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The Twilight Zone Episode · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Oh, I should say...
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and this is Chuck,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: and this is you too. And this is Stuff You
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Should Know, the Twilight Zone edition.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Completely unrecognizable as the Twilight Zone theme song.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Really? It was off?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I think you give people 100 guesses. No one's guessing
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Twilight Zone.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. All right, well.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I've been singing the Golden Earring song in my head
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: all day.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, I forgot about that. Thanks for that, earworm.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: When the bullet hits the bone.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: That's the one?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: That's the one.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that was Golden Earring, too.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: They talk about doing speed in that Twilight Zone song. Actually,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: he talks about not doing speed because he's almost there.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I think I knew that.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, no more speed, I'm almost there. Oh, okay.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I don't think he's talking about driving fast.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. No, but we're talking
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: about Twilight Zone, the great TV show that started out
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in October 2nd, 1959 at a time when TV minds
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: would be blown because if you're talking about I guess
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: whatever you would call science fiction on television at the time.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: It's very kind of corny B-movie kind of stuff.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And people were not ready for what the great, great
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Rod Serling was about to deliver into their living rooms.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: No, the 50s started what's known as the golden age
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: of television. And Rod Serling was a major part of
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: making it the golden age of television. And not just
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: with the Twilight Zone. He started out with an illustrious
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: career basically right off the bat. He was doing some
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: radio writing. He started to try his hand at TV.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: And at the time... TV was about as good as
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: those B-sci-fi movies were. You had variety shows, westerns, lots
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and lots of westerns. Oh, yeah. Sitcoms that were mostly slapstick,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: nothing like– there wasn't anything particularly high-minded, right?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And so Serling comes along and he starts writing these
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: 90-minute TV plays– That were broadcast live. So it was
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: very much like a live TV play. And that they
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: were just the stuff he was writing. It just hadn't
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: been seen before on television. And again, television wasn't that old.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: So there wasn't a lot to compare it to. But
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: he just took what was going on and elevated it
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: to just astronomical new levels.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. His big hit that he kind of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: got his name for at first was in 1956. It
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: was a one of those teleplays called Patterns. And it
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: was about kind of ruthless business people. And it was really,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: really popular. And I think you found this thing that
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: was it was so popular. It was the first TV
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: show ever to run again. Like they put it on
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the air again just because people thought it was so awesome.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so this is his first thing that got
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: really big. And he hadn't been writing all that long
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: by the end of. the 50s, so less than a decade,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: maybe half a decade, he had something like 100 produced
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: scripts under his belt. And then he was also the
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: recipient of more Emmys for TV writing than anyone in history,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: still to this day. So he was really, really good
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: at what he did. Yeah.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Another big one was, and this is one I had
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: heard of because they made a film after this teleplay,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: but it was called Requiem for a Heavyweight. And when
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I saw that, I was like, wait, is that the movie? Like,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: did he base it on that or the other way around?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he wrote the original script for Jack Palance's
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Requiem for a Heavyweight. And I think that won a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Peabody Award. He was the first writer to ever win
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: a Peabody for TV writing.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully it's coming through like how good Rod
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Serling was and just how... He's considered, you know, synonymous
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: with the Twilight Zone, but there is just a lot
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: more to him.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Handsome, too.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: One of the things that he he he was really
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: big on was basically tackling big social issues of the day.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: In large part, racism, fascism through the McCarthy trials or hearings,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And he just hit wall after wall.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Not only were the networks like really worried about losing
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: sponsors by putting anything like particularly hard hitting on that
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: he had, like the censors were conservative and they were like,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: you can't, you can't do that. You can't talk about,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: you know, black people on television, even though it's what's
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: going on. You can't, you can't write a show about that.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So he, he kept running into it and he would adjust.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I saw that there was one, It's considered one of
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the greatest shows of all time. It's called The Town
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: That Turned to Dust. And it was written about lynchings
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: in the South. But he had to move it from
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the south to the southwest and the victim from a
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: black man to a Mexican man. And apparently the censors
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: were like, oh, yeah, that's all totally fine. But he
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: had to turn it into something of an allegory to
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: make it more palatable for TV viewers. So right off
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: of the bat, he basically had to figure out how
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: to maneuver into this really tight structure that he found
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: very stifling.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of those was something he wrote a teleplay
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: about corruption on Capitol Hill, which by the time it
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: got to air was not even recognizable as the thing
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: that he had written to begin with.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Like Dirty Dancing 2.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So he told the press, he said, in retrospect,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I probably would have had a much more adult play
