CBS TV Studios is considering another revival of Twilight Zone with Bryan Singer (X-Men) attached as executive producer reports Entertainment Weekly.
The show has made two comebacks since Rod Serling’s original series was canceled in 1964. The mid-Eighties edition lasted three seasons. UPN’s 2002 version disappeared after only one.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]
Earl Hamner Jr. and George Clayton Johnson at Mystery & Imagination Bookshop. (Photo by John King Tarpinian.)
By John King Tarpinian: The bookshop, Mystery & Imagination in Glendale, CA, hosted a dual birthday party on July 22 for two Twilight Zone legends, Earl Hamner, Jr. & George Clayton Johnson. The upstairs area of the bookshop was standing room only. Earl wrote eight TZ scripts while George wrote six. Earl and George credited Ray Bradbury for introducing them to Rod Serling.
Both talked about their lengthy careers and even lengthier marriages. They talked about the industry they were swept up in, the lessons they learned along the way.
Earl followed his TZ adventures with the movie, Spencer’s Mountain starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara which then turned into the TV show, The Waltons. His next venture was Falcon’s Crest. Earl talked about going to studio meeting now with the “twelve-year-old executives” and how the industry has changed. He read a piece he recently wrote about being eighty-nine years old.
George also talked about his career starting with writing the original Ocean’s Eleven for the RatPack, then his TZ episodes. Among them, working with a very young actor Robert Redford to Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. Not to mention Steven Spielberg selected his Kick the Can for the TZ movie. Having the luck of the first aired original Star Trek being his The Man Trap.
There were a few other authors who attended to pay their respects, Peter Atkins (The Hellraiser movies), Horror Writer and TZ radio writer Dennis Etchison, mystery writer and comic expert Michael Mallory.
It was a lovely afternoon honoring two men who have given us so much enjoyment over the decades.
By David Klaus: I’m watching C-SPAN 1.
In the debate on a bill about federal lands and water (it would have prevented the Border Patrol and DHS from violating land conservation laws, cancel an authorization for the killing of seals for eating their normal diet — fish — that humans want, de-authorized federal funding for State shooting ranges, and said the Border Patrol/DHS could not violate Indian burial grounds), Congressman Edward Markey (D., 7th Dist., Ma.) opened his debate speech by quoting in its entirety one of the Rod Serling opening credits narrations of The Twilight Zone, by name, because he thought that’s where this bill came from and belonged.
(The bill passed anyway, so as far as the House is concerned, the Border Patrol/DHS can despoil federal land and Indian burial grounds with impunity, fisherman competing with seals can kill them, and every state can get a deficit-paid shooting range.)
The chances keep improving of another Twilight Zone movie reaching the big screen. Warner Bros. and Appian Way Productions hope to recruit Joby Harold to write the final draft of the screenplay reports Screen Rant. Matt Reeves of Cloverfield has already been signed to direct.
Appian Way Productions has Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson Killoran and Michael Ireland producing The Twilight Zone.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]
The 50th Anniversary of the original Twilight Zone was celebrated December 12 at Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, CA:
By John King Tarpinian: Sunday was the first of what portents to be a number of Twilight Zone get together events. It was an afternoon of praise for Rod Serling and all he has done for the little screen.
At this first event was (left to right in photo):
Robert Butler (who directed George Takei in the Twilight Zone episode “The Encounter”) He has a long list of directing credits that cannot due justice him so I suggest you do an IMDB search.
Renee Aubry, who was in “Sounds and Silences,” directed by Richard Donner. She was also in the movie Gypsy.
Marc Zicree, author of the Twilight Zone Companion was our moderator. He is probably the foremost authority on the Twilight Zone. Marc has the distinction of interviewing surviving people from their related TZ episodes for the still unfolding Blu-Ray editions of the TZ.
George Clayton Johnson, if readers don’t know who George is by now there is something wrong…
Arlene Martell was in two Twilight Zones with her scene stealing line being, “Room for one more, Honey” in the episode titled “Twenty-Two.” She also is most famous for having played T’Pring, Spock’s betrothed in Star Trek and played the love interest to Robert Culp in the Outer Limits, “The Demon with a Glass Hand”…written by Harlan Ellison.
The 50th Anniversary of the original Twilight Zone will be celebrated Sunday, December 12 from 2-4 p.m. at Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, CA. Six famous Twilight Zone personalities will talk and sign:
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]
By John King Tarpinian: If you are a Bradbury fan Bullet Trick is a must-have. This is a compilation of never-before-published material. Not new material per se, but never made available to the public in book format.
In this volume you get five teleplays written by Bradbury. These five teleplays were original to the small screen not translated from previous works. These stories appeared on TV from 1955 to 1969…during a more golden age of fear and paranoia.
A real treat are the two teleplays Ray wrote for Twilight Zone that never aired, Here There Be Tygers and a Miracle of Rare Devices. Included in the Lettered Edition is I Sing the Body Electric, which was Ray’s only TZ program.
The Bullet Trick was written for Jane Wyman and is about the magician Ching Ling Soo. Included is a preface by Bradbury, the contract and the teleplay.
Christmas “The Gift” was aired as part of the Steve Canyon series, a very uplifting holiday story and aired December 20, 1958. This is a story in which Steve Canyon tries to explain Christmas to a little girl who has never celebrated the holiday.
Tunnel to Yesterday was inspired by an article Ray read in Time Magazine. In this case it is about Nazis that do now know that WWII is over.
The Jail was written for Alcoa Premiere. Included is a neat photo of Ray with James Barton, Norman Lloyd and John Gavin. Directed by Lloyd and airing in 1962. Oh yes, the narrator was Fred Astaire.
“The book contains two prose adaptations Bradbury wrote after he wrote the screenplays. Both “Bullet Trick” and “Hand In Glove” (“The Jail”) are far different than the teleplays.
Dial Double Zero begins with ghost voices you never hear on a telephone and I’ll leave you with the final line from the story, “The White House. Good Evening.” I’ll leave you wanting to know what is in-between.
Limited Editions available are:
Signed Numbered Edition ~ $75
With Bradbury drawing imprint leather slip case ~ $110
With generic leather slip case ~ $100
Lettered Tray case Edition ~ $300
The 50th anniversary of Twilight Zone will be celebrated at American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre on October 30th (click link and scroll to bottom of page), with showings of Emmy-winning episodes and discussions with Carol Serling (schedule permitting), Richard Matheson, Earl Hamner Jr., George Clayton Johnson, H.M. Wynant, Robert Butler, and Arlene Martel.
Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion, told the Los Angeles Times:
“He created a new form of television… Science fiction was basically viewed as kids’ stuff,” [Zicree] says. “There is a great interview that Mike Wallace did with Rod just prior to ‘The Twilight Zone’ where he says to Rod, ‘Now you are doing this kind of kids’ stuff, are you giving up writing anything important?’”
Among the episodes tentatively scheduled to screen Friday are: “It’s a Good Life,” by Serling, starring Billy Mumy as a 6-year-old boy who is a little monster; “Kick the Can”; “The Howling Man,” by Beaumont, about a scholar who unleashes the devil; “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” by Matheson, about a young man (Shatner) recovering from a nervous breakdown who sees a monster on the wing of the airplane; and Serling’s “Time Enough at Last,” about a bookish man who survives a nuclear holocaust.
The Twilight Zone is difficult to map, being a vast and invisible realm of the imagination:
“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call ‘The Twilight Zone.’” – Rod Serling
The capital of the Twilight Zone, however, is the tangible and evident town of Binghamton, NY. That’s where Rod Serling was born in 1924 and where newscasters claim “Binghamton Landmarks Inspire Twilight Zone” – something not every Chamber of Commerce would shout about.
Fifty years ago the first episode of The Twilight Zone aired on CBS. Today Ithaca College, where Serling taught from 1967 to 1975, is home to the Rod Serling Archives extensive collection of television scripts, film screenplays, stage play scripts, films, unpublished works. And over the weekend Ithaca College hosted “Celebrating 50 Years of the Twilight Zone.”
George Clayton Johnson, the keynote speaker, was interviewed on the local news. The clip also shows the town’s preparations for the event, including Rod Serling’s face covering the side of a city bus to advertise the conference.
Also, Binghamton’s Rod Serling Video Festival competition encouraged students from kindergarten through high school to enter.
All kinds of links to anniversary-related events are tracked on the official 50th anniversary website. The site is maintained by Douglas Brode. He co-authored, with Carol Serling, Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute. Brode’s personal TZ anniversary celebration was a book-signing outside Disneyworld’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror on October 2.
The Binghamton celebration has one more big event to come, when the Bundy Arts & Victorian Museum hosts a Rod Serling Symposium on October 7.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the links.]
Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone aired for the first time on October 2, 1959. Steve Vertlieb, the Thunder Child, celebrates the show’s 50th anniversary in his essay “An Element of Time”, by telling the fascinating story of how the show succeeded despite the mundane tastes of CBS executives, and became an icon of early television:
There is an obscure Air Force term relating to a moment when a plane is coming down on approach and a pilot cannot see the horizon. It’s called the Twilight Zone. …
Rod Serling had penned several landmark teleplays for The Columbia Broadcasting System, including Patterns, and Requiem For A Heavyweight, but the perils of network censorship were beginning to take a toll on the idealistic author. As his artistic voice and moral integrity became increasingly challenged by network cowardice, Serling found his search for lost horizons alarmingly elusive.
(Vertlieb would like it noted that his essay has been posted simultaneously at Roger Hall’s Film Music Review.)
[Thanks to Steve Vertlieb and John King Tarpinian for the links.]