn't know that he was almost killed by a Japanese soldier. Right. And saved by a friend of his who shot the soldier over my dad's shoulder. Amazing. Incredible, right? Amazing. And so the war changed him.

I mean, there's something in your book, and maybe get the wording right for me because I'll piece it together sloppily, but something about a vow or a promise that he made to himself. I'm not exactly sure if he was- Well, that he would never harm anyone or any living thing after he had this experience. Right, well, again, like any of that, my dad was so broken by the war and that was one of the most difficult things about writing my book was to read the letters that he was writing to his parents when he was still in training camp. And, you know,

he was 18 years old, and when I was writing those, my son was 18, so I had a real close-up look of an 18-year-old. And it was just, it was devastating to me that to read these letters, I mean, it was like he was away at summer camp having no comprehension of what he was about to deal with. Do you think he had... you mentioned in the book that he may have suffered from PTSD for the rest of his life. Oh, not may have. I, you know, again, like any vet, he definitely did. He would have nightmares that the enemy was coming at him and I would hear him screaming in the middle of the night and I would ask him in the morning, what's the matter? And he would

tell me, you know, that, again, I thought the enemy was coming at me. It's so interesting that you mention that because, you know, my dad served in World War II and he used to have those kind of nightmares too. I'd be in my room and I would hear him crying in his sleep, yelling in his sleep and I finally asked him and he says, yeah, he was reliving some of those memories. So yeah, that sticks with you forever, sadly. Right, they didn't have the help back then or the awareness of what was going on.

So that furthered. There wasn't even the term PTSD back then. or the awareness of what was going on. So that's further... There wasn't even the term PTSD back then. Right, what was it? Exactly. Shell shock. Shell shock, right. Nick, can we assume too that this anti-war, I mean, this experience is what led him to write

so many stories that were anti-war stories? Oh, absolutely. But I think I do clarify in the book that I wouldn't necessarily consider him completely anti-war. In fact, he said he wasn't anti-all war. He wasn't a knee-jerk anti-war pacifist. He was against the Vietnam War, but he eventually became against the Vietnam War. He had to gradually get there. He didn't start off against the Vietnam War. He was the type of guy who required data. He required information. He would think about these things and he eventually became an anti-war activist against the Vietnam War

but really what the what his experiences did was give him the sensitivity of Knowing what those soldiers are going through and knowing that war has to be the last resort and you don't send these guys over to do Things that aren't absolutely 100% necessary don't send these guys over to do things that aren't absolutely 100% necessary. So it just gave him that awareness of the horrors of war that, you know, not the average person just doesn't have. We haven't experienced it obviously and and he did. So he was especially sensitive about it. Did Sherling ever see the camps? Anne, I don't know that actually. If he ever actually went back and saw the camps, did he? Do you know? I, you know, I don't know that actually if he ever actually went back and saw the camps did he do you know I?

You know I don't I don't know the answer to that I wish I could ask him I I think not but I couldn't be absolutely I couldn't say that with absolute Certitude not not during the war I could tell you that yeah, that's for sure I mean he served in the Philippines yeah, and then in Japan But yeah, but some so he never went to Germany during service one one thing that you could see affected Serling and through the Twilight Zone episodes is the the taste of the 50s the You know the whole Russian scare. Oh

Yes, certainly in like the monsters are are due. Yes, yes. Absolutely. And also the irrational fear and bigotry and prejudices that can come out of the Cold War and a fear of the outsider. I mean that episode was more about the monsters inside ourselves than whatever we have to be afraid of from out there, so yeah, he definitely jumped into that and the Twilight Zone wound up being a perfect platform for saying all these things.

Yeah, I actually think a lot of the Twilight Zones are about the monster within ourselves. Absolutely. Yeah. And he, there's a quote in the book that he called prejudice the evil of the world or the evil of our lifetimes. Right, right. And I vividly remember him talking about that. He was quite passionate and livid about everything that was happening and very, very vocal, even

at the dinner table, about all that. There's a story, and Nick can elaborate on this too, this is not a Twilight Zone story, but that he himself, and this is very strange, was accused of anti-Semitism by another popular author, by Leon Yuris, which is kind of sick. Can you explain the circumstances surrounding that? Yeah, this is a Playhouse 90 that he wrote called In the Presence of Mine Enemies. It was a show about the Warsaw Ghetto, about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Rod Serling had the, you know, the temerity to include in this particular show a Nazi

soldier who was not a completely evil robot automaton Nazi. He was, he had a soul, he had a sensitivity. And in this particular show, this soldier is ordered to get a Jewish family's daughter to bring to a Nazi captain to be raped. I mean, he knew this is what he was bringing her for, and he does it, and afterward he breaks down to the rabbi father of this daughter saying, you know, apologizing, saying, I haven't slept since this happened, I, you know, I can't eat, I can't sleep, and he seems sincere. Well this particular characterization of this Nazi really rubbed Leon Yuris the wrong way. The author of Exodus.

And actually Leon Yuris a year later wrote his own version of the Warsaw ghetto uprising called Mila 18, I think it was called, a novel. But yeah, he was offended particularly by this characterization, which, oh, by the way, was played by Robert Redford in his television debut years before he was on The Twilight Zone. And yeah, so certain things in this particular show rubbed him the wrong way, and also not just him, but a lot of other Jewish leaders and the CBS got hate mail, they got phone calls and everything. And Rod Serling was, he was really, really hurt by this

because obviously he was as far from anti-Semitic as he could possibly be and he was just, he was really hurt by it. This has happened in some other cases too. I mean Marlon Brando got grief when he was in The Young Lions because the Nazi character he was playing was sort of portrayed in a sympathetic way. They didn't flinch from what the horrors were,

but it was a very, very difficult transitional time. People who had just gone through the war. And they didn't want to see Nazis portrayed in anything other than that kind of really animalistic way. And it was tough for writers. You had mentioned, Nick, in your book that James Franciscus plays a Nazi with a little bit of a conscience in The Twilight Zone.

Because it was in the context of a fantasy episode, there were no complaints, which is, of course, what made The Twilight Zone so useful. You could say all these things and get away with them. And that brings us to his genius stroke, which is how he found a way to write the issues of the day, to write things, to write about things that maybe were not so sponsor friendly, maybe weren't so network friendly, by putting them into a fantasy context. I just wanted to say what Robert Redford, who played the German soldier, said.

He thought the script was courageous and he was honored to be a part of it. It's funny with the young lions though, I heard Brando in one of his early craziness, he wants when he dies at the end of the young lions. Yeah, I know where this is going. Yeah, he wanted a fall on barbed wire with his arms outstretched And I heard Montgomery Clift said if he makes this Nazi bastard into Christ So so Nick he's toy he's toiling away writing for Playhouse 90 for the US Steel Hour. He's having problems with censorship early on.

This is long before the Twilight Zone is even a gleam in his eye. Oh yeah, yeah. He started running into problems with censorship and problems with the sponsors pretty much after Patterns. I mean, Patterns was his breakthrough in January of 1955. That was the big breakthrough for Rod Serling. It was a huge hit on Kraft Theatre January of 1955. And today it's kind of, it's hard to imagine what we mean when we say it was a big hit because it was just one show. How big of a hit could it be? Well, back then a show like this was treated almost like it was a Broadway opening night. The next day when

the reviews came in for patterns and they were off the charts, Jack Gould in the New York Times said it was the best thing that's ever been on television, essentially. Yeah, that's in your book. And so it made Rod Slinger a star overnight, literally. Made him a star overnight. And from that point forward when he had that name and he had the prestige and he was a little bit more financially secure also, he said, I'm going to start addressing these subjects that are important to me, like prejudice.

