Some of those episodes scared the bejeebers out of me but it was a fun sort of scared. It was also my introduction to irony.

...of course, it was wonderful. But the quality of the episodes varied greatly, and a lot of those "O Henry" endings were old cliches in the SF/Fantasy field that any experienced editor could see coming in the first paragraph of a slush pile story, and bounced automatically. In retrospect, the show resembles *film noir* in its best episodes, the ones that took place in a blessedly black-and-white, nitty-gritty mid-century America, where the fantastic was just around the corner, and tantalizingly within reach...

I wouldn't know where to begin with best or favorite episodes, but I will say that Rod Serling's intro's were the ultimate of 'outsider' coolness. Serling's writing, and his tv persona were a big influence on me; no wonder when I was in my mid 20's I became a chain smoking funeral director with impeccable vintage 60's suits loooong before Mad Men.

Serling:
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Me:
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What did you think of Six Feet Under, if you happened to watch that series?

I moved on to other things after a few years. Actually I've never seen Six feet under, but I do get a kick out of movies and shows about undertakers, morgues etc, and I was always once step ahead of Quincy.

Call your local library and see if they have it on DVD if you don't have HBO ON DEMAND--then check out the first season and give it a go. It's about the Funeral Industry, but writ small--the focus of the series is a family business of undertaking, and it's not at all what one would expect.

It takes a person with a rather serene outlook to do that job well, I think. I've known a few funeral directors in my lifetime, and they always had great outlooks on life and very good senses of humor.

Give that show a try--I think you will be pleasantly surprised!!

I keep it on my Netflix queue and watch it all the time. Also, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Lots of drama and dark humor.

Carney's tirade against the store manager always brings a tear to my eye. Thank you, Rod.

I'll never forget that episode, and it may have been the first time I ever saw Robert Redford in anything.

Some episodes of TZ were terrific but there were some stinkers too.

now he looks his age, or maybe older. I think he's always spent a lot of time outdoors, and I've never heard that he's had any work done to his face. Maybe he resented his "pretty boy" image and welcomed losing it.

and the established actors like Agnes Moorehead's tour de force, The Invaders and Burgess Meredith's Time Enough At Last.

Oh yeah, composers like Bernard Herrmann and Jerry Goldsmith

you are clinically dead.

He was right; it wasn't fair.

Our culture has lost touch with those qualities. The news is filled with the results of those losses.

in my opinion. Its great, i watch it every year during the various marathons that air, and I have the whole thing on dvd.

A fitting tribute

It came on TV on Friday nights when it originally aired and my dad would switch it off to watch the Friday night fights. That was okay because it always re-aired the following day on Saturday in the morning. But there was something special about watching the show at night. Twilight Zone had some of the best actors (established and up and coming) on TV and very fine writers. I agree with you that it's probably the best consistently excellent drama in the history of TV, but there were shows that gave it a run for the money. Thriller hosted by Boris Karloff was incredible. The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was also very strong, with great actors and excellent writing. I also liked the Twilight Zone's summer replacement series "Way Out", hosted by Rouald Dahl who also wrote for the show. In some ways I liked Way Out more than the Twilight Zone. It was even more far out, daring and imaginative, although the production values were not as good (the shows were recorded on kinescope and not on film the way the later Twilight Zone episodes were shot).

But Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner remains my all time favorite teevee drama. It is a mindfuck of truly epic proportions and taught me to never trust any authority, ever. Twin Peaks would be a strong second. YMMV, of course.

sowed.

Rod Serling's Little Morality Plays

If you haven't already.

It's the show that I feel comes closest to the magnificent vibe of the original Twilight Zone. Darkly humorous, cautionary morality tales told in a science-fiction vein.

I'm going to blaspheme and say I think maaaaybe Alfred Hitchcock Presents, at it's best, actually surpassed the great TZ. They both had plenty of clunkers too, that's for sure.

I also love the very old show Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff. I went to a heck of a lot of trouble to see it, back at the height of my obsession.

There are other old, old horror anthology shows such as Tales of Tomorrow, Lights Out, and One Step Beyond that I love too. Pretty low budget and rough around the edges, but I find them fascinating. I know Rod Serling was heavily influenced by Tales of Tomorrow when he created TZ.

The old Outer Limits is a must-see too, of course, although very uneven IMO. Still, there are some killer episodes well worth your time.

My favorite Twilight Zone episodes are:

The Martians are Due on Maple Street
Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up
Stopover in a Quiet Town
Night Call
Nick of Time
The After Hours

...and a bunch more I can't think of at the moment

SyFy will be doing it's New Years Day TZ marathon soon -- it would be fun to have TZ discussion then for those of us binge-watching, as I likely will be. Now if only they would do an Alfred Hitchcock marathon, I would be in heaven!

Does no one remember that creepy episode? Horace Ford is a toymaker who goes back to his childhood street, which has remained the same. It's not all nostalgia.

There is a creepy little kid in that episode. He sits on a lamppost. He is there at the end of the episode, too, leering at the audience.

Maybe creepy children bother me more than creepy adults. But this episode has stayed with me.

I agree about the creepy children! Even as a child I thought children were creepy

There was another TZ episode with a creepy little girl called "Nightmare as a Child". The protagonist is a young teacher who is repeatedly visited by a strange little girl who knows way too much about her past. Does that ring a bell? It's a good one!

The little girl is her. She is trying to warn her adult self that a murderer, who thought she could identify him, is back in her vicinity.

The Hungry Glass was without doubt the scariest thing I had ever seen on TV to that time. I was about nine or ten when it originally aired. It was written by Robert Bloch who also wrote Psycho. In the Hungry Glass, a couple moves into an old seaside mansion that turns out to be haunted. It's haunted by a woman who was so vain and afraid of losing her beauty as she aged, that her spirit went into the mirrors of the house. Other spirits, people she dragged into the mirrors live in them too. I almost peed my pants at the end when old crones come out of a mirror to drag the wife into it. It had pretty good special effects. After that episode, an entire generation of school kids had trouble sleeping and wouldn't go near a mirror for days, like me. My mother read me stories from the newspaper saying that several kids had to be hospitalized from fright.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19ys7s_the-hungry-glass-1961_shortfilms

I have an absolute fetish for horror stories involving mirrors, so this one was a home run for me! I used to be obsessed with "Mary Worth" type mirror games when I was a kid. (What can I say - I love to be scared)

Interesting to read that it caused such a commotion. I seem to recall reading about a British TV show from the '80s that resulted in similar headlines. It was a phony ghosthunters-type show about spending the night in a haunted house - evidently a lot of people thought it was real. I wish I could remember the name because I've always wanted to track it down.

I first became interested in Thriller after I read Robert E. Howard's "Pigeons from Hell" and I had heard there was this really great old TV show version of it. I was dying to see it. Oh, and I think Stephen King wrote about it in "Danse Macabre" (the best thing he's ever written, IMO). So many people seemed to recall Thriller as a show from their childhood that scared the bejesus out of them but had mysteriously disappeared from the airwaves. That's all I needed to hear and a fixation was born.

William Shatner and some seriously disturbing imagery with the ghosts in the mirror. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

A half dozen or so episodes of were written by Earl Hamner, Jr who is mainly known for the Waltons.

I love Serling and The Twilight Zone. I like his other series The Night Gallery as well.
Great stuff!

Apparently that included Rod Serling himself, but I love it. Very nostalgic for me. It may be too severely '70s for some.

There was one episode called "The Doll" (based on the Algernon Blackwood story) that scared the ever-loving crap out of me as a kid. Ah, good times...

My cousin who was about 12 when it aired developed a complex about dolls and little figurines after that episode. I liked the episode based on an H.P Lovecraft tale, Pickman's Model. Night Gallery was pretty good.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/58795

They also did another Lovecraft tale, "Cool Air", with the lovely Barbara Rush. Another good episode.

But my favorite Lovecraft-inspired thing they did was a short segment called "Professor Peabody's Last Lecture". It was, you know, intentionally silly, but I loved it. It was the type of thing I think NG did particularly well.

...you might enjoy the 1975 tv movie "Trilogy of Terror" starring Karen Black.

Who could ever forget the final story in Trilogy of Terror! How many nightmares did it spawn - I couldn't even begin to imagine! You're darned right I enjoyed it!

Does anyone even remember the other two stories in the trilogy? I think I vaguely remember one, just barely, but no one will ever forget the last one with Karen Black!

There was another TV movie from the 70's that I loved just as much (because it really scared me!) called "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark". Does that ring a bell? Kim Darby, with the tiny people who lived in the furnace, and they would only come out in the dark and she would hear them whispering their sinister intentions? More rich nightmare fodder for the youth of my day.

Flash! Flash!

I remember that one well!

Last edited Thu Dec 18, 2014, 08:27 PM - Edit history (2)

Did you know that Serling wrote most of the TZ shows?? "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" was a real kicker-- I would urge anyone who hasn't seen it to do so-- it's message is powerful. And that's only one of many episodes that really packed a punch.

The show used to scare me to death but I would always watch it when I was allowed.

According to Wikipedia, Serling "...clashed with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues including censorship, racism, and war."

Serling was brilliant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Serling#Effects_on_popular_culture