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: had I made it science fiction, put it in the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: year 2057 and peopled the Senate with robots. And so
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: that idea, I mean, that was just a quote to
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the press, but he was like, maybe there's something to this.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Like he can get across messages better if he packages
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: it in something that's, you know, kind of sci-fi and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: more palatable. Right. So we moved to L.A. with this idea. Specifically,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: his pitch was to base a TV show around this
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: other thing. One of his last TV plays is called
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: The Time Element about a guy who had a recurring
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: dream that he goes back to Hawaii in 41 to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: warn about the attack on Pearl Harbor. And then there's
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: a twist, which, of course, Twilight Zone would become known
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: for twist in general. But in this case, it was like,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: was it a dream kind of thing? But he was
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: like in 58, he said, why don't we try and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: do a TV show like where every week we have
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: something like the time element?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And he was used to writing 90 minute teleplays.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: So he wanted an hour long slot. And CBS is like, no,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: let's let's see what you got with a half hour first.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So he came up with, I guess, something called a
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: happy place. I don't think it was ever produced. I
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: didn't see any mention of it being produced. It was
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: just the first attempt at a pilot. And it was
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: more than CBS was willing to accept because it was
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: it essentially became Logan's run years later, where once you
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: reached age 60, you were taken to a happy place.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And the happy place was the place where you were exterminated. Right.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: CBS is like, no, we're not we're not doing that.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: What else you got? Yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: And he said, well, I got this other thing. It's
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: called Where Is Everybody? And it was sort of like
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the last person on Earth kind of scenario. And the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: twist in this case was the last man was an
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: astronaut in a tank, a sensory deprivation tank, training for
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a solo mission to the moon. CBS was like, now
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: we're talking, baby. How about 36 episodes? And he said, great.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: He wrote 80 percent of those scripts and was an
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: owner of 50 percent of the show. And he made
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the name up, like the Twilight Zone was something he
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: just came up with, even though it turns out that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: is a aviation term that the Air Force uses is
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: when you're about to land and you can no longer
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: see the horizon, you're in the Twilight Zone. But apparently
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: he didn't know that and didn't get it from that.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: No, it's got a nice ring to it. I could
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: see someone putting it together.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: It's creepy sounding.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: You just reminded me, I meant to propose, what if
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: we don't give away the twists of any of the episodes?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I kind of wondered that too. Yeah, let's do that.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: OK, well, sorry about the first one, everybody, but we
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: won't give any more away. How about that?
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because hopefully what happens is you'll go out and
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: be encouraged to watch some of these full episodes, which.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: You can do. Man, I watched so many of them
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: over the last couple of days. It's just been a
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: real joy, dude.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched one full one today that I'd seen before,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: but I have seen a bunch of these. I used
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to watch the reruns. And then I watched a couple
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: of there's a couple of fun lists like top 20
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: creepiest on YouTube, top 20 creepiest reveals on the Twilight Zone.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And I remember I went through that today and I
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: probably remembered about half of those.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Which one did you watch today?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I watched I wanted to watch one I had
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: seen before and I watched the Burgess Meredith. Well, I'm
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: not going to reveal it. Burgess Meredith is one of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the last guys. who doesn't want to live anymore because
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: he survived the nuclear Holocaust. And then he realizes that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the library is there and he's a big reader. And
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: he's like, well, I've got the books. I can now,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I have all the time in the world to read.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And then something happens.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a great one. I think that was season
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: one as well. That might've been the, I don't remember
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: exactly which one that was, but that was a great one.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: That's so just buckle up everybody. Cause I'm going to
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: say that was a great one about basically all the episodes.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: because that is something about the Twilight Zone. It never
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: got bad. It never declined. It was great until the end.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. If you've ever seen an episode, then you
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: know that they open with, again, very handsome Rod Serling,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: even though he was five foot four. Who cares? Packed
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of handsome in that body. Cool as a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: cucumber coming out there. Looks so cool. And he gives
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: his opening spiel, which changed over the years. It wasn't
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the same thing each season. But one of the seasons,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one this is. It goes a
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: little something like this. There is a fifth dimension beyond
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that which is known to man. It is a dimension
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and superstition. And it lies between the pit of man's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Twilight Zone.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Very nice. And I thought that was the one that
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: changes sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Each season it was slightly different, I think.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I did not know that. You mentioned he was handsome
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: in that he hosted. Did you say that the first
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: season when he did the... the initial, uh, what is
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: it called? Where you narration, I guess.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Uh, that he was off screen for the first season.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Well, no. And it's because he had stage fright, right? Yes.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: He had really, really bad stage fright. Um, and he
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm fine to do the narration, do the writing,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: all that stuff. And yes, I would love 50% of
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: the show's revenue. Um, But eventually, for some reason, they
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: were like, dude, you should just be in front of
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: camera doing this.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: And so there was a guy who was a director
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: who worked on The Twilight Zone. His name was Lamont Johnson.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And he later said, like, his week would be ruined
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: when he knew that he was going to have to
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: be in front of the camera.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: But he did great. You did great, Ghost of Rod Serling.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you would never know because he seemed just so
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: cool up there on screen. Yeah. He did a great job.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: He did. Again, goes to Brad Serling. Be proud.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: So one of the other things that Dave dug up
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: that I thought was great, he dictated all of his scripts.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And he could dictate 10 to 15 pages worth in
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: one sitting, which I would not be able to do. Because, yeah,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: that just seems way harder than writing to me. Yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And I guess he had someone sitting there who could
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: do steno really fast.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I hope so. Yeah.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we'll take a little slightly early break
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: and come back.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: All right. We'll come back and talk about some of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the themes right after this.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: So if you've watched The Twilight Zone, you'll see that
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that kind of come up.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: There's recurring themes like The last person or only person
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: in a town or on Earth or something like that. Yeah.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: That's a big one. So loneliness, isolation, mob mentalities come
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: up quite a bit. People losing themselves due to like
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: panic or just going along with the mob. But one
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: of the ones that I really love is nostalgia. Rod
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Serling really felt great about his childhood, which is in
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a picturesque town of Binghamton. New York.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Boy, that pee can trip you up. So he really
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: loved small town America. He was born in 1924 between
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: World War I and.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: World War II.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And he just had a really great childhood. And that
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: comes through in a lot of the episodes. Like for
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the most part, if you find a small town, it's
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: pretty great. But then obviously there's always a twist to that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There was one famous episode called A Stop at Willoughby.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: where an ad exec from New York discovers a train
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: stop on his way home that is an actual throwback town,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the town of Willoughby, where it's always the summer of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: 1888 and everything's wonderful. And he gets off there. And
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: we're not going to say what happens because we're not
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: revealing twists. But another fun thing Dave dug up is
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: in Willoughby, Ohio, their annual summer festival is called Last
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Stop Willoughby. And it's got a little Twilight Zone theme
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: running through. I think the library plays that. Theme music
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Josh did at the beginning on a loop all day.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, no, I think they play that episode to
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: stop at Willoughby on a loop. Oh, OK.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I thought they did the theme. I was like, that'd
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: be a little maddening. Especially your version.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: But that's it. That's the entire thing that the town
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: of Willoughby does. They just play that episode on a
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: loop at the library. No one else talks about it
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: the rest of the day.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Um, so out of high school, Serling, I saw that
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: he was described as an angry person. Um, I don't
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: know when he picked that up, but it was probably
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: during his, uh, experiences in World War II. Like you said,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: he was 5'4, so he shouldn't have been eligible for
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: the draft, but I think he insisted. And they're like, sure,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: we could use you. He, um, did paratrooper training. Yeah. Uh, he,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: he became a boxer. He was a flyweight boxer. He
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: was in 17 bouts. I did not see how Good
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: he was or not, but he stood up at least
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: 17 times.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was okay. Okay. Let's just say that. I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: think he tried golden gloves after and they were like, yeah,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: you're not so great. But, you know, the point is
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he was in there slugging it out.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he could have beat me up, I'm sure.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, both of us.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: At the same time. So in World War II, he
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: was stationed in the Pacific, in the Philippines, and he
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: saw like heavy action and a lot of friends died
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: around him, in front of him. And it just seared
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: itself on his memory, obviously. That's why one of the
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: other recurring themes is war and the hell of war.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: That's a that's. maybe the most recurring theme. Cause even
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: if it's not set in war, it's very often, um,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: there's some like mention or some connection to war. Like
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: even if the, the, the events took place after some war. Yeah.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Uh, I saw, um, he wanted to fight the Nazis.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So he was, he wanted to get sent to that theater.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So apparently he wasn't happy to get sent to the Pacific, but, um,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: He also writes, you know, in some of the Twilight
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Zone episodes about the absurdity of war, because I know
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: one event that just horrific but sounds just crazy is
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: that at one point, like one of his friends was
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: standing around just kind of entertaining everyone, like telling jokes
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and stuff. And a supply box like that the U.S.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: was dropping, like, here's some supplies. Oh, no. Dick fell
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: on this guy and decapitated him in front of Rod
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Serling and all his troop mates.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Troop mates.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Is that a thing?
