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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781491720141 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 754 |
| Sales rank: | 481,738 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Kenneth Reynolds served on NYPD, worked for FedEx, and has 30-plus-years’ experience as a practicing musician. Now semi-retired, he devoted more than three years to the research and writing of The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Wondrous Land. Kenneth was born and raised in Bronx, New York; he still calls it home today.
Read an Excerpt
The Twilight Zone
Rod Serling's Wondrous Land
By Kenneth Reynolds
iUniverse LLC
Copyright © 2014 Kenneth ReynoldsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-2012-7
CHAPTER 1
Rod Serling: a Short Biography
Rodman Serling was born on Christmas Day, 1924, in Syracuse, NY. He said of this event: "I was a Christmas present that was delivered unwrapped" (The Twilight Zone Companion, p. 3). His family in 1926 moved to Binghamton-a small city about 70 miles south of Syracuse and about 10 miles north of the northeast Pa. border. It was in Binghamton where Serling would spend the rest of his childhood and almost all of his adolescence. He was very fond of Binghamton and his growing up there, which may have led him to later say: "Everybody has to have a hometown; Binghamton's mine. In the strangely brittle, terribly sensitive make-up of a human being, there is a need for a place to hang a hat or a kind of geographical womb to crawl back into, or maybe just a place that's familiar because that's where you grew up. When I dig back through memory cells, I get one particularly distinctive feeling-and that's one of warmth, comfort, and well-being. For whatever else I may have had, or lost, or will find-I've still got a hometown. This, nobody's [going to] take away from me" (www.rodserling.com, introduction page).
Serling's father Samuel-the same name as a book in the Bible-was a wholesale meat dealer. Serling's mother's first name was Esther-also the name of a book in the Bible. The Serlings had two children: their sons Robert and Rodman, Robert being seven years older than Rod. The Serlings were Reform Jews but attended synagogue mostly for holy days or special occasions.
While the Serling boys were growing up, they loved reading the so-called "pulp" magazines of that era (named "pulp" after the rough, crusty paper used in printing the magazines). Magazines with enchanting, imaginative, spooky titles like Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, Weird Tales were read enthusiastically, even though Rod Serling had no childhood dreams or ambitions for a literary or writing career; they ostensibly just loved the great storytelling in the pulps of the 1930s and 1940s.
Robert would say of six-or seven-year-old Rod: "He was in a world all by himself" (The Twilight Zone Companion, p. 4). Maybe this was the start of Rod Serling's unique, powerful imagination, starting to take him into other worlds, other dimensions. He joined the Boy Scouts, and was enrolled with Robert in Sunday School at the local Jewish community center. While enrolled in Binghamton Central High School, there was one teacher that had a great influence on him: Helen Foley. Binghamton newspaper columnist David Rossie said of her: "Just about all of us ... who passed through her classroom, left it a little better, if for no other reason than the discovery that learning didn't have to be painful, that it could, in fact, be pleasant. "He added," She had a love of the language that is born into the Irish." And, most importantly, as far as understanding Rod Serling goes, she was "the teacher who unlocked that magnificent imagination [of Rod Serling]. "Serling even named the lead character in the Zone episode Nightmare as a Child after her, and the character was a school teacher.
On the day he graduated high school, Rod enlisted in US Army, 11th Airborne Division paratroopers. He took up boxing during basic training, and went on to win 17 out of 18 bouts, in addition to getting a broken nose. This experience must have influenced the Zone episodes The Big Tall Wish, and Steel-both portraying the gritty, painful world of boxing.
He was assigned in May 1944 to the Pacific Theater in New Guinea and the Philippines as a member of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was wounded twice, and was awarded the Purple Heart for a severe shrapnel wound to his knee and wrist requiring hospitalization. While Serling brought almost all of his major life experiences into The Twilight Zone, his war experience led to 21 episodes dealing with the circumstances of war; he suffered from flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia for the rest of his life.
In 1945, Samuel Serling died of a heart attack at age 52. Rod was denied a furlough by the army, which must have intensified the bereavement. "He was very close to his father", said Serling's daughter Anne (Paul Mandell, American Cinematographer, June 1988). He was discharged in 1946, returned home, and was unsure what direction to take in his life. Via the GI Bill, he enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in the southwestern part of the state, about 15 miles east of Dayton. Antioch was the same school attended by his brother Robert. He majored in phys. ed., because he "... was interested in working with kids" (TTZC, p. 5), but he soon changed to language and literature. As a 21-year-old freshman in Fall 1946, he met Carolyn Kramer-a 17-year-old-fellow student majoring in education and psychology. Since neither Rod nor Carolyn were practicing the faiths they were raised in, Ms. Kramer suggested Unitarianism as a compromise. Horace Mann, the first president of Antioch College, was a Unitarian educator. They were married at the Unitarian chapel in Columbus, OH in Summer 1948 and would go on to have two children: daughters Jodi and Anne.
Rod graduated in 1950 with a literature degree, moved to Cincinnati, and got a staff-writing job at radio station WLW; but after work he was writing scripts at the kitchen table, hankering to become his own writer instead of writing for someone else. In 1952 the Serlings moved to Westport, CT to be near New York City, so he could submit scripts for live network-TV productions (this was a time before Fed Ex, e-mail, fax machines, etc.). His initial claim to fame would be Patterns-a play he wrote for Kraft Television Theater in January 1955. The performance was so superb that, by popular demand, it was performed live again about a month later (the first TV rerun, so to speak). More success would follow, with Serling's scripts and stories being broadcast live on other network theaters like Playhouse 90 and United States Steel Hour: Requiem For a Heavyweight, The Comedian, The Rack, Bomber's Moon, etc. Eventually, Serling would receive six Emmy awards, and the name Rod Serling was now a household name throughout America.
Live television began to fade in the late 1950s, so Serling moved to Pacific Palisades, CA, becoming next-door neighbors of Ron and Nancy Reagan. Since Hollywood offered more resources conducive to network television, the industry was moving its major operations from New York to Los Angeles, and Serling followed it.
Since many of his scripts were being heavily edited and censored due to sponsor pressure and threats and the fear of angry public reaction, he considered a sci-fi/fantasy anthology where he could, allegorically, metaphorically, symbolically, get his points across with fictional or quasi-fictional characters and stories; he also liked the idea of rerunning or repeating a show, unlike the teleplays he wrote for live TV. So he submitted the script The Twilight Zone/The Time Element to CBS, which, ironically, never became a Twilight Zone episode, but did air on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in November 1958. It received more mail than any other Desilu presentation, and the newspaper reviews were virtually all positive. CBS decided to offer Serling a contract to produce The Twilight Zone, and Serling's company Cayuga Productions (named after Cayuga Lake-one of the Finger Lakes in upstate NY where the Serlings vacationed each Summer) got to work, and the rest is history.
The first half-hour episode aired October 2, 1959, on a Friday, at 10 p.m. (What a perfect time!). The 1963 season debuted hour-long episodes, and the airdate was moved to Thursday night at 9 p.m. Throughout its 156-episodes' run, from 1959 to 1964, The Twilight Zone never finished any season in the top 25, but it always had respectable ratings. Like so many other successful shows, syndication engendered more of a large and devoted viewership than the original airings. Like fine wine, fine art is appreciated more over time, and no better proof of that is The Twilight Zone.
After the last Zone episode was shown in June 1964, Serling still wrote for TV. The Loner-a Western with Lloyd Bridges in the title role-was a series about a cowboy who travels the West, intervening in various conflicts and dilemmas by using persuasion, reason, and other non-six-gun tactics. Some TV movies followed, along with co-writing the script for the motion picture Planet of the Apes. His swansong was Night Gallery, which aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973. While this anthology series was similar to The Zone, it centered more on horror and terror, and Serling didn't have the creative leeway he had with The Zone. His TV career ended, for the most part, when Night Gallery went off the air.
He taught and lectured at colleges across America, speaking out strongly on social issues and the Vietnam conflict. Even while still producing The Zone, he took a year-long teaching position at Antioch College, where his writing career all began. He also taught at Ithaca College in New York, about 20 miles southeast of the Serling Summer home in the Cayuga Lake town of Interlaken.
While mowing the lawn at their Interlaken home, Rod Serling suffered a heart attack in May 1975. In Rochester, NY on June 28, 1975, he died of complications from a coronary bypass operation. Memorial services were simultaneously held at Sage Chapel at Cornell University in New York and at Unitarian Community Church in Santa Monica, CA. He was 50-years-old when he died.
CHAPTER 2What Is The Twilight Zone?
This is the explanation that Rod Serling gave for coming up with the title The Twilight Zone: "... there is an Air Force term relating to a moment when a plane is coming down on approach and it cannot see the horizon; it's called the twilight zone" (TTZC, p. 24).
To help us grasp just what Rod Serling's wondrous land is, let's read and dwell on his introductions to the show:
1: You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead! Your next stop: The Twilight Zone! "(The screen images show gossamers, a protruding black line, the sun, the sun descends, and the words The Twilight Zone pop up, like a signpost, and they come right at the viewer and then break up. The words are in white, all in capitals, except the h and the e in The. The letters in Twilight Zone are staggered).
2: 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's an area which we call: The Twilight Zone. (The screen images: gossamers, clouds/clear sky, shadows from figures on a barren landscape, a dark pit or cave-like opening, a rising up to glittering stars, the words The Twilight Zone (once again, in white, with only the h and the e in The in small case) assemble, and the camera pans down).
3: You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into: The Twilight Zone. (The screen images: a shut door which fully opens, a window which shatters, a big eyeball (the cover for TTZC), Einstein's formula E=mc2, a robotic figure moving through space, the face of a clock, and the words Twilight Zone assemble (The was omitted), all this set against a starry universe).
4: You are about to enter another dimension-a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind-a journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop: The Twilight Zone. (The screen images: an open female eye, a protruding black line, the sun replaces the eyeball, the eye closes, the sun descends, the words The Twilight Zone pop up out of the black line, in black capital letters, but turn to white when the sun descends. The words come right at the viewer. This introduction, especially with the haunting music, is the scariest intro in the series, in my opinion).
5: The same as #1, without "That's the signpost up ahead!" (The screen images: a black-and-white spiral cone traveling through space, out of the mist come the words THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and those words break apart and the pieces scatter).
This Serling intro never aired:
This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality; you're on a through route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable. Go as far as you like on this road; its limits are only those of the mind itself. Ladies and gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination. Next stop: The Twilight Zone (from TTZC).
So, Rod Serling defined The Twilight Zone as: another dimension, a wondrous land, a fifth dimension (not the 1960s singing group The Fifth Dimension), a middle ground between light and shadow and between science and superstition, a dimension of imagination, a land of both shadow and substance and of things and ideas, a wondrous land of imagination, the shadowy tip of reality—the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable.
Additional descriptions from Serling come from his own prologues and epilogues to the episodes: "... the journey into the shadows" (from the episode Where Is Everybody?), "... somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the Earth, lies The Twilight Zone" (The Last Flight), "... that most unpredictable region" (Mr. Dingle the Strong), "... another world" (The Trouble with Templeton), "... a very bizarre casino" (The Silence), "... the odd stage" (Five Characters in Search of an Exit), "...that gray, shaded area in space and time" (The Little People), "... that small, dark intimate place" (The Dummy), "... a strange new world, too incredible to be real, too real to be a dream" (In His Image), "... very late at night...between wakefulness and sleep" (The Valley of the Shadow), "... a shadowland" (He's Alive) "... a special province, uncharted and unmapped, a country of both shadow and substance" (The Incredible World of Horace Ford), "... a special plate" (ditto), "... a better port" (Passage on the Lady Anne), "... an odd market place" (Of Late I Think of Cliffordville), "...a vast question mark" (The Parallel), "... a very special bivouac area" (The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms), "... a reading room" (ditto), "... a distant port" (Sounds and Silences).
Of course, a good way to understand terms is to define them. Webster's defines "zone" as "a region or area set off as distinct from surrounding or adjoining parts; one of the sections of an area or territory created for a particular purpose." The beautiful time of twilight is defined as "the light from the sky between full night and sunrise or between sunset and full night; an intermediate state that is not clearly defined. "Using Webster's as a judge, Rod Serling picked the two perfect words to title his show.
Since we live in an age of acronyms, I'd like to throw in one of my own to help us in our journey into The Twilight Zone (TTZ): DIMS.
D: dimension
I: imagination
M: mystery/magic
S: story (or history, his-story)
Dimension is defined as "one of three or four coordinates determining a position in space and time." Science tells us there are four dimensions: matter, space, time, energy—but Rod Serling tells us there's a fifth dimension: The Twilight Zone! It's a place that transcends, makes contact with, intrudes on, ignores, variegates, violates, disobeys, and sometimes even replaces the laws and standards of one or all four of the dimensions that science has established in trying to define and determine life and the workings of the universe.
Imagination is greatly understood by the word "image" (picture, illusion, figure, idea, appearance, copy), but Webster, in the true spirit of TTZ, defines it perfectly: the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality (my emphasis); creative ability; ability to confront and deal with a problem.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Twilight Zone by Kenneth Reynolds. Copyright © 2014 Kenneth Reynolds. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Dedication, xi,Introduction, xiii,
Chapter 1: Rod Serling: a Short Biography, 1,
Chapter 2: What Is The Twilight Zone?, 7,
Chapter 3: The Episodes., 13,
Afterword, 679,
Appendix 1: The Themes, 687,
Appendix 2: Episode Index & Description, 699,
Appendix 3: The Writers, 709,
Appendix 4: Writers' Index, 711,
Index, 717,
Acknowledgements, 729,