The Twilight Zone Episode

Today, Chuck and Josh unlock a 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. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:45Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:55Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Oh, I should say.

• 2:02Josh Clark?

  Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and this is Chuck and this is you too. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the Twilight Zone edition.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  Completely unrecognizable as the Twilight Zone theme song.

• 2:14Josh Clark?

  Really? It was off?

• 2:16Speaker 03

  I think you give people 100 guesses. No one's guessing Twilight Zone.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow. All right.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  I've been singing the Golden Earring song in my head all day.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Oh, I forgot about that. That's a, thanks for that, earworm.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  When the bullet hits the bone.

• 2:34Josh Clark?

  That's the one?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  That's the one.

• 2:36Josh Clark?

  I didn't know that was Golden Earring two.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  They talk about doing speed in that Twilight Zone song. Actually, he talks about not doing speed because he's almost there.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Think I knew that.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he says, no more speed. I'm almost there.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  I don't think he's talking about driving fast.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  No, but we're talking about Twilight Zone, the great TV show that started out in October 2, 1959. At a time when TV minds would be blown, because if you're talking about, I guess, whatever you would call science fiction on television at the time, it's very kind of corny, B movie kind of stuff.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  And people were not ready for what the great, great Rod Serling was about to deliver into their living rooms.

• 3:25Josh Clark?

  No, the 50s started what's known as the Golden Age of Television. And Rod Serling was a major part of making it the Golden Age of Television.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:35Josh Clark?

  And not just with the Twilight Zone. He started out with an illustrious career, basically right off the bat. He was doing some radio writing. He was, he started to try his hand at TV. And at the time, TV was about as good as those B sci fi movies were. He had variety shows, westerns, lots and lots of westerns.

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  Sitcoms that were mostly slapstick, nothing like, there wasn't anything particularly high minded, right?

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:03Josh Clark?

  And so Serling comes along and he starts writing these 90 minute TV plays that were broadcast live, so it was very much like a live TV play.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 4:14Josh Clark?

  And that they were just, the stuff he was writing, it just hadn't been seen before on television. And again, television wasn't that old, so there wasn't a lot to compare it to. But he just took what was going on and elevated it to just astronomical new levels.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. His big hit that he kind of got his name for at first was in 1956. It was a, one of those teleplays called Patterns. And it was about kind of ruthless business people. And it was really, really popular. And I think you found this thing that was, it was so popular. It was the first TV show ever to run again. Like they put it on the air again, just because people thought it was so awesome.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And so this is his first thing that got really big. And he hadn't been writing all that long. By the end of the 50s, so less than a decade, maybe half a decade, he had something like 100 produced scripts under his belt.

• 5:11Josh Clark?

  And then he was also the recipient of more Emmys for TV writing than anyone in history, still to this day. So he was really, really good at what he did.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Another big one was, and this is one I had heard of because they made a film after this teleplay, but it was called Requiem for a Heavyweight. And when I saw that, I was like, wait, is that the movie? Like, did he base it on that or the other way around? But yeah, he wrote the original script for the Jack Palance's Requiem for a Heavyweight. And I think that won a Peabody Award. He was the first writer to ever win a Peabody for TV writing?

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah. I, hopefully it's coming through like how good Rod Serling was and just how he's considered synonymous with the Twilight Zone, but there is just a lot more to him.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Handsome too.

• 6:04Josh Clark?

  One of the things that he, he was really big on was basically tackling big social issues of the day.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:13Josh Clark?

  In large part racism, fascism through the McCarthy trials or hearings, that kind of stuff. And he just hit wall after wall. Not only were the networks like really worried about losing sponsors by putting anything like particularly hard hitting on, that he had, like the censors were conservative. And they were like, you can't, you can't do that. You can't talk about, you know, black people being lynched. Even though it's what's going on, you can't, you can't write a show about that. So he, he kept running into it and he would adjust. I saw that there was one, it's considered one of the greatest shows of all time. It's called The Town That Turned to Dust. And it was written about lynchings in the South.

• 6:58Josh Clark?

  But he had to move it from the South to the Southwest. And the victim from a black man to a Mexican man. And apparently the censors were like, oh yeah, that's all totally fine. But he had to turn it into something of an allegory to make it more palatable for TV viewers. So right off of the bat, he basically had to figure out how to maneuver into this really tight structure that he found very stifling.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, one of the, one of those was something, he wrote a teleplay about corruption on Capitol Hill, which, you know, by the time it got to air was not even recognizable as the thing that he had written to begin with.

• 7:36Josh Clark?

  Like Dirty Dancing two.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So he told the press, he said, in retrospect, I probably would have had a much more adult play had I made it science fiction, put it in the year 2057 and peopled the Senate with robots. And so that idea, I mean, that was just a quote to the press, but he was like, maybe there's something to this, like he can get across messages better if he packages it in something that's, you know, kind of sci fi and more palatable. So he moved to LA with this idea. Specifically, his pitch was to base a TV show around this other thing. One of his last TV plays is called The Time Element, about a guy who had a recurring

• 8:20Speaker 03

  dream that he goes back to Hawaii in 41 to warn about the attack on Pearl Harbor. And then there's a twist, which of course Twilight Zone would become known for. Twist in general, but in this case it was like, was it a dream kind of thing? But he was like, in 58, he said, why don't we try and do a TV show? Like where every week we have something like The Time Element?