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So, you know, stuff like that would happen. He saw
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the real hell of war. He got a purple heart,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a bronze star. It was not like some cushy, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: he wasn't like writing for the stars and stripes away
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: from the battles.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: And we want to apologize for all the writers of
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: stars and stripes.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Of course, because, you know, that's what I would want
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not throwing stones, man. Give me a camera.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Give me a typewriter.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: So there were a couple of episodes that were pretty
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: heavy handed as far as like beating you over the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: head of like just how terrible war is. But they're
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: still great. They're still great, everybody. One that really stood
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: out to me was The Quality of Mercy, which it
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: turns out is a Shakespeare quote from Merchant of Venice.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: But it's about this guy, this not a sorry, I
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: guess a lieutenant who is really wanting to prove himself.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: But he came to the war very late. He was young.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And so it's the last day of World War II.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: But he orders, since it's still a day in World
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: War II, he orders his men to go take out
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: a nest of Japanese soldiers hidden in a cave. It's
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: going to kill a bunch of Japanese guys. It's going
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to kill a bunch of Americans for no reason whatsoever
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: because this is the last day of the war. And
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: yet he's like really gung-ho about it and makes them
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: do it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe this one, maybe we can reveal a couple of
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: twists just so people get the point of this whole thing.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Is that okay? Okay.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: We don't want to spoil them all. In this case,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the twist is that he's transformed into a Japanese soldier,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and that soldier gets the same orders to kill his
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: American troops. Yeah. A big, obviously, moral statement. This one
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: is kind of similar to it wasn't a direct remake,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: but the Twilight Zone movie, which we're going to talk
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: about later, which was a huge, huge movie for me
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid, kind of is akin to
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the Vic Morrow storyline of like a racist guy who
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: gets all of a sudden thrust into war. And but
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: people think he is or the people that they're fighting.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. So that's just one example of many about war.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: But he also was writing in the time of like
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: the Cold War as well. And there was a lot
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: of like he captured like paranoia, losing yourself to mob mentality.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Like I said, one of the ones that usually gets
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: cited is the monsters are due on Maple Street. We
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: cannot give that twist away. No, no, no, no.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: That's from season one. And that's that's up at the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: top of most list of like best in the series where. Well, yeah,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I guess we can talk about the first part, but
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: not the twist. But the residents, you talked about mob mentality.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: In this case, they turn on each other during a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: blackout and, you know, it turns into like a like
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a mob mentality.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they're expecting an alien invasion and they're like, wait,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: are the aliens already among us? Are you an alien?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: You know, it's really good. And it's just it's set.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I think the entire thing is set in one front yard. Oh, really?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. I don't think that they leave the
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: front yard. I think the whole thing takes place on
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the street in this neighborhood, which makes it even better.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: It's just, that's the other thing too. The twists in
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the writing, the stories themselves get top billing in like
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: all of the spotlight. But man, some of the best
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: directors working at the time, some of the best cinematographers,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: like the stuff they were doing was just primo television
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: that still holds up today. That at the time, no
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: one had seen anything like this. Like it was just
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: a gift to the world. And it still is, frankly,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: because all of the episodes are great. Yeah.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: And a lot of like actors would get their start
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: on TV. Obviously, that's still a thing in some cases. Mm-hmm.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Like Robert Redford, Elizabeth Montgomery, Dennis Hopper, Anne Francis, Robert Duvall,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Carol Burnett got her start on The Twilight Zone.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Charlie Bronson, Jarvis Bronson, Julie Newmar, and of course, Burt Reynolds.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Man, Julie Newmar.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: She was Catwoman, right?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: One of the Catwomen?
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: She was the original campy Catwoman. Yeah.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned the theme music. It turns out that there, well,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: we can talk about it. Like, there's a story behind that, too.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: There was a music director who was like, the season
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: one music, it's fine, but we can do better. His
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: name was Lud Gluskin. Either way, he would give you
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: three tries to guess his name or else you had
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to give him your firstborn child.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Very nice.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And he dug into the CBS Music Library looking for
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: something and I guess was in a very creative mood
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: because he put two pieces together and he came up
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: with the Twilight Zone theme. Yeah.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a thing that still happens. Even our
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: own iHeartMedia has a music library where they have, I guess,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: commissioned a bunch of musicians to make a bunch of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: kind of generic, not to say bad, but generic music. Like, hey,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: something that sounds like something symphonic or something that sounds
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: like yacht rock. And then you pay a musician to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: make this and you own it forever, basically, without having
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to pay them any more money.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: You pay them in exposure.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the reason I said Yacht Rock is we,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you know, Adam and I started the Three Putt Bogey
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: podcast and we wanted something Yacht Rocky and leaned on Ben.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: We were like, Ben, is there something that you can find?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Or like, he's a musician. Can you put something together?