And as soon as he tried to, he ran up against the sponsors and the network censors. And he just couldn't do it. He couldn't do it in television. And eventually, yes, he went into the Twilight Zone and he was able to do these things through allegory and through science fiction and fantasy. And that was his brilliant stroke to do it that way.

Serling told that story and I saw a clip of it. And that was where they did one live, they did one show on TV that took place in a concentration camp and they bleeped out gas chambers because they had like gasoline you know what I'm referring to? Yeah the gas company was one of the sponsors and they didn't want the cast of the guest rooms to be associated with their, you know, stoves, you know, so as if anybody couldn't make that distinction, you know. But yeah, that's how bad it was back then. So Anne, he cleverly, your dad cleverly figures out that there is a way to get these stories

written to tackle prejudice and intolerance and anti-Semitism on network television. Right and his quote was he discovered that an alien could say what a Democrat or a Republican couldn't. Yes, profound. You know, it's always interesting to me, you know, is that all part of his master plan? Well, I'm gonna come in with this fantasy show and gee, you know, because there are aliens and flying saucers and pixies and all these things, hey, they won't take it seriously and then I'll be able to sneak in all of my major important messages. Or do you think that just kind of happened by accident? Because in his initial interviews on the Twilight Zone, there's this whole feeling of, yeah, I'm shying away from doing all these, you know, heavy social kind of things.

Oh, well, you know, we're just going to be doing fantasy. But obviously, within fantasy, you can make all these points. I was just curious how much of that was his master plan to begin with. Well, I don't think it was his master plan. I think it was the thing that you referenced about the gas companies and the sponsors, it was, I mean, I think that probably stunned him that he couldn't write these stories without disguising

them. And he was once quoted also as saying that it was the writer's job to menace the public's conscience. So he wanted to do it in the way that he could get it aired. Yeah, and not only that, I make the point in the book, I think that the idea that Rod Sterling created The Twilight Zone and went into The Twilight Zone solely to do this to get past the sponsors is a little bit overstated. Okay.

I mean, he did, and he did. I mean, he said it enough times himself to say that, yeah, that is one reason he did it. But the other reason he did it was he always wanted to do a show like The Twilight Zone. He loved science fiction and he did it. But the other reason he did it was he always wanted to do a show like The Twilight Zone. He loved science fiction and he loved fantasy. And back when he was writing we talked about in Cincinnati back in 1951, he was writing for a show called The Storm in Cincinnati where he had a ton of freedom because it wasn't really seen by a lot of people. And he wrote a lot of fantasy and science fiction because he just he had

the freedom to do it. So when he broke into network television, he didn't have the freedom to write science fiction and fantasy because it was looked at as a genre for eight-year-olds. It wasn't serious drama. A serious writer would not write science fiction and fantasy. But he always had it in the back of his mind that he wanted to write science fiction and fantasy. And once he had these problems with the sponsors and he had a name for himself and CBS gave him the opportunity to do his own show, he said, all right, well, you know what? I'm going to do that science fiction show I've always wanted to do. And oh, by the way, I'll probably be able to get away with some of the stuff that I've

been trying to get away with in regular drama if I do it in this science fiction and fantasy context. So he had a real kind of have your cake and eat it too relationship with The Twilight Zone. It was the best of both worlds for him. His luck would have it. One thing Serling said in an interview, and I thought when I first heard this, I thought it was him being sarcastic, and then they actually showed a clip

of it, and he said something like, it's very hard to build a feeling on TV when you're into a kid with uh... rabbits dancing with toilet paper yeah and they actually showed this cartoon with the rapids and twice an actual carver and he wasn't something in your book maybe it was an anz book where it was i just found it depressing inside he almost had to apologize for having this vision and having this insight where he was saying it you know that he had a pretend that he had no desire to educate or enlighten Yeah, you might be talking about the the Mike Wallace interview. Yes, that's what I'm referring to Yeah, yeah, we kind of Wallace was dismissive of the genre Yes, and and he's kind of what Gary was talking about about he kind of was the blow love, you know backpedaling from

I'm not gonna do any real social commentary on this show It's not if there's not that kind of show and he was he was really he knew he was gonna Well, that was clever that that part of it is calculated Did sure also mentioned that the whole idea of why? Science fiction fantasy all of this stuff was held in in such low regard during this period I mean you think about it for a second my goodness, you know, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells. H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds, we've been talking about using science, well that was his way of attacking the British imperialism, saying how would you like it if someone came in and took over

this way. So science fiction actually had a very proud history, but at this moment in time with the greatest generation kind of in charge, people who had a very, very tremendously real sense of the real world. They survived the Depression, they fought in World War II, and fantasy was just thought of as kid stuff for this period of time, which is why it was so hard to be taken seriously during this period if you were doing this kind of work.

I think that's absolutely right, yes. Did Serling ever have any contact with the House of Un-American activities? That was slightly before... McCarthyism kind of hit in like 1950 and that's really when Rod Serling's career was starting. So he kind of missed that. No, he didn't have any contact with that. Thank God. Or they would have tried to brand him as subversive, right? Right off the bat. Oh yeah, boy. He would have certainly fit the bill, right? right. So Annie he wrote 92 episodes all by his lonesome.

Yeah 92 of 156. Incredible. Very impressive. And I have to say you know from everything that I've heard and read it was really a seamless team of writers with uh. Well Beaumont and Matheson. When did he start bringing people aboard? Gary, I know he asked Ray Bradbury for recommendations. Yeah, that was pretty early on. I mean, he went to the Masters, he went to Bradbury, and that's how, you know, Matheson, Beaumont, they all kind of flowed from the Ray Bradbury source. It's always been an interesting little irony that Bradbury himself, other than the electric grandma,

there really did not contribute to the series. And yet, The Twilight Zone has the flavor of Bradbury all through it. So, but he did make use of, Surly did make use of all of those other wonderful writers that came from Bradbury's world. And that is what made up the Twilight Zone. Nick, talk a little bit about, I'm sorry, go ahead, Ann.

No, I was just going to say, I think my dad was, well, I know that he was very humble and he did not, I don't think, consider himself an expert science fiction writer. I think he would say that others were better than he was. I just wanted to add that. Yeah, that's in the book. He's rather humble about it, you know, considering he wrote, you know, particularly when he comes- stories like The Obsolete Man and he wrote some good science fiction episodes. He sure did, yeah. Particularly, yeah, when he talked about himself, really, in any way,

he was always very humble and not more than humble He was his own harshest critic I mean he just he just took himself to task on on everything he ever wrote I think but but when it came to science fiction Yes, he felt he saw himself as an outsider because he never he wasn't be publishing short stories in the in the pulps or you know In the magazines of the time. He wasn't a science fiction writer like Bradbury He wasn't publishing science fiction novels or anything like that so he always saw himself as an outsider and and he always great gave great deference to those guys to Bradbury and everybody else Because he felt they were the true quote-unquote science fiction writers And he was just you know he was just a television writer who happened to be writing science fiction stuff you have that quote