• 8:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And he was used to writing 90 minute teleplays. So he wanted an hour long slot. And CBS was like, no, let's, let's see what you got with a half hour first. So he came up with, I guess, something called A Happy Place. I don't think it was ever produced. I didn't see any mention of it being produced. It was just the first attempt at a pilot. And it was more than CBS was willing to accept because it was, it essentially became Logan's Run years later, where once you reached age 60, you were taken to a happy place. And the happy place was the place where you were exterminated.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:23Josh Clark?

  CBS is like, no, we're not, we're not doing that. What else you got?

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. And he said, well, I got this other thing. It's called Where Is Everybody? And it was sort of like the last person on earth kind of scenario. And the twist in this case was the last man was an astronaut in a, a tank, a sensory deprivation tank, training for a solo mission to the moon. CBS was like, now we're talking, baby. How about 36 episodes? And he said, great. He wrote 80% of those scripts and was an owner of 50% of the show. And he made the name up, like the Twilight Zone was something he just came up with, even though it turns out that is a aviation term that the Air Force uses is when you're about to land and you can no longer see the horizon, you're in the Twilight Zone.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  But apparently he didn't know that and didn't get it from that.

• 10:13Josh Clark?

  No, it's, it's got a nice ring to it. I could see somebody putting it together.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  It's creepy sounding.

• 10:18Josh Clark?

  Um, you just reminded me, I meant to propose, what if we don't give away the twists any of the episodes?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  I kind of wondered that too. Yeah, let's do that.

• 10:26Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, sorry about the first one, everybody, but you know, we won't give any more away. How about that?

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cause hopefully what happens is you'll go out and be encouraged to watch some of these full episodes, which you can do.

• 10:37Josh Clark?

  Man, I watched so many of them over the last couple of days. It's just been a real joy, dude.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I watched one full one today that I'd seen before, but I have seen a bunch of these. I used to watch the reruns. And then I watched a couple of, there's a couple of fun lists, like top 20 creepiest on YouTube, top 20 creepiest reveals on the Twilight Zone. And I remember, I went through that today and I probably remembered about half of those.

• 11:01Josh Clark?

  Which one did you watch today?

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Well, I watched, I wanted to watch one I had seen before and I watched the Burgess Meredith.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Well, I'm not going to reveal it. Burgess Meredith is one of the last guys who doesn't want to live anymore because he survived the nuclear Holocaust. And then he realizes that the library is there and he's a big reader. And he's like, well, I've got the books. I can now, I have all the time in the world to read. And then something happens.

• 11:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a great one. I think that was season one as well. That might've been the, I don't remember exactly which one that was, but that was a great one. And that's, so just buckle up, everybody, because I'm going to say that was a great one about basically all the episodes. Because that is something about The Twilight Zone. It never got bad. It did never declined. It was great until the end.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed. If you've ever seen an episode, then you know that they open with, and again, very handsome Rod Serling, even though he was five foot four, who cares? He packed a lot of, packed a lot of handsome in that, in that body. Cool as a cucumber coming out there, looks so cool. And he gives his opening spiel, which changed over the years. It wasn't the same thing each season. But one of the seasons, I'm not sure which one this is, it goes a little something like this. 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.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  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 we call the Twilight Zone.

• 12:44Josh Clark?

  Very nice. And they, that was, I thought that was the one that changes sometimes?

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Each season's, it was slightly different, I think.

• 12:53Josh Clark?

  I did not know that. You mentioned he was handsome in that he hosted. Did you say that the first season, he, when he did the, the initial, what is it called? Were you narration, I guess?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:08Josh Clark?

  That he was off screen for the first season?

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Well, no, and it's because he had stage fright, right?

• 13:14Josh Clark?

  Yes, he had really, really bad stage fright. And he was like, I'm fine to do the narration, do the writing, all that stuff. And yes, I would love 50% of the show's revenue. But eventually some, for some reason, they were like, dude, you should just be in front of camera doing this.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:34Josh Clark?

  And so there was a guy who was a director who worked on The Twilight Zone. His name was Lamont Johnson. And he later said, like, he, like, his, his week would be ruined when he knew that he was going to have to be in front of the camera.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:47Josh Clark?

  So, but he did great. He did great, Ghost of Rod Serling.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, you would never know because he seemed just so cool.

• 13:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Up there on screen. So he did a great job.

• 13:58Josh Clark?

  He did.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  Ghost of Rod Serling, be proud.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  So one of the other things that Dave dug up that I thought was great, he dictated all of his scripts and he could dictate 10 to 15 pages worth in one sitting, which I would not be able to do. Because, yeah, that just seems way harder than writing to me.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I guess he had someone sitting there who could do steno really fast.

• 14:21Josh Clark?

  I hope so. Yeah.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Should we take a break?

• 14:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think we'll take a little slightly early break and come back.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  All right, we'll come back and talk about some of the themes right after this.

• 14:52Josh Clark?

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• 15:55Josh Clark?

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• 16:45Josh Clark?

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• 16:57Josh Clark?

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• 18:01Josh Clark?

  So if you've watched The Twilight Zone, you'll see that there are a lot of things that kind of come up. There's recurring themes like the last person or only person in a town or on earth or something like that.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:13Josh Clark?

  That's a big one. So loneliness, isolation, mob mentalities come up quite a bit. People losing themselves due to like panic or just going along with the mob. But one of the ones that I really love is nostalgia. Rod Serling really felt great about his childhood, which was in a picturesque town of Binghamton, New York.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:36Josh Clark?

  Boy, that P can trip you up. So he really loved small-town America. He was born in 1924 between World War I and World War II. And he just had a really great childhood. And that, that comes through in a lot of the episodes. Like, for the most part.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:52Josh Clark?

  If you find a small town, it's pretty great. But then obviously there's always a twist to that.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. There was one famous episode called A Stop at Willoughby, where a ad exec from New York discovers a train stop on his way home that is an actual throwback town, the town of Willoughby, where it's always the summer of 1888. And everything's wonderful. And he gets off there. And we're not going to say what happens because we're not revealing twists. But a little, another fun thing Dave dug up is in Willoughby, Ohio, their annual summer festival is called Last Stop Willoughby. And it's got a little Twilight Zone theme running through. I think the library plays that theme music Josh did at the beginning on a loop all day.

• 19:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I, well, no, I think they play that episode, A Stop at Willoughby, on a loop.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. I thought they did the theme. I was like, that'd be a little maddening.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Especially your version.

• 19:44Josh Clark?

  But that's it. That's the entire thing that the town of Willoughby does. They just play that episode on a loop at the library and no one else talks about it the rest of the day.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's it.

• 19:54Josh Clark?

  So out of high school, Serling, I saw that he was described as an angry person. I don't know when he picked that up, but it was probably during his experiences in World War II. Like you said, he was 5'4", so he shouldn't have been eligible for the draft, but I think he insisted and they were like, sure, we could use you. He did paratrooper training.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:18Josh Clark?

  He, he became a boxer. He's a flyweight boxer. He's in 17 bouts. I did not see how good he was or not, but he stood up at least 17 times.

• 20:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was, he was okay.

• 20:29Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Let's just say that. I think he tried Golden Gloves after and they were like, yeah, you're not so great. But, you know, the point is, he was in there slugging it out.

• 20:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he could have beat me up, I'm sure.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, both of us.

• 20:40Josh Clark?

  So at the same time. So in World War II, he was stationed in the Pacific in the Philippines and he saw like heavy action and a lot of friends died around him, in front of him. And it just seared itself on his memory, obviously. And that's why one of the other recurring themes is war and the hell of war. That's maybe the most recurring theme, because even if it's not set in war, it's very often there's some like mention or some connection to war, like even if the events took place after some war.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I saw, he wanted to fight the Nazis. So he was, he wanted to get sent to that theater. So apparently, he wasn't happy to get sent to the Pacific. But he also writes, you know, in some of the Twilight Zone episodes about the absurdity of war, because I know one event that just horrific, but sounds just crazy is that at one point, like, one of his friends was standing around, just kind of entertaining everyone, like telling jokes and stuff. And a supply box, like the US was dropping, like, here's some supplies.

• 21:48Josh Clark?

  Oh, no.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  Like, fell on this guy and decapitated him in front of Rod Serling and all his troopmates.

• 21:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, my god.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Troopmates?

• 21:57Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Is that a thing? Yeah. So, you know, stuff like that would happen. He saw the real hell of war. He got a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star. It was not a, like, some cushy, you know, he wasn't like riding for the, for the Stars and Stripes away from the battles.

• 22:14Josh Clark?

  And we want to apologize for all the writers of Stars and Stripes.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Of course, because you know, that's what I would want to do.

• 22:20Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  I'm not throwing stones, man. Give me a camera.

• 22:24Josh Clark?

  Give me a typewriter.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 22:27Josh Clark?

  So there were a couple of episodes that were pretty heavy-handed, as far as like beating you over the head of like, just how terrible war is. But they're still great. They're still great, everybody. One that really stood out to me was the quality of mercy, which it turns out is a Shakespeare quote from Merchant of Venice.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:46Josh Clark?

  But it's about this guy, this, not a, sorry, I guess, a lieutenant, who is really wanting to prove himself. But he came to the war very late. He was young. And so it's the last day of World War II. But he orders, since it's still a day in World War II, he orders his men to go take out a nest of Japanese soldiers hidden in a cave. It's going to kill a bunch of Japanese guys, it's going to kill a bunch of Americans, for no reason whatsoever, because this is the last day of the war. And yet, he's like, really gung ho about it and makes them do it.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Maybe this one, maybe we can reveal a couple of twists, just so people get the point of this whole thing. Is that okay?

• 23:27Josh Clark?

  Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  We don't want to spoil them all. In this case, the twist is, is that he is transformed into a Japanese soldier. And that soldier gets the same orders to kill the, his American troops. So, a big, obviously, moral statement. This one is kind of similar to, it wasn't a direct remake, but the Twilight Zone movie, which we're going to talk about later, which was a huge, huge movie for me when I was a kid, kind of is akin to the Vic Morrow storyline of like, a racist guy who gets all of a sudden thrust into war and, but people think he is, are the people that they're fighting.

• 24:08Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah. So that's just one example of many about war. But he also was writing in the time of like, the Cold War as well. And there was a lot of like, he captured like paranoia, losing yourself to mob mentality. Like I said, one of the ones that usually gets cited is the Monsters are Due on Maple Street.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:31Josh Clark?

  We cannot give that twist away.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no. That's from season one. And that's, that's up at the, at the top of most lists of like, best in the series, where, well, yeah, I guess we can talk about the first part, but not the twist. But the residents, you talked about mob mentality. In this case, they turn on each other during a blackout. And, you know, it turns into like a, like, a mob mentality.

• 24:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because they're expecting an alien invasion. And they're like, wait, are the aliens already among us? Are you an alien? You know, it's really good. And it's just, it's set, I think the entire thing is set in one front yard.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 25:09Josh Clark?

  I'm pretty sure. I don't think that they leave the front yard. I think the whole thing takes place on the street in this neighborhood, which makes it even better. It's just, that's the other thing, too. The twists and the writing, the stories themselves get top billing in like, all of the spotlight. But man, some of the best directors working at the time, some of the best cinematographers, like, the stuff they were doing was just primo television that still holds up today, that at the time, no one had seen anything like this. Like, it was just a gift to the world. And it still is, frankly, because all of the episodes are great.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. And the, a lot of like, actors would get their start on TV, obviously. That's still a thing in some cases. But like, Robert Redford, Elizabeth Montgomery, Dennis Hopper, Anne Francis, Robert Duvall, Carol Burnett got her start on the Twilight Zone.

• 26:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Charlie Bronson, Jarvis Brunson, Julie Newmar, and of course, Burt Reynolds.

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  And Julie Newmar.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  She was a Catwoman, right?

• 26:14Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:15Speaker 03

  One of the Catwomen?

• 26:16Josh Clark?

  She was the original campy Catwoman.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:20Josh Clark?

  So you mentioned the theme music. It turns out that there, well, we can talk about it. Like, there, there's a story behind that, too. There was a music director who was like, the season one music, it's fine, but we can do better. His name was Lud Gluskin, Lou Gluskin. Either way, he would give you three tries to guess his name, or else you had to give him your firstborn child.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Very nice.

• 26:45Josh Clark?

  And he dug into the CBS Music Library, looking for something. And I guess was in a very creative mood, because he put two pieces together and he came up with the Twilight Zone theme.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that's a thing that still happens. It, even our own iHeartMedia has a music library where they have, I guess, commissioned a bunch of musicians to make a bunch of, kind of, generic, not to say bad, but generic music. Like, hey, something that sounds like, like, something symphonic, or something that sounds like yacht rock. And then you pay a musician to make this, and you own it forever, basically, without having to pay them any more money.

• 27:23Josh Clark?

  You pay them in exposure.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. And the reason I said yacht rock is, we, you know, Adam and I started the Three Putt Bogey podcast, and we wanted something yacht rocky, and leaned on Ben. We were like, Ben, is there something that you can find? Or like, he's a musician, can you put something together?

• 27:37Josh Clark?

  He's a genius.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  And he sent us like, 12, could like, total yacht rocky sounds from the iHeart Music Library that are just completely, you know, licensed for us to use.

• 27:49Josh Clark?

  That's awesome.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  It's just an embarrassment of riches, basically. And that's what they had with the Twilight Zone, when they took a Romanian-born musician named Marius Constance, two things from him, Estrange, number three, which is the, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, on electric guitar.

• 28:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Which was electric guitar, by the way. And Milieu, number two, which is that kind of, kind of chaotic ending. And they smashed those together to great success.

• 28:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, with the bongos.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  That was much better.

• 28:19Josh Clark?

  Great stuff. So yeah, that was it. You put those back to back, and you've got the Twilight Zone theme. I, I love that everything about this has a story, but still, if you go research Twilight Zone, it's actually hard to find, because all anybody wants to talk about is the episodes. And understandably so, you could say that they're all great.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. Should we talk about some more? Or should we take a break and then do that?

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Here, why don't we talk about some more episodes, and then we'll break before we talk about the, the modern stuff.

• 28:50Josh Clark?

  I'm glad you decided. I had a boohia for a second.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  All right. So five seasons total is what we get with the original run of the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling wrote 92 of the 156 episodes. And I'm going to talk about one, I'm going to pick this one, I Have the Beholder, because this was, I don't think I remember seeing this one, but I had heard about it. And this was in the list of top 20 great reveals or whatever.

• 29:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  And I think this is one where I will reveal the twist.

• 29:20Josh Clark?

  Okay. Yeah, I see in retrospect that saying we weren't going to reveal any more twists was black and white thinking. And I need to be more, I need to go with the flow a little more.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  No, you're doing fine. So this one will, will reveal the twist, but if you don't want to hear it, just mute it for a few seconds. When I say the twist is-

• 29:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, put your fingers in your ears, plug your ears with your fingers and go as loud as you can.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Exactly. This one was in fact, written by Rod Serling. It was directed by Douglas Hayes. And this was a woman that, in the, in the show, she was wrapped up in bandages the whole time. So you couldn't see her face. But the reason that she goes to the surgery that she's there for is because apparently she's so ugly that she has to have this plastic surgery to make her look like everyone else looks. And then, you know, you can't see her face through the whole thing. She's wrapped in bandages. If you, you know, this is season two. So by this time, episode six, everyone's like, I wonder what's under those bandages. Can't wait for that twist. You can't see the doctors because they have their surgical mask and all that stuff. And then the big twist in the reveal, when she takes those bandages off, is that she's very beautiful by just, you know, normal, regular standards

• 30:28Speaker 03

  of the day. And then the doctors take their stuff off and they have like pig noses and like horrible scars and stuff. So that's the big twist.

• 30:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Beauty's relative.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 30:39Josh Clark?

  I want to talk about a couple of, that are my favorites. Do you mind?

• 30:44Speaker 03

  No, I would love to hear about them.

• 30:46Josh Clark?

  Okay. So I like some of the sweeter ones that aren't, that aren't necessarily terrifying. Love the terrifying ones, but there's some sweet ones out there. There's one called The Changing of the Guards with Donald Pleasence as a boarding school teacher at the end of his years. So sweet. There's one called The Fugitive, where this alien plays with little kids and ends up sacrificing his own freedom to save this little girl whose leg isn't a brace.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  I think I saw that one back in the day.

• 31:16Josh Clark?

  That is such a great one. That's got one of the all time great twists as well.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:21Josh Clark?

  And then there's another one called Night Call. That is probably the scariest one of all, I think.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  I don't remember that one.

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  It's an old woman who lives alone in her house. She gets visited by her nurse once a day, but the nurse leaves at night. And then while she's trying to sleep, she gets these calls from this really unsettling voice that can barely talk. He just sounds messed up. And she has no idea who, who this caller is. As night after night goes by, these calls just keep freaking her out more and more. And then the twist of the whole thing is, is, well, it's pretty great.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Well, you're gonna have to tell me these twists, because I don't remember the one that I saw. And I didn't see this one.

• 32:01Josh Clark?

  Okay, that one's great. And then the last one I want to talk about is what I think is, well, it's my favorite. I'm not gonna say it's the best one. It's called The After Hours, where this, this woman is in a department store after hours. She gets trapped in there because she's trying to find a gold thimble. And stuff is just weird. Like, things are getting very odd. There's this shop lady who is assisting her that keeps disappearing and appearing. And it's just, something's off here. And the, the twist is really great.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  All right. I'm gonna mention three kind of quickly, because all three of these had Simpsons episodes. And two of the three were used in the Twilight Zone movie in the eighties. The first one, It's a Good Life, from season three, episode eight.

• 32:48Josh Clark?

  So good.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  It's about a little kid who has these godlike powers. And if he gets angry, like you can't upset this kid, because he can turn, he can basically control things and make bad things happen to people. That was the inspiration for The Bart Zone, from The Treehouse of Horror, one of The Treehouse of Horrors. And that, again, was redone very successfully, I think, in the movie. Living Doll was a predated Chucky, the, from Child's Play, in that we had Talking Tina, which was a demonic doll with the great Telly Savalas. Simpsons Clown Without Pity was a Simpsons version. And then Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is maybe the most classic episode of all time, as far as being well known. That was

• 33:34Speaker 03

  all the way in season five. And that's when William Shatner is on an airline plane. And he is, I think he's coming home from like, visiting a sanitarium or something where, you know, because he was, he was nervous.

• 33:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  And he sees a monster on the wing. And that is also done in the movie version, with the great John Lithgow. And then later done in the most recent Twilight Zone with Adam Scott, in a, in sort of a different way.

• 34:01Josh Clark?

  So good.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  And was on The Simpsons. Terror at Five and a Half Feet, in the case of The Simpsons.

• 34:07Josh Clark?

  I don't remember that one. Do you?

• 34:09Speaker 03

  I don't remember that. I'll have to go back and watch it. But it's funny to go back and watch, you know, I'll watch bits from Terror, the original Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. And the monster on the plane is so corny looking now, but it was absolutely terrifying at, I'm sure, at the time.

• 34:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. It's, I mean, it's still unsettling in its way. It is corny, but also you're like, good God, that thing is awful.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I mean, if anything else, you'd be terrified because you're like, there's a weird man in a funny looking suit.

• 34:39Josh Clark?

  Right. He's trying to bring the plane down.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:42Josh Clark?

  So I think I would, my, the one I would put up for most famous one is To Serve Man. Where the aliens come down and they have this book called To Serve Man. And they're like, really nice and kind of humans. And they want to take some humans home with them. Do you know that one?

• 34:58Speaker 03

  Hmm. Can you give me more without giving it away?

• 35:03Josh Clark?

  I will. We're gonna beep this, this out. Because here's the twist, Chuck.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 35:13Josh Clark?

  Pretty great, huh?

• 35:15Speaker 03

  All right. Well, that's probably our longest beep in history.

• 35:18Josh Clark?

  It's gotta be.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good one. And that sounds familiar. And that's, well, if I said what movie that probably inspired, it would probably give away the twist. So I won't.

• 35:28Josh Clark?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  But I'll tell you during break, which we'll take right now.

• 35:32Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 35:55Josh Clark?

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• 36:04Speaker 03

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• 36:17Josh Clark?

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• 36:33Speaker 03

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• 36:57Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of VivGart, VivGart is also known as its generic name, Fgart Tigamod Alpha F Cab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 37:21Speaker 03

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• 37:34Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:50Speaker 03

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• 38:03Josh Clark?

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• 38:16Speaker 03

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• 38:26Josh Clark?

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• 39:03Speaker 03

  All right, we're back, everybody, to talk about some later iterations because The Twilight Zone OG was canceled in 1964 after but five seasons.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  I don't think you said that he, I know you said at the beginning, he wanted an hour, but they said 30 minutes, but then they did go to an hour during, what, season four?

• 39:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they had a mid-season show that they canceled, or they had a show that they canceled mid-season that was an hour long. And they're like, hey, you want your shot finally at the hour-long version of Twilight Zone? And by this time, Rod Serling was like, no, actually, a half hour is perfect. They're like, well, TS for you because we need an hour-long version. So, season four is typically considered the least favorite of people.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 39:46Josh Clark?

  Because it is true, The Twilight Zone is a perfect half-hour show, but the season four episodes are still great.

• 39:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed. But that's a totally interesting little footnote, I think, because I didn't know that until you sent that along.

• 40:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and then they went back for season five, the last season, it went back to a half-hour again. So it was just season four.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, crazy. He, like I said, you know, they got canceled. He, it's not like Rod Serling was no good anymore. He was still a hugely successful writer and went on and did more work, of course. But he liked being Mr. Twilight Zone, which is what people would call him when they see him out, of course. And I think anything after that he did, I think Rod Serling's Night Gallery was a show that came along that he put his name on. I'm not sure how much he had to do with it, but-

• 40:35Josh Clark?

  I liked Night Gallery.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I thought it was pretty good, but it probably wasn't as successful as The Twilight Zone, and he never reached that kind of success again. Speaking of twists, though, even though Planet of the Apes, the movie, was based on a French novel, he did write that original script, that first script for the first Planet of the Apes movie.

• 40:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the French novel was called Le Planet of the Apes.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 41:00Josh Clark?

  He also taught at Ithaca College. I did not see their mascot, so let's just say the Fighting Ignatiuses.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:09Josh Clark?

  I think he taught English or writing or something, probably writing, and he's still revered quite a bit today. There's a cool statue of him there.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Oh, I bet. Very sadly, he was a lifelong, like, three to four-pack a day. By the way, Ithaca College bombers, go bombers.

• 41:27Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. Go bombers.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. That sounded so Midwest. Go bombers.

• 41:34Josh Clark?

  Sorry about that.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  He was, he smoked three to four packs of cigarettes a day, which is just a crazy amount of cigarettes.

• 41:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  So unsurprisingly, he died at 50 years old after complications from heart surgery. This was in 1975, and, you know, if you do the math, he could have, if he hadn't have smoked and lived to be 80, like, he would have been alive in 2005 and seen all these reboots come along and maybe perhaps have been a part of some of these.

• 42:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and probably have done some other really great stuff, too, you know? But yeah, so you said there was rebooted three times, and then there was the movie. I was like, so the really, probably the best reboot was from 1985 to 1987. It had three seasons, and it had a lot of really good episodes. And I was going through the episodes, and I'm like, where's the Kick the Can one? Because Kick the Can is one of the original Twilight Zone episodes where a group of rest-home residents are bored, and they wanted, like, keep, you know, living life, so they go play a game of Kick the Can, and they have to get around, like, this administrator or nurse or whatever, who just wants them to act their age and relax and rest.

• 42:49Josh Clark?

  It's really great. And I was like, I thought that I had seen the reboot version in 1985, couldn't find it. That's the one that Steven Spielberg directed in the movie.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Did you see the movie?

• 43:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I have.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, I don't know why. I mean, I guess the why was because I liked watching the reruns. So when The Twilight Zone, the movie, came out in 1983, I was 12, and, oh buddy, I ate it up. I saw it at least twice in the theater.

• 43:19Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  It was, you know, each director, Steven Spielberg directed that one, Joe Dante directed one, John Landis directed the one that we'll talk about here in a second, and George Miller, the great George Miller. And then there was that great opening bit with Dan Aykroyd.

• 43:34Josh Clark?

  I don't remember that.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  It was like a little intro part with Dan Aykroyd, and, oh god, I'm blanking on who his car mate, who his passenger was. Can't remember. Anyway, it's just a little, you know, a little teaser at the beginning, and then you hear the Twilight Zone music come in. And then you get the four films, and, like I said, It's a Good Life about the kid who can control things. That was remade. Nightmare on 20,000 Feet was remade. I guess all of them were remakes now that I think about it, except for maybe the Vic Morrow, and that's, like I said, seemed to be based on just, unless somebody knows it was a direct remake, it seemed to be based on the ideas of, like, racist and war and stuff like that.

• 44:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  And that had a very tragic ending, right?

• 44:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it actually sunk the movie. It got such bad press during production, where they were filming a scene where Vic Morrow is, I think, trying to help two little Vietnamese girls escape. They're going through a rice paddy, and there's a helicopter flying over them, and the helicopter, I think, struck a wire. It was a real helicopter, really, you know, moving with its rotors in the soundstage. It struck a wire, and the rotors, they just, they killed Vic Morrow and the two girls, like, immediately.

• 44:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so it's like, and obviously, that was big news, and everybody was so traumatized by it. I saw that George Miller, he did the Mad Max trilogy, the original three.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:09Josh Clark?

  He was like, he wasn't on set. He had nothing to do with that, that segment. But just being associated with that movie, like, stirred him so much that he was like, I don't know about some of the stunts that I've been having my actors do. Like, I think he kind of, it felt like somebody walked over his grave, like, what he'd been able to get away with without anybody getting hurt or killed. And so he went on to co-write Babe.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he did the most recent Mad Max 2, by the way.

• 45:37Josh Clark?

  Oh, did he?

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:38Josh Clark?

  But he did Babe, and I think that's probably the pinnacle.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  No, that is a little fun fact, if you didn't know that, that the same guy who did Mad Max did Babe, or, did he pick in the city or the original?

• 45:48Josh Clark?

  He did both, yep.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Okay, that's right. Yeah, a very just tragic thing. Like you said, huge lawsuits, and I know we, I think we talked about that before in a movie, actually, in like a top 10 list in an episode.

• 46:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't remember what, maybe special effects?

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I believe I told you that Vic Morrow was Jennifer Jason-Leigh's father, and you did not know that at the time.

• 46:08Josh Clark?

  That is so funny, because I just found out today that Vic Morrow is Jennifer Jason-Leigh's father, so it happened again.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  All right, so the 85 to 87, you feel like is the most successful TV reboot. There was also one in 2002 where Forest Whitaker was the host, which I think was a great pick. I love Forest Whitaker. And this had, you know, some big, big stars. I don't think it was, I didn't see any of these, but they did remake some of these, including a fun update on It's a Good Life, where it's called It's Still a Good Life. And they had the kid, Bill Mummy, the kid who played the kid from the beginning, was a grown-up terrorizing a town.

• 46:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but now his daughter was around, and she might be even worse than him. Who knows? Only Forest Whitaker knows.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  We should say, in 2002, that episode starred Chloris Leachman, and she was in, I think, more than one episode of the original run.

• 47:04Josh Clark?

  She was in the original It's a Good Life. She was Billy Mummy's mom.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 47:09Josh Clark?

  She's Billy Mummy's mommy.

• 47:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. And then they also updated the Maple Street one, right?

• 47:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they did, kind of like a post-9/11 one, where instead of aliens, the neighbors turn on each other, thinking that they're terrorists. So I think probably that was like a little on the nose for 2002. I'm not sure.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe.

• 47:27Josh Clark?

  But the one that I think most people who listen to us are probably familiar with is the one that just came out a couple of years ago, that Jordan Peele produced, that were great. But Jordan Peele had the great misfortune of releasing this Twilight Zone episode at a time when Black Mirror was at its apex.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:45Josh Clark?

  And there was just nothing he could do to compete with Black Mirror. Like, you can't. Most people are like, Black Mirror is the true successor of Twilight Zone. Nobody's done it better since. And it's probably true. Again, if you just saw Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone, it's, like, it's great on its own, for sure.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have not seen those. I did see the Adam Scott episode, because I'm just a big Adam Scott fan, and I'm a big fan of that story, Nightmare, this time at 30,000 Feet.

• 48:16Josh Clark?

  It's a good one.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  And I don't, he didn't see a monster on that one, does he?

• 48:20Josh Clark?

  No, he's listening to a podcast appropriately enough.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

• 48:24Josh Clark?

  And the podcast, it turns out, is about a plane crash, and then it turns out further that it's about the crash of the plane that he's on.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  So he spends the whole thing trying to convince everybody, rather than there's a monster on the plane, instead that this plane is going to crash. And the twist is even better, I think, than the original William Shatner version, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. It's a great twist.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I do remember the twist. I need to check more of it out, but I was into Black Mirror, and maybe that's why I didn't watch Twilight Zone, because there's, maybe you can only watch so much of that kind of thing. But Black Mirror was truly great, and bad timing for Jordan Peele.

• 49:02Josh Clark?

  It really was. And now that Black Mirror's kind of gone away, you could, especially if you haven't seen them before, you could probably enjoy them a little more than you could have at the time. It was really weird. Like, you just couldn't enjoy both on their own. Like, it was just, you know, you just couldn't. Give it a try. You couldn't. Face it.

• 49:24Josh Clark?

  I have one more thing.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's hear it.

• 49:27Josh Clark?

  Have you ever noticed in Twilight Zone episodes, the actors stand really close together?

• 49:33Speaker 03

  Are we doing this?

• 49:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I love this part, okay? Because it stood out to me. So if it stood out to me, it stood out to other people. Do you mind?

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Sure. I just wonder if you didn't see any TV pre like 1995?

• 49:47Josh Clark?

  I don't know why it stands out to me in Twilight Zone. But yes, I do realize that it is, it is common, especially in like the 50s. But in the Twilight Zone, maybe it's because it's creepy. The plotlines are creepy. So people standing close together is creepier than it would be in like, say, an episode of General Hospital from the 50s.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't want to yuck your yum. I'm kidding. You go ahead and tell everybody.

• 50:10Josh Clark?

  Thanks. Did you know already why the actors stand so close together? Not just on the Twilight Zone, but back in the day?

• 50:16Speaker 03

  I did.

• 50:17Josh Clark?

  Okay, it's because the aspect ratio of a TV at the time was four to three, which is almost a perfect square. Nothing like the 16 to nine we have today, which allows for a lot more peripheral vision. So if you wanted a close up of not one, but more than one character, they had to stand physically close together to get in the frame.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 50:39Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  Amazing. The more you know.

• 50:42Josh Clark?

  Just a little bonus for those of us who weren't in the film industry back in the 50s.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  Hey, you know I wasn't.

• 50:51Josh Clark?

  That's it for Twilight Zone. I think we could sit here for another hour and just talk about our favorite episodes. But we will leave it to you to just go watch the Twilight Zone. It really is a gift to humanity that Rod Serling created. And while you go do that, we're gonna do listener mail.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  To set up this listener mail, I'm going to very quickly retell the story because it won't make sense if you haven't heard this kind of obscure reference. When I worked at JJ's Barbecue in Stone Mountain, Georgia in the 1980s as a 12 year old. Still sounds weird to say, but yeah, at a job as a busboy as a 12 year old.

• 51:28Josh Clark?

  Not when you say Stone Mountain, Georgia.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Right. And one time there was a big pot of Brunswick stew in the walk in. I was in there getting some stuff with this guy Keith who worked there. And he said, hey, watch this. And Keith put his entire shooed foot and jean'd leg into the Brunswick stew and pulled it back out. And that stew was later heated up and served to diners.

• 51:52Josh Clark?

  Man.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  So that's the setting, a depraved situation. Hey, guys. My best friend Dave and I, who also work together, both avid listeners of Stuff You Should Know, have been since 2008. Each week, one of us makes lunch for the entire week, and there's usually a theme. And for this week's lunch, I made Brunswick stew. And in honor of Chuck's foot in the Brunswick stew story on how restaurant health inspections work, oh, there you go. I stuck my bare foot into a container of the stew. I took a video and shared it with Dave so he knew what he was getting into. He loved the video and still loved the stew. I can assure you that my foot was very, very clean. Thank you for the inspiration and all the great stories over the years. If you choose to read this one on the air, of course, you can use my name. That is Jason in Salt Lake.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  So Jason, that's gross. Still not quite as gross, I think, as a shooed and jean'd, blue jean'd foot and ankle.

• 52:46Josh Clark?

  No, no, that's the sanitized version, but still pretty gross. Agreed.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, something's grosser in a way. Because it's your human skin?

• 52:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the foot on stew contact.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  The hottest contact as we all know.

• 53:03Josh Clark?

  That, that does, it is grosser in some way, for sure.

• 53:07Speaker 03

  Anyway, never, never thought that that would inspire such an act. But it's pretty fun to read that mail.

• 53:12Josh Clark?

  That was from Jason?

• 53:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jason Salt Lake, do not eat his offerings, people.

• 53:17Josh Clark?

  No, for sure. Thanks a lot, Jason. Thanks for listening to us for so long, too. We appreciate that. And if you want to be like Jason and get in touch with us, you can do that by sending an email to [email protected].

• 53:35Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 53:50Josh Clark?

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• 56:22Speaker 07

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.