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: He's a genius.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And he sent us like 12 podcasts. could like total
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: yacht Rocky sounds from the I heart music library that
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: are just completely, you know, licensed for us to use.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: And it's just an embarrassment of riches basically. And that's
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: what they had with the twilight zone when they took
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a Romanian born musician and a Marius Constance, two things
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: from him, a strong number three, which is the do, do, do, do, do, do,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: do on electric guitar.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Which was electric guitar, by the way. And milieu number two,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: which is that kind of, kind of chaotic ending. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: they smashed those together to great success.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. With the bongos.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: That was great stuff.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that was it. You put those back to
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: back and you've got the, the twilight zone theme. I,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I love that everything about this has a story, but still,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: if you go research twilight zone, it's actually hard to
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: find because all anybody wants to talk about is the episodes. And,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Understandably so. You could say that they're all great.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Should we talk about some more? Or should we
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: take a break and then do that? Here, why don't
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: we talk about some more episodes and then we'll break
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: before we talk about the modern stuff?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you decided. I had a bulia for a second.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So five seasons total is what we get with the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: original run of The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling wrote 92 episodes.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of the 156 episodes. And I'm gonna talk about one,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna pick this one, Eye of the Beholder, because
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: this was, I don't think I remember seeing this one,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: but I had heard about it and this was in
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the list of top 20 great reveals or whatever. And
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I think this is one where I will reveal the twist.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I see in retrospect that saying we weren't
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: gonna reveal any more twists was black and white thinking
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: and I need to be more, I need to go
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: with the flow a little more.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: No, you're doing fine. So this one will reveal the twist,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: but if you don't want to hear it, just mute
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: it for a few seconds when I say the twist is.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, put your fingers in your ears, plug your ears
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: with your fingers and go as loud as you can.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly. This one was in fact written by Rod Serling.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: It was directed by Douglas Hayes. And this was a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: woman that in the show, she was wrapped up in
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: bandages the whole time. So you couldn't see her face,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: but The reason that she goes to the surgery that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: she's there for is because apparently she's so ugly that
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: she has to have this plastic surgery to make her
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: look like everyone else looks. And then, you know, you
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: can't see her face through the whole thing. She's wrapped
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in bandages. If you, you know, this is season two.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: So by this time, episode six, everyone's like, I wonder
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: what's under those bandages. Can't wait for that twist. You
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: can't see the doctors because they have their surgical masks
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And then the big twist in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the reveal when she takes those bandages off is that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: she's very beautiful by definition. just, you know, normal, regular
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: standards of the day. And then the doctors take their
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: stuff off and they have like pig noses and like
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: horrible scars and stuff. So that's the big twist. Yeah.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Beauty's relative.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about a couple that are my favorites.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Do you mind?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear about them. Okay.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: So I like some of the sweeter ones that aren't
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: necessarily terrifying. I love the terrifying ones, but There's some
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: sweet ones out there. There's one called The Changing of
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the Guards with Donald Pleasence as a boarding school teacher
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: at the end of his years. So sweet. There's one
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: called The Fugitive where this alien plays with little kids
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: and ends up sacrificing his own freedom to save this
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: little girl whose leg isn't a brace.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I think I saw that one back in the day.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: That is such a great one. That's got one of
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: the all-time great twists as well.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And then there's another one called Night Call. That is
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: probably the scariest one of all, I think.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that one.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: It's an old woman who lives alone in her house.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: She gets visited by her nurse once a day, but
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the nurse leaves at night. And then while she's trying
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: to sleep, she gets these calls from this really unsettling
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: voice that can barely talk. He just sounds messed up.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And she has no idea who this caller is. As
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: night after night goes by, these calls just keep freaking
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: her out more and more. And then the twist of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the whole thing is, well, it's pretty great.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Well, you're going to have to tell me these twists
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: because I don't remember the one that I saw and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't see this one. Okay.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: That one's great. And then the last one I want
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: to talk about is what I think is, well, it's
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: my favorite. I'm not going to say it's the best one.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: It's called the after hours where this, this woman is
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: in a department store after hours, she gets trapped in
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: there because she's trying to find a gold thimble and
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: stuff is just weird. Like things are getting very odd.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: There's this shop lady who is assisting her that keeps
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: disappearing and appearing. And it's just, something's off here. And the,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: The twist is really great. All right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going to mention three kind of quickly because all
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: three of these had Simpsons episodes. And two of the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: three were used in the Twilight Zone movie in the 80s.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The first one, It's a Good Life from season three,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: episode eight. It's about a little kid who has these
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: godlike powers. And if he gets angry, like you can't
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: upset this kid because he can turn he can basically
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: control things and make bad things happen to people. That
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: was inspiration for the Bart Zone from the Treehouse of Horror,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: one of the Treehouse of Horrors. And that, again, was
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: redone very successfully, I think, in the movie. Living Doll
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: was a predated Chucky from Child's Play in that we
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: had Talking Tina, which was a demonic doll with the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: great Telly Savalas. Simpsons Clown Without Pity was a Simpsons version. Mm-hmm.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: And then Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is maybe the most
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: classic episode of all time as far as being well-known.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: That was all the way in season five. And that's
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: when William Shatner is on an airline plane. And I
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: think he's coming home from visiting a sanitarium or something
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: because he was nervous. And he sees a monster on
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the wing. And that is also done in the movie
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: version with the great John Lithgow. And then later done
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: in the most recent Twilight Zone with Adam Scott in
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: sort of a different way.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: So good.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And was on The Simpsons. Terror at five and a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: half feet in the case of The Simpsons.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that one. Do you?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that. I'll have to go back and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: watch it. But it's funny to go back and watch,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you know, watch bits from the original Nightmare at 20,000 feet.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And the monster on the plane is so corny looking now.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: But it was absolutely terrifying. I'm sure, at the time.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's still unsettling in its way.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It is corny, but also you're like, good God, that
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: thing is awful.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, if anything else, you'd be terrified
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: because you're like, There's a weird man in a funny
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: looking suit.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Right. He's trying to bring the plane down.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: So I think I would my the one I would
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: put up for the most famous one is to serve man.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Where the aliens come down and they have this book
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: called To Serve Man. And they're like really nice and
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: kind to humans. And they want to take some humans
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: home with them. Do you know that one?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Can you give me more without giving it away?
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: I will. We're going to beep this out because here's
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the twist, Chuck.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Pretty great, huh?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, that's probably our longest beep in history.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: It's got to be.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. And that sounds familiar. And that's, well,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: if I said what movie that probably inspired, it would
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: probably give away the twist. So I won't. Okay.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Fair enough.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you during break, which we'll take right now.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Okay stuff you should.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Know All right. We're back, everybody, to talk about some
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: later iterations because the Twilight Zone OG was canceled in
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: 1964 after but five seasons. I don't think you said
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that he I know you said the beginning he wanted
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: an hour, but they said 30 minutes. But then they
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: did go to an hour during what season four? Yeah.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: They had a mid-season show that they canceled, or they
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: had a show that they canceled mid-season that was an
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: hour long, and they're like, hey, you want your shot
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: finally at the hour-long version of Twilight Zone? And by
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: this time, Rod Serling was like, no, actually, a half
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: hour is perfect. They're like, well, T.S. for you because
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: we need an hour-long version. So season four is typically
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: considered the least favorite of people because it is true.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: The Twilight Zone is a perfect half-hour show, but.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: The season four episodes are still great.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. But that's a totally interesting little footnote, I think,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: because I didn't know that until you sent that along. Yeah.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And then they went back for season five. The last season,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: it went back to half hour again. So it was
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: just season four.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, crazy. He, like I said, you know, they got canceled.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: It's not like Rod Serling was no good anymore. He
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: was still a hugely successful writer and went on and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: did more work, of course. But he liked being Mr.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Twilight Zone, which is what people would call him when
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: they see him out, of course. Uh, and I think
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: anything after that he did, uh, I think Rod's, uh,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Serling's night gallery was a show that came along that
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: he put his name on. I'm not sure how much
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: he had to do with it, but.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I liked night gallery. Yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was pretty good, but it
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: would probably wasn't as successful as the twilight zone and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: he never reached that kind of success again. Um, Speaking
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of twists, though, even though Planet of the Apes, the movie,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: was based on a French novel, he did write that
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: original script, that first script for the first Planet of
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the Apes movie.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The French novel was called Le Planet of the Apes.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: He also taught at Ithaca College. I did not see
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: their mascot. So let's just say the Fighting Ignatiuses.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I think he taught English or writing or something, probably writing.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: And he's still revered. Quite a bit today. There's a
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: cool statue of him there. Oh, I bet.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Very sadly, he was a lifelong, like, three to four
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: pack a day. By the way, Ithaca College Bombers, go Bombers.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, OK. Go Bombers.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That sounded so Midwest. Go Bombers.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Sorry about that.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: He smoked three to four packs of cigarettes a day,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: which is just a crazy amount of cigarettes.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: So unsurprisingly, he died at 50 years old after complications
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: from heart surgery. This was in 1975. And, you know,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: if you do the math, he could have, if he
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: hadn't have smoked and lived to be 80, like he
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: would have been alive in 2005 and seen all these
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: reboots come along and maybe perhaps have been a part
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: of some of these.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And probably have done some other really great stuff too,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: you know. But yeah, so you said there was rebooted
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: three times and then there was the movie. I was like,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: so the really, probably the best reboot was from 1985
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to 1987. It had three seasons and it had a
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: lot of really good episodes in them. And I was
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: going through the episodes and I'm like, where's the Kick
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: the Can one? Because Kick the Can is one of
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the original Twilight Zone episodes where a group of rest home,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Residents are bored and they want to like keep, you know,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: living life. So they go play a game of kick
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: the can and they have to get around like this
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: administrator or nurse or whatever who just wants them to
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: act their age and relax and rest. It's really great.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I thought that I had seen
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: the reboot version in 1985. Couldn't find it. That's the
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: one that Steven Spielberg directed in the movie.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Did you see the movie?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, I don't know why. I mean, I guess
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the why was because I liked watching the reruns. So
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: when The Twilight Zone, the movie, came out in 1983,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I was 12. And, oh, buddy, I ate it up.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I saw it at least twice in the theater.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, each direct, Steven Spielberg directed that one.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Dante directed one. John Landis directed the one that
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about here in a second. And George Miller,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the great George Miller. And then there was that great
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: opening bit with Dan Aykroyd. I remember that it was
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: like a little intro part with Dan Aykroyd. And oh, God,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I'm blanking on who his carmate, his passenger was. I
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: can't remember. Anyway, it's just a little, you know, a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: little teaser at the beginning. And then you hear the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Twilight Zone music come in and then you get the
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: four films. And like I said, it's a good life
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: about the kid who can control things. That was remade.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Nightmare on 20,000 Feet was remade. Um, I guess all
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: of them were, were remakes now that I think about it, uh,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: except for maybe the Vic Morrow. And that's, like I said,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: seemed to be based on just, unless somebody knows it
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: was a direct remake, it seemed to be based on, uh,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the ideas of like racist and war and stuff like that.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And that had a very tragic ending, right?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, it actually sunk the, the, um, movie, the,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: it got such bad press, um, during production, uh, where
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: they were filming a scene where Vic Morrow is, um,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I think trying to help two little Vietnamese girls escape,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: they're going through a rice paddy and there's a helicopter
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: flying over them. And the helicopter, I think, struck a wire.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: It was a real helicopter really, you know, moving with
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: its rotors in the soundstage. It struck a wire and
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the rotors, they killed Vic Morrow and the two girls
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: like immediately. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like and obviously that
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: was big news and everybody was so traumatized by it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I saw that George Miller, he did the Max trilogy,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the original three.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: He was like he wasn't on set. He had nothing
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: to do with that that segment, but just being associated
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: with that movie. like stirred him so much that he
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: was like, I don't know about some of the stunts
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: that I've been having my actors do. Like, I think
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: he kind of, it felt like somebody walked over his grave,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: like what he'd been able to get away with without
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: anybody getting hurt or killed. And so he went on
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: to co-write Babe.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And he did the most recent Mad Max 2,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: by the way.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, did he?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: But he did Babe. And I think that's probably the pinnacle.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that is a little fun fact, if you
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: didn't know that, that the same guy who did Mad
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Max did Babe Pig. Did he pig in the city
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: or the original?
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: He did both.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yep. Okay, that's right. Yeah, a very just tragic thing.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Like you said, huge lawsuits. And I think we talked
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: about that before in a movie, actually, in like a
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: top 10 list in an episode.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember what. Maybe special effects?
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I believe I told you that Vic Morrow
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: was Jennifer Jason Leigh's father, and you did not know
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that at the time.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: That is so funny because I just found out today
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: that Vic Maldo is Jennifer Jason Lee's father. So it
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: happened again.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: All right. So the 85 to 87 you feel like
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: is the most successful TV reboot. There was also one
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in 2002 where Forrest Whitaker was the host, which I
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: think was a great pick. I love Forrest Whitaker. And
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: this had, you know, some big, big stars. I don't
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: think it was. I didn't see any of these, but
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: they did remake some of these, including a fun. update
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: on It's a Good Life, where it's called It's Still
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: a Good Life. And they had the kid, Bill Mummy,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the kid who played the kid from the beginning, was
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: a grownup terrorizing a town.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But now his daughter was around and she might
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: be even worse than him. Who knows? Only Forrest Whitaker knows.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: We should say in 2002, that episode starred Cloris Leachman
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: and she was in, I think, more than one episode
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: of the original run.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: She was in the original It's a Good Life. She
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: was Billy Mummy's mom. oh billy mummy's mommy.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's right uh and then they also updated the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: maple street one right yeah they.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Did kind of like a post 9-11 one where instead
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: of aliens the neighbors turn on each other thinking that
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: they're terrorists so i think probably that was like a
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: little on the nose for 2002 i'm not sure yeah
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: maybe But the one that I think most people who
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: listen to us are probably familiar with is the one
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: that just came out a couple of years ago that
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Jordan Peele produced that were great. But Jordan Peele had
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: the great misfortune of releasing this Twilight Zone episode at
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: a time when Black Mirror was at its apex. And
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: there was just nothing he could do to compete with
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Black Mirror. Like you can't. Most people are like Black
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Mirror is the true successor of Twilight Zone. Nobody's done
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: it better since. And it's probably true. Again, if you
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: just saw Jordan Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone, it's like it's
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: great on its own for sure.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have not seen those. I did see the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Adam Scott episode because I'm just a big Adam Scott
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: fan and I'm a big fan of that story Nightmare
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: this time at 30,000 feet. It's a good one. And
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I don't he didn't see a monster on that one,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: does he?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: No, he's listening to a podcast appropriately enough. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: And the podcast, it turns out, is about a plane crash.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: And then it turns out further that it's about the
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: crash of the plane that he's on. Yes. So he
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: spends the whole thing trying to convince everybody rather than
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: there's a monster on the plane. instead that this plane
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: is going to crash. And the twist is even better,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I think, than the original William Shatner version, Nightmare at
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: 20,000 Feet. It's a great twist.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I do remember the twist. I need to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: check more of it out, but I was into Black
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Mirror and Maybe that's why I didn't watch Twilight Zone
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: because there's maybe you can only watch so much of
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But Black Mirror was truly great
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and bad timing for Jordan Peele.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: It really was. And now that Black Mirror's kind of
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: gone away, you could, especially if you haven't seen them before,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: you could probably enjoy them a little more than you
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: could have at the time. It was really weird. Like
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: you just couldn't enjoy both on their own. Like it
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: was just, you know, you just couldn't give it a try.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: You couldn't face it. I have one more thing.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's hear it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Have you ever noticed in Twilight Zone episodes, the actors
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: stand really close together?
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Are we doing this?
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love this part. Okay, because it stood out
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: to me. So if it stood out to me, it
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: stood out to other people. Do you mind?
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Sure. I just wonder if you didn't see any TV
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: pre like 1995.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know why it stands out to me in
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Twilight Zone. But yes, I do realize that it is common,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: especially in like the 50s. But in the Twilight Zone,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: maybe it's because it's creepy. The plot lines are creepy.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: So people standing close together is creepier than it would
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: be in like, say, an episode of General Hospital from
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: the 50s.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to yuck your yum. I'm kidding.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: You go ahead and tell everybody.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Thanks. Did you know already why the actors stand so
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: close together, not just on the Twilight Zone, but back
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: in the day?
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's because the aspect ratio of a TV at
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: the time was 4 to 3, which is almost a
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: perfect square. Nothing like the 16 to 9 we have today,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: which allows for a lot more peripheral vision. So if
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you wanted a close-up of not one, but more than
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: one character, they had to stand physically close together to
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: get in the frame.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Amazing. The more you know.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Just a little bonus for those of us who weren't
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: in the film industry back in the 50s.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know I wasn't.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: That's it for Twilight Zone. I think we could sit
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: here for another hour and just talk about our favorite episodes.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: But we will leave it to you to just go
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: watch the Twilight Zone. It really is a gift to
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: humanity that Rod Serling created. And while you go do that,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: we're going to do listener mail.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: To set up this listener mail, I'm going to very
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: quickly retell the story because it won't make sense if
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard this kind of obscure reference. When I
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: worked at JJ's Barbecue in Stone Mountain, Georgia in the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: 1980s as a 12-year-old. Still sounds weird to say. But yeah,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I had a job as a busboy as a 12-year-old.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Not when you say Stone Mountain, Georgia.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Right. And one time there was a big pot of
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Brunswick stew in the walk-in. I was in there getting
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: some stuff with this guy, Keith, who worked there. And
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: he said, hey, watch this. And Keith put his entire
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: shooed foot and jeaned leg into the Brunswick stew and
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: pulled it back out. And that stew was later heated
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: up and served to diners.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: So that's the setting. A depraved situation.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: My best friend Dave and I, who also work together,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: both avid listeners of Stuff You Should Know, have been
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: since 2008. Each week, one of us makes lunch for
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the entire week, and there's usually a theme. And for
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: this week's lunch, I made Brunswick stew. And in honor
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: of Chuck's foot in the Brunswick stew story on how
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: restaurant health inspections work. Oh, there you go. Mm-hmm. I
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: stuck my bare foot into a container of the stew.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I took a video and shared it with Dave so
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: he knew what he was getting into. He loved the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: video and still loved the stew. I can assure you
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: that my foot was very, very clean. Thank you for
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: the inspiration and all the great stories over the years.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: If you choose to read this one on the air,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: of course, you can use my name. That is Jason
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: in Salt Lake. So, Jason, that's gross. Still not quite
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: as gross, I think, as a shooed And jeaned, blue
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: jeaned foot and ankle.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: No. No, that's the sanitized version, but still pretty gross.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Agreed. Yeah. I mean, something's grosser in a way.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Is it your human skin? Yeah. The foot on Sue contact.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The hottest contact as we all know.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Right. That does. It is gross in its own.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Way for sure. Anyway, never thought that that would inspire
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: such an act, but it's pretty fun to read that mail.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: That was from Jason?
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Jason Salt Lake, do not eat his offerings, people.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: No, for sure. Thanks a lot, Jason. Thanks for listening
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: to us for so long, too. We appreciate that. And
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: if you want to be like Jason and get in
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: touch with us, you can do that by sending an
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.