I can I can adapt science fiction well, but I can't I can't originate it. That's what yeah that was his take and of course I think I think he can do both. Yes, exactly quite frankly And he may have entered the Twilight Zone as an outsider But by the time it was over his name resonated just as strongly as any of the others Yes Now now one thought I always have when I watch Because this is one of those famous Twilight Zones And where I always thought this character's being punished

for no reason at all. And that was the Burgess Meredith. Yeah, time enough at last. Yeah, that is- Well, that's an adaptation. Yeah, it is, but Serling's version of it, and certainly in Burgess Meredith's performance of it, bringing out what Kilbert is talking about,

that it's really, it's the one time in the Twilight Zone Twilight Zone really where somebody gets a punishment that they don't deserve, I think. He wanted to sit and read. That's all he wanted. That's all he wanted. Yeah, and he couldn't get it. Yeah. And the point was also made, Nick, I think in your book that it isn't that this fellow had cut himself off from the rest of the human race because he was trying to share the

What he was reading with his wife and with his boss No, no It was the world that he inhabited that was screwed up and probably deserved to be destroyed because it didn't appreciate art and beauty It was just a dark irony that he kind of became one of the tragic pieces of that battered landscape when all was said and done Yeah, that's that's the way I read it anyway. And an episode that you can watch over and over again and it never gets old. And where did they dig up

the incredible background of the destroyed cities and the paintings? I mean was that done for the Twilight Zone? Was that hanging around from another MGM movie? It was an amazing set. The one set that you're probably thinking of, the most famous one where he's standing there amidst the rubble of the libraries and stuff, I believe that was an MGM set. In fact, I think it was reused in Back to the Future, believe it or not, where the clock tower was.

I think that's the same set of those steps going up to the pillars and everything. Yeah, I believe that's the same set. Other things I think were probably backdrops. Yeah, you had those wonderful backdrops with destroyed bridges and smoking buildings, and I'm going, was that from the world of flesh and the devil, which MGM put out? But it wasn't.

No. Yeah, it was incredible work. While I nudge Gilbert awake, listen to these words from our sponsor. Were you speaking? It's Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast! And now we return to the show. Another character who was punished unfairly and this wasn't one of the better Twilight Zones.

This was one of, but it had one of my favorite character actors, John MacGyver. And that was the one I think Sounds and Silence. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I don, that's not necessarily he was punished unfairly I'm not sure he becomes mean but then he gives a whole speech in the middle of it Talking about how his parents forced that on him. Yeah, right, right. And then you go. Well, wait a second There's an explanation. It's not just you want it You want to treat Ann and Nick and Gary do a little bit of your John MacGyver since you brought it up?

Oh, well, this is from Sounds and Silence. I was a child, everything we had to be quiet, everything we had to whisper. We couldn't speak in a normal tone of voice, we whispered. We weren't allowed to eat cookies. We could only eat fudge, because cookies were too noisy. What do you think, Anne? I think that's quite good. That was masterful.

Masterful! That was great. That was great. What did you say, Anne? I said, killingly good. He's the only John MacGyver impersonator still working. There used to be a bunch. It's a cottage industry.

Let's talk about the fateful night. Let's talk about the birth of the show in October of 1959. By the way, I found one other quote here, too, again, talking about belittling sci-fi as a genre. He said his transition from live drama was the equivalent, it was viewed as the equivalent of a Musial, Stan Musial leaving the St. Louis Cardinals to coach a little league game. Yeah, that's what he said right. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about Desi Arnaz's, of all people, involvement, yeah. Let's talk about Desi Arnaz's of all people

involvement and in the birth of the Twilight Zone. And these are things I of course didn't know back then but yeah, Desi Arnaz was the first What what do you call it? Spokesperson? Eventually the house. Thank you. Yeah so and that didn't work out so it, spokesperson, eventually. The house, thank you, yeah. So, and that didn't work out so well, right? But did, but. Oh, the time element. Right, right.

But I actually met Lucy Arnaz and she didn't know her dad's connection to that either, so I thought that was interesting. Isn't that cool? So that is the true unofficial, is that the true Twilight Zone pilot, the time element? There's some debate about that. That's why we is the true unofficial is that the true Twilight Zone pilot the time element There's some debate about that. That's why we call it the unofficial pilot. Okay It runs an hour too, it's not even a half hour right?

Desi Arnaz was the host. Well, here's the here's how it went It was the Desi Lu playhouse Yeah and Desi Arnaz was the host of Desi Lu playhouse and they aired an episode called the time element that was written by Rod Serling and he was submitted to CBS as Twilight Zone The Time Element. And Rod Serling submitted it as the pilot but CBS rejected it as a pilot. They thought it was too ambiguous, it was too much fantasy, it was too far out and they didn't want to do it as a pilot for a series. But the producer of Desi La Playhouse and Desi Arnaz liked it and liked Serling and they wanted to produce it so it ended up on that show and So it is seen now as the unofficial pilot because it was you know It was intended to be the pilot of the Twilight Zone, but just didn't quite make it to the Twilight Zone

Ended up on Desi Lu Playhouse, but um so and Desi Arnaz hosted it yeah, so and then there's another pilot It's quite good too if you ever see it. Oh yes it is yes What about the Happy Place that became the second pilot? Yes, that was the yeah, and that was never. That was a one-hour script that was rejected out of brand. CBS found it too depressing? Yes, yeah. It was set in a dystopian future where the elderly and the sick are euthanized, and it's about a guy who works at this basically concentration camp. Well, it's more of a hotel. It's a happy place. You know where people go

They think they're gonna be happy and they get euthanized you know and their his son is is is Being indoctrinated to this idea of that these people are supposed to be you know put down this way And it was a very dark script. Yeah, and it would not have been a good pilot. Okay, so now it's his third attempt Eventually you know third times the charm because what they wound up with was the ideal pilot for a whole bunch of reasons which I'm sure Nick can amplify on. I mean, not only was it a good little story, but it, you know, the fact that it wasn't totally supernatural, if you will, made it safe. Yeah, and by this point the Twilight Zone was dropped from an hour to

a half an hour. I mean Rod Sterling originally wanted it to be an hour show and that's why the time element was an hour and the happy place originally was an hour long script. And then they dropped to a half hour and he submitted Where Is Everybody starring Earl Holliman and it really was, as Gary said, it was a perfect pilot because it really was it was accessible enough for the mainstream audience to grasp onto it was a essentially a one-man show so you just identify with this one person through the whole episode and The ending is one of the few endings in the Twilight Zone that could happen It's it's it's essentially a rational ending even though it's a twist So it really was the perfect pilot. Yeah, there was nothing really supernatural or fantastic going on

This was just going on in his mind And I might isolation right and yet it taps into everything that we love about the Twilight Zone in the sense that Here's an average guy that you can relate to who suddenly finds himself He takes the wrong turn and he the whole world is upside down What happened which became so much of what Twilight Zone was about we could relate to the main characters And we've already mentioned Robert Redford, but a lot of big stars. Well, like Charles Bronson. Oh, so many.

Is in one, oh, God, so many. Robert Duvall. Yes, yes, yes. Robert Duvall is another good example. Carol Burnett. Yes. Anne Francis. And a lot of them were not even stars when they started.

You know, Robert Redford was a few years away from becoming a star, but they, you know, television during this period made use of a lot of wonderful actors who did go on to become big stars. Yes. And one of the best, I think, Jack Klugman. Oh, and Klugman. Oh, yes. And Art Carney.

Oh, yeah, he was in two. Yeah. So Klugman was in four. He was in four. Four? Yeah. Four. Wow.

Game of Pool. Yeah, that one I know. And Praise of Pip. Those two I know. Which ones am I blanking out? He was in one of the hour long episodes. Depth Ship. One of the hour episodes.

Yes, he's one of the hours, right. And Passage for Trumpet. Oh, I watched Passage for Trumpet. Yes, yes, yes. How could I forget that one? Okay. Clugman, I think did more Twilight Zones than any other actor, even more than Burgess Meredith. Meredith and Clugman both did four, actually. They both starred in four.

So they're both tied at four. As far as starring roles go, yeah. Anne, I want to give this a little personal and historical context. Now, you were not watching these shows. Obviously, you were a child. Right, right. I was four when the Twilight Zone premiered. I'm an old lady now. But I really, I always knew that my dad was a writer but I didn't know specifically what he was writing and actually I wrote about this in the book that I didn't know that he wrote the Twilight Zone until this team kid on the playground after a when i was probably seven are you something out of the twilight that

uh... uh... and i didn't know really offended at that point uh... isn't it so what was the first time you sat down and watch with your dad was it nightmare twenty thousand feet

uh... that that that and uh... it nightmare twenty thousand feet that that that that and uh... it with the no consolation that my dad had written that when it was map of and i would still absolutely terrified you know and and i think like anybody you're you're kinda always looking out that airplane window just anticipating that little gremlin well i gotta say something uh... i was i guess six years old in old in 1959 when the series started, so I was the perfect age. My parents were a little eccentric themselves, so they let me stay up to like 10 o'clock.

It was, what was it, Friday nights at 10 o'clock? Okay. Most kids weren't allowed to stay up that late, but for the Twilight Zone, they let me do it. And I gotta say, I mean, I just got so caught up in everything we're talking about here. I mean, once that show pulls you in, you were hooked forever.

And then the reruns came out in syndication, you were watching forever. Nightmare on 20,000. I just wanna say this one thing. That is so well directed, well directed. I actually spoke to Richard Donner, the director on it, who went on to do The Omen and all these other great films, and he still considers that to be

one of his greatest achievements. The way he directed, that was with William Shatner, William Shatner is about to pull that curtain, and you'll have a close-up through the window of the face coming right out. You've never seen the face yet. You've just seen it in the distance. The way he directed that where

Chattner just holds back pulling the curtain, holds back, finally then just pulls it and that face is right there. You could hear the screams in the whole neighborhood. Let me tell ya. You gave me a segue, Ann, because we talked at the very beginning about your dad's sense of humor. Tell us about the practical joke.

I just want to revisit one thing that we've just said about being so young watching The Twilight Zone. It's really been amazing to me, the people that I hear from that watch The Twilight Zone as kids, and they've written me very personal things about how they had tumultuous childhoods or abusive childhoods and how they thought of my dad as their father and what an important role he was and this is from kids and people who decide to go into writing because of my dad. So it's been some really poignant things that I've heard from people. But to your question, yes, my father was a practical joker and anything for a laugh. He would often disappear and then reappear wearing my lampshade or costume

or... He was a very silly, fun guy know, where most kids don't want to be hanging out with their parents. I loved being with my dad. There's a quote by Roger, I think his first name is Roger Rosenblatt. He wrote a book called, I think it was called Making Toast or Toast, and he wrote a graduation speech for his daughter, and he said that that I wished her moments of helpless hilarity. And that really had an impression on me because that's so much of my relationship with my dad.

It was helpless hilarity. There's some good stories in the book like that too. And you see his sentimental side. Not only you guys watching the Flintstones together and what he paid you to tickle his feet. Do I have that right? No, you do. Now, one thing that was very popular with Serling, and it's in two of my favorite episodes,

walking distance and watch the other one, Willoughby. Stop it, Willoughby. Is the idea of a desperate to escape the rat race and be in a more simpler time, that seemed like a very popular, shirling idea. Well, he told the writing class that he had a propensity to write about the path and i and that was quite clear to me uh... you know if i got older that my dad really uh... and i think he'd bet script word

those to the you mentioned and uh... night gallery they're tearing down to marley's bar you know another thing that happened when my dad within the war it his father died of a heart attack when he was fifty two and even though the war with over my dad was in the war as his father died of a heart attack when he was 52. And even though the war was over, my dad was not allowed to go home because he didn't at that point have enough points. And this was another trauma that he experienced that, you know, he couldn't be there for his father's funeral.

And I think there was certainly unresolved grief. And so in walking distance, you know, there's that opportunity to go back and to have his father say the things that I'm sure my dad wished that his dad could say to him, you know, that stop looking behind you, look ahead. Martin. Is it so bad where you're from? I thought so, Pop. I've been living in a dead run and I was tired.

And one day I knew I had to come back here. I had to come back and get on a merry-go-round and eat cotton candy and listen to a band concert. I had to stop and breathe and close my eyes and smell and listen. I guess we all want that. Maybe when you go back, Martin, you'll find that there are merry-go-rounds and band concerts where you are. Maybe you haven't been looking in the right place.

You've been looking behind you, Martin. Try looking ahead. Maybe. behind you, Morton. Try looking ahead. Maybe. Goodbye, son. Goodbye, Pop. Wow, that's wonderful. He actually got closure through his art. You know, by writing this, he was able actually to have that closure with his father. And there's that terrific actor in it, Frank Overton, who plays Gigeon's father, who is just great actor. That's why it's one of his-

Yeah, with the beautiful script and beautifully acted, I think. It's so full of those actors, you know, really, really. Those great character actors who gave these terrific performances, really. And in, in in in Walking distance isn't he isn't that? Sort of taken right out of your dad's life. Didn't he go back?

I forgot the name of the the the part he walked through the through the through the streets and there was a there was a Recreation park with a bandstand and a carousel? It was absolutely his imagined journey backwards. Every summer my dad would go back to Binghamton and drive by Recreation Park and see the carousel and drive by his house and this definitely was autobiographical. That carousel is still there. That's exactly what I was going to say.

I watched it recently and they're so sloppy with editing. There's a whole ending that is so nice. Oh, you mean the local television station that ran it? Yes. They cut them up. Because the ending is he goes back to the this soda shop and now the price of chocolate soda is much more and when he tries to get up off the

stool he goes I guess these stools weren't made for a bum leg and the guy says get that in the war I out goes oh he tells him that he hurt himself on the merry-go-round and he says oh they tore that down and he goes a little late for you and he goes yeah late for me that whole section they cut out it's. And it's such a powerful moment. Terrible. It's a poignant piece of television. And Gig Young is amazing. Yeah.

Also, we should mention a spectacular score by Bernard Herrmann. I was going to say that. He was one of the many great composers who worked on the series. And that particular episode may be Bernard Herrmann's most impressive work. And Serling himself loved that score, in fact, to the point where he wrote to Bernard Herrmann and told him how much he loved that score and wanted to know if he'd get a recording of it. And Bernard Herrmann wrote back to him

and said how rare it was for a writer to write to a composer and compliment his work. It was just unheard of, and he said, of course, I'll find you a recording of it if I can. And one, well, going back to and praise of Pip, we had one of the actors. We had Billy Moomy. Yeah. Yeah.

And I wanted to say, and I said to the boys before you came on the line, we've had seven people on this podcast who were associated with the original show, which we're proud to say. That's wonderful. Including Richard Donner, who Gary just praised, but also Billy Moomy from those three, from Good Life Long Distance Call and Pip, George Takei, Barbara Barry, Julie Newmar, John Aston,

Joyce Van Patten from One of the Hourlongs, and Orson Bean was here. Oh really? From Mr. Beavis. Oh, that's right, that's right! And I always forget who's the... there was an actor in it with him. William Shalert was the cop. We almost had him. Oh yeah, that would have been great.

Oh, that would have been great. Yeah, yeah. He passed away. Carol Burnett. Carol Burnett too. Of course. Now, I seem to have a memory that the Carol Burnett one, they put a laugh track into. Originally there was, yes.

And now that it's been subtracted, I believe, it's no longer in the versions that you will see, but originally there was, and as a child watching it, it totally confused me, because I knew that laugh tracks were on situation comedies and things, they weren't on the Twilight Zone. So years later we found out, of course, that was a pilot for another series, which would have been a comedy series, so the laugh track would have been appropriate.

But there was on the Twilight Zone, confusing a lot of people. It was so weird on the Twilight Zone. One of the things I love in walking distance is his nod to Ray Bradbury. Yeah, one of the streets is also Mickey Rooney because that was on the old MGM lot. Yep. And since Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy house was there, that was another little connection in joke. Yeah. Nick, I read, I think it was in your book that, and you said he was his own harshest critic,

was he sharply critical of his storytelling in that particular episode? Yes, in that particular episode, believe it or not. He came to, he loved it when it first aired. I think I point out in the book, he wrote very glowing things about that episode when it first aired, but as time went by, he became dissatisfied with it, primarily because of some structural issues. He thought that when the gig young character Martin Sloan meets his parents, it happens too early in the episode and it wasn't as emotional as it should have

been. He felt after watching it so many times that he should have saved that for closer to the end when it could have made a bigger emotional impact. Whereas he says, you know, gig young goes back and he sees his parents and it's, you know, he should be devastated or he should be really, really affected by seeing his parents again for the first time in so many years. And he's kind of not. And that bothered him. But I think that, I think he's again was being overly critical.

I think it's a, it's a beautiful episode. It was also his, his students who are pains in the neck and would always be criticizing all of it. And they kind of turned his head on that. I remember reading about that thinking, no, no, no, no, this is a beautiful episode. And some of the other points that the students were making, I just disagreed with. The little old fellow behind the counter who isn't reacting strangely to Dick Young's odd kind.

I always figured that's because people from this era were just gentler and nicer and didn't want to embarrass you. Yes. And that also just played perfectly to show the difference in the two different time periods. So work for me folks. And what Gary's referring to is Rod Sterling taught, he taught several different places, but he taught at a school in California shortly before his death in 1975. I forget the name of the school, but a lot of those lectures have been included as commentary tracks on Twilight Zone episodes.

So you hear what the students are saying about these episodes, and Rod Sterling was very sensitive to allowing them to criticize his work. So he would let them take these shots at him, and invariably Rod Sterling would kind of take their side. Yeah, you're right. I should have done this. I should have done that. And sometimes I think he was being a little overly critical.

He did say that he felt he learned more from them than they were learning from him. Wow. Interesting. And jumping ahead a few years, he didn't want to do Night Gallery, I heard. Well, he did initially, but then when he realized it was going to be a completely different animal and he was not going to have the creative control that he had with Twilight Zone and the Jack Laird you know wanted all this horror and that was not what my dad envisioned at all. Again he wanted to tell meaningful stories that gave a message and he was disappointed. But you know that said again that episode they're tearing down to Marley's bar and others were

really beautiful scripts. Yes, that's a beautiful one. Well said. Well said. The best of the night galleries, usually just because they let Serling do his thing, and they were just wonderful episodes. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Did he do Messiah on Mott Street? That's my particular

favorite. Yes, oh the Edward G. Robinson. Yeah, it's a great one. I love that one. Yeah, that was another great one. Yeah, there were good, really good night galleries. I mean, I know the show sort of has a reputation of just being a bad Twilight Zone, but there were excellent episodes of the show. You know, some of his best work, I think. I like the Vincent Price one. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Class of 99. That's great. Oh, then the Lawrence Harvey, the Caterpillar, another great, I mean, there's some wonderful ones. You said something in the book, you said his sentimental streak was almost as intense as his crusading moralistic one, and I watched Night of the Meek last night, and it's really a beautiful piece of work.

Right. It's actually Mark DeWitziaq who recently said that, like Mark Twain, my father was a moralist in disguise. Mm-hmm. That's fair to say. And another one of my favorites, one for the angels. Also very sentimental. Yeah. Edwin and Murray Hamilton.

Which is like the second episode broadcast, I believe. It was very early. Yes, it was. Yeah. And Gary, you did a commentary on that one. You did an audio commentary on the Blu-rays. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And again, think of it from the point of view

you're watching the show for the first time, you're a kid, you see the first episode, you know, with Earl Holliman, where is everybody? It's like, you know, my God, wow, what is this? And now all of a sudden, the second week, you know, you've got Ed Wynn dealing with Mr. Death in this whimsical, poignant, you know, sweet little story. Wow! It just shows you the range of these stories and where the series can take you. And one, the first week we were spellbound, the second week we were charmed,

you know, and right away it was like, this is going to be one heck of a, and I think the third one was Mr. Denton on Doomsday, I think, is a western yes, you know and and right away the show is telling you we're gonna take it everywhere in any time period any situation and you're gonna find humanity and you're gonna find fantasy and something's gonna hook you and look at the Versatility his versatility as a writer and and even though it's a sweet cute story There's also a little girl who gets hit by a car and is in a coma Throughout that episode. Yeah. Well that was yeah Yeah, that was this that was the stakes the stakes that had that Edwin the unwind character had to deal with that He's gonna try to save this little girl and my mister look at mr. Death in that episode played by Murray Hamilton

Yeah, and what an interesting characterization of death because he's not a bad guy Look at Mr. Death in that episode played by Murray Hamilton. What an interesting characterization of Death because he's not a bad guy. He's doing his job. He's even kind of sympathetic to Edwin here and there. So what a marvelous way of showing, introducing Death as not necessarily being a scary thing but being just a guy. Eventually Robert Redford would play Death in the Series even more likeable and warm. This death is more of a bureaucrat.

For people out there who don't remember Murray Hamilton, just remember you say barracuda and people say what, huh? But you yelled shark and we've got a panic on our hands. That's my favorite role. I can't be too stupid. Make your own jaws, absolutely. So, Anne, with these episodes, and we'll talk about Willoughby in a minute. Oh, wait, wait.

Go ahead. My favorite line from One for the Angels. Go ahead. He says, if there's some accomplishment, I could hold off your death. If there's some major thing you have to achieve. And Edwin says, well, I never rode the helicopter. They have a nice by-play. I mean, the writing is wonderful, but you know, again, the casting of this show.

Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, within an inch of its life, every single part is just, especially in that first season, Gary. Oh yeah. It was one episode after another and you were just going, whoa! Because we had never experienced, I mean, there had been other TV anthologies, there were other spooky lights out in Tales from Tomorrow and all that, but there was nothing like The Twilight Zone. It seemed to grab people of all ages, you know, what an experience to have lived through when it first came on.

Oh, and there was that one with Buster Keaton. Yeah, it was like a silent episode almost for a while, right? And another great actor, and I always forget his name, and me and Frank were looking up his name. That fat guy who's with Buster Keaton. Stanley Adams? Oh, Stanley Adams. Yes, yes. Another fine actor. He was in Requiem for Heavyweight. Yes, and, yes. Another fine act here. He was in Requiem for Heavyweight. Yes, and the Batman series actually. And you're seeing your dad's sentimental side, you were talking about the sentimental streak.

I mean, I'm partial to the sentimental episodes, the one Gilbert's talking about, Willoughby, Walking Distance, obviously the Christmas episode. I mean, were those among his favorites, do you know? Oh, I would say definitely. But as was the Nazi Germany one. Oh, Death's Head. Death's Head revisited. He was quite passionate about that one as well. But certainly, as I said, he said

that he had a propensity to deal with the past. So I think these ones where he's going back in time and having the capacity to write this and they were cathartic for him, that those were his favorites. And part of I think why the Twilight Zone was so good is because my dad owned Kyuga Productions. This was his baby. He had complete control. And when we were talking about Night Gallery, he didn't have the creative control then.

So, and again, a seamless team of writers that they all got along. And so I think that was a huge part of it. A writer show. Well, yeah, obviously it's a lovely thing to see someone who creates the show maintain the vision of the show throughout.

But Gary, speak a little bit about those writers, about Beaumont, about Matheson. Oh, well, these guys were- George Johnson. Brilliant guys. They all had careers doing short stories. The written word is really where they gotten started on the page.

They transitioned into doing things like The Twilight Zone and then movies that were on themes like this. Madison and Beaumont wrote one hell of a great horror film called Burn Which Burn, which is also known as Nine of the Eagle, which is an incredible dark black and white supernatural story. Madison went on to write all of the great Roger Corman, Edgar Allan Poe movies. So these guys, I mean not only that,

I mean Madison became the Night Stalker and all of this great work that he did. So they had tremendous careers, and it always kind of harks back to The Twilight Zone, in a sense, because The Twilight Zone kind of inspired so much of what their later careers were about. Of course, Charles Beaumont died relatively young, so unlike Madison, who went on to produce great works.

But yeah, no, they were all, and George Clayton Johnson, I mean, they were all wonderful, wonderful Clayton Johnson, they were all wonderful writers. When you think of The Twilight Zone, it's mostly Serling you think about. But Matheson, Beaumont, those guys also were key players. Absolutely. Yeah, they wrote plenty of great classic episodes. The amazing thing about Matheson and Beaumont,

to me anyway, is how they balanced Serling. They really wrote different themes, different styles than Serling did, much darker stuff than Serling wrote primarily anyway. And they just perfectly complemented each other. I mean, they weren't going to really write a sentimental story like One for the Angels, or really a message-laden story

like Monsters do on Maple Street. As Matheson would say, we just wrote stories. We just wrote story stuff. That's all we wrote. We weren't going to make a statement, but it was so perfect to balance the Serling stuff with those stories, and they wrote The Howling Man and Shadow Play and Perchance to Dream. It was lightning in a bottle because who knew that was going to happen that they would all complement each other so perfectly? Yeah, and Serling didn't know. He just either got lucky or he Because who knew that was going to happen that they would all compliment each other so perfectly. Yeah, Serling didn't know. I mean he just either got lucky or he sensed something in these guys that he knew that they would just work well on the show. And it did.

And one episode that had of old people Alan Seuss. Some strange people would turn up. That was the masks. Yes, which was a very creepy one. Oh yeah. And that was in the final season too That was one of the last great ones that they did I want to ask an about you and your you and your sister visiting the set and his children Right. I just want to say another really touching touching episode that was like my dad's writing with George Clayton Johnson's kick the can

Which I thought was just a really lovely, lovely script. In fact, when I got married and they had done the 83 movie, we won't go there, but I loved the soundtrack to that and we played the music from Kick the Can at our wedding. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. But yeah, my sister and I, my dad took my sister and I to the set, and we were clueless where we were, and all I remember was a set of stairs that went nowhere, and holding my

dad's hand. And yeah, but again, I really wasn't tuned in to, well, this is where, you know, Dad, all his writing occurs, and, or, you know, that's the end product, but... That's a good thing you weren't there on one of the days where William Tuttle's monsters were running around, you know, you could've scared the heck out of you, right? If you had been there for a night of the behold, an eye of the beholder, you would've been in trouble.

Or to serve man. Or to serve men, right? Or talking, or living doll. And your dad passed when you were only 20. Right, I had just turned 20 about two weeks before. So, yeah, it was, and you know, we knew that this open heart surgery was, you know, surgery was so new back then. Today, he would have survived. But back then, it was a brand new surgery.

But we were all very optimistic that he was going to pull through. And he wanted to do a Broadway show. And he was very much looking forward to future works and grandchildren and the whole bit so Certain biographers that write about how dark my dad was and depressed. It's not true. You know, he was very optimistic and Sorry, I wrote my book to set the record straight about who he was and and it was with certainly note that I don't think I ever saw a clip of him or anything

where he didn't have a cigarette in his hand. Yeah, well, you know, like his dad, he was a terrible smoker and he tried to quit numerous times. In fact, I wrote it in my book when he was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital by ambulance from the hospital here. And he was so addicted that he convinced the ambulance drivers to pull over so that he could get out and have a cigarette. And at one point they were all standing outside the ambulance having a cigarette. My sister and I would throw his cigarettes in the fireplace and he did try to quit.

After he died, I found packs of cigarettes hidden away behind his file drawer and just anywhere he could hide them. I think today though, he would have quit. I think with all the pressure, because he was also very active. He loved to play paddle tennis. Back in the day, everybody smoked. It was almost like automatic. And slowly, people began to realize, whoa,

this is really dangerous. So he got addicted to it at an early age, like so many people did. Well, one of the fascinating things about your book, Ann, is that because you lost him at such a young age, that your book is in part about piecing together his life. You're going, you're finding the photos, you're finding the letters, you're basically filling in the past. It's really rather touching.

Well, thank you, thank you. It was interesting because, and a huge part of this book was coming to terms with my grief about losing my dad. And I gave an early reading at the Paley Center before the book was published and a woman came up to me and she said that after hearing me read, she knew that she'd be alright. Her dad had a terminal illness and I was so touched that, you know, my my book had something i had written had this impact on her and i couldn't even speak to her all i could do with hugger but i've heard from a lot of people you know everybody deals with grief and um... how they related to that aspect of it because i think people are hesitant

and and i would certainly have to take you know how much how open do i want to be but i would so devastated when my dad died. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move on without him. And I know I'm not unique to that. People feel that. It's beautiful to read about, which is, again, why I want to recommend your book.

I mean, not only to Twilight Zone fans, but yes, for anybody that's going through that experience. It's beautiful to watch you piece his history together through the letters and the photos and reading his work, finding the scripts and watching the Twilight Zone and going back and gaining a greater understanding of the man through his work. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. It's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I want to ask everybody about... Oh, I have this question for Nick. How did he come to be the narrator in the first place? Because I know Orson Welles was

considered. Well, yes, but that actually is a bit of a myth that I think I hope hopefully I busted in the book. It's a myth. Yeah, Well, I'll tell you it's it's kind of half true Well, what how it worked was I mean Rod Serling wanted to be the narrator I mean he always did but Rod Serling is an annual test to he was a bit of a ham and he he did like to be on camera he did no matter how much he protested never he did like to be on camera and and So in the first season he was an off-screen narrator. He wasn't seen on screen during the first season. It was just the off-screen narration in closing.

And it wasn't until after the first season that CBS then said, hey, if we have an on-screen narrator, maybe it'll give us a little excitement, boost the ratings a little bit. Why don't we go see if Orson Welles is interested? So it wasn't until after the first season actually they said maybe Orson Welles could be an on-screen narrator and Rod Serling was actually booked to go fly to London and meet with Orson Welles to discuss being the narrator and I'm not sure if he ever followed through

with that because I think what happened is that they eventually realized, you know, we're probably going to have to pay Orson Welles I think, you know, he might want some money for this game. I think that would definitely be a good guess. And they were trying to cut the budget. They were constantly trying to cut the budget. So I think what ended up happening was Rod Sling said, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it.

And they said, all right, you know what, let's let Rod do it. And he did it. And it was obviously. We can't imagine it any other way. Exactly. It's so interesting because his voice already in season one kind of dominated.

