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| Gauntlet Press collection of Rod Serling scripts |
I.
There is little question that the television
anthology, a series presentation of individual, self-contained stories, saw its
greatest success and widest popularity during the first two decades of the medium.
Although anthology programming is experiencing something of a renaissance, albeit
in a transmogrified manner, a previously utilized element of the television
anthology, the series host, is now considered antiquated and is vacant from
modern anthology offerings. There was a time, however, when the anthology host
not only presented the series to the viewer but distinctly influenced the style
and form of the content. The host was often the draw of the series and was
marketed as such by networks, sponsors, and agents.
If
you were a viewer who enjoyed short-form genre entertainment, namely mystery,
fantasy, horror, and science fiction, the years 1955-1965 were the ideal years
to be situated in front of your television. This decade saw the productions of
such genre anthology series as Alfred
Hitchcock Presents (and The Alfred
Hitchcock Hour), Suspicion, Science Fiction Theatre, Alcoa Presents (One Step
Beyond), The Twilight Zone, 'Way Out, The Outer Limits, and Thriller, each with its own
idiosyncratic style and content. October, 1957 also marked the release of the
Screen Gems Shock Theater package of classic horror films to television and in
the process created a need for dozens of local programming hosts across the
country.
There
were precedents for the genre television anthology host, namely among the
transitional shows making the leap from radio to television (Lights Out, Suspense) and other early
efforts such as Tales of Tomorrow and
Climax! Yet, few of the early series could
match the quality of subsequent offerings and, though most featured a host, none
contained a distinctly marketed host who inspired the production of consumer
marketed material. Of the genre anthology series of the period, three
distinctly marketed hosts emerged and greatly defined the branding of a
television personality. One was an award-winning television writer (Rod
Serling), one a highly regarded film director (Alfred Hitchcock), and one an
actor celebrated for his roles in horror films (Boris Karloff). These three
television hosts inspired shelves upon shelves of books, comic books,
magazines, record LPs, toys, home video releases, and dozens of other consumer
materials.
Unlike
Hitchcock and Karloff, whose appearances on television were preceded by several
years of branding and marketing, Serling’s appearance as host on a television
series was something completely new to the celebrated writer. It was the
culmination of a journey that began with the optimism of a new medium and ended
as a flight from and fight against censorship. For Serling, the transformation
from an award-winning but largely invisible television writer to one of the
most recognizable television personalities of the era was one of lucrative
reward and typecasting hardship.
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| Earl Holliman in Rod Serling's "Where is Everybody?" |
II.
The premier of The Twilight Zone on the CBS network on October 2, 1959, with the
episode "Where is
Everybody?," marked the long and often difficult journey of a decorated
television writer in realizing his goal of producing a dramatic series free
from the creative restraints imposed by networks executives and corporate
sponsors. Though he was chose to cloak his confrontational style of drama in
the recognizable tropes of science fiction and fantasy, Rod Serling, the
creator of The Twilight Zone, quickly
realized the burden of undertaking a job now labeled showrunner: the long hours
with the production team, the continued fight against censorship, the promotion
of corporate products, the exhausting commitment to produce quality material,
and the unique challenges of assuming hosting duties as an on-camera
personality.
Serling's transition from creative
talent behind the scenes to on-air personality was not something the Emmy
Award-winning writer directly invited upon himself, and it would be several
years before Serling fully embraced the celebrity status hosting The Twilight Zone afforded him. He
considered himself, first and foremost, a writer, and he vigorously protected
the individual creative vision of the series, a quality which attracted many of
the best creative people in the industry to The
Twilight Zone.
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| Serling previewing the third season episode, "A Game of Pool" |
There
are indications that even in the late seasons of The Twilight Zone Serling remained uncomfortable as on-camera host.
One widely circulated story relates that Serling's rehearsals were often filmed
without the host's knowledge in order to put him at ease and capture the most
genuine delivery of the material. Though Serling likely never considered
himself a natural in front of the camera, it resulted in the enduring cultural
image of a middle-aged man standing board-straight in a fitted suit, cigarette
in hand, delivering poetic monologues in a clipped manner, bracketing clever
tales of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.
Like the paintings of Chesley
Bonestell or the writings of Willy Ley, the black-and-white image of Rod
Serling as host of The Twilight Zone became
a cultural touchstone for the Space Age, and the series itself possesses the
dual quality of being as timeless as folklore and yet firmly set in its time. To
sell his series to network executives, corporate sponsors, and the American
public, Serling chose to craft a story about the emerging Space Race a full decade
before the Apollo 11 lunar landing and in the process became the recognized
brand of televised science fiction, to the ire of a number of science
fiction writers, many of whom enviously dogged the writer with unfounded charges
of plagiarism throughout the course of the series. Serling’s humanistic and frequently naïve approach to science
fiction and fantasy is certainly one reason The
Twilight Zone remains both accessible and popular among viewers of all
ages. Serling as host is another reason.
Serling's assumption of hosting duties
on The Twilight Zone was one of
necessity. The show needed a voice to intone the opening narration which
introduced the series each week. Serling screened the series pilot for network
executives and potential sponsors with voice work recorded by Westbrook Van
Voorhis, a prolific narrator whose booming delivery did not match the desired
effect for The Twilight Zone. Though
the series sold with the Van Voorhis voice work, it was decided a new voice
would be needed before the series went to broadcast. After a proposed deal with
Orson Welles fell through due to Welles's asking price, Serling, who previously
narrated a successful on-camera pitch to potential sponsors, stepped in to do
the work himself. Serling's voice and image have become such an inseparable
aspect of The Twilight Zone that one
can hardly imagine other options were explored.
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| Serling vanishes from "A World of His Own" |
From
the second season onward, Serling appeared before the audience to personally
introduce each episode and continued to provide outgoing voice-over narration
to close each episode. Only rarely did Serling appear at the end of an episode
outside of the continuing promotional material. He appeared at the end of the
second season episode, “The Obsolete Man” and again at the end of writer
Charles Beaumont’s third season episode, “The Fugitive.” The exposure Serling
received due to appearances as host on the series ensured his ascendency to cultural
icon followed soon thereafter.
Serling
had not previously experienced a particularly prolific relationship with book
publishing, though he did enjoy a certain level of notoriety unusual for a
television writer. This notoriety was largely due to the fact that television featured plenty of talented up-and-coming actors but few established stars, thus pivoting the promotional attention toward talented writers like Serling, Reginald Rose, Gore Vidal, and Paddy Chayefsky. After winning Emmy Awards for writing “Patterns” for Kraft Theatre (1955) and “Requiem for a
Heavyweight” for Playhouse 90 (1956),
Serling was widely recognized as one of, if not the, finest television dramatist of his time. Consequently,
Serling’s offerings on the dramatic anthology series of the time were often
promoted on the strength of the award-winning writer’s involvement rather than for
any other aspect. Serling was frequently interviewed or featured in trade
journals and his reputation was such that by the time he came to create The Twilight Zone, the buzz among
creatives in the industry was substantial. In 1957, Serling’s television play,
“Requiem for a Heavyweight” was included in The Writers Guild of America
volume, The Prize Plays of Television and
Radio, 1956 (Random House), and later that year Serling released a
hardcover volume from Simon & Schuster titled Patterns, which included his two Emmy Award-winning scripts and two
additional scripts plus copious amounts of commentary on his journey as a
writer. In 1958, Patterns was printed in paperback as a Bantam 50, a paperback series from Bantam books which sold for fifty cents. It marked the beginning of Serling's long association with the publishing company that would print the majority of Twilight Zone and Rod Serling related material.
In 1960, about the time production began on the second season of The Twilight Zone, Dell Comics approached Rod Serling with an offer to produce a Twilight Zone comic book. Dell was a
publisher intent on licensing as many television properties as possible and
would later add a short-lived Outer
Limits comic to its stable. The
Twilight Zone comic first appeared on sale in December, 1960 with a cover date of March-May, 1961 as part of Dell's Four Color series, a try-out series to gauge the potential of certain titles. The Twilight Zone was popular enough that it appeared in its own series in 1962 for two issues under the Dell banner
before moving to the Gold Key imprint due to a split between Dell and Western
Publishing. Gold Key would outdo Dell in television properties, adding the
likes of Boris Karloff Thriller (later
Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery) and Star Trek to their inventory. Each issue
of The Twilight Zone comic featured
Serling’s image on the cover and each story within included an introduction by
an artist’s rendering of Serling. Serling’s production company, Cayuga
Productions, was displayed on the cover of each issue and the comic would enjoy
a run which outlived both its source material and its creator, seeing continued
publication until 1979, with a final, alternate issue arriving in 1982, seven
years after Serling’s death and nearly twenty years after the final broadcast
episode of The Twilight Zone.
III.
By this point, Rod Serling the on-camera personality had, in many ways, eclipsed
Rod Serling the television writer. Though Serling would continue to make his living by his
typewriter, he now found himself a marketable television personality who could
generate income through his image and his voice. Even today, most literate
television viewers would quickly associate Serling with The Twilight Zone but few could name his prior television triumphs,
some of which were award-winning, critically lauded efforts. He had come to
embody the series he created in a way perhaps unique in television. Rod Serling was The Twilight Zone, to a point that even to this day many writers
and critics give Serling credit for every episode aired on the series,
despite the obvious presence of several other notable creatives. As early as 1959, with his famous appearance on The Mike Wallace Interview, Serling was in-demand on talk shows. As The Twilight Zone afforded Serling more exposure in his capacity as host, he found himself talking with such notables as David Susskind, Mike Douglas, and Johnny Carson, as well as in comedic skits on The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, The Red Skelton Hour, The Jack Benny Program, and others, often in parodies of his own creations. Though much of this material is embarrassing in hindsight, it does display the level of celebrity which Serling was able to achieve at the time.
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| Roald Dahl hosting 'Way Out |
Television
executives were quick to recognize the potential of emulating Serling’s success
on the series. When tasked with creating a mid-season replacement series for
Jackie Gleason’s disastrous return to television in 1961, producer David
Susskind quickly put together a fantasy anthology series that in many ways
emulated the format set by The Twilight Zone.
The CBS series, 'Way Out, would
be a 30-minute anthology program of fantasy dramas shot on video in New York.
Those that have viewed episodes of ‘Way
Out know that the show distinguished itself during its short run (14
episodes) with truly bizarre tales of horror and fantasy. The element which
most strongly relates to The Twilight
Zone is the style of host. Susskind tasked his friend Roald Dahl, the
popular British short story writer, to host the program and provide the script
for the opening episode, an adaptation of Dahl's short story, "William and
Mary." Dahl wore a tailored black suit and smoked a cigarette while
humorously narrating the show’s opening and closing moments in a deadpan
manner. If it was not a conscious imitation of Rod Serling it was a remarkably
similar performance. Dahl would later host a show with a much longer life, Tales of the Unexpected, complete with a
companion book of stories published by Penguin Books in 1979. Though ‘Way Out was likely too outré for the
average American viewing audience of the time, it stands to reason that one
cause of its early demise was its similarity to The Twilight Zone, a series which immediately followed it on Friday
nights in 1961.
By 1963, Serling was exhausted, both physically
and creatively. The burdens of producing material and acting as executive
producer for The Twilight Zone proved
to be damaging to the writer’s health and creativity. A near-cancellation after
the second season of The Twilight Zone meant
that Serling had to agree to endorse Chesterfield cigarettes in his promotional
spots to secure sponsorship for the third season. That third season, though a strong
season by any standards, also marked a significant downturn in Serling’s self-perception,
as he struggled with doubt in his own ability to continue to produce quality
material. Some of the critical favor which the series acquired over its
previous two season also began to turn against its principal creator. If Rod
Serling was there to accept the Emmy Awards and Hugo Awards being showered upon
the series, he was also there to accept the brunt of responsibility when the
series failed to illicit the same high level of critical acclaim.
After
the third season, the series was late in finding a sponsor and abruptly canceled. Production resumed some months later when the series returned as a mid-season replacement (replacing the series which had replaced it) in an hour-long format with new producers. This was the first truly transitional time for the series and
many believe it never achieved the level of quality it previously held under
producer Buck Houghton, who departed with the initial news of cancelation, taking a sizable portion of the production crew with him. Adding to
Houghton’s departure was Serling's acceptance of a year-long teaching residency at a liberal arts college two thousand miles away and the early-onset
Alzheimer’s experienced by writer Charles Beaumont, the second leading contributor
of scripts to the series. Though Serling continued to write scripts and record introductions for the series, the level of his active
involvement in production was largely diminished.
The continued success of The Twilight Zone books,
however, demanded that additional volumes be produced. Serling had not the time
nor the energy to compile additional Twilight
Zone material for publication. There were dozens more Serling-penned
episodes which had not seen prose adaptations but the act of writing an entire Twilight Zone book during this time
seemed unfeasible. The solution was to bring in another writer, pulp fiction
veteran Walter B. Gibson, who would adapt several Rod Serling scripts as well
as produce original material, and to switch from paperback house Bantam Books to its parent company, hardcover publisher Grosset & Dunlap. The move was facilitated by the fact
that Grosset & Dunlap had a long and successful history of producing children's books series and young viewers made up a significant portion of the overall viewership for The Twilight Zone. There was a desire
to produce material which capitalized on this demographic. The two volumes
which were produced with Walter B. Gibson were directly marketed to younger
viewers. This trend toward marketing for a younger readership was also instituted at Bantam
Books, who reprinted each of Serling’s previous Twilight Zone books as Pathfinder editions, a paperback line of
fiction and non-fiction designed to appeal to young adult readers.
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| Pathfinder edition |
Although
the two Grosset & Dunlap books, Rod
Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1963) and Rod
Serling’s Twilight Zone Revisited (1964) included Serling’s name in the
titles, both eschewed images of Serling on the cover designs of the hardcover
and paperback editions (Tempo Books), presumably due to the assumption that
younger readers (viewers) found the material a stronger draw than the host. As
for the Bantam Pathfinder editions of Serling’s Twilight Zone books, appealing new covers were created, only the
first of which featured an image of Serling.
1963
saw Serling nominally edit the first of three fiction anthologies for Bantam
Books, Rod Serling’s Triple W: Witches,
Warlocks and Werewolves. Though Serling wrote the introductory material,
the contents of the book were compiled by noted science fiction author Gordon
R. Dickson, who did not receive credit for the work and who reprised his
role as ghost editor for the 1967 volume Rod
Serling’s Devils and Demons. These anthologies were aimed at
the reader of horror fiction, both in cover design and content, and prefigured
Serling’s later involvement in the Night
Gallery television series. A third anthology for Bantam, the more science fiction flavored Rod Serling’s Other Worlds (1978), was released three years after
the writer’s death and his level of involvement in choosing the contents of the book remains unknown. No other editor is listed, though the book features an introduction from Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson and story notes by science
fiction writer Jack C. Haldeman.
IV.
As The
Twilight Zone came to a rather merciful end in 1964, having gone through
three additional producers since Buck Houghton’s exit at the end of the third
season, Serling found himself suddenly free of the daily operations of a
television series. The shadow of the series, however, hung over him and would largely
define every move of his professional career until his early death in 1975. Between
the failure of his adult western program, The
Loner, his teaching at Ithaca College in New York, and his brief stint as host of the syndicated game show Liar's Club, Serling continued
his association with book publishing.
Serling found time to write three excellent
novella length fantasy/horror stories which were published in hardcover as The Season to Be Wary in 1967 by Little,
Brown, with less than appealing cover art. Bantam books brought out a paperback
edition a year later with a much more appealing cover which featured a painted
collage design representing the three stories contained within. Serling adapted
two of the stories, “Eyes” and “The Escape Route,” as two-thirds of an NBC
television anthology movie in 1969. This film, Night Gallery, contained a third story, an original Serling
teleplay, “The Cemetery,” which together comprised some of the finest writing
Serling had achieved in years. The television film contained an excellent cast,
including Roddy McDowall, Ozzie Davis, Joan Crawford, and Sam Jaffe, as well as
excellent direction from Boris Sagal, Steven Spielberg, and Barry Shear. It was
truly a triumphant return to television fantasy for the esteemed writer. The
telefilm was well received and rated highly, generating the idea of a new Rod
Serling fantasy series, Rod Serling’s
Night Gallery, which was soon ordered to production.
Serling
had previously considered development of a new fantasy series at the end of The Twilight Zone, but every idea,
including one in which Serling toured a gallery of wax figures which was later
echoed by Night Gallery, seemed to be
fixated on pulp horror and held little appeal to Serling. A few years later,
Serling was more open to the idea of a horror series carrying his name in the
title. It was another indication that Rod Serling, the on-camera personality,
was higher currency to network executives than was the quality of the story
material which could be provided by the award-winning writer.
Night
Gallery began as part of the NBC Four in One program and enjoyed a short yet
quality first season. For its only full season, the second season, much of Night Gallery approached the quality of
writing, directing, and performances of The
Twilight Zone. Unfortunately for Serling, the autonomy he experienced on The Twilight Zone was nowhere to be
found on Night Gallery. Despite the
fact that he performed well as host and primary writer of series, Serling was
partnered with a producer, Jack Laird, whose inability to take the fantasy
genre seriously resulted in some disastrous comedic material, and whose
misguided impulse to control production led to Serling being cut out of any
creative input.
Night Gallery did
result in two final books from Rod Serling which serve as an excellent swan
song to a memorable publishing career. Bantam Books again partnered with
Serling in an attempt to recreate the success of the first three Twilight Zone books from the early
1960’s, this time adapting his scripts from Night
Gallery. Though the resultant books were not as successful as the Twilight Zone books, the two Night Gallery volumes, published in 1971
and 1972, contain adaptations of two Emmy Award-nominated efforts and display Rod
Serling in top form. The cover illustrations on these volumes are extremely
appealing as well. Like the paperback edition of The Season to Be Wary, the Night
Gallery volumes use a painted collage design with images from the stories
surrounding a central image of Rod Serling.
Despite the fact that late in his
professional career Rod Serling seemed unable to turn down any offer to utilize
his marketable image and voice, including selling beer and narrating documentaries on such outre subjects as UFOs and cryptozoology, his legacy remains firmly connected to The Twilight Zone, a series he had not the foresight to believe
would endure as a culturally significant work of art. Serling's final bow as host
was for the syndicated radio series The
Zero Hour, which featured stories of mystery and suspense and which boasted
an impressive pedigree of writers and performers. Serling had, in a way, come
full circle, having begun in radio all those many years ago at the beginning of
his professional career.
V.
In
the time since Rod Serling's death in 1975, the marketing and memorial efforts
on behalf of both Serling and his principal creations have been robust and
continuous. The first book-length biography of Serling appeared in 1989 with
Joel Engel’s Rod Serling: The Dreams and
Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone, from Contemporary Books. Since then, there have been several
additional Serling biographies, including a moving memoir, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling, from Serling’s daughter Anne,
an excellent offering on Serling from the prestigious American Masters series from PBS Documentary Films, and a line of
books, Rod Serling Books, which have brought back into print all of Serling’s
books published during the writer’s lifetime. Perhaps most important among the
preservations efforts on behalf of Rod Serling was the formation of the Rod
Serling Memorial Foundation, whose Foundation Board and membership roster
includes virtually every important family member, writer, scholar, or critic
association with the examination of Serling’s works.
Serling’s seemingly immortal creation,
The Twilight Zone, has seen even more
activity since the death of its creator. Among the endless stream of Twilight Zone material are two
television revival series, two additional comic book series and a line of
graphic novels, tribute fiction anthologies compiled by Serling’s widow, Carol,
book anthologies compiling source material for The Twilight Zone and Night
Gallery, reprints of Serling’s Twