Take a thin man with a thin tie holding a thin cigarette on national television, and give him a voice with an edge and staccato delivery of words that have been carefully crafted and formulated into sentences as powerful as a literary Gatling machine gun. Let him warn you about where you about to enter, an area of not only sight and sound, but imagination. He shows you the direction with a nod of the head as he looks in that direction and says, "There's the sign post ahead, you're about to enter The Twilight Zone!"
Rod Serling, was the ringmaster of the macabre and maestro of small screen science fiction, whose mind gave birth to one of the great iconic classics of the TV generation that was populated by talking killer dolls, visiting Top Chefs from outer space who only came to our planet "to serve man" and, before Steven Spielberg, a ghastly cast of terrifying gremlins inhabiting the wings of jet liner in flight driving a certain pre-Star Trek captain to the end of his rope of sanity. (If you listen to William Shatners voice delivery later as Capt. James T. Kirk, you can hear the same staccato delivery reminiscent of Rod Serling! Here, try it..."Bones, Spock.."
Serling was born on Christmas Day 1924 in Syracuse, New York. He worked in radio in Binghamton, NY prior to going into the army where he became a paratrooper. Being Jewish, his only lament was being sent to the Pacific to fight Japanese during WWII and not Europe to help bring down the Third Reich of Adolph Hitler! He was wounded in action and after release from the military went back to college and worked as a writer for the college radio station. He gained some renown and eventually was hired by Hollywood to write for the burgeoning television industry. He wrote for the Kraft Theater and others but his big breakthrough was Requiem for A Heavyweight that landed him a network contract to develop a series for the tube. On October 2, 1959, that series, The Twilight Zone appeared for the first time in black and white.
As the shows popularity took off and Rod attempted to infuse his drama's with social messages that decried racism in America, censorship and later his anti-Vietnam war sentiments surfaced, he found he spent more and more time fighting the studio heads and the censorship police but kept on chooglin. He was dubbed, "The Angry Young Man of Hollywood!"
One early show shit canned by the network was called 'No Christmas This Year" in it there is no Christmas and no one knows why. Cut to the North Pole where Santa is having labor problems with elves who refuse to make toys, but rather use their talents to make rockets, missiles and other items of mass destruction. Santa is not pleased and eventually as he goes to make his rounds with what toys he does have...he's shot! Just where was Lee Harvey Oswald on that day, eh? Although the Twilight Zone IS pop culture and has been celebrated in song by the likes of Golden Earring, turned into comic books and movies, and there was even a board game, not to mention a Bally Pinball game, there were two shows that preceded this wild child on the network airwaves. "Tales of Tomorrow" hit the air in 1951 and mid decade in 1955 it was Science Fiction Theater. In effect though, The Twilight Zone built the better mousetrap.
The look that film gave the show was it's trademark, but in an effort to save corporate dollars, executives decided to utilize videotape for six episodes over the protests of Rod. These proved not to have the dramatic chutzpah the film versions had and the execs in typical American executive fashion decided to go back to what worked. America has never gotten the hang of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!'
Memorable episodes, at least to this writer, and lets face it, pop culture is subjective, include Talking Tina. She is the forerunner of Chucky and although she is programmed to say "I love you and want to play with you" prefers to taunt Telly Savalas with the un toy like threat of "I don't like you and I'm going to kill you!" That kind of talk would give Chucky one hell of puppet hard-on. To Serve Man has another of those all knowing aliens ala The Day the Earth Stood Still, land on earth and this spaceman has a plan. It's all in a book he carries entitled, "To Serve Man" and no it is not guidebook for the submissive to serve it's dominant Mistress or Master but a cook book that Hannibal Lechter would be proud to own. Humans climb aboard the magic space bus and get ready to breed as feed for the alien nation at the other end of the galaxy.
In "Gremlins" William Shatner plays a man who is recovering from a nervous breakdown..a typical malady associated with the 50's and 60's Madison Avenue American lifestyle of competition and the search for the elusive American Dream. You don't put a guy like this by the way in a window seat on a passenger jet! He, and only he, see's large furry creatures hell bent on bringing the jetliner crashing down by messing with the wing assembly. Shatner tries to warn others, but of course, like the car that refuses to make funny noises once you finally get it to the mechanic, the critters disappear, only to re-emerge later to entertain and further Shatners growing instability.
Giants and little people take to the sci fi stage as Agnes Moorhead is a woman alone, and speaks not one iota of dialogue as she battles little aliens who have landed in her home on some strange planet. They cause her all sorts of grief and harass the hell out of her. She gets brooms and other implements to destroy the little tormenting beasts. It's only later that we realize that these are not miniature space creatures who land on our planet to harass Earthlings, but rather Earthlings whose craft has landed on an alien planet of giants!!
Then..there is Billy Mumy! The Rock Star of the Twilight Zone! In "It's a Good Life" not to be confused with Jimmy Stewart's "It's a Wonderful Life" Mumy has a nasty habit of turning people into bizarre Jack-in-the-Box toys if you disagree with him. You know your demise as a human is coming when Mumy mumbles, "You're a very bad man" and then points his finger at you and poof! He does all kinds of evil throughout and at some point even the most forgiving of us viewers wish someone would take an axe to his head and bring the beast down, but then, if you missed...you'd get fingered, Mumy Style!