You already kind of knew. Yes. How could you replace that? And also, correct me if I'm wrong, but my memory is even in season one it was always and now Mr. Surling and he would introduce the trailer for Nicky. Yes. So he was on camera. He was on camera, yes, after the episode was over.

But that was just during the first run. So when I was watching the show, obviously in late 70s early, I never saw it never saw Yeah, and I just thought there were two episodes at least with the actor George Grazard One of them had to do with the love potion yes, there are the two episodes to do with the love potion yes there are other two episodes the uh... there's a half hour love potion one and then there's an hour episode in his image yes he built a robot himself and that one i like very creepy the chaser was the name of the other one yes uh... with the love potion george grisard usually played neurotic characters you know and he was good in

both of those parts I thought. And who were your dad's favorite actors in interpreting his work? You said in your book, Klugman was one of them. Yeah, definitely Klugman. You know, and I don't remember, this is one of many conversations I wish that I could have with him, but from what I understand, you know, after writing the book, Klugman certainly, Redford, you know, I think so many of them did such a superb job that my dad was quite pleased.

Art Carney, for sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember when Billy Mumey was on, he talked about how Klugman, you know, Mumey's parents were there, and Klugman went over to the parents and said, when your son shows up in the scene, I'm gonna grab him and I'm gonna start kissing him and squeezing him. And that's a great story. That really is a beautiful story, actually, that bloody Moomy says.

And he says his parents never got over that. Like how, what a gentleman this guy was to go basically warn his parents that he was gonna grab him and kiss him and hug him and so they wanted to make sure they were comfortable with that. Yeah. It's amazing. Did you meet him?

And what a gentleman Bill Mami is too, you know. He's a lovely guy. We love Bill. Such a genuine nice guy. He's a sweetheart. You must have been present in 88 when Klugman and Burgess Meredith were present for the dedication of your dad's star on the walk of fame and fortunately i would not there then i i wish i could

i i wish i had been but we were uh... you know back east well that's unfortunate all right absolutely is you're talking about uh... uh... jack clugman and uh... i believe uh... jack clugman had originally been cast as Santa Claus in Night of the Meek, and Art Carney was the second choice. And I think initially Rod wasn't that crazy about Art Carney,

really, really wanted Klugman, and then ultimately realized that Carney was brilliant in his own right. I mean, granted Klugman could have played that part beautifully too. I mean, let's face it, they were both wonderful actors. So we're talking about your dad's sense of humor and obviously you have to speculate again but one can't help imagine what he would have thought of what the show has become in

pop culture, how it's endured for decades. I mean, I think about Dan Aykroyd spoofing your dad on Saturday Night Live. Harry Shearer, I think, in later seasons. How many times he's been sent up? Semi-regular characters on The Simpsons, those two Martians. Oh, Kodos and Kang, Kang and Kodos. And in one of the Naked Gun movies,

the guy, the actor from that particular episode runs across the screen and yells To serve man. It's a cook. Oh, what's his name? Who is that? Who is that? Who is that actor Gary? You know the actor? Oh From is it Prince Weaver? Lloyd-Bockner oh, yes Yes, would he would he have would he have been tickled by it and do you think I? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that, you know, times change, but people don't change and we're still dealing with these things. My dad was so passionate and vocal about, you know, like prejudice and mob mentality and I mean, look at our current administration. Of course. It's so divisive and so again, that's, I think, a huge piece of why it has survived

all this time. But yeah, my dad would just be saddened in some ways, you know, because we are still dealing with all this shit, but just honored that he's remembered after all these decades because he didn't think he would be. That's incredible. Yeah, he's immortal and the Twilight Zone is immortal. It'll never go away. I mean, the name resonates just at the title itself

you know means so much in our culture so sadly watching the monsters are doing maple street and i are the beholder this weekend and you're struck by how timely they still are said sad to say and then as and points out in the current with the current administration time later than ever i i know it's it's indelicate to talk about, but boy, I mean, he was a visionary too. Oh, no doubt. Oh, yeah.

No doubt. Oh, yeah. Without question. So, I'm going to ask the panel. Now, I know this is hard. It's just like picking a favorite child, I would imagine, certainly for Ann. And you too, Gilbert. But we'll start with Gary. A favorite episode and then what you consider to be

a favorite underrated or underappreciated episode. Oh wow, you're really coming at us on this one, okay. Alrighty, my favorite episode, to me, the ultimate Twilight Zone episode to me is Eye of the Beholder. It has everything. It has an incredible twist. It has amazing Bill Tuttle makeup.

It has an incredible Bernard Herrmann score. And it just nailed it. And when I first saw that as a kid, it was like, oh my God, incredible. And again, you could keep going because if you want, what is your favorite sentimental one? Well, you know, you could start looking. What's your favorite underrated one?

One that you think deserves more attention and isn't quite on the tip of people's tongue. I'm gonna jump into the hour episodes and mention Death Ship by Richard Matheson, which also stars Jack Klugman, our good friend Jack Klugman. Oh, geez. And yeah, and that is a solid hour science fiction episode about a man who's driving the two men under him to such a degree he won't even let them die.

And it is the spookiest, most interesting piece of work, I think. And it's very much ignored. Most people remember the other Jack Klugman episodes. They tend to forget that one. So I'll throw that one out at you. I remember Saturday Night Live did a very funny sketch. There was a takeoff on Eye of the Beholder where the girl unwraps the bandages and it's Pam Anderson and the women doctors are going, oh she's hideous and the male doctors are going, no she's not!

Nick, same question. Favorite episode and favorite episode that needs more attention, deserves more attention. It is tough to pick a favorite. But at this moment, I'd say Walking Distances is probably my favorite. That's, we've talked about it enough. And that's just, I mean, Rod Serling, we talked about the sentimentality. I think one of the reasons that Rod Serling does endure and does appeal to so many generations is, I don't know of another writer who wore his heart on his sleeve the way Rod Serling did.

Every writer puts themselves into their work. That just kind of goes without saying, but I don't know of any other writer who really did it to the extent that Rod Serling did. If you watch Rod Serling's work, read Rod Serling's work, you know who he was. You know what was important to him, what he loved, and that just exudes from the screen. And that's why so many of us just gravitate toward him. So yeah, walking distance, I would say. And then I'll cheat and I'll give you two underrated ones. My first underrated, very underrated, is an episode called The Trouble with Templeton.

It was one of the episodes not written by any of the, what I call the core for Serling, Bradbury, I said Bradbury, Serling Mathison, Beaumont, or Johnson. It was written by E. E. I wouldn't, Newman. E. What's the magazine character? I forget. But it's written by somebody else.

And it's a very Serling-esque episode about an actor who goes back, he's trying to go back in time to his glory days. I remember that one. Who's that actor? Who's that? I'm so terrible with actors names. Oh God.

I can't remember. Gary will know. Oh God, who's that actor? We'll keep talking, actors names. I can't remember the rest of the names. We'll keep talking. Gary will find it. He was a movie actor from years ago. I can't think of his name. And Sidney Pollack is in this episode. He plays the director in this episode. But the beautiful thing about this one is that the past rejects him and sends him back. Basically his friends from the past send him back because they know he doesn't belong there.

They say go back to your own time. You live your own life. Live in present and uh i i love that one and the other one that i i would give you and it's uh i think most people do believe it uh do think it's a good episode but i don't think it gets enough credit is a shadow play by charles baumont shadow play was probably my favorite episode for a long time for several years i would have given you that is my favorite episode and it's it seems a class about it's uh you know about a guy who is continuously executed on the electric chair and it's a dream. It's a recurring dream, the nightmare that he's having

about being executed. Oh, with Dennis Weaver. Dennis Weaver, he's actually creating it. And that should be a top episode and it's hardly ever talked about as a top episode. Who the hell is that actor that he? Brian Ahern. Ah, yes, yes, yes.

