Christmas in ‘The Twilight Zone’ Serling’s Yuletide-themed dramas evoke ‘wondrous magic’

I was a huge fan of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone when I was a kid, and I recently watched all of the episodes again. The shows have aged well, and they are still relevant today, in my view. 

The fantasy and sci-fi TV program was imaginative, clever and well-written. Serling (seen in the above photo), the author of some of the TV plays on The Twilight Zone, was the host and narrator of the classic TV series.

Arlen Schumer, the author and designer of Visions From the Twilight Zone (Chronicle Books, 1990), a coffee-table art book, and a volume of essays, The Five Themes of the Twilight Zone (Bear Manor Media, 2024), recently penned a piece on Rod Serling for the Washington Times (where my On Crime column also appears). 

‘There’s a wondrous magic to Christmas,” a wise man once observed, “a special power reserved for little people.” The author of those words was neither Dickens nor Dr. Seuss, nor any Christian, Catholic or Protestant clergyman. They were written, rather, by Rod Serling, a Jewish man born 100 years ago on Christmas Day, and later the creator, and host, of the greatest television series of all time. 

In the 156 episodes of “The Twilight Zone” (1959-1964), only one, “The Night of the Meek,” broadcast on CBS on Dec. 23, 1960, featured a Christmas theme. Though Serling was “fiercely proud of his heritage,” according to “As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling” (2013), a memoir by his daughter Anne, the future TV icon was like a lot of American Jews: an annual sufferer of Christmas envy who celebrated the day more as a secular, cultural event, like Thanksgiving, and to tap into what “Meek” termed the “wondrous magic” surrounding Jesus’ birthday. 

As a radio writer in early 1950s Cincinnati, Serling had already penned a number of Yuletide-themed dramas, including an unproduced piece titled “No Christmas This Year.” It was a black comedy about a society that stops celebrating the holiday, with Santa besieged by striking elves and strafed by antiaircraft fire. 

Some of the characters in “No Christmas” were recycled for “Meek.” Art Carney (seen in the below photo), who played Ed Norton on “The Honeymooners,” starred as Henry Corwin, a down-on-his-luck department-store Santa suffering from alcohol addiction. At one point, fired by the store, Corwin looks up from his shot of booze and stares not at the bartender but straight into the camera, asking the viewer: “Why isn’t there a real Santa Claus?” He soon finds a mysterious bag that enables him to lavish Christmas gifts on the less fortunate — and on himself the opportunity for redemption at the heart of Christianity. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Wondrous magic: Christmas in 'The Twilight Zone' - Washington Times

And you can also watch the episode via the below link:

Night Of The Meek - Twilight Zone Original Christmas Episode - video Dailymotion

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Parodied Studio Notes By Having Shakespeare Punch Burt Reynolds

 As I’ve noted here before, I was and am a huge fan of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. 

The TV series, now appearing on MeTV, offered tales of the supernatural, fantasy, horror and other dramas. One favorite episode was pure satire.

Rod Serling (seen in the above photo) wrote the clever and funny script which was based no doubt on his own negative experiences with TV studio executives and corporate sponsors. 

In The Bard, a talentless would-be-writer (Jack Weston, seen in the above photo with John Williams) conjures up William Shakespeare to help him write a television play. But when the great Bard visits the set and meets a famous stage method actor (Burt Reynolds doing a fine parody of Marlon Brando – which is perhaps why Brando hated Reynolds, who looked like the young Brando), he is none too pleased. 

Slash/Film.com offers a look back at Rod Serling’s The Bard.        

There's a piece of advice that every writer gets at some point in their career, and it goes like this: "Write what you know." 

It's not bad advice if you don't take it too literally. "Write what you know" doesn't mean that you should only write about your own autobiographical experiences, it means that when you do write from experience you'll probably be able to write more truthfully, more meaningfully, and in more detail than if you had to make it all up from scratch. Even if you write about strange new planets filled with creatures totally unlike anything found on Earth, you're probably better off finding an angle that speaks somehow to your personal interests, your beliefs, or your memories. 

The irony of course is that as writers keep on writing, eventually "what they know" the most about is being a writer. You may have noticed that a whole heck of a lot of Stephen King characters are novelists. And you may have noticed that Hollywood types love to make movies and TV shows about working in Hollywood.  

"The Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling was no exception to this rule, so although he wrote a lot of different stories about a lot of topics that spoke to him in various ways, he wasn't above writing the occasional tale about why the entertainment industry is a terrible place. Sometimes it's a story about how Hollywood Westerns are insipid and irresponsible. And sometimes it's a story about how Hollywood studios would ruin the works of William Shakespeare if he were alive today. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

The Twilight Zone Parodied Studio Notes By Having Shakespeare Punch Burt Reynolds (slashfilm.com)

You can also watch The Bard via the below link:

Watch The Twilight Zone Classic Season 4 Episode 18: The Bard - Full show on Paramount Plus 

The Jar: The Case Of An Alfred Hitchcock Hour Episode Mistaken For The Twilight Zone

I have always enjoyed TV anthology shows, which offer new stories and characters each week. 

I love short stories and anthology programs are perfect for adapting well-written and interesting short stories.   

Joseph Wambaugh, the former LAPD sergeant and best-selling author of police novels whose own anthology program, Police Story, ran successfully for several years on TV, once told me that most TV viewers prefer regular, recognizable characters in TV series. 

True, but TV has offered some classic anthology TV programs.        

Back in the late 1950 and early 1960s, when I was a kid and aspiring crime writer, I was a huge fan of two TV anthology series in particular. 

Both TV series featured an interesting and notable host and narrator and a catchy theme song. 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents offered the famed film director (seen in the above photo) as host and narrator. Hitchcock’s balding head, rotund figure, and British accent was unforgettable, as were his amusing and often clever introductions to stories of crime and mayhem. 

I later also became a hug fan of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Serling (seen in the above photo), a famed TV writer, was also a memorable host and narrator with his rich voice and serious demeanor.

Serling mostly presented tales of horror, fantasy and science fiction, but he also offered a good share of crime stories. 

Both classic TV shows can be watched today on MeTV at MeTV – America's #1 Classic Television Network, 

Both anthology series have developed a new generation of fans. 

Debopriyaa Dutta at Slashfilm.com offers an interesting piece on an episode based on a Ray Bradbury short story that appeared on Alfred Hitchcock’s program, but was so eerie that many people still believe the episode appeared on The Twilight Zone:    

As memorable as title cards for television shows go, the opening of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" stuck with people for many reasons. Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette" blaring the background, director Alfred Hitchcock himself would dole out introductions, right after his silhouette briefly appeared on the screen. As the show was structured as an anthology of macabre stories directed by a bunch of established and emerging talents, Hitchcock would offer a teaser right before every episode, touching upon the kind of horrors that were going to play out on the small screen. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" premiered on CBS in the year 1955 — a time when television had not achieved the boom it would in the later years — but the show endured, thanks to Hitchcock's gravitas and the quality of the half-hour tales that were presented.

In 1959, writer Rod Serling sowed the seeds for his anthology series, "The Twilight Zone," which expanded upon the vignettes of horror by incorporating stories tinted with absurdism, suspense, black comedy, and dystopian narratives. While Serling and Hitchcock's shows were intrinsically different in tone and treatment, it was fairly easy to mistake one show's episode for the other, as both had undergone the anthology treatment and told stories of dynamic variety. Hitchcock's series obviously predated Serling's, and helmed ideas that served as inspiration for countless creatives down the line — however, the overlap of the two shows lies in their explosive popularity, and how they both carved a niche in the genre in a way that is solid and timeless.

Keeping this in mind, it is not surprising that one of the episodes from "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" — a continuation of Hitchcock's parent anthology series, that ran from 1962 to 1965 — was mistaken for a "Twilight Zone" episode. How and why did this mix-up happen?

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

The Case Of An Alfred Hitchcock Hour Episode Mistaken For The Twilight Zone (slashfilm.com)

You also watch The Jar episode via the below link:

The JAR (Alfred Hitchcock Hour) - video Dailymotion 

A Look Back At Rod Serling's 1963 'Twilight Zone' Episode 'The Thirty Fathom Grave'

 I was a huge fan of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone when I was a kid in the 1960s. 

Perhaps because I was anxiously waiting until I was 17 so I could join the U.S. Navy (which I did in 1970), one of my favorite episodes was The Thirty Fathom Grave, which aired on CBS in 1963. 

Written by Rod Serling (seen in the below photo) and directed by Perry Lafferty, the episode is a haunting, supernatural tale about a Navy destroyer that encounters a banging noise from the deep. 

The ship’s captain (Simon Oakland) is dealing with the odd behavior of a previously outstanding chief petty officer (Mike Kellin) when he and his crew discover the noise is coming from a submarine that was sunk 20 years before. 

“Incident one hundred miles off the coast of Guadalcanal. Time: the present. The United States naval destroyer on what has been a most uneventful cruise,” Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone's writer, host and narrator, said as he appeared at the beginning of the program. “In a moment they’re going to send a man down thirty fathoms to check on a noise maker – someone or something tapping on metal. You may or may not read the results in a naval report, because Captain Beecham and his crew have just set a course that will lead this ship and everyone on it into The Twilight Zone.” 

The episode was intelligent, innovative and insightful. I believe today's viewers will enjoy the program and Navy veterans will especially enjoy it.

I recently watched The Thirty Fathom Grave and enjoyed it once again. 

You can watch The Thirty Fathom Grave via the below link:

https://d2isvgrdif6ua5.cloudfront.net/cinemr_com/597321846240579584/720.mp4 

My Washington Times Review Of 'The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, A Killer, And The Birth Of A Gangster Nation'

The Washington Times published my review of The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, A Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation.

I loved Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” when I was a teenager in the 1960s.

One episode I recall was “The New Exhibit,” in which Martin Balsam portrayed the curator of “Murderer’s Row” in a wax museum who later goes mad. The TV program opened with the curator speaking to a group of visitors about the wax figures of infamous killers, such as Jack the Ripper. The first murderer the curator introduced was an infamous sailor who murdered his fellow crew members in 1860. The ferocious, life-like, ax-wielding wax figure glared angrily at the museum visitors.    

And that was my introduction to Albert Hicks, the subject of Rich Cohen’s book, “The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation.”

Mr. Cohen notes that while other children heard fairy tales, his father told him tales about the criminal legends of his New York childhood, such as Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and “Charlie Lucky” Luciano. As a writer, he later discovered that criminals had also grown up on gangster stories told by their fathers.

“It gave me a mission, inspired a quest: I would track down and name and chronicle the very first New York gangster, the man behind all the other legends,” Mr. Cohen writes.

Monk Eastman is considered to have been the first, and then there was Bill “The Butcher” Poole (both of whom were featured in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”). Mr. Cohen wondered who they were told stories about?

“Albert Hicks is the closest thing the New York underworld has to a Cain, the first killer and the first banished man, carrying that dread mark: MURDER,” Mr. Cohen explains. “He operated in a city so similar to and yet so different from our own, the word gangster had not yet been coined. He was called a pirate.”   

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/8/book-review-last-pirate-new-york/

A Look Back At Rod Serling's Classic TV Series 'The Twilight Zone'

Some years ago, after being operated on to remove a kidney stone, I awoke from the anesthesia and found myself on a gurney in the middle of a row of gurneys.

My first thought was frightening. I believed that I was mistakenly placed in the morgue. I raised up and yelled. Two nurses rushed to my side. One said to the other that my blood pressure was alarmingly high. One nurse told me that I was in the recovery room and that I fine, as the other nurse gave a shot of something that put me back under.

I later blamed this episode on being weaned on Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone TV series as a preteen. 

Rod Serling (seen in the above photo), a prolific writer and creator of the mysterious and supernatural TV series, served as the narrator and host. His great presence and voice was often imitated and parodied. 

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone," Rod Serling would say at the opening of the show.

Rod Serling also offered great stories, many of which he wrote himself, as well as good direction and fine actors. Many of the writers, directors and actors went on to greater success and fame. The stories were clever, ironic, spooky and twisted. Even though many of the stories dealt with space aliens, they were always all too human with drama, comedy and pathos. I loved the show.

Now CBS All Access is offering a reboot of the series with Jordan Peele standing in as narrator and host. I don’t think I’ll watch, as I recently watched the entire original series on Netflix over the course of a couple of months.

Sara Stewart at the New York Post offers a piece on how some of the fantastic stories actually came true.    

As we approach the April 1 premiere of Jordon Peele’s “Twilight Zone” series on CBS All Access, it’s worth remembering that some of the most memorable episodes from the original 1959 run ended up being a little too prophetic. And even if we haven’t yet had an alien invasion like in the famed 1962 episode “To Serve Man” (“It’s a cookbook!!”), here are eight times Rod Serling’s masterpiece of a show proved unnervingly adept at predicting modern developments. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://nypost.com/2019/03/31/8-ways-the-twilight-zone-actually-came-true/  

You can watch the intro of the series via the below link:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If3SXJeZzMQ 

And you can watch Rod Serling via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIsm97HL0EU 

Martin Landau: TV's 'Mission Impossible' Disguise Artist, Dies At 89

The Spy Command, a website that covers James Bond and other spy TV programs and films, offers a piece on the death of actor Martin Landau.

Martin Landau, who gained fame as Mission: Impossible disguise expert Rollin Hand, has died at 89, the TMZ website said.

Landau died Saturday at the UCLA Medical Center "after a short hospitalization where he suffered unexpected complications," TMZ said.

Landau enjoyed a long career that began in the early 1950s. It included a number of espionage-related stories, including portraying Leonard, a henchman in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed North by Northwest (1959); a Cold War themed episode of The Twilight Zone; and playing Thrush operative Count Zark in The Bat Cave Affair, a second-season episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

But he was most famous for Mission: Impossible, where he appeared during the show's first three seasons.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/martin-landau-mis-disguise-artist-dies/

Note: I was a huge fan of Landau and Mission Impossible on TV when I was a kid (but I don't much care for the Tom Cruise film series that uses the Mission Impossible title). 

As noted above, Martin Landau also starred in an episode of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, a brilliant and clever TV show that I also loved as a kid. 

The episode that starred Landau and John Van Dreelen was a first-class Cold War espionage story.

You can watch the episode via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8VQdgg8Ypo 

And you can watch the original Mission Impossible intro and hear Lalo Schifin's forever cool Mission Impossible theme song via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Lss2IX3zA

Find Out What Boxing, Charles Dickens, Experimental Parachutes And Desilu Have To Do With The Face Of "The Twilight Zone'

I'm a huge fan of The Twilight Zone, a classic TV show I grew up watching.

I'm thankful that the MeTV network is once again airing the clever and intelligent old shows. The Twilight Zone offered a mixture of suspense, fantasy and science fiction about crime, war, morality, and humanity.

The network's web site, mMetv.com, offers a piece on the face and soul of The Twilight Zone, the late Rod Serling.

Although I don't subscribe entirely to his worldview, I though he was a brilliant and creative writer and television producer, as well as a very good host and presenter.

One of television's brightest, most literate pioneers and a true believer in the medium, Rod Serling was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood early on in his career, clashing with studios and sponsors in his quest to loosen the corporate grip of censorship and write freely on controversial topics.

The man would maintain that outspokenness as an artist and a thinker throughout his career. Today, the acclaimed writer is most revered for having had the ability to produce works of drama that probe the human psyche in an imaginative and thoroughly unique way, many demonstrating a deep love for humanity and the belief in the possibility of a better tomorrow.

From The Twilight Zone to Night Gallery and everything before and after, here are 15 fascinating facts about Rod Serling.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below:

http://metv.com/lists/15-fascinating-facts-about-rod-serling

A Look Back At Rod Serling's 'The Jeopardy Room,' A 'Twilight Zone' Spy Story

Although I disagree with the late Rod Serling's general worldview, I was and remain a huge fan of his 1960s TV program, The Twilight Zone. 

Serling (seen in the above photo) was the creator, writer, narrator and host of the clever and well-written suspense and supernatural TV show. The old show remains popular today and is often aired on cable TV. The DVDs of the show are also popular.

The Spy Command, a web site that covers James Bond and other spy fiction, offers a piece on one Rod Serling-written Twilight Zone episode, called The Jeopardy Room. 

The Twilight Zone, more than a half century after it ended its original run on CBS, remains fondly remembered — an example of how television can be imaginative and thought provoking.

It also, in its final season, deviated from its usual fare of science fiction and fantasy to present a spy story.

The Jeopardy Room, which originally aired April 17, 1964, is essentially a two-man play for television.

On the one side, we have Major Ivan Kuchenko (Martin Landau), a Soviet military officer who served 12 years of hard time in Siberia. He wants to defect to the West. Despite his long imprisonment, he still has information that would be of value to the West.

On the other side, there is Commissar Vassiloff (John Van Dreelan). He has tortured Kuchenko in the past. Moreover, Vassiloff fancies himself as the last of the “imaginative” executioners. Vassiloff has been assigned to kill Kuchenko to make sure he doesn’t reach the West. But Vassiloff wants to do it with style.   

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://hmssweblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/the-twilight-zones-spy-story/

You can also watch the full episode of The Jeopardy Room via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRErEHpwB5g