WEBVTT - The Twilight Zone Episode 0:00:01.500 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.380 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Oh, I should say... 0:00:14.220 --> 0:00:20.970 Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and this is Chuck, 0:00:21.050 --> 0:00:23.710 and this is you too. And this is Stuff You 0:00:23.750 --> 0:00:26.310 Should Know, the Twilight Zone edition. 0:00:26.370 --> 0:00:29.690 Completely unrecognizable as the Twilight Zone theme song. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:31.480 Really? It was off? 0:00:31.860 --> 0:00:34.180 I think you give people 100 guesses. No one's guessing 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:34.640 Twilight Zone. 0:00:35.220 --> 0:00:36.680 Oh, wow. All right, well. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.440 I've been singing the Golden Earring song in my head 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:40.820 all day. 0:00:42.380 --> 0:00:45.780 Oh, I forgot about that. Thanks for that, earworm. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:47.740 When the bullet hits the bone. 0:00:49.979 --> 0:00:50.620 That's the one? 0:00:50.830 --> 0:00:51.370 That's the one. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:53.530 I didn't know that was Golden Earring, too. 0:00:53.550 --> 0:00:53.890 Yeah. 0:00:54.930 --> 0:00:58.279 They talk about doing speed in that Twilight Zone song. Actually, 0:00:58.300 --> 0:01:01.140 he talks about not doing speed because he's almost there. 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.540 Oh, wow. I think I knew that. 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.610 Yeah, he says, no more speed, I'm almost there. Oh, okay. 0:01:07.620 --> 0:01:09.830 I don't think he's talking about driving fast. 0:01:09.890 --> 0:01:13.090 You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. No, but we're talking 0:01:13.110 --> 0:01:17.630 about Twilight Zone, the great TV show that started out 0:01:17.650 --> 0:01:23.209 in October 2nd, 1959 at a time when TV minds 0:01:23.250 --> 0:01:27.370 would be blown because if you're talking about I guess 0:01:27.390 --> 0:01:29.889 whatever you would call science fiction on television at the time. 0:01:30.410 --> 0:01:33.310 It's very kind of corny B-movie kind of stuff. 0:01:33.850 --> 0:01:34.050 Right. 0:01:34.230 --> 0:01:37.500 And people were not ready for what the great, great 0:01:37.660 --> 0:01:40.400 Rod Serling was about to deliver into their living rooms. 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.700 No, the 50s started what's known as the golden age 0:01:44.740 --> 0:01:48.430 of television. And Rod Serling was a major part of 0:01:48.550 --> 0:01:52.490 making it the golden age of television. And not just 0:01:52.550 --> 0:01:56.300 with the Twilight Zone. He started out with an illustrious 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:58.860 career basically right off the bat. He was doing some 0:01:58.900 --> 0:02:02.340 radio writing. He started to try his hand at TV. 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.330 And at the time... TV was about as good as 0:02:06.910 --> 0:02:11.890 those B-sci-fi movies were. You had variety shows, westerns, lots 0:02:11.910 --> 0:02:15.310 and lots of westerns. Oh, yeah. Sitcoms that were mostly slapstick, 0:02:15.380 --> 0:02:18.580 nothing like– there wasn't anything particularly high-minded, right? 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:18.880 Yeah. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.520 And so Serling comes along and he starts writing these 0:02:22.540 --> 0:02:27.080 90-minute TV plays– That were broadcast live. So it was 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.820 very much like a live TV play. And that they 0:02:31.860 --> 0:02:34.260 were just the stuff he was writing. It just hadn't 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.419 been seen before on television. And again, television wasn't that old. 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:40.260 So there wasn't a lot to compare it to. But 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.140 he just took what was going on and elevated it 0:02:43.220 --> 0:02:46.460 to just astronomical new levels. 0:02:46.700 --> 0:02:49.880 Yeah, for sure. His big hit that he kind of 0:02:49.900 --> 0:02:52.459 got his name for at first was in 1956. It 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.700 was a one of those teleplays called Patterns. And it 0:02:55.740 --> 0:02:59.910 was about kind of ruthless business people. And it was really, 0:02:59.930 --> 0:03:01.910 really popular. And I think you found this thing that 0:03:01.950 --> 0:03:04.470 was it was so popular. It was the first TV 0:03:04.510 --> 0:03:07.290 show ever to run again. Like they put it on 0:03:07.330 --> 0:03:09.750 the air again just because people thought it was so awesome. 0:03:10.330 --> 0:03:13.230 Yeah. And so this is his first thing that got 0:03:13.270 --> 0:03:15.330 really big. And he hadn't been writing all that long 0:03:15.410 --> 0:03:20.170 by the end of. the 50s, so less than a decade, 0:03:20.210 --> 0:03:23.970 maybe half a decade, he had something like 100 produced 0:03:24.250 --> 0:03:29.639 scripts under his belt. And then he was also the 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.560 recipient of more Emmys for TV writing than anyone in history, 0:03:34.340 --> 0:03:37.700 still to this day. So he was really, really good 0:03:37.740 --> 0:03:39.180 at what he did. Yeah. 0:03:39.300 --> 0:03:41.410 Another big one was, and this is one I had 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.450 heard of because they made a film after this teleplay, 0:03:45.490 --> 0:03:49.010 but it was called Requiem for a Heavyweight. And when 0:03:49.050 --> 0:03:51.010 I saw that, I was like, wait, is that the movie? Like, 0:03:51.730 --> 0:03:53.230 did he base it on that or the other way around? 0:03:53.250 --> 0:03:56.880 But yeah, he wrote the original script for Jack Palance's 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:02.600 Requiem for a Heavyweight. And I think that won a 0:04:02.940 --> 0:04:04.980 Peabody Award. He was the first writer to ever win 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:06.380 a Peabody for TV writing. 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:11.560 Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully it's coming through like how good Rod 0:04:11.580 --> 0:04:15.570 Serling was and just how... He's considered, you know, synonymous 0:04:15.610 --> 0:04:17.450 with the Twilight Zone, but there is just a lot 0:04:17.500 --> 0:04:18.200 more to him. 0:04:18.580 --> 0:04:19.080 Handsome, too. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.440 One of the things that he he he was really 0:04:23.500 --> 0:04:28.040 big on was basically tackling big social issues of the day. 0:04:28.060 --> 0:04:28.839 Yeah. 0:04:28.990 --> 0:04:34.930 In large part, racism, fascism through the McCarthy trials or hearings, 0:04:34.970 --> 0:04:38.960 that kind of stuff. And he just hit wall after wall. 0:04:39.020 --> 0:04:41.620 Not only were the networks like really worried about losing 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.630 sponsors by putting anything like particularly hard hitting on that 0:04:45.750 --> 0:04:48.890 he had, like the censors were conservative and they were like, 0:04:48.910 --> 0:04:51.349 you can't, you can't do that. You can't talk about, 0:04:51.610 --> 0:04:54.890 you know, black people on television, even though it's what's 0:04:54.950 --> 0:04:57.860 going on. You can't, you can't write a show about that. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.200 So he, he kept running into it and he would adjust. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.310 I saw that there was one, It's considered one of 0:05:05.390 --> 0:05:08.589 the greatest shows of all time. It's called The Town 0:05:08.610 --> 0:05:12.850 That Turned to Dust. And it was written about lynchings 0:05:13.089 --> 0:05:16.150 in the South. But he had to move it from 0:05:16.190 --> 0:05:19.290 the south to the southwest and the victim from a 0:05:19.330 --> 0:05:23.270 black man to a Mexican man. And apparently the censors 0:05:23.290 --> 0:05:26.289 were like, oh, yeah, that's all totally fine. But he 0:05:26.310 --> 0:05:29.190 had to turn it into something of an allegory to 0:05:29.230 --> 0:05:32.360 make it more palatable for TV viewers. So right off 0:05:32.390 --> 0:05:34.680 of the bat, he basically had to figure out how 0:05:34.700 --> 0:05:37.520 to maneuver into this really tight structure that he found 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:38.360 very stifling. 0:05:38.990 --> 0:05:43.090 Yeah, one of those was something he wrote a teleplay 0:05:43.230 --> 0:05:47.710 about corruption on Capitol Hill, which by the time it 0:05:47.730 --> 0:05:50.300 got to air was not even recognizable as the thing 0:05:50.310 --> 0:05:51.479 that he had written to begin with. 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:53.360 Like Dirty Dancing 2. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:58.240 Yeah, exactly. So he told the press, he said, in retrospect, 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.700 I probably would have had a much more adult play 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:02.720 had I made it science fiction, put it in the 0:06:02.740 --> 0:06:07.860 year 2057 and peopled the Senate with robots. And so 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.650 that idea, I mean, that was just a quote to 0:06:10.690 --> 0:06:14.370 the press, but he was like, maybe there's something to this. 0:06:14.830 --> 0:06:17.730 Like he can get across messages better if he packages 0:06:17.810 --> 0:06:21.070 it in something that's, you know, kind of sci-fi and 0:06:21.110 --> 0:06:27.589 more palatable. Right. So we moved to L.A. with this idea. Specifically, 0:06:27.790 --> 0:06:31.870 his pitch was to base a TV show around this 0:06:31.970 --> 0:06:33.770 other thing. One of his last TV plays is called 0:06:33.790 --> 0:06:36.489 The Time Element about a guy who had a recurring 0:06:36.529 --> 0:06:39.419 dream that he goes back to Hawaii in 41 to 0:06:39.450 --> 0:06:42.219 warn about the attack on Pearl Harbor. And then there's 0:06:42.260 --> 0:06:44.360 a twist, which, of course, Twilight Zone would become known 0:06:44.420 --> 0:06:48.340 for twist in general. But in this case, it was like, 0:06:48.380 --> 0:06:50.850 was it a dream kind of thing? But he was 0:06:50.890 --> 0:06:54.010 like in 58, he said, why don't we try and 0:06:54.650 --> 0:06:58.089 do a TV show like where every week we have 0:06:58.150 --> 0:06:59.469 something like the time element? 0:07:00.310 --> 0:07:03.960 Yeah. And he was used to writing 90 minute teleplays. 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.560 So he wanted an hour long slot. And CBS is like, no, 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.200 let's let's see what you got with a half hour first. 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.130 So he came up with, I guess, something called a 0:07:15.170 --> 0:07:17.870 happy place. I don't think it was ever produced. I 0:07:17.890 --> 0:07:20.920 didn't see any mention of it being produced. It was 0:07:20.980 --> 0:07:23.960 just the first attempt at a pilot. And it was 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.760 more than CBS was willing to accept because it was 0:07:28.220 --> 0:07:32.200 it essentially became Logan's run years later, where once you 0:07:32.260 --> 0:07:35.270 reached age 60, you were taken to a happy place. 0:07:35.730 --> 0:07:38.450 And the happy place was the place where you were exterminated. Right. 0:07:39.390 --> 0:07:41.390 CBS is like, no, we're not we're not doing that. 0:07:41.430 --> 0:07:42.970 What else you got? Yeah. 0:07:43.090 --> 0:07:46.030 And he said, well, I got this other thing. It's 0:07:46.050 --> 0:07:48.450 called Where Is Everybody? And it was sort of like 0:07:48.530 --> 0:07:51.930 the last person on Earth kind of scenario. And the 0:07:51.970 --> 0:07:54.020 twist in this case was the last man was an 0:07:54.250 --> 0:07:59.500 astronaut in a tank, a sensory deprivation tank, training for 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.700 a solo mission to the moon. CBS was like, now 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.220 we're talking, baby. How about 36 episodes? And he said, great. 0:08:07.620 --> 0:08:11.350 He wrote 80 percent of those scripts and was an 0:08:11.490 --> 0:08:15.190 owner of 50 percent of the show. And he made 0:08:15.230 --> 0:08:17.010 the name up, like the Twilight Zone was something he 0:08:17.030 --> 0:08:19.370 just came up with, even though it turns out that 0:08:19.430 --> 0:08:22.730 is a aviation term that the Air Force uses is 0:08:22.790 --> 0:08:24.650 when you're about to land and you can no longer 0:08:24.690 --> 0:08:27.270 see the horizon, you're in the Twilight Zone. But apparently 0:08:27.390 --> 0:08:28.930 he didn't know that and didn't get it from that. 0:08:29.490 --> 0:08:31.390 No, it's got a nice ring to it. I could 0:08:31.420 --> 0:08:32.700 see someone putting it together. 0:08:32.740 --> 0:08:33.600 It's creepy sounding. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.840 You just reminded me, I meant to propose, what if 0:08:36.900 --> 0:08:40.140 we don't give away the twists of any of the episodes? 0:08:40.340 --> 0:08:42.200 I kind of wondered that too. Yeah, let's do that. 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.820 OK, well, sorry about the first one, everybody, but we 0:08:45.860 --> 0:08:47.359 won't give any more away. How about that? 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.719 Yeah, because hopefully what happens is you'll go out and 0:08:49.740 --> 0:08:51.980 be encouraged to watch some of these full episodes, which. 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.340 You can do. Man, I watched so many of them 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.040 over the last couple of days. It's just been a 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:57.959 real joy, dude. 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.950 Yeah, I watched one full one today that I'd seen before, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:03.490 but I have seen a bunch of these. I used 0:09:03.510 --> 0:09:06.160 to watch the reruns. And then I watched a couple 0:09:06.340 --> 0:09:09.000 of there's a couple of fun lists like top 20 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.500 creepiest on YouTube, top 20 creepiest reveals on the Twilight Zone. 0:09:12.540 --> 0:09:14.980 And I remember I went through that today and I 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:16.710 probably remembered about half of those. 0:09:17.750 --> 0:09:19.110 Which one did you watch today? 0:09:20.410 --> 0:09:22.190 Well, I watched I wanted to watch one I had 0:09:22.250 --> 0:09:26.689 seen before and I watched the Burgess Meredith. Well, I'm 0:09:26.710 --> 0:09:28.569 not going to reveal it. Burgess Meredith is one of 0:09:28.610 --> 0:09:32.120 the last guys. who doesn't want to live anymore because 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.800 he survived the nuclear Holocaust. And then he realizes that 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.280 the library is there and he's a big reader. And 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:39.839 he's like, well, I've got the books. I can now, 0:09:39.860 --> 0:09:41.200 I have all the time in the world to read. 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:42.240 And then something happens. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.060 Yeah. That's a great one. I think that was season 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.710 one as well. That might've been the, I don't remember 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.610 exactly which one that was, but that was a great one. 0:09:50.070 --> 0:09:53.429 That's so just buckle up everybody. Cause I'm going to 0:09:53.470 --> 0:09:56.530 say that was a great one about basically all the episodes. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.559 because that is something about the Twilight Zone. It never 0:10:00.860 --> 0:10:06.960 got bad. It never declined. It was great until the end. 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.010 Yeah, agreed. If you've ever seen an episode, then you 0:10:11.050 --> 0:10:15.970 know that they open with, again, very handsome Rod Serling, 0:10:17.210 --> 0:10:22.140 even though he was five foot four. Who cares? Packed 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.880 a lot of handsome in that body. Cool as a 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.970 cucumber coming out there. Looks so cool. And he gives 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.730 his opening spiel, which changed over the years. It wasn't 0:10:32.750 --> 0:10:36.650 the same thing each season. But one of the seasons, 0:10:36.690 --> 0:10:38.969 I'm not sure which one this is. It goes a 0:10:38.970 --> 0:10:41.970 little something like this. There is a fifth dimension beyond 0:10:42.010 --> 0:10:45.370 that which is known to man. It is a dimension 0:10:45.410 --> 0:10:48.130 as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It 0:10:48.190 --> 0:10:50.510 is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science 0:10:50.570 --> 0:10:53.210 and superstition. And it lies between the pit of man's 0:10:53.290 --> 0:10:56.250 fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the 0:10:56.290 --> 0:10:59.380 dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the 0:10:59.420 --> 0:11:00.140 Twilight Zone. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.819 Very nice. And I thought that was the one that 0:11:04.900 --> 0:11:06.840 changes sometimes. Yeah, yeah. 0:11:06.900 --> 0:11:09.300 Each season it was slightly different, I think. 0:11:09.750 --> 0:11:12.330 I did not know that. You mentioned he was handsome 0:11:12.370 --> 0:11:14.910 in that he hosted. Did you say that the first 0:11:14.950 --> 0:11:20.320 season when he did the... the initial, uh, what is 0:11:20.380 --> 0:11:22.180 it called? Where you narration, I guess. 0:11:22.820 --> 0:11:23.040 Yeah. 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.150 Uh, that he was off screen for the first season. 0:11:27.610 --> 0:11:31.030 Well, no. And it's because he had stage fright, right? Yes. 0:11:31.270 --> 0:11:35.630 He had really, really bad stage fright. Um, and he 0:11:35.690 --> 0:11:38.170 was like, I'm fine to do the narration, do the writing, 0:11:38.230 --> 0:11:41.000 all that stuff. And yes, I would love 50% of 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:46.060 the show's revenue. Um, But eventually, for some reason, they 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.450 were like, dude, you should just be in front of 0:11:48.510 --> 0:11:49.449 camera doing this. 0:11:49.630 --> 0:11:49.830 Yeah. 0:11:49.970 --> 0:11:52.510 And so there was a guy who was a director 0:11:52.550 --> 0:11:55.670 who worked on The Twilight Zone. His name was Lamont Johnson. 0:11:55.730 --> 0:11:59.510 And he later said, like, his week would be ruined 0:11:59.970 --> 0:12:01.369 when he knew that he was going to have to 0:12:01.390 --> 0:12:02.510 be in front of the camera. 0:12:02.580 --> 0:12:03.300 Yeah. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.040 But he did great. You did great, Ghost of Rod Serling. 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.600 Yeah, you would never know because he seemed just so 0:12:09.660 --> 0:12:13.940 cool up there on screen. Yeah. He did a great job. 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:16.820 He did. Again, goes to Brad Serling. Be proud. 0:12:18.380 --> 0:12:20.960 So one of the other things that Dave dug up 0:12:20.980 --> 0:12:23.319 that I thought was great, he dictated all of his scripts. 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.540 And he could dictate 10 to 15 pages worth in 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:30.120 one sitting, which I would not be able to do. Because, yeah, 0:12:30.220 --> 0:12:33.220 that just seems way harder than writing to me. Yeah. 0:12:33.420 --> 0:12:35.819 And I guess he had someone sitting there who could 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:37.179 do steno really fast. 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:39.420 I hope so. Yeah. 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:40.300 Should we take a break? 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.140 Yeah, I think we'll take a little slightly early break 0:12:43.179 --> 0:12:43.700 and come back. 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.199 All right. We'll come back and talk about some of 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:46.179 the themes right after this. 0:13:17.070 --> 0:13:19.350 So if you've watched The Twilight Zone, you'll see that 0:13:19.390 --> 0:13:22.070 there are a lot of things that kind of come up. 0:13:22.100 --> 0:13:25.700 There's recurring themes like The last person or only person 0:13:25.780 --> 0:13:28.280 in a town or on Earth or something like that. Yeah. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:33.760 That's a big one. So loneliness, isolation, mob mentalities come 0:13:33.850 --> 0:13:36.449 up quite a bit. People losing themselves due to like 0:13:36.490 --> 0:13:39.930 panic or just going along with the mob. But one 0:13:39.970 --> 0:13:43.670 of the ones that I really love is nostalgia. Rod 0:13:43.710 --> 0:13:48.090 Serling really felt great about his childhood, which is in 0:13:48.330 --> 0:13:51.340 a picturesque town of Binghamton. New York. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:51.880 Yeah. 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.520 Boy, that pee can trip you up. So he really 0:13:55.580 --> 0:13:58.340 loved small town America. He was born in 1924 between 0:13:58.380 --> 0:13:59.860 World War I and. 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:00.559 World War II. 0:14:00.980 --> 0:14:02.880 And he just had a really great childhood. And that 0:14:02.940 --> 0:14:06.439 comes through in a lot of the episodes. Like for 0:14:06.500 --> 0:14:09.340 the most part, if you find a small town, it's 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.500 pretty great. But then obviously there's always a twist to that. 0:14:12.950 --> 0:14:17.150 Yeah. There was one famous episode called A Stop at Willoughby. 0:14:17.970 --> 0:14:21.210 where an ad exec from New York discovers a train 0:14:21.250 --> 0:14:24.970 stop on his way home that is an actual throwback town, 0:14:25.010 --> 0:14:27.280 the town of Willoughby, where it's always the summer of 0:14:27.270 --> 0:14:32.180 1888 and everything's wonderful. And he gets off there. And 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.120 we're not going to say what happens because we're not 0:14:34.180 --> 0:14:38.020 revealing twists. But another fun thing Dave dug up is 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.350 in Willoughby, Ohio, their annual summer festival is called Last 0:14:41.370 --> 0:14:44.050 Stop Willoughby. And it's got a little Twilight Zone theme 0:14:44.090 --> 0:14:47.110 running through. I think the library plays that. Theme music 0:14:47.150 --> 0:14:49.250 Josh did at the beginning on a loop all day. 0:14:50.250 --> 0:14:52.790 Yeah. Well, no, I think they play that episode to 0:14:52.830 --> 0:14:54.970 stop at Willoughby on a loop. Oh, OK. 0:14:55.010 --> 0:14:56.290 I thought they did the theme. I was like, that'd 0:14:56.330 --> 0:14:59.650 be a little maddening. Especially your version. 0:15:00.170 --> 0:15:02.590 But that's it. That's the entire thing that the town 0:15:02.610 --> 0:15:04.530 of Willoughby does. They just play that episode on a 0:15:04.570 --> 0:15:06.630 loop at the library. No one else talks about it 0:15:06.670 --> 0:15:07.330 the rest of the day. 0:15:07.350 --> 0:15:08.010 Yeah, that's it. 0:15:09.100 --> 0:15:11.740 Um, so out of high school, Serling, I saw that 0:15:11.820 --> 0:15:16.100 he was described as an angry person. Um, I don't 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.960 know when he picked that up, but it was probably 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.560 during his, uh, experiences in World War II. Like you said, 0:15:23.580 --> 0:15:26.400 he was 5'4, so he shouldn't have been eligible for 0:15:26.420 --> 0:15:28.880 the draft, but I think he insisted. And they're like, sure, 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:33.100 we could use you. He, um, did paratrooper training. Yeah. Uh, he, 0:15:33.380 --> 0:15:35.700 he became a boxer. He was a flyweight boxer. He 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.790 was in 17 bouts. I did not see how Good 0:15:38.830 --> 0:15:41.310 he was or not, but he stood up at least 0:15:41.310 --> 0:15:41.710 17 times. 0:15:41.950 --> 0:15:46.390 Yeah, he was okay. Okay. Let's just say that. I 0:15:46.410 --> 0:15:48.720 think he tried golden gloves after and they were like, yeah, 0:15:48.740 --> 0:15:50.380 you're not so great. But, you know, the point is 0:15:50.420 --> 0:15:51.560 he was in there slugging it out. 0:15:52.060 --> 0:15:53.940 Yeah, he could have beat me up, I'm sure. 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:54.800 Yeah, both of us. 0:15:55.780 --> 0:15:59.250 At the same time. So in World War II, he 0:15:59.290 --> 0:16:01.890 was stationed in the Pacific, in the Philippines, and he 0:16:01.990 --> 0:16:05.270 saw like heavy action and a lot of friends died 0:16:05.310 --> 0:16:09.190 around him, in front of him. And it just seared 0:16:09.950 --> 0:16:13.420 itself on his memory, obviously. That's why one of the 0:16:13.460 --> 0:16:15.950 other recurring themes is war and the hell of war. 0:16:15.980 --> 0:16:20.370 That's a that's. maybe the most recurring theme. Cause even 0:16:20.430 --> 0:16:23.770 if it's not set in war, it's very often, um, 0:16:24.110 --> 0:16:28.010 there's some like mention or some connection to war. Like 0:16:28.090 --> 0:16:32.530 even if the, the, the events took place after some war. Yeah. 0:16:32.930 --> 0:16:35.880 Uh, I saw, um, he wanted to fight the Nazis. 0:16:35.940 --> 0:16:38.320 So he was, he wanted to get sent to that theater. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.820 So apparently he wasn't happy to get sent to the Pacific, but, um, 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:45.560 He also writes, you know, in some of the Twilight 0:16:45.580 --> 0:16:48.400 Zone episodes about the absurdity of war, because I know 0:16:48.500 --> 0:16:53.020 one event that just horrific but sounds just crazy is 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.710 that at one point, like one of his friends was 0:16:55.750 --> 0:16:58.110 standing around just kind of entertaining everyone, like telling jokes 0:16:58.150 --> 0:17:01.410 and stuff. And a supply box like that the U.S. 0:17:01.450 --> 0:17:05.070 was dropping, like, here's some supplies. Oh, no. Dick fell 0:17:05.330 --> 0:17:07.530 on this guy and decapitated him in front of Rod 0:17:07.550 --> 0:17:09.850 Serling and all his troop mates. 0:17:10.450 --> 0:17:11.210 Oh, my God. 0:17:11.260 --> 0:17:11.670 Troop mates. 0:17:12.530 --> 0:17:12.750 Sure. 0:17:12.930 --> 0:17:13.370 Is that a thing? 0:17:13.390 --> 0:17:13.570 Yeah. 0:17:13.890 --> 0:17:15.990 So, you know, stuff like that would happen. He saw 0:17:16.050 --> 0:17:18.450 the real hell of war. He got a purple heart, 0:17:18.490 --> 0:17:23.689 a bronze star. It was not like some cushy, you know, 0:17:23.710 --> 0:17:27.530 he wasn't like writing for the stars and stripes away 0:17:27.570 --> 0:17:28.229 from the battles. 0:17:29.450 --> 0:17:31.350 And we want to apologize for all the writers of 0:17:32.109 --> 0:17:32.990 stars and stripes. 0:17:33.410 --> 0:17:35.170 Of course, because, you know, that's what I would want 0:17:35.210 --> 0:17:35.629 to do. 0:17:36.150 --> 0:17:36.350 Sure. 0:17:36.690 --> 0:17:38.570 I'm not throwing stones, man. Give me a camera. 0:17:40.130 --> 0:17:41.020 Give me a typewriter. 0:17:41.380 --> 0:17:41.929 Yeah, exactly. 0:17:42.820 --> 0:17:46.080 So there were a couple of episodes that were pretty 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.240 heavy handed as far as like beating you over the 0:17:49.260 --> 0:17:52.080 head of like just how terrible war is. But they're 0:17:52.100 --> 0:17:55.320 still great. They're still great, everybody. One that really stood 0:17:55.380 --> 0:17:58.600 out to me was The Quality of Mercy, which it 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.959 turns out is a Shakespeare quote from Merchant of Venice. 0:18:01.830 --> 0:18:05.170 But it's about this guy, this not a sorry, I 0:18:05.190 --> 0:18:08.630 guess a lieutenant who is really wanting to prove himself. 0:18:09.619 --> 0:18:12.109 But he came to the war very late. He was young. 0:18:12.750 --> 0:18:15.330 And so it's the last day of World War II. 0:18:15.710 --> 0:18:19.230 But he orders, since it's still a day in World 0:18:19.250 --> 0:18:21.750 War II, he orders his men to go take out 0:18:22.270 --> 0:18:25.609 a nest of Japanese soldiers hidden in a cave. It's 0:18:25.630 --> 0:18:27.510 going to kill a bunch of Japanese guys. It's going 0:18:27.530 --> 0:18:30.470 to kill a bunch of Americans for no reason whatsoever 0:18:30.550 --> 0:18:32.810 because this is the last day of the war. And 0:18:32.850 --> 0:18:35.990 yet he's like really gung-ho about it and makes them 0:18:36.050 --> 0:18:37.510 do it. Yeah. Yeah. 0:18:37.970 --> 0:18:40.040 Maybe this one, maybe we can reveal a couple of 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.220 twists just so people get the point of this whole thing. 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:42.940 Is that okay? Okay. 0:18:43.180 --> 0:18:44.459 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. 0:18:44.500 --> 0:18:45.840 We don't want to spoil them all. In this case, 0:18:47.460 --> 0:18:53.400 the twist is that he's transformed into a Japanese soldier, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.820 and that soldier gets the same orders to kill his 0:18:56.940 --> 0:19:02.379 American troops. Yeah. A big, obviously, moral statement. This one 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.940 is kind of similar to it wasn't a direct remake, 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:07.820 but the Twilight Zone movie, which we're going to talk 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:09.760 about later, which was a huge, huge movie for me 0:19:09.780 --> 0:19:12.659 when I was a kid, kind of is akin to 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.179 the Vic Morrow storyline of like a racist guy who 0:19:16.220 --> 0:19:19.439 gets all of a sudden thrust into war. And but 0:19:19.500 --> 0:19:22.919 people think he is or the people that they're fighting. 0:19:23.700 --> 0:19:29.760 Right. Yeah. So that's just one example of many about war. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.300 But he also was writing in the time of like 0:19:32.340 --> 0:19:36.440 the Cold War as well. And there was a lot 0:19:36.460 --> 0:19:41.790 of like he captured like paranoia, losing yourself to mob mentality. 0:19:41.830 --> 0:19:44.210 Like I said, one of the ones that usually gets 0:19:44.270 --> 0:19:47.149 cited is the monsters are due on Maple Street. We 0:19:47.260 --> 0:19:49.480 cannot give that twist away. No, no, no, no. 0:19:49.540 --> 0:19:52.820 That's from season one. And that's that's up at the 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:58.840 top of most list of like best in the series where. Well, yeah, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:00.119 I guess we can talk about the first part, but 0:20:00.140 --> 0:20:02.560 not the twist. But the residents, you talked about mob mentality. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:04.889 In this case, they turn on each other during a 0:20:04.900 --> 0:20:08.170 blackout and, you know, it turns into like a like 0:20:08.450 --> 0:20:09.170 a mob mentality. 0:20:09.770 --> 0:20:12.980 Yeah, because they're expecting an alien invasion and they're like, wait, 0:20:13.020 --> 0:20:15.400 are the aliens already among us? Are you an alien? 0:20:15.660 --> 0:20:19.359 You know, it's really good. And it's just it's set. 0:20:19.500 --> 0:20:24.130 I think the entire thing is set in one front yard. Oh, really? 0:20:24.150 --> 0:20:24.230 Yeah. 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.850 I'm pretty sure. I don't think that they leave the 0:20:26.890 --> 0:20:29.189