Speaker 1: How's it going, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Narratives
Speaker 1: and I'm if you way. It's in acrost from Danny
Speaker 1: Fernandez and we are joined up top by Mellow Brown,
Speaker 1: who's a writer and tech editor at fanbros dot com
Speaker 1: and also a writer on American Gods. How's it going everyone? Hey,
Speaker 1: and you are also a listener of the show. Yes, wow,
Speaker 1: Like I'm actually you know that's having my feet to
Speaker 1: the theme song now, I love it. I know we've
Speaker 1: had a couple of people ask us about the theme song.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they can get it somewhere. I
Speaker 1: mean there's still people who were asking me what the
Speaker 1: song is for World Cup date and Anna never found out.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anyone knows because I've asked Miles
Speaker 1: and he kind of brushed it off. Well, both of
Speaker 1: our our artwork and our our yeah, our song were
Speaker 1: created in house by someone at how Stuff Works. I
Speaker 1: imagine in Atlanta, in there, in there big I haven't
Speaker 1: been over there, but I am one day if he
Speaker 1: one day, I'll make it out there. Yeah, one day
Speaker 1: we'll get flown out there at the Big House House
Speaker 1: Stuff Works headquarters. For some reason, that's true. I'd probably
Speaker 1: spend a month. I'd probably spend a month in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I phone out there. Um, today we are talking about
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone. This is a series that is extremely
Speaker 1: near and dear to my heart. But Melo, did you
Speaker 1: grow up with it? Um? Actually, yes, what was it?
Speaker 1: I've been a long time watcher. My dad got me
Speaker 1: into it and um allowed like the social political issues
Speaker 1: hit immediately along with my nightmares. True true, Um, off
Speaker 1: the top of your head, what would you say is
Speaker 1: like your favorite episode? I would definitely say It's a
Speaker 1: good Life. Oh yeah, like that one is terrifying. What
Speaker 1: was currently? Yea currently that? Um, yes, so we'll get
Speaker 1: into it. But yeah, It's a good Life is often
Speaker 1: referenced because of Donald Trump. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: political cartoons that have referenced him and the and the
Speaker 1: Little Boy. Yeah, like you said, we'll get into a
Speaker 1: bit later. But there's a sequel to that. It makes
Speaker 1: it even worse. Really is it in their original series?
Speaker 1: It is in uh the two thousand two. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't always count the like there was one. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: we'll get into it, but I don't always count I
Speaker 1: count the original Star Original Star Wars. I get the
Speaker 1: original Star Wars big you have that whole just petition
Speaker 1: to remake the news up and I read, which is
Speaker 1: also great because I love that myself subconscious went there.
Speaker 1: I love the New Star Wars. I actually do very
Speaker 1: much love the New Star Wars um because I get
Speaker 1: to see more people, more women and people of color
Speaker 1: degree and this Villa, the villain of that story for
Speaker 1: the sequel, actually is the epitome of a New Star Wars.
Speaker 1: Uh if you if they prefer to call themselves up? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so Twilight Zone, Um yeah. I thought we'd kick
Speaker 1: it off with talking just a little bit about Rod
Speaker 1: Sterling's history, because I actually found out before I even
Speaker 1: we cranked out this early additional research to the topic.
Speaker 1: I saw this in a Twitter threat where he has
Speaker 1: this quote where Danny was shaking her head because she
Speaker 1: remembers it, where he was like, I don't care. I
Speaker 1: think it was something along the lines if I don't
Speaker 1: care what it is, I just want my writing remembered
Speaker 1: and to last longer than me, And which is dope
Speaker 1: because it is and it's not only remembered, but it's impactful.
Speaker 1: And then someone went on and talked about kind of
Speaker 1: the history of Rosterling, about how he was a war
Speaker 1: vet and how he created Twilight Zone because he wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed to kind of talk about those social issue is
Speaker 1: at the time just so openly. So he did it
Speaker 1: deceptively through the Twilight Zone. And and that's why I think, uh,
Speaker 1: and not to be this guy. Even though I like
Speaker 1: all the Black Mirrors episodes, I like them all, but
Speaker 1: I feel like the earlier ones are stronger because the
Speaker 1: earlier ones are kind of really making that like, you know, technology,
Speaker 1: we're letting it get ahead of us point, and I
Speaker 1: feel like the later ones is more just kind of
Speaker 1: like I don't want to, you know, undercut a lot
Speaker 1: of the stories, but you know, because there are some
Speaker 1: that really are very like current. But I feel like
Speaker 1: the newer ones are more just kind of adding on,
Speaker 1: just kind of exploring the idea of the world and
Speaker 1: story building that they've kind of um set up. Where
Speaker 1: those first ones, like it really did feel like Booker
Speaker 1: was like saying something to us funny enough. Booker normally
Speaker 1: a comedian, Ron Sterling actually had a comedy background. But
Speaker 1: I don't want to get too ahead of myself. I
Speaker 1: want to start just with the the War because it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. It's it's almost like you know when you
Speaker 1: read some people's biographies and you're like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: this is going to be a good movie one day.
Speaker 1: I feel like Rod Serling has one of those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of fascinating. I guess he hasn't. No one
Speaker 1: has played him yet, like and officially in a huge film.
Speaker 1: I agree. He is so instrumental. I feel like in um,
Speaker 1: not only science fiction, but just yeah, I know that
Speaker 1: he gets compared Black Mirror gets compared a lot to
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone, and that's accurate. And then and of course
Speaker 1: we're gonna also visit the fact that Jordan Peel is
Speaker 1: now making which I think he's perfect for. It is
Speaker 1: going to be on the CBS platform. Yeah, because like
Speaker 1: get Out would have been the perfect like episode of
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone in the same like cutting just um, what's
Speaker 1: the word I'm looking for criticism? What I was gonna
Speaker 1: say is actually, Durassic Park fits a lot people forget,
Speaker 1: but that fits a lot of like, yeah, the original
Speaker 1: Drastic Ark well and I would say Drastic the last one,
Speaker 1: Durassic World, Falling Kingdom, um where they start to kind
Speaker 1: of or or they hint at using dinosaurs as weapons.
Speaker 1: That to me is also kind of like what would
Speaker 1: we do with this technology? Um, where it could also
Speaker 1: be like a Black Mirror episode. But yeah, Rodster as
Speaker 1: far as me, like I grew up with the Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone marathons, my parents would party and essentially leave us alone.
Speaker 1: On New Year's Eve, we watched on Sci Fi my
Speaker 1: brothers and I. I now, if he has been to
Speaker 1: my place, Melo, you are welcome to come to my place.
Speaker 1: I have a Twilight Zone wall um which I will
Speaker 1: tweet with different artwork and original artwork that's signed by artists.
Speaker 1: I have rod Sterling up there. I have um many
Speaker 1: of the episodes, including one of the most famous ones,
Speaker 1: which is I have the Beholder. But also I had
Speaker 1: an artist. Uh. A lot of the other ones don't
Speaker 1: have as much artwork, so I commission an artist to
Speaker 1: do my favorite. Well, it changes as the years go on,
Speaker 1: but my favorite is The Howling Man is one of
Speaker 1: my absolute favorite episodes. Uh. And also Satan's kind of hot.
Speaker 1: He's kind of hot in it, ah he is, he
Speaker 1: looks good. Um. So yeah, so let's talk about the
Speaker 1: history of rod Serling. Yeah, I was I just wanted
Speaker 1: to start in high school. He funny enough, he's always
Speaker 1: been a writer. Not funny, I mean just I guess
Speaker 1: as expected. Always he was writing for the school newspaper
Speaker 1: and he was kind of like amped up about World
Speaker 1: War Two and he was kind of encouraging other students
Speaker 1: to enlist. And he actually wanted to enlist before he graduated.
Speaker 1: But then it was actually his Civics teacher, Gus Youngstrom,
Speaker 1: who said war is a temporary thing. It ends an
Speaker 1: education doesn't. Without your degree, where will you be after
Speaker 1: the war. So he actually finished school, graduated, and as
Speaker 1: soon as school ended, enlisted. Now there's a fun detail
Speaker 1: in his enlistment that kind of really I think sets
Speaker 1: up who Rod Serling is. So originally he was sent
Speaker 1: to um California, which man, he was going to fight
Speaker 1: the Japanese instead of you know, the the Germans, and
Speaker 1: he was actually angry about it because he wanted to
Speaker 1: fight Hitler and so so he was like, forget the Japanese,
Speaker 1: I need to fight this guy, this horrible, bigoted, racist guy,
Speaker 1: Like that's who he wanted. And I feel like that
Speaker 1: kind of set the tone for his life. Eventually, he
Speaker 1: actually grown bitter about the war because it seemed like
Speaker 1: such a young thing to do, to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go join the army, I'm gonna fight the
Speaker 1: bad guys. But he found out that, you know, he
Speaker 1: was seeing death every day. And then there were a
Speaker 1: lot of freak accidents. There was this huge freak accident,
Speaker 1: like there was there was a Jewish private name Melvin Levy,
Speaker 1: and Levy was delivering a comic monologue for the platoon
Speaker 1: as it as like he was standing under a palm
Speaker 1: tree and a food crate was dropped from a plane
Speaker 1: above and it decapitated him. And so Startling actually let
Speaker 1: the funeral services for Levy and placed the Star of
Speaker 1: David over his grave. So like, not only are you
Speaker 1: seeing the death of the war, but you're also seeing
Speaker 1: freak accidents like that. I can imagine that's not only
Speaker 1: kind of making you better towards the war, but that
Speaker 1: I feel like there's no way to not have this
Speaker 1: kind of morbid, kind of creative thought when you see
Speaker 1: things like that. You know, like, yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: also during the time, I think like you were saying too,
Speaker 1: that he was exposed to this idea of good versus evil.
Speaker 1: And then evil, not necessarily being evil or are we
Speaker 1: the evil? Actually? UM was something that I think that
Speaker 1: he tackled a lot pretty often, UM human nature as
Speaker 1: well as during this time. Just the amount of racism
Speaker 1: that he saw was definitely influential in his writing. And
Speaker 1: something that's really fascinating is we can we can link
Speaker 1: this in our footnotes. But I watched a YouTube video
Speaker 1: of him a couple of years ago. Uh, that sounded weird.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a YouTube video of him, It was him
Speaker 1: doing an interview that was help on YouTube. Okay, Uncle
Speaker 1: Rod doing an unboxing bid. Uh. Here can you imagine?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine him like doing having a selfie stick.
Speaker 1: I would love to see him nowadays, like his commentary
Speaker 1: on us UM would be so fast. His daughter is
Speaker 1: still alive. But what I was gonna say is I
Speaker 1: watched a video on YouTube of him where he was
Speaker 1: talking about censorship and how CBS had censored the writers
Speaker 1: and what they were trying to get away with in
Speaker 1: a lot of the times. Of course, his commentary was
Speaker 1: on on people of coming, the treatment of people of
Speaker 1: color in marginalized groups in general, where they would end
Speaker 1: up having to make them like an alien or you know,
Speaker 1: a monster or something for you to like feel for them,
Speaker 1: because they weren't they weren't able to make them people
Speaker 1: of color. And uh, he actually says that you eventually
Speaker 1: start to censor yourself where you're not even writing those stories.
Speaker 1: So if you already know it's it's kind of fascinating,
Speaker 1: like the brain will just start to center and and
Speaker 1: not even create those stories anymore. It was it's a
Speaker 1: really fascinating interview, and we'll link it. But yeah. He
Speaker 1: ended up volunteering at w NYC in New York as
Speaker 1: an actor and writer in the summer of nineteen forty six,
Speaker 1: and then the next year he worked at a station
Speaker 1: as a pain intern in Antioch work study program, and
Speaker 1: then took a couple of odd jobs and other radio
Speaker 1: stations in New York and Ohio. He said, I learned
Speaker 1: time writing for a medium that is measured in seconds.
Speaker 1: He also worked at the Antioch Broadcasting Systems Radio Workshop
Speaker 1: and was managing the station within a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Dan Len, He's moving up. He was a hard worker.
Speaker 1: He wrote and directed the programs and acted in them
Speaker 1: as well. Um, this is kind of fascinating. So I
Speaker 1: actually read the Twilight Zone companion highly recommended. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of different Twilight Zone books out there. Have you
Speaker 1: read that one? Mellow? Oh, I think you would like it.
Speaker 1: There's so much behind the scenes for each they go
Speaker 1: through each episode. So I actually got an inaudible and
Speaker 1: I would listen to it when I would clean and
Speaker 1: drive and stuff. But it's behind the scenes of like
Speaker 1: how did this get made, how this almost didn't get made?
Speaker 1: Other freak accidents that happened in the episodes. Uh. And
Speaker 1: also he didn't write all of them. Um. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that he wrote all of them,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them were actually bought from Uh.
Speaker 1: They were teleplays or they might have been a short
Speaker 1: story in a magazine, and he would buy the rights
Speaker 1: to it and then adapt it. Uh, sometimes he would,
Speaker 1: and and then he had other people working on his
Speaker 1: team as well. And I canna imagine, like he wrote
Speaker 1: like an insane amount or believe at the age of
Speaker 1: hed written forty or forty nine episodes by that point,
Speaker 1: and he was like, Okay, I finally need another writer. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And well he just wanted to be a writer. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know that, but they talked about
Speaker 1: that in the book where he just wanted to be
Speaker 1: a writer for the Twilight Zone and he didn't intend
Speaker 1: to be the host and looking at him like, you
Speaker 1: were the perfect host. You're like handsome, you're creepy, and
Speaker 1: you're like stern and have like a parental thing to you.
Speaker 1: But you're also like, you know, ominous and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, And he has gorgeous, lush eyebrows. Um, so
Speaker 1: yeah he But originally he actually just wanted to be
Speaker 1: a writer, and he didn't because when he was hosting,
Speaker 1: he didn't have an acting like he didn't have as
Speaker 1: much time to dedicate to writing. Uh and I know
Speaker 1: that that bothered him. But hopping back into the past.
Speaker 1: While in college, Serling won his first accolade as a writer.
Speaker 1: The radio program Dr Christian is starting an annual scriptwriting
Speaker 1: contest eight years earlier. Thousands of scripts were sent in annually,
Speaker 1: but very few can actually be produced. So certainly want
Speaker 1: a trip to New York City and five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for his radio script to live a dream. He and
Speaker 1: his new wife attended the awards broadcast on May eighteenth
Speaker 1: of nine, where he and the other winners were interviewed
Speaker 1: by the Star of Dr Christian Geene Herschel. One of
Speaker 1: the other winners that day was Earl Hamner Jr. Who
Speaker 1: also earned prizes in previous years, and later Hamner wrote
Speaker 1: scripts for Sterling's The Twilight Zone. Also, I just want
Speaker 1: to drop this fun fact. Five hundred dollars has the
Speaker 1: same buying power as five thousand, one hundred and fourteen
Speaker 1: dollars has today. It's something you came up. I mean,
Speaker 1: you get that much in college, you like. Hold up,
Speaker 1: that's true, that's true. Hold up, We're about to throw
Speaker 1: a dorm party. I would love to see Rod Sterling partying.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. I wonder if any of those cigarettes,
Speaker 1: who's always so, if any of them were Blunt's ever
Speaker 1: You never know, uh so, Sterling said of his time
Speaker 1: as a staff writer for radio. From a writing point
Speaker 1: of view, radio ate up ideas that might have put
Speaker 1: food on the table for weeks at a future freelancing date.
Speaker 1: The minute you tie yourself down to a radio or
Speaker 1: TV station, you write around the clock, you rip out ideas.
Speaker 1: Many of them irreplaceable. They go on and consequently can
Speaker 1: never go on again. And they sold them for fifty
Speaker 1: dollars a week. Gosh and he was saying that back then.
Speaker 1: I mean that seems small to us, but you can't
Speaker 1: afford to give away ideas. They're too damn hard to
Speaker 1: come by. If I had to do it over, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't staff right at all. I'd find some other way
Speaker 1: to support myself while getting a start as a writer.
Speaker 1: Holy Craft, I'm like going through a midlife crisis as
Speaker 1: we're as we're discussing this right now. Yes, I know
Speaker 1: how many writers in our lives do you think would
Speaker 1: agree with this as well? That you're kind of just
Speaker 1: giving your ideas over to a studio for like such
Speaker 1: little pay, and especially his because he was so like transformative,
Speaker 1: like the thought that he wrote forty nine scripts by himself,
Speaker 1: and all of them anthology episodes. It's pretty much on
Speaker 1: the equivalent of like you wrote a pilot like twice
Speaker 1: a week. So we'll we'll just jump all the way
Speaker 1: to what we're here to talk about, which is, uh,
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone. And it had an interesting kind of start,
Speaker 1: just kind of shows you how old Hollywood used to work.
Speaker 1: I don't think the w g A existed at this
Speaker 1: point because Sterling submitted the time element to CBS, intending
Speaker 1: it to be a pilot for his new weekly show,
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone, but instead CBS used the science fiction
Speaker 1: script for a new show produced by Desi Arnaz and
Speaker 1: Lucille Ball the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in ninety eight. The
Speaker 1: story concerns a man who has vivid nightmares of an
Speaker 1: attack on Pearl Harbor. The man goes to a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: and after the session, the twist ending, a device which
Speaker 1: Sterling became known for, reveals the patient had died at
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor and the psychiatrist was the one actually having
Speaker 1: the vivid dreams. The episode received so much positive fan
Speaker 1: response that CBS agreed to let Serling go ahead with
Speaker 1: his pilot for The Twilight Zone. Oh I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that my work that you yank for me did
Speaker 1: so well that you agree to let me keep making
Speaker 1: this thing that people are excited. I'm sorry. I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop laughing at the idea of Lucio Ball in this
Speaker 1: like serious What's so interesting here is that that's such
Speaker 1: a sandwich and it's such a perfect like wrap up
Speaker 1: to who Sterling was and into Twilight Zone because I
Speaker 1: mean dreams about a World War two, Like he said,
Speaker 1: the war left him with nightmares. So this is really him,
Speaker 1: like just the beginning of him taking what he was
Speaker 1: actually dealing with, putting it on paper, and then making
Speaker 1: it into something amazing. I also just wanted to be like,
Speaker 1: what a twist that was? All of the No, not
Speaker 1: all of them, but that was a lot of his
Speaker 1: his most famous ones, I feel like had a pretty
Speaker 1: big twist. Um, and some of them I still feel
Speaker 1: like you can't always tell. Some of them you can
Speaker 1: tell that, some of them you can't. And that was
Speaker 1: always my favorite things about a lot of the He
Speaker 1: was just so what a fascinating, interesting man. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Twilight Zone. Um, after these messages. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. After these messages. Welcome back to Nottificent.
Speaker 1: We are joined by Mellow Brown, and we were talking
Speaker 1: about the Twilight Zone. Um, what would you say is
Speaker 1: your second favorite episode? Second favorite would be uh five characters?
Speaker 1: Yeah that one. Oh. I have a fun fact about that.
Speaker 1: So this movie that not too many people may be
Speaker 1: aware of, called The Cube, which is a that is
Speaker 1: that that episode? It inspired that movie? You know what
Speaker 1: I always say that is the perfect Um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just left Netflix play and then like now I'm watching this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The way I found it is I was with um
Speaker 1: a friend of the pod, Kyle Lewis. He took me
Speaker 1: to this bar in New York. When I was there
Speaker 1: from New DCM. This bar, I wish I remember the name.
Speaker 1: It was everything. It's just a shot bar, which normally
Speaker 1: I'm like hard pass, but every shot is themed and
Speaker 1: there is a song and prop that goes with every shot.
Speaker 1: So he did he did the like Bret Hart like
Speaker 1: a shot and he comes out so he starts playing
Speaker 1: sexy Boy and the bartender comes out with this mike
Speaker 1: and I'm I don't know that's the gimmick of the
Speaker 1: bar yet. I'm just thinking, Oh, this guy really knows.
Speaker 1: And he hands Kyle the microphone. He's like putting him
Speaker 1: like what is going on here? And then like after
Speaker 1: like seeing everyone kind of do theirs, uh their songs,
Speaker 1: I figured out that was it. But in the background
Speaker 1: on the TV Cube was playing on the l Ray
Speaker 1: Network and that's when I was watching it and with
Speaker 1: no sound but enthralled, and then it went straight to
Speaker 1: Cube two. I want to say l Ray Network is
Speaker 1: like the other channel that's not sports in every bar,
Speaker 1: like let's have it on. You have a chance of
Speaker 1: either Luja underground or from Yeah. But I was like
Speaker 1: super into it, Like Kyle was blown away by how
Speaker 1: into the Cuba was and I had the Wikipedia opens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it so not present at the bar. This
Speaker 1: is what happens when you're married and you go to
Speaker 1: a bar and you start Wikipedia. Yeah, bringing up some facts,
Speaker 1: some cool facts. If I ever got to tell you earlier,
Speaker 1: because you know how I love dropping facts about my
Speaker 1: family and they appreciate when I do it on here.
Speaker 1: But you know how Rod Sterling, they said, no, finish
Speaker 1: your school instead of enlisting. So my mom, um, this
Speaker 1: is kind of Twilight Zony. My mom wanted to be
Speaker 1: a nun. My family was so religious. There's so so
Speaker 1: hard core Catholic. My family is so hard for Catholic
Speaker 1: that my mom wanted to be a nun. When she
Speaker 1: was sixteen and she talked to a nun. She wanted
Speaker 1: to join the nunnery, the monastery, whatever, it's the nunnery
Speaker 1: um where they make nuns. And the nuns told her
Speaker 1: finished school, like go to college and and then come
Speaker 1: back and if you still want to be a nun,
Speaker 1: you know we'll talk. So my mom went to college
Speaker 1: and she never came back. I would not be alive.
Speaker 1: I would not be alive, didn't exist. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1: My mom went to college and was like, nope, this
Speaker 1: is too good. Well she didn't meet my dad in college.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, it's not crazy. It's actually kind of
Speaker 1: a decision that wrote Sterling would probably roll with. Um
Speaker 1: If you've noticed in a lot of themes in Twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: he is constantly afraid of isolation. Yeah, like that is
Speaker 1: always like a femine. What was it the Stopwatch the
Speaker 1: I forgot the name of the one where the guy
Speaker 1: that broke his glasses, the one everyone knows at last?
Speaker 1: Was it there? Big? Yeah? Everything that was like his
Speaker 1: big fear. It feels like he was writing in a
Speaker 1: room and just like I hate being alone and I
Speaker 1: was always the mise of some of his best characters.
Speaker 1: Um So, speaking of Rod Serling, he said that he
Speaker 1: was compelled by the need to not just entertain, but
Speaker 1: too enlightened. So he wrote nine three of the series
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty six episodes over the course of
Speaker 1: its five season run, which began on CBS in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine. Yeah. So, So at ten pm on Friday
Speaker 1: October two, nine, CBS Television broadcast the pilot episode of
Speaker 1: a new series, The Twilight Zone. So the copy and
Speaker 1: CBS is newspaper ad for the debut episode. Where is
Speaker 1: everybody remember that one um that started a phenomenon. It's
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating too that it was on some of
Speaker 1: the episodes I feel like would be kind of scary. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess it was late. Ten pm is late for adults,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I watched him when I was younger.
Speaker 1: My mom was most afraid of the Invaders because that
Speaker 1: is an episode which, by the way, fun fact, there's
Speaker 1: no dialogue. There's no dialogue in The Invaders except for
Speaker 1: the very end um. But yeah, it's a tiny little
Speaker 1: robot people um with a twist. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess we we have to have some spoilers in this
Speaker 1: in order to time. Yeah, is that? Were you trying
Speaker 1: to like avoid spoilers? I feel like, well, I told
Speaker 1: you about the Twilight Zone. I looked up because like,
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated to see what are what are ranked
Speaker 1: as the top Twilight Zone episodes. To find change for
Speaker 1: me all the time, depending on what I'm going through
Speaker 1: in my life. And um, I was reading an article
Speaker 1: that had like the top ten best Twilight Zone episodes
Speaker 1: and at the bottom of the article. So when wrote,
Speaker 1: way to spoil it, man, and the author was like,
Speaker 1: it's been out for over fifty years. It's half a
Speaker 1: century old, my guy. And also just referenced in like
Speaker 1: Futurama the Family, like you're going to get up for everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people just want to just point that finger and it's like,
Speaker 1: whoa the Titanic sink love it. So during the original
Speaker 1: series Twilight Zones writers frequently used science fiction as a
Speaker 1: vehicle for social comment, as networks and sponsors who censored
Speaker 1: counter rsual material from the live dramas were less concerned
Speaker 1: and seemingly innocuous fantasy and sci fi stories. It's the
Speaker 1: age old creator's trick. It's even used to this day,
Speaker 1: like how you might be wondering, how did Donald Glover
Speaker 1: get a show as weird as Atlanta made? Well? The pilot,
Speaker 1: if you notice, is very like, it seems very linear,
Speaker 1: seems very narrative, and it seems like it's presenting a
Speaker 1: different story that we never get to see. That was
Speaker 1: how they got it. Greenlight. If you should look at
Speaker 1: the script. It's even more so. They give a whole
Speaker 1: background about him being in college as an intro. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a trojan horse technique that's so bamboos. But
Speaker 1: like at the end of the day, kind of like
Speaker 1: with the original pilot, you know, the network can't argue
Speaker 1: with popularity. If it's popular, they're gonna let you do
Speaker 1: whatever they want, even if they would have blocked you otherwise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the funny thing. And it's funny that it
Speaker 1: existed back in the fifties. Still to this day, you
Speaker 1: got the people you know and you look. Don't take offense.
Speaker 1: If you are someone who is considering giving me money
Speaker 1: and you're listening to the background, this is just you know,
Speaker 1: just just chat. But you find these creators and you
Speaker 1: want to pay us because you know we're creative. But
Speaker 1: there's a little something in you that are that are
Speaker 1: afraid of new and kind of things because you're a
Speaker 1: creature of science. When you're a suit you're like, I
Speaker 1: have the data of the shows that have worked. I
Speaker 1: have the data the shows that don't work, but it
Speaker 1: isn't until that new hot thing happens usually by either
Speaker 1: a fluke, a trojan horse technique, or just finally someone
Speaker 1: being like that dude that they get full license. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, even though you know now it's he's
Speaker 1: you know, not that that in vogue, But like Louie
Speaker 1: was able to make Louis because he bought everything, and
Speaker 1: that's he was at the point in his career where
Speaker 1: he can afford to take that hip because you take
Speaker 1: a big financial hit, like yeah, you need to so,
Speaker 1: so he really had to go out of pocket and
Speaker 1: or you do so like even back then, you have
Speaker 1: to do creative techniques to say what you really want
Speaker 1: to say as a creative and Rod Sterling use science fiction.
Speaker 1: I feel like Rod Sterling, you science fiction. Actually keep
Speaker 1: that in so people know how often I've I've said
Speaker 1: Sterling instead of Sterling. Danny has kept well, I mean
Speaker 1: I have it like it was between no, it was
Speaker 1: between the dragon Ball tattoo or I was going to
Speaker 1: get Twilight Zone. I'm not comparing the two. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying I grew up with them, okay people, and they
Speaker 1: both have artwork and walls dedicated to them. But no,
Speaker 1: you're right. Actually, Sterling he found the series very difficult
Speaker 1: to sell. Actually, few critics felt that science fiction could
Speaker 1: transcend empty escapism, as they thought, and enter the realm
Speaker 1: of adult drama. But um. There were frequent themes on
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone, which included nuclear war McCarthy is um
Speaker 1: that was very popular, UM, and mass hysteria, both I think,
Speaker 1: which are tackled and the monsters are due on Maple Street.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have both you Twilight Zone nerds back it
Speaker 1: up and explain what happens on Monsters. Oh, I would
Speaker 1: love to, because I'm gonna just say, look, we're gonna
Speaker 1: explain some of these because I know some of the
Speaker 1: nerd family is like, I want to hear this, but
Speaker 1: Danny is trying to like save the twist. You know what,
Speaker 1: just watch it. It's still good even when you know it. Really,
Speaker 1: I think I was just gonna say going forward, UM,
Speaker 1: I think it would be easier to just yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to give some of the twists away. I apologize.
Speaker 1: You can turn this off and then and watch just
Speaker 1: five seasons listen and want to. I know I knew
Speaker 1: the twist of the eye to beholder before I saw it,
Speaker 1: and it still was so still dope. Also, it's black
Speaker 1: and white and it's like creepy as hell. These Wait,
Speaker 1: I know all of these twists, and I still watched
Speaker 1: them like every month. Maybe I didn't tell you this,
Speaker 1: but the last guy that I was dating, I think
Speaker 1: you know who it is. I brought him over. We're
Speaker 1: not dating anymore, so apparently this technique doesn't work. Um,
Speaker 1: But we were sitting on my couch and I actually
Speaker 1: made him watch, like do Twilight Zone episode. I am
Speaker 1: that guy. I am that guy that will sit you
Speaker 1: down and make you watch Reservoir Dogs or something that
Speaker 1: I've made him watch. I think The Howling Man and
Speaker 1: The Midnight Sun because that's my second favorite. Justus test
Speaker 1: on the middle of a date. Yeah, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the monsters are doing. Maple Street one of the perfectly executed,
Speaker 1: still extremely relevant commentary on mob mentality. You could watch
Speaker 1: it tonight and it would still resonate today, probably even more. Uh,
Speaker 1: with how humans treat each other, how quickly are to
Speaker 1: point fingers and ruin people's lives. Um, And I just
Speaker 1: want to read this quote from Rod Serline that's at
Speaker 1: the very end of the episode. The tool of conquests
Speaker 1: do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
Speaker 1: There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to
Speaker 1: be found only in the minds of men. For the record,
Speaker 1: prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless
Speaker 1: fright and search for a scapegoat has a fallout all
Speaker 1: of its own for the children, and the children yet
Speaker 1: and unborn, and the pity of it is that these
Speaker 1: things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone. I've chills
Speaker 1: and he was genius in every way, and especially like
Speaker 1: this particular episode always feel like was one of the
Speaker 1: biggest catalysts in terms of style that I see things
Speaker 1: like in a lot of Stephen King stories, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of the stories have always builds up in mobs
Speaker 1: and everything like that, and it's always from something simple,
Speaker 1: And that's exactly where this originated from. In this story,
Speaker 1: where it was just an idea from a child, a
Speaker 1: small fear, and that fear equals something else inside of adults,
Speaker 1: they had the same level of like, oh, is this
Speaker 1: the one where the kids afraid of a monster and
Speaker 1: gets the whole town like kind of so what happens
Speaker 1: and the monsters are doing Maple Street is the lights
Speaker 1: go out on Maple Street and and everybody is kind
Speaker 1: of like, why did the lights go out? But wait
Speaker 1: a second, why is the light on in your house?
Speaker 1: Or why is light on in his house? And so
Speaker 1: they're all kind of like talking together, and the kid
Speaker 1: and the story was like, oh, this is like in
Speaker 1: my comic book when there where these monsters or aliens
Speaker 1: or whatever he says, and they're like, how did the
Speaker 1: kid know? Um? And so they end up really starting
Speaker 1: to accuse each other of knowing why, like why is
Speaker 1: it light going in your house? And and um, somebody
Speaker 1: leaves to go and check and they see this person.
Speaker 1: They start to get to this frantic part where they're
Speaker 1: just blaming each other where the person starts to walk
Speaker 1: back and and um, they can't see them in the darkness,
Speaker 1: and they shoot them, and um, you pan out and
Speaker 1: you see these two aliens watching and one of them
Speaker 1: turns to the other and is like, so is this
Speaker 1: how it is everywhere? He was like, yeah, you could
Speaker 1: do this on any street. They'll just kill each other. Essentially. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, perfect, And I feel like that is that's
Speaker 1: such a commentary. Also, I feel like, um, so I
Speaker 1: don't remember any of the deep ones. The one I
Speaker 1: remember was where that guy wanted to I think he
Speaker 1: like he wanted to go be bigger, remember that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then everything starts bigger, and the twist is that
Speaker 1: he was shrinking, Like that's the one I remember. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a classic like surling thing. Um with the
Speaker 1: Midnight Sun, which is one of my favorites, is that
Speaker 1: they're moving closer to the sun, and that's also kind
Speaker 1: of terrifying. It's like, um, them starting to get you know,
Speaker 1: more more desperate, and then you wake up and they're
Speaker 1: actually moving farther away. So that was his Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had a lot of those twists in there. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Monsters are due on Maple Street. I actually had
Speaker 1: to read that and uh, it was made into a
Speaker 1: play and I read that in English class in high school.
Speaker 1: But I feel like that's still relevant where people could
Speaker 1: be watching. Us are watching, Americans are watching like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll just destroy each other. You know, we don't even
Speaker 1: have to really, we just have to like kind of
Speaker 1: poke them a little bit. But it's also funny because
Speaker 1: it was like it was the Aliens, like that kid
Speaker 1: said it was the Aliens and yeah, it's like a
Speaker 1: love layer. It was just like kind of a coincidence
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But there's one thing I will
Speaker 1: say about certainly that was really great in terms of,
Speaker 1: like I think every writer can learn from him in
Speaker 1: terms of this. When their budget dropped and CBS was like,
Speaker 1: you're going to have to do this in like one
Speaker 1: set in the studio, make all these outlandish episodes and
Speaker 1: everything like that, the quality actually kind of went up,
Speaker 1: and these isolated stories that were driving characters, like the
Speaker 1: there's the one story I do not remember the title,
Speaker 1: and anybody can direct me online. I got but there's
Speaker 1: a lady who is constantly walking and running down a
Speaker 1: corridor in hospital and every time she gets to the
Speaker 1: end and there's a morgue there and there's a nurse,
Speaker 1: and the nurse is just like room for one more.
Speaker 1: And it's just this constant fear of dread and death
Speaker 1: that and like he's so good at that, like a
Speaker 1: regular just like jump scares weren't his thing, but dread,
Speaker 1: just like mortality is going to catch up with you.
Speaker 1: It's really great in terms of that. But that particular
Speaker 1: story is so perfect in terms of like, if you
Speaker 1: have a small space. You have a zero budget. This
Speaker 1: is how you do it. You got really yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. In season two, due to budgetary constraints, Network
Speaker 1: decided against Serling's wishes to cut costs by shooting some
Speaker 1: episodes on videotape rather than film, and the requisite multi
Speaker 1: camera set up of the videotape format precluded location shooting,
Speaker 1: and that severely limited the scope of the storylines, and
Speaker 1: the experiment was abandoned after just six episodes. Hdes and
Speaker 1: I should say that the season one was thirty minutes long.
Speaker 1: Season four, which was from two to sixty three, consists
Speaker 1: of one hour episodes. They're kind of long. They're kind
Speaker 1: of long. Actually did not want that at all. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then season five returned to the half hour format.
Speaker 1: I would say one and two are my favorite seasons though,
Speaker 1: But we'll get into more of the history as well
Speaker 1: as the other Twilight Zone revivals in the future. One
Speaker 1: right after this break and we're back talking more about
Speaker 1: that was weird Europe. Yeah, I thought you were like
Speaker 1: brew We are indeed back No no no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no no no no no no talking about the
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone. Um So I do want to say for
Speaker 1: everyone that's mad about re boots or that we're doing
Speaker 1: reboots now. I mean reboots have been around forever because
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone was rebooted in the eighties. Actually, the
Speaker 1: first reboot ran on CBS UH in nineteen in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, and then the second ran on up N
Speaker 1: from two thousand two to two thousand three. And now
Speaker 1: we have a fourth one that will be on CBS
Speaker 1: All Access from Jordan Peel, which we actually know some
Speaker 1: of the writers on there. So did you, meloge you
Speaker 1: watch any of those eighties ones or any of them
Speaker 1: stand out for you? Yeah, seeing a few of the
Speaker 1: eighties ones, um, like I believe recently we were speaking
Speaker 1: about the Chameleon, and that one definitely stood out to me.
Speaker 1: Uh in terms of kind of like strange structure, the
Speaker 1: overall the just the alien transforming. It's different things, and
Speaker 1: there's like a particular guy that's like chasing after the alien.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like a lot of eighties ones. Uh, you're
Speaker 1: very very very weird. Yes, yeah, no, no, I can
Speaker 1: imagine because it was a wild time. Also, like when
Speaker 1: you have like it's funny because I do think you
Speaker 1: can reboot things that you know, maybe you weren't that
Speaker 1: great or just kind of like left it open or
Speaker 1: kind of have the person who helmed it take it
Speaker 1: over Alah fury Road, you know. But when you have
Speaker 1: something like Twilight Zone, which was this phenomenon that kind
Speaker 1: of blew up to try and just simply rebooted, and
Speaker 1: he and Sterling wasn't a part of it. He actually
Speaker 1: sold his shares, uh, and CBS you know, kind of
Speaker 1: did it and they actually stood to earn more. But
Speaker 1: they were still kind of a little on the fence
Speaker 1: about it, and it seemed like it did okay, like
Speaker 1: it didn't have the same popularity, but there were some
Speaker 1: episodes that were kind of like they're like the CBS
Speaker 1: turned down Okay, So they turned down offers from the
Speaker 1: original production team of Rod Sterling and Buck Hounton who
Speaker 1: Buck work. They worked so closely together. I think he
Speaker 1: worked on almost like every episode of the original Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone because his name is all over it. I always
Speaker 1: see his name every single time, um, at least in
Speaker 1: a lot of the episodes that I watched. And they
Speaker 1: also turned down from Francis Ford Coppola, So we could
Speaker 1: have had a Twilight Zone from Francis Ford Coppola. I'm
Speaker 1: curious of what that would have been. Now what's that discussion? Like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like what what does that take? Yeah? So they ended
Speaker 1: up green lighting it in n under the supervision of
Speaker 1: Carlos Singer, who was then the vice president of Drama Development. Um.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a big fan of them, but you know
Speaker 1: I there was also we have talked about Twilight Zone movie,
Speaker 1: which I liked parts of it. Um so kind of
Speaker 1: had a similar feel to me. Oh you liked it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually love the Twilight Zone movie, but what was it?
Speaker 1: I like the Spielberg chapter as well as I like
Speaker 1: the revival of the ten thousand foot feet nightmare scenario,
Speaker 1: which h it was a big improvement over the what
Speaker 1: how dare you all right? If you're listening to this
Speaker 1: Google image William Shatner Twilight Zone, every image you'll get
Speaker 1: from that is hilarious of his reactions hamming it up
Speaker 1: at like just um, the costume yet in the window,
Speaker 1: it's so good. I'm sorry, don't know, speak your truth.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm not trying. I'm not trying to hide
Speaker 1: daggers at you. Um nightmare feet? Yes, is the infamous
Speaker 1: William Shatner episode of the original Twilight Zone which chronicled
Speaker 1: a man who was actually just done from being hospitalized
Speaker 1: for a breakdown, So that that was also a part
Speaker 1: of it. Also, could I just say so he was
Speaker 1: he was completely terrified on this flight. Not only did
Speaker 1: he see a yetty ish type of figure on the wing,
Speaker 1: which inspired the very famous Jim Carrey um scene from
Speaker 1: a Nature calls there's something on the wing. He doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like that if you go back and watch it.
Speaker 1: But um, what I was gonna say is also, hello,
Speaker 1: flying back then, was terrified? He Okay, now you think like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, flying is terrifying for people. Now think back then, Okay,
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, one, they could smoke, so that's cool,
Speaker 1: But like also your playing can catch on fire. Um,
Speaker 1: because they were smoking, I think in it, as they
Speaker 1: were in all of these Um, this is not an
Speaker 1: anti ps A for smoking. You can do whatever you
Speaker 1: want with your body. I just think on a flight,
Speaker 1: you know. Um yeah, yeah. So that was also a
Speaker 1: part of it that I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: forget is that this man was coming off of having
Speaker 1: a breakdown, So it was did he actually see this
Speaker 1: creature on the wing or wasn't in his head. So
Speaker 1: but yes, speaking of the film, they did. So the
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone movie came out in they did recreate that scene.
Speaker 1: So it started. Dan Ackroyd, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Um,
Speaker 1: the late Vickmorrow, and Scott Man. Cruther's John Lennons directed
Speaker 1: the prologue and the first segment. Steven Spielberg directed the second,
Speaker 1: Joe Dante the third, and George Miller directed the final segment,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know. Um. Landis's episode became notorious for
Speaker 1: a helicopter accident during filming that caused the death Tomorrow
Speaker 1: and and two child actors. I just found out about.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that. I was talking about that. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we should move on, yeah, to the second revival,
Speaker 1: because there was many more well before there. Before the
Speaker 1: Second Revival, there was Rod Serling's Lost Classics, when uh,
Speaker 1: basically Richard Matheson and Carold Sara Ling produced a an
Speaker 1: outline for a two hour made for TV movie which
Speaker 1: would feature you know, Matheson's adaptation of three yet unfilmed
Speaker 1: Rod Serling. Short stories and outlines for the production were
Speaker 1: rejected by CBS until early when Sterling's widow discovered a
Speaker 1: complete shooting script for Where the Dead Are authored by
Speaker 1: Sterling himself, and while rummaging, she found that while rummaging
Speaker 1: through her garage, like He'll imagine just having like just scripts.
Speaker 1: The man was a genius, Like man it is, I'm
Speaker 1: angry and how good it was just constantly just like
Speaker 1: I have an idea I can form. Also, like in
Speaker 1: the digital age, that's never gonna happen unless I found
Speaker 1: this random thumb drive they don't look at it, found
Speaker 1: his very dropbox. Yeah. Yeah. So then there was a
Speaker 1: second revival from two thousand two to two thousand three,
Speaker 1: and that was on up N. It was hosted by
Speaker 1: Force Whittaker. Actually do remember that one um it was
Speaker 1: a one hour format where are you Giggily? Within two
Speaker 1: half hour stories. It was canceled after one season. It's
Speaker 1: Still a Good Life is a sequel to It's a
Speaker 1: Good Life? Is that what you were talking about? Okay?
Speaker 1: The Monsters are doing a Maple Street is an adaptation
Speaker 1: of The Monsters are Doing Maple Street and I Have
Speaker 1: the Beholders, the remake of an episode from Riginal series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they had some of the same uh ones and
Speaker 1: they had certain still credited as a writer as he
Speaker 1: was because he came up with a lot of those concepts,
Speaker 1: a lot of those stories. Actually, uh like what we
Speaker 1: were saying, there's sequels to the original stories. Uh UM
Speaker 1: let the audience decide if they lived up to him
Speaker 1: or not. UM. In terms of it's still a good life, UM,
Speaker 1: that one is incredibly dark where the like UM, we
Speaker 1: we touched on a little bit where it's the little
Speaker 1: boy who has the psychic ability where he is actually
Speaker 1: reading people's minds and is actually judging if they are
Speaker 1: having good thoughts or not, and it's of his own
Speaker 1: accord of that. He's just like, I don't like what
Speaker 1: you're thinking, and then he would point at someone and
Speaker 1: they would end up in a cornfield. And that was
Speaker 1: the original one. UM. In the sequel, he's actually a
Speaker 1: full grown adult. He has a child. He is worse.
Speaker 1: He has recreated ironically enough, this is if you could
Speaker 1: find this on like YouTube or anything like that, go
Speaker 1: for it. It's still a good life. He has created
Speaker 1: basically a UM like Trump's America. Using psychic powers. He
Speaker 1: decided like I don't like tall buildings, got rid of them.
Speaker 1: I don't like cars, I don't I got rid of them,
Speaker 1: and he's actually changed the world in a way where
Speaker 1: he's just murdering things way worse than he was before.
Speaker 1: And now he has a daughter with power stronger than his. Um.
Speaker 1: It is a very strange watch. The ending is super
Speaker 1: off putting. Um. The last line of dialogue, UM will
Speaker 1: make you probably angry, and uh it is. It is
Speaker 1: quite a thing to watch now, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: watch that. And then um, the monsters are due on
Speaker 1: Maple Street. The sequel for that, which is just the
Speaker 1: monsters are on Maple I read it wrong, No, you're
Speaker 1: that one right there is particularly Um I'll put like this,
Speaker 1: if you remember what we just said about the plot
Speaker 1: of that, imagine someone writing a sequel to that post like, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's very much. Uh it's a mob that looks
Speaker 1: very familiar, if you know what I mean. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's Uh. It is like interesting because like both
Speaker 1: those things that were created sequels for it's funny because
Speaker 1: you don't need the sequels. It seems like it's saying
Speaker 1: the same thing, like there's no added context because the
Speaker 1: thing that is being said in the original is just
Speaker 1: all unique and the the other thing about that particular
Speaker 1: run was listen, you can you can come at me
Speaker 1: in my mentions if you like it. But there's episodes
Speaker 1: that border on like unintentionally funny, like um, the I'll
Speaker 1: share as a as a police officer episode where he's
Speaker 1: fighting a ghost pill and uh that that leads to
Speaker 1: a conclusion where you're just like, Okay, does that happened where?
Speaker 1: And like it's very very early two thousand's filming, and
Speaker 1: where it's like why is the trash kids c g
Speaker 1: I in the background, the kind of have the technology
Speaker 1: they're going to use it, like just do it. We've
Speaker 1: got that upn money, you know. And then um, there's
Speaker 1: oh man, it is classic the Katherine Heigel will she
Speaker 1: kill Baby Hitler storyline? She just she goes back in time.
Speaker 1: It's a question asked yes, and the ending to that like, uh,
Speaker 1: like I just had to go for a walk because
Speaker 1: of like it it's so ridiculous, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: people are gonna watch this new reboot for a completely
Speaker 1: different reason than they might go watch the original after
Speaker 1: listening to that. The best part about it is that
Speaker 1: you can't look up the things You've just got to watch. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I did want to talk about a couple of things.
Speaker 1: So there was the twilight Zone game. In nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: Ideal released a board game, the twilight Zone Game, at
Speaker 1: the height of the show's popularity. That's kind of fascinating.
Speaker 1: So the game consisted of a cardboard playing surface, four
Speaker 1: colored plane, pieces of colored spinning wheel, and twelve door
Speaker 1: playing cards. There was also very popular was the Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone pinball game, which I love I always. I actually,
Speaker 1: being the nerd that I am, was googling Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: on eBay as you do when you're Danny Fernandez on
Speaker 1: a Friday night, and I found somebody had like a
Speaker 1: piece of the pinball uh game that has wrought Sterling
Speaker 1: with like his arms crossed, and so I have that
Speaker 1: framed on my WALLA. Yeah, it's also really cool. It's
Speaker 1: really cool. And they're also comic books, which are this
Speaker 1: is this is such an insight into my life. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say comic books, which you can also find
Speaker 1: on eBay. They're very chee. You can look up the
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone comic books. They for me just make good art. Um.
Speaker 1: I keep some of them intact, so don't freak out.
Speaker 1: But they're also worth like five dollars um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you can. You can pick up some of the They
Speaker 1: actually had different, um, different stories than than what was
Speaker 1: just in the in the show. Have a favorite comics
Speaker 1: out of the list, They're so absurd, like all of them.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is gonna look at as good now
Speaker 1: that I'm thirty, because that's like my art. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I needed to you know, be kind of nerdy but
Speaker 1: also speak to me and be eloquent. And it's all
Speaker 1: just like you know, some like tentacles coming out or something,
Speaker 1: um or whatever, like they just like the old school
Speaker 1: uh comics from the sixties, which they were, but but
Speaker 1: a lot of them are kind of crazy looking. It's
Speaker 1: like no budget restraints. Yeah yeah yeah. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the most known attractions for the Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone and outside of just the show itself, would be
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which was a theme
Speaker 1: park attraction based on the original Twilight Zone series designed
Speaker 1: by the Walt Disney Imagineers, and the attraction is a
Speaker 1: fixture at two It was at the Disney's Hollywood Studios Florida,
Speaker 1: and uh and the Walt Disney Park in Paris and
Speaker 1: UH there was one at Disney California Adventure, but it
Speaker 1: has been altered to adopt a theme for the Guardians
Speaker 1: of the Galaxy franchise, which I have yet to ride.
Speaker 1: The Guardians of the Galaxy one. I was very line
Speaker 1: over there. Yeah, I was very bummed from Missing Tower
Speaker 1: Terror because it always had just the right level of
Speaker 1: creepiness where even if you're even if you've written it
Speaker 1: a million times, there's still like just this unexplainable creepiness
Speaker 1: of being in that hotel room hearing Rod Serling tell
Speaker 1: you the story of this elevator and you getting in
Speaker 1: it and then seeing the ghost of everyone waving goodbye,
Speaker 1: like they're like, you know the I remember the first
Speaker 1: time I wrote it, it was like legitimately scary, and
Speaker 1: then after it's not as scary, but there's still like
Speaker 1: a level to it that has like that kind of
Speaker 1: like in the same way that you some some twists
Speaker 1: still get that like tingly feeling on you when you
Speaker 1: think about it. I need to tell you something as
Speaker 1: big of a Twilight Zone head. I can't say Twilight
Speaker 1: Head because that's the wrong franchise. As big of a
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone head as I am, uh and grew up
Speaker 1: with I kind of like Bernstein. Bernstein retroactively remembered this
Speaker 1: as an episode, and it wasn't. This was created for
Speaker 1: this ride. This was not a real episode. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I know. I mean you can tell when you watch it,
Speaker 1: when you're in the ride, you can tell. I, Oh no,
Speaker 1: this was made from like, you know, more recent actors
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I always just assume they're recreating it. No,
Speaker 1: there was no Tower of Terror episode. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why I forever because I was on a Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone episode. I was on a like a podcast. We
Speaker 1: were talking about it like a year or so ago.
Speaker 1: Um and and uh, I was talking about the episode,
Speaker 1: and then later nobody, by the way online corrected me.
Speaker 1: So God blessed them or else nobody listened to that. Um.
Speaker 1: But but later when I got home read, oh, um,
Speaker 1: that wasn't a real episode. I never actually watched it,
Speaker 1: And uh, well it feels so real when you're watching
Speaker 1: this has to be based on an episode. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember seeing it and then the people like they
Speaker 1: get stuck in both Nope. No, um, that's not at
Speaker 1: all embarrassing. But what I do want to say is
Speaker 1: the way that I was introduced to it, which I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people around our age was the marathon,
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone Marathon. UM. So here's a little lore
Speaker 1: on that as far as it being a history of
Speaker 1: holiday tradition because it was only normally run as a
Speaker 1: marathon during the holidays. UM. Still kind of so the
Speaker 1: origins of the New Year's Eve Twilight Zone Marathon are
Speaker 1: kind of unknown. No one knows which regional TV station
Speaker 1: started syndicating the Twilight Zone reruns during that time, um,
Speaker 1: or whether they began on New Year's at all. The
Speaker 1: first one. So this is a quote from kt l
Speaker 1: A program director Mark Sunnenberg UM and in article in
Speaker 1: The l A Times, he said, the first one we
Speaker 1: did was on Thanksgiving in nineteen eighty and so the
Speaker 1: first Thanksgiving marathon was only eight hours long and received
Speaker 1: a sixteen percent share. So that's kind of fascinating. So
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone Marathon that we all know and love
Speaker 1: was actually a Thanksgiving marathon. Very fitting, I might say,
Speaker 1: since you're around your family and it seems, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: kind of like very Twilight zony depending on the relationships.
Speaker 1: Man um has to be expected for one of dan
Speaker 1: these favorite properties, we are running on time a little over.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we know the future of Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone technically because we know we have the Jordan Peel show. No,
Speaker 1: but also if he um Leonardo DiCaprio, who were interested.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw that in our notes,
Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio is interested and possibly doing a feature a
Speaker 1: future film, which who knows if he's actually going to
Speaker 1: do that now that Jordan Peel is going to be
Speaker 1: and I think he's like, I'll step down, but it
Speaker 1: would be interesting because on first thought I'd be like what,
Speaker 1: But also seeing how like Leonardo or as I like
Speaker 1: to call him, Leo Dio, is a huge, huge, huge
Speaker 1: activists for like environmental stuff that I think it's that
Speaker 1: type of brain that's going to be able to like
Speaker 1: make that kind of like thing. But you can also
Speaker 1: end up with the happening and we all know how
Speaker 1: that went. Um. I enjoyed that film. You know what,
Speaker 1: You're not the only person who told me that. I
Speaker 1: actually never seen it. I asked to know, here's what
Speaker 1: I do with a lot of m Night Shumlans films now,
Speaker 1: I asked people with the twist start and it seems
Speaker 1: wild now and the only one that I've heard and
Speaker 1: been like, Okay, I have to see it is split
Speaker 1: Like I was like, oh oh that's oh, I gotta
Speaker 1: go every other one. I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I
Speaker 1: think that's because like that triggles that that just triggers
Speaker 1: the Marvel button. Man, I want that really to blow out,
Speaker 1: Like I need that whole universe just well, yeah, I
Speaker 1: need after credits for this next one. I'm coming out.
Speaker 1: Um but yeah, if god, there's so much to cover.
Speaker 1: We didn't tackle like most obviously we're not going to
Speaker 1: go through all of the episodes, but even the most
Speaker 1: iconic ones. Um, I think we named I would say
Speaker 1: time Enough at Last is most people. A lot of
Speaker 1: people say it's at least in their top five. It's
Speaker 1: one of the most onnic Wares where he steps on
Speaker 1: his glasses, which, by the way, um, I just want
Speaker 1: to correct a couple of things here. Everyone who thinks
Speaker 1: he's a librarian, he's not. He's a banker. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm like, actually, people. But another thing is that he uh,
Speaker 1: he just wants to read, and his wife is so
Speaker 1: and everyone in his life is so like rude to him. Um,
Speaker 1: and so they all die. Uh, and he's left alone
Speaker 1: because he went into a vault. He's left alone and
Speaker 1: to now he finally has time to read, he steps
Speaker 1: on his glasses. That's the end. I don't understand why
Speaker 1: that's everyone's favorite, because that man did not deserve that
Speaker 1: to happen. Typically like look at you know, it's so
Speaker 1: funny that everyone's like, yeah, and I love that. And
Speaker 1: then he stepped on his glasses and he was like
Speaker 1: then he didn't have any time, like you had all
Speaker 1: this time, but he can't read. He was like, yeah
Speaker 1: he was. He was bullied his whole life and then
Speaker 1: this and he's the only man left alive. And then
Speaker 1: he steps on his glass. Like it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: I mean it does. I love you Rod Certling, but um,
Speaker 1: it's funny to me that it's everyone's favorite when if
Speaker 1: you actually think of it, he wasn't the one that
Speaker 1: should have had that happen exactly. It's just like a
Speaker 1: kind of Stopwatch has a similar theme, where um, the
Speaker 1: ending has him breaking the stopwatch and the whole world
Speaker 1: is frozen. He's just stuck it like that from here
Speaker 1: on out. He previously had the ability to turn it
Speaker 1: on and off. But the minute to stop Watch breaks,
Speaker 1: he no longer is able to leave that universe. But
Speaker 1: the bigger thing about that was that he was ribbing
Speaker 1: a bank when it broke, so he totally deserved that.
Speaker 1: It's happening some like these things did at morals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's just so. But I guess what
Speaker 1: is more of the commentary is how unfair life is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a commentary is even the good guy
Speaker 1: in the situation is getting screwed over? Um? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have to do another one of these where we
Speaker 1: can actually tackle. Maybe we'll have someone on and we'll
Speaker 1: kind of like debate and tackle some of our our
Speaker 1: favorite episodes because there's so much to cover. I definitely
Speaker 1: highly recommend the Twilight Zone companion. Um, there's just so
Speaker 1: much lore in history, but about each of these episodes
Speaker 1: and Rod Serling himself. Um yeah, but I think we
Speaker 1: have to tap out. Yeah, we have to hit that
Speaker 1: tap button. So where can people find you? Know? Um? So,
Speaker 1: the funny thing about screenwriting is that you actually can't
Speaker 1: say most of the things that you're working. So find
Speaker 1: me at like a coffee shop on its doing big
Speaker 1: things people bedlines and panicking American God. Season two is
Speaker 1: going to be out next year, so yeah, I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: and um yeah. Other than that, you can always find
Speaker 1: me at on Twitter at mellow Marketer and uh, you
Speaker 1: can find a lot of my work on the fanbros
Speaker 1: dot com as well. Oh nice, nice and you know
Speaker 1: me if you wid the way on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: I have y n W I D i w e
Speaker 1: if d's on Twitch, lots of hashtag nerd fam showing
Speaker 1: up dropping them Twitch Prime sums. I gotta thank you
Speaker 1: all for that, but keep listening. Also, we have a
Speaker 1: discord now have the official discord which you just mind
Speaker 1: court that I share with two other streamers, but we
Speaker 1: have a nerdificent chat where you can chat it up.
Speaker 1: I've had people come in the Twitch chat asked me
Speaker 1: to reserve a spot, but you only talking in there.
Speaker 1: Granted the last episode was just a movie that just
Speaker 1: came out spoiler, so you can't talk. But I'll see
Speaker 1: you in there after this episode. Tell us your favorite
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone apps please. I'm so I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: like make uh yeah, I'll have to pop in there too,
Speaker 1: or like I know, for Infinity War, we made um
Speaker 1: on our notificent Twitter page. We made like a little
Speaker 1: group chat for all of us to kick out on
Speaker 1: Infinity War. So I might do that for twilight Zone
Speaker 1: because it's just so much to cover. And also just yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I guess we didn't. We didn't mention. I
Speaker 1: was like, and it's an anthology, meaning we didn't. We
Speaker 1: should have said that up top, meaning you can like
Speaker 1: watch any episode and they're not um you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to watch them in order. What I was
Speaker 1: gonna say is, Hi, I'm Danny Fernandez at um MS,
Speaker 1: Danny Fernandez on all of the socials, and Iffie and
Speaker 1: I will be together on a couple of panels. I think,
Speaker 1: I know. At least we have a panel at four
Speaker 1: pm Friday at as at a San Diego Comic Con,
Speaker 1: which is this week. And check the Twitter because we're
Speaker 1: both posting all of our our comic con panels. And
Speaker 1: we have some cool merch now which you can get
Speaker 1: at te Public and you can also find us at
Speaker 1: comic con and we might give you a shirt yea yeah,
Speaker 1: whild supplies last, and of course before we head out
Speaker 1: of here, I want to shout out a couple of people.
Speaker 1: I want to shout out super producer and a host
Speaker 1: who has always uh elding our back. You know, Zach
Speaker 1: McKeever in the booth and our researchers Eaves check coat
Speaker 1: and Christopher Hasis. I don't know, we're not that close. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't call it. Chris, I don't know. Maybe we are.
Speaker 1: I'll email. All right, y'all, stay neary