Brian Ahern, right. Who was a real actor years ago, so he was a perfect choice for that role. Okay, Gilbert, best episode under, best underrated episode. Oh, well, I've talked about the same thing, you know, I love Walking Distance, with Praise of Pip being a close second, second. But I mean, there are so many great ones. It was... I remember when, you know, Frank called yesterday and said, you know, pick out four episodes. You just kept texting me for hours. Yes! Dead Tenders visited. One for the Angels. They just kept coming in.

I just kept going. Pallowing man. One for the angels. They just kept coming in. I just kept going. Yeah, I kept going. Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, this one's but great underrated ones. I don't know. This will probably hit me when the show's over. Okay, we'll do an addendum. Yeah. Okay, I will go. Actually, it's a great thing to bring out. I'm just thinking the big tall wish is something I watch constantly. Whatever it comes on. There's so many like that that you just love.

We're going to leave you for last, Dan. Best for last. I don't know about that, but I'm going to agree with Gilbert. Walking distance and in praise of Pip is one that I hadn't seen until my dad died. And I was so struck by that one because some of the dialogue between the father and the son was the exact same dialogue that my dad and I had. Who's your best buddy? And it just blew me away to watch that live in that episode. You know, underrated, even though I've had all these moments,

while you guys were talking about it, I'm still coming up, trying to come up with one. So, hit me later with that one. Well, this is good. We'll have something for the fans to look forward to. We'll put it up. I'll be the one that picks time enough at last as my favorite episode.

It's tragic, but it doesn't have a false note in it. And for an underrated episode, a tie, 100 yards over the rim, which I think is just a perfect episode. Yeah, it's a great one. And I like the time travel ones. I like back there, the John Wilkes Booth episode with Russell Johnson. Yeah, and with one hell of a Jerry Goldsmith score to go along with it. With Jerry Goldsmith music, yeah.

Yeah. Ann, tell us about the foundation, about the... You're on the board, as is Nick. Right. Well, it was started by a group of people that my dad went to school with and it's to remember my dad's legacy. Helen Foley was my father's teacher and actually she was the one who began it.

So yeah, Nick, you want to chime in here? Sure. And it's been going strong since 1985, I believe, when Helen Foley started, mid-80s. And we're going to have an event this October to celebrate the 60th anniversary right around the exact actual 60th anniversary This year in Binghamton, which is his adopted hometown October 4th 5th and 6th. We call it sterling fest it'll be the TZ at 60 and Tickets will be on sale soon and you can go to rod sterling comm to check that out What Gary what?

This is an obvious question, but what makes him great as a writer? Oh, well, yeah, everything we've been talking about. I mean, you know, you're talking about a man who felt very, very deeply about things. To use one of his words, he had a hunger. And that is very clear in everything he's ever written. Nothing is written casually, there's total commitment. So you have heart, soul, and intellect at work. And with The Twilight Zone, the imagination,

the fantasy angle on top of everything else. That'll add it up to one of the greatest writers we've ever known, period. I mean, what else can I say? Would you agree with that, Ann? Well, I'm a little start with Gary's first book, Fantastic Television, which remains a Bible and a must-have from way back in 1977. Yeah, I wrote that back in 1976 because at the time my best friend and my late writing partner Mark Carducci, we wrote Pumpkinhead together. We were kids who grew up loving

this stuff and we used to sit around, we'd be waiting for the bus to pick Mark up, take him home and all that, and we'd be sitting around on a stoop, and we would play a game called Remember the One. Remember the one with Agnes Moorhead fighting the little spaceman. Remember the one, and these were all the different episodes

of Twilight Zone and some Outer Limits or whatever, and it was just our memories. These things were not written about in books or anything, and that's what I said, I've gotta write a book for the first time that puts all these shows together so we can remember them and discuss them and talk about them. So that's what Fantastic Television was.

Very proud of it. It was the first book to deal with the subject way back when. And I've done other books over the years top 100 horror movies science fiction movies books about the film industry in the television industry I'm currently doing a documentary about a great composer Billy Goldenberg Billy Goldenberg Composed all of Steven Spielberg's early television work, including the Knight Gallery two-hour pilot. And Billy's an amazing composer,

and I'm very, very happy to be doing that. So that's kind of what I've been up to in that area lately. Okay, and Nick's wonderful book, and it's about a lot more than The Twilight Zone. It encompasses the entire career of the man. Yeah, it's the first book that actually covers his entire career in this way. It covers from the very first produced teleplay that he had in 1950, all the way through the End of Night gallery.

And it covers them show by show, series by series. And nobody had done it in this way before. When I started this book, nobody had even really had a complete list of everything that Rod Serling had written that had been produced. Every list that was out there was missing things, was gaps and errors and whatever else. So I really wanted to try to set the record for what Rod Serling wrote that was produced on radio as well as television and feature film and everything else. So it just covers absolutely everything that he wrote. It's a tome and it was an absolute

pleasure to read. Thank you. Yes. Last but not least, Ann, your memoir which made me tear up. Obviously a different take on the man from a very very personal standpoint and as I said it's filled with photographs, his letters home from the war, which are fascinating to read, funny stories, you really get an insight into the man behind the artist. I can't recommend it enough. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, it was a joy to write and decades to do it. I had started another book a few years after my dad died called As I Knew Him, and I hadn't

dealt with... I'm sorry, In His Absence, the one that was published was As I Knew Him, but I hadn't dealt with... You know, I hadn't even begun to deal with the grief, so I couldn't finish that. But, you know, reading about, you know, my dad's letters to his parents, you know, what I was talking about before when he was in training camp and learning about, you know, that other dimension of my dad, the professional side. It was just a joy to be with him every day while I was writing it. And we've also published some backlist books of my dad. He novelized 19 of the Twilight Zones and we've republished

those that are also available. Oh, great. Are you still lecturing occasionally? Are you still doing personal appearances? I am. I am, you know, not as frequently now, but I'm still called and just did an op-ed for somebody. So, it's, you know, and again, you know, my dad would be so touched that people and thanks to all of you guys on this call, he would be just so honored and touched. So thank you. Well, he touched our lives. Boy, did he ever. Gil?

Yeah. Well, this is one of those shows where I have to use the old adage that we say in so many of these shows, we haven't even scraped the surface. It's true. This is, we've done so many of these shows. We haven't even scraped the surface. It's true. We've done 260 something of these and I have to tell you, all of you, that I really want to thank you personally because this was such a fun, rewarding one to do. Oh, it was great.

To be in your company. Great for me. I loved hearing from you guys. It was fantastic. Work that enriched all of our lives and should be celebrated. Twilight Zone has popped up on this podcast so many times. So many times and we've wanted to do this when the anniversary came it just it seemed like a no-brainer for us so thanks to all of you. Now watch me screw up all the names. Hi, well I'm this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host,

Frank Santopadre and our guests, Gary Giorani and Nicholas Parisi and of course, Rod Serling's lovely daughter Anne Serling. Thank you guys, all of you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. and shirling. Thank you guys, all of you. Thank you. Bye bye. You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension, a dimension of sound,

a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. ["Twilight Zone Theme"] Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre

with audio production by Frank Verderosa. Web and social media is handled by Mike Lipatin, Greg Pair, and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn.