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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast, George, nor

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Speaker 1: with you. Mark Zickcrey has written and produced hundreds of

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Speaker 1: hours of series, TV shows, pilots, and feature films for

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Speaker 1: most of the major studios and networks. Mark has founded

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Speaker 1: the Space Command Studios, a production company based in la

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Speaker 1: in London dedicated to making TV series and films that

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Speaker 1: are socially relevant and inspiring. He's got his own YouTube

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Speaker 1: channel now. He's also the author of several books, including

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Speaker 1: Magic Time Trilogy, The Twilight Zone, comparisonson Companion, and green

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Speaker 1: Lighting Yourself. Mark Always welcome back, my friend. Great to

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Speaker 1: be here, George. It's always such fun. What is new

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Speaker 1: with you these days? Oh boy? What a loaded question, right? Yes? Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all I should say that I'm you know,

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Speaker 1: I've I've decided to do the Twilight Zone audio commentaries.

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Speaker 1: The episode commentaries I didn't do on the Blue Race,

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Speaker 1: so I did fifty two on the Blue Race. Now

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Speaker 1: I'm doing the remaining one hundred and four episodes. So

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Speaker 1: that's so. I've started a side called twilight Zone Commentaries

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Speaker 1: dot Com where people can get an app and actually

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Speaker 1: twice a week they'll get these audio commentaries and we'll

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Speaker 1: be able to watch them with their Twilight Zone episodes.

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Speaker 1: And so that's great fun. And then I finished the

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Speaker 1: new book Greenlighting Yourself, and we're shooting more Space Command

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Speaker 1: and I'm actually in discussions on the new Rod Serving

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Speaker 1: TV shows. So there's a lot going on. Oh, excellent,

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Speaker 1: good for you. How do people download the app? It's

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Speaker 1: if you go to twilight Zone Commentaries dot com. You

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Speaker 1: can order it and it's just right, it's all spelled

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Speaker 1: out right there. So that's the easiest way to do it.

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Speaker 1: And because you know, all all these years since I

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Speaker 1: wrote The Twilight Zone Companion, you know, I have all

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Speaker 1: these stories from all the hundreds of people I interviewed

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Speaker 1: who worked on the show, and I was able to

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Speaker 1: put some of it in The Twilight Zone Companion, but

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Speaker 1: not all of it. And so I very I always

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Speaker 1: knew I would do commentaries on all of the episodes ultimately,

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Speaker 1: so that so that these stories wouldn't be lost with me.

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Speaker 1: And so that was that's it's gonna be great fun.

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to have a lot of my friends

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Speaker 1: people who worked on Twilight so I'm like Bill Mum

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Speaker 1: and Veronica car Ride and so forth through some of

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Speaker 1: these commentaries with me. So it's going to be really

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Speaker 1: really cool, and it's it's a show that just seems

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Speaker 1: to live forever, Mark, doesn't it. Yes, yes, you know

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Speaker 1: I was. They just flew me to Bingham, to New York,

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Speaker 1: to Rod's hometown and for the Rods Sterling Test. I

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Speaker 1: was guest of honor there a few weeks ago, and

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Speaker 1: I got to, you know, have meals with Rod's daughters,

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Speaker 1: Jody and Anne. And it just keeps going. You know

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Speaker 1: when Carol Sterling, who was Rod's widow, who we just

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Speaker 1: lost a little while ago, you know, every time I

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Speaker 1: would run into her over the decade, would say, you know,

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Speaker 1: aren't you amazed how this thing just keeps going? And

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Speaker 1: I think it's because, you know, great work lasts and

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Speaker 1: Rod Rod created something really really amazing. Tell us about

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Speaker 1: the event at Biggingden. It was so cool because I'd

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Speaker 1: never been to Rod's hometown of you know, surprisingly, and

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Speaker 1: so to see the home, the home that he grew

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Speaker 1: up and is still there. It looks actually the same,

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Speaker 1: this white house and the park that inspired Walking Distance

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Speaker 1: is there, and it was just amazing. And the carousel,

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Speaker 1: you know, the carousel that you see the duplicate of

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Speaker 1: in walking Distance, all these it was just like walking

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Speaker 1: through a Twilights On episode. It was really really quite wonderful.

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Speaker 1: That's good. Did you ever have a chance to meet

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Speaker 1: Rod Shirling? Well, you know, when I was a student

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Speaker 1: at U sail A. One day he gave a talk

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Speaker 1: there and I had a final that day, and I

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Speaker 1: chose to take the final as I could go back

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Speaker 1: in time and choose the other path. Yeah. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: would have liked you. Oh yeah, and he's and you know,

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Speaker 1: I came upon a video of him teaching a class

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Speaker 1: where he would screen the Twilights On episode and then

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Speaker 1: talk about it. And that was Rod totally CANNEDID not

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Speaker 1: televised at all. And so I feel like I knew him,

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Speaker 1: I feel and also, of course all the research I

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Speaker 1: did for the Companion Um, you know, I really feel

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Speaker 1: like I got to know Rod very well. And he

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Speaker 1: was an amazing, amazing man. I'll always remember the story

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Speaker 1: that you said that here in his Los Angeles home,

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Speaker 1: Carol let you in the attic. Yeah, Rummagene through Twilight

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Speaker 1: Zone scripts and things that you had never seen before.

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Speaker 1: It was amazing. Well, you know, up in the attic

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Speaker 1: there were all these heavy brown leather volumes with every

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Speaker 1: article ever written about Rod Sterling in chronological order, just

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Speaker 1: a whole shelf full of these big, thick volumes. And

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Speaker 1: also another thing that was up in that attic were

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Speaker 1: Rod what what Rod? Would you relax? Because he was

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Speaker 1: so prolific, is to relax he would make airplane model kits,

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Speaker 1: and so there were boxes, boxes of airplane model kits

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Speaker 1: that he hadn't gotten around to making, and they were

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Speaker 1: up there in the attic too. Because Rods, of course

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Speaker 1: sadly died at age fifty, so it was it was

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Speaker 1: really quite quite melancholy to be up there, but it

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Speaker 1: was great. HBO, is there in a series called the

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Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode you never got to see? Yes, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: tell us about that. Well, it's really amazing Rod In

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, Twilight Zone was still in the air.

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Speaker 1: That was the last year new episodes were made of

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Speaker 1: the original show, And at that same year Rod wrote

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Speaker 1: something called a Carol for Another Christmas that's basically a

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Speaker 1: modern updated retelling of Christmas Carol but set in the

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Speaker 1: atomic age, and it was very much a Rod Sterling script,

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Speaker 1: very twilight Zone in nature, and prior to HBO running it,

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Speaker 1: it was almost impossible to see it. And it starts

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Speaker 1: Peter Sellers and just Pat Hingele and all these amazing

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Speaker 1: actress even Marie Saint, and it's really like a ninety

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Speaker 1: minute Twilight Zone episode and I just came upon it.

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Speaker 1: The HBO is released for the holidays, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: quite a rarity. And previously to see it you'd have

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Speaker 1: to go to a university archive and put it on

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Speaker 1: a moviola and watch a sixteen million meter print. It

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Speaker 1: was that rare. I don't think it ever was broadcast

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Speaker 1: from its nineteen sixty four on and now it's on

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Speaker 1: HBO and a gorgeous print and you can watch it.

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Speaker 1: It's really Rod Sterling writing at the height of his career,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's quite a wonderful, wonderful lost lost episode.

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Speaker 1: How many episodes were there? There were one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty six twilights one episodes and over five seasons, and

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Speaker 1: Rod wrote ninety two of them. So he was astonishingly,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the quality of writing was just amazing. And

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Speaker 1: the other writers, of course, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, George Clayton, Johnson,

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Speaker 1: Earl Hamner, they were They were giants as well. And

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Speaker 1: Rod really really had an amazing group of writers working

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Speaker 1: with him. And you were saying that some time ago

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Speaker 1: that he would float in his pool with his dictaphone. Well,

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Speaker 1: he would lounge beside the pool in the mornings. He

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Speaker 1: would get up in the morning and lounge by the

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Speaker 1: pool in his swim trunks and dictate the Twilights on scripts.

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Speaker 1: And he used to joke that he was the only

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Speaker 1: writer who could write a script and get a tan

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Speaker 1: at the same time, that these are the episodes he wrote, right, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he dictated. He was one of few writers who could

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Speaker 1: dictate a script. Richard Matheson, who was one of the

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Speaker 1: other Twilight Zone writers, told me that he tried to

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Speaker 1: do it and he couldn't do it. But they thought

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Speaker 1: that all those recordings were lost of Rod's dictation, and

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Speaker 1: they just found a thousand of them in Oh my God,

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Speaker 1: priceless and it's Rod dictating scripts and dictating speeches and

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Speaker 1: dictating letters. And so I'm proposing a new show called

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Speaker 1: rod Sterlings after Twilight that Rod would narrate from that material,

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Speaker 1: and that would be made up of unmade rod Sterling

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Speaker 1: scripts and there's a ton of those, and so that's

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Speaker 1: in discussions with the rod Sterling family and the estate

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Speaker 1: to uh to see if we can make that show.

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Speaker 1: I very much want to. All that would be fantastic.

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Speaker 1: And he would change characters while he was dictating and

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Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah, he would describe the shots, he

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Speaker 1: would he would act out the different characters. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he was really an amazing man. I mean when you

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Speaker 1: listen to him dictating these scripts, it's it's phenomenal because

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Speaker 1: he's playing all the roles. He could just go into

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Speaker 1: that and uh, you know, he had he was I mean,

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Speaker 1: he was unique. There was no really really no one

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Speaker 1: like him. We're gonna take calls with Mark Secree at

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Speaker 1: the half here, so get ready to jump on board

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Speaker 1: and then we've got open lines next hour here for

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Speaker 1: you on Coast to Coast. How's the Mister sci Fi

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Speaker 1: YouTube channel doing? It's going great. We uh you know,

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Speaker 1: I I started a couple of years ago and it

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Speaker 1: allows me to talk about science fiction and when we're

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Speaker 1: shooting Space Command, we've been putting episodes up on on

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Speaker 1: on Mister sci Fi. We've got our first hour on

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Speaker 1: Space Command has been seen by three million people with

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Speaker 1: a ninety seven percent thumbs up and us amazing having Well,

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Speaker 1: today I was having lunch with a Netflix executive who's

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Speaker 1: very friendly with me, and we're you know, we're now

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Speaker 1: proposing a slate called the show Runners Network, where I'm

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Speaker 1: creating six new shows with the creators of The Expanse

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Speaker 1: and and and you know, Far Escape and all these

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Speaker 1: other shows and uh, and it'll be like a slate

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Speaker 1: of sixth series. So Space Command is one of those.

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Speaker 1: But but if people want to get a jump on

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Speaker 1: that and see see that, you know, the first few

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Speaker 1: episodes of Space Command, it's there on mister sci Fi

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Speaker 1: on YouTube for free, you know. And so it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's hugely fun to have my own studio and be

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Speaker 1: able to put out my own mind shows to the

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Speaker 1: whole world. It's it's it's terrific. Can I say I

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Speaker 1: knew you when I think you're going to know me? Always? George?

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Speaker 1: I mean, we've been kindred spirits from from the first

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Speaker 1: moment that we began to have this kind of we've

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Speaker 1: we've we've clicked, haven't we You over the years, it's

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Speaker 1: been something else and tell us about the evolution of

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Speaker 1: Space command. This is a great story. Thanks, it's um Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I grew up with Star Trek, the original

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Speaker 1: Star Trek, and I got to visit the set when

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, and it really formed me as

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Speaker 1: a as a writer and as a person. And and

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Speaker 1: I realized that with Twilight Zone and Star Trek back then,

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Speaker 1: Rod Sterling and Gene Roddenberry, they wanted to create shows

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Speaker 1: that would inspire people to create a better future, that

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Speaker 1: would create, you know, that where we could reach across

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Speaker 1: boundaries and barriers and actually build a future worth living in.

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Speaker 1: And lately I knows that a lot of the science

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Speaker 1: fiction shows their message was, well, the future is going

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Speaker 1: to be terrible and there's nothing you can do about it.

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Speaker 1: And I thought, well, that's that's a terrible message to

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Speaker 1: send out. So I thought, well, let me see if

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Speaker 1: I can create a science fiction show set in the future,

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Speaker 1: set and out of space that would have an inspiring

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Speaker 1: positive message without being Pollyanna or you know, rose colored

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Speaker 1: glasses or any of that. And I didn't want the

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Speaker 1: networks of the studios to decide if the audience ever

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Speaker 1: saw it. So I reached out to my fans, my

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Speaker 1: audience via crowdfunding and selling investment shares, and to date

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Speaker 1: they've given me over three million dollars and yeah, amazing. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it allowed over my own studio. We've shot seven

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Speaker 1: hours of Space Command so far and we're still going strong.

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Speaker 1: We're going to shoot the entire season and keep going.

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Speaker 1: And so it's and it allowed me to write what

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Speaker 1: I wanted to write, and cast who I wanted to cast,

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Speaker 1: going to be working with, and Doug Jones from Starfork

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Speaker 1: I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. I just called

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Speaker 1: show and they all said yes. So oh that's exciting.

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Speaker 1: And you've had fun doing your own thing, haven't you.

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Speaker 1: Every day as Christmas, Elaine and I are writing and

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Speaker 1: producing and directing together. My wife, you know, we've been

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Speaker 1: every day. And and I just, you know, I'm like

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Speaker 1: come true. And so I get to do that every

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Speaker 1: single day. We're building an alien spaceship now at my studio.

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Speaker 1: So man, we're building two eight foot tall creatures and

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Speaker 1: cool is that? You know? So, so I'm a happy

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Speaker 1: camper definitely. Well that's great. I still have the Ray

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Speaker 1: Bradbury letter that he wrote me when I did an

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Speaker 1: editorial about I seeing the Body Electric his Twilight Zone script,

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Speaker 1: and he just he loved the editorial. It just made

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Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, and I think I think that speaks

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Speaker 1: to you know, Ray was a very dear friend of mine,

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Speaker 1: and uh, and he was very he was he was childlike,

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Speaker 1: you really have to stay connected to that. And you

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Speaker 1: had definitely have George and I have two. You know.

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Speaker 1: It's you have to find enthusiasm and passion and not

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Speaker 1: let the world erode that and uh. And that's and

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Speaker 1: in fact, the new book Green lighting yourself. That's what

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Speaker 1: it's about. It's basically for writers and directors and actors

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Speaker 1: and producers where they can build their own dream and

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Speaker 1: publishing companies to make their dream come true. It's how

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Speaker 1: that stuff, you can you can reach the whole world.

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Speaker 1: It's what I've done, and and in in that book,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to share share that with with people who

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Speaker 1: wanted to do the same. You know. Um, it's it's

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Speaker 1: not that hard. You just have to get the right advice.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm really glad I finished that book. It's

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Speaker 1: going to be out in the next few months. It'll

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Speaker 1: be in you know, bookstores and on Amazon and everywhere

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Speaker 1: good books are sold. But but it was just a

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Speaker 1: way of you know, sharing what I've learned and what

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Speaker 1: I've what Ray Bradbury taught me and others taught me.

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Speaker 1: Tommy producer Tommy still quotes a number of Twilight Zone

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Speaker 1: episodes saying William when he latches onto one or two

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Speaker 1: that he loves and he just uses them all the time. Yes, yes, well,

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Speaker 1: there's so many great quotes I mean, you know it's

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Speaker 1: a cookbook or you know, room for one more honey.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's just so many catch phrases from Twilight Zone.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I was joking with someone else recently

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Speaker 1: where like, what did like nowadays, we'll have a weird experience,

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Speaker 1: We'll save God. It was just like I was in

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Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone. But before that, what did people say?

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Speaker 1: Did they have to say, Well, we'll have to wait

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Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty ninety to be able to describe this,

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Speaker 1: because there really is no other phrase that fits so

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Speaker 1: perfectly as that one. Just a few days ago, I

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Speaker 1: was talking about little Girl Lost, the girl who fell

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Speaker 1: into another dimension. Yes, that's just yeah. I mean what

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Speaker 1: a great mind, he add didn't he? Yes? Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: you know, and it really takes looking at the world,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and seeing sort of looking at

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Speaker 1: its sideways and seeing possibilities where other people don't. And

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Speaker 1: you know, and then of course they had such great

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Speaker 1: directors and such great actors. I mean, you know, I

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Speaker 1: recently cast Veronica Cartwright in a new show I'm creating

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Speaker 1: with Rockneil Bannon, who created far Escape, and you know,

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Speaker 1: Veronica Cartwright starred and I sing the body Electric as

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Speaker 1: well as Alien and the Birds, and and to be

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Speaker 1: working with her as again a dream come true, you know,

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Speaker 1: because you look at all the amazing actress who are

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Speaker 1: on Twilight. So you know we you and I've you know,

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Speaker 1: our friends with Bill Mummy. But also my god, they

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Speaker 1: had Lee Marvin and Robert Redford exactly, Elizabeth Montgomery all

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Speaker 1: on and on, I mean, my god, and uh and

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Speaker 1: it just it just holds up. You watched those episodes

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Speaker 1: now and there's uh, you know, they don't they don't

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Speaker 1: lose a bit of their power. No, not at all,

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Speaker 1: more relevant now than ever. And then he had classic

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Speaker 1: people like Burgess Meredith in there, yes, yes, and it

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Speaker 1: was he was in four episodes. He was in Time,

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Speaker 1: en If at Last and Princess Devil and the Obsolete

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Speaker 1: Man and uh and he was just an amazing it

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Speaker 1: was great. When I interviewed him, uh he uh, you

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Speaker 1: know he told me that, you know, Rod Sterling, he said,

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Speaker 1: like a great many writers, or like many good writers,

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Speaker 1: Rod listened more than he talked. And uh and he

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Speaker 1: really had a or with Sterling and in Time and

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Speaker 1: If at Last, where his last man on Earth is

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Speaker 1: just it's unforgettable. I mean, it's just it's one of

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Speaker 1: the high points of television. How did he work with

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Speaker 1: his writers? Did he tell them the idea or did

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Speaker 1: he turn them loose and then he worked with them? Yeah. Rod.

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Speaker 1: The thing that was interesting that Rod was he was

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Speaker 1: very much an idea factory himself, and he was churning

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Speaker 1: out the script after script script with the writers. When

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Speaker 1: he got that team of Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont and

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Speaker 1: George Clayton Johnson and Earl Holliman, they would kind of

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Speaker 1: pitch ideas or they would have written short stories that

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Speaker 1: they thought would make good episodes, and he would just

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Speaker 1: kind of let them once once they had it kind

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Speaker 1: of nailed down that he would let them just go.

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Speaker 1: He would say, he said to them, we will shoot

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Speaker 1: the drafts that you write. And they didn't believe him

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Speaker 1: at first because so many other shows would just you know,

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Speaker 1: take their scripts and chew them up and spit them out.

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Speaker 1: And they were amazed when the scripts that they wrote

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Speaker 1: was what got shot. And so he really trusted these writers.

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Speaker 1: They were amazing talents and uh, and he gave him

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Speaker 1: a free hand where he really gave him a free hand.

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Speaker 1: I remember the one on the Fever was called about

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Speaker 1: a guy who got hooked on a slot machine. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Franklin Gibbs, Yes, and he uh, that's a great episode. Ever.

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Speaker 1: And Everett Sloane, you know, he was in Citizen Came previously,

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Speaker 1: he was in Patterns, which was a great live TV

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Speaker 1: presentation that kind of put Rod Sterling on the map.

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Speaker 1: And in that he plays a guy well, you know, Twilight,

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Speaker 1: and there's very much about people who either rise or fall.

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Speaker 1: They're given they're they're put in a fantasy situation that

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Speaker 1: either allows them to rise the occasion, like Shatner in

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Speaker 1: Nightmare at twenty thousand Feet or Franklin Gibbs where he's

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Speaker 1: kind of a stingy, kind of you know, miserly guy

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Speaker 1: and then he gets the gambling fever and it does

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Speaker 1: him in you know, so you know so or or

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Speaker 1: you know or the one with the machines that come alive,

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Speaker 1: you know, and uh and all of those things. There's

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Speaker 1: so it's always a test of someone's moral fiber and uh.

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Speaker 1: And again these that's why these these shows, these episodes

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Speaker 1: last so well because they're about the human condition. And

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Speaker 1: that's and so something like monsters are do do on

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Speaker 1: Maple Street and mob psychology and hysteria. I mean, my god,

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Speaker 1: you look at the newspapers, you know, in the last

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Speaker 1: few days, and you can see where monsters are do

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Speaker 1: on Maple Street is more relevant now than when Rob

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Speaker 1: wrote it in in fifty nine. The name Bartlett Finchley

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Speaker 1: ring a bell, Yes, yes, exactly. A thing about machines.

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Speaker 1: That's such a fun episode with the with the razor

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Speaker 1: that comes slithering down that staircase and you know, the

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Speaker 1: electric razor and and the TV said, you know, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's just it's just super fun. You know,

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Speaker 1: the fun part about Twilight Zone is that it's serious

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Speaker 1: but it's also fun. And like like will the real

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Speaker 1: Martian please stand up? Where there's all these people stuck

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Speaker 1: in a snowed in diner and one of them is

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Speaker 1: a Martian, you know which which one of them is

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Speaker 1: the Martian? And you know, it's just you get a

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Speaker 1: sense that these people making the show, we're having the

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Speaker 1: time of their life and we're just seizing an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to make something that they would love and that the

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Speaker 1: world would love. And they succeeded spectacularly. Listen to More

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Speaker 1: Coast to coast AM every weeknight at one a m.

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Speaker 1: Eastern and go to coast to coast am dot com

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Speaker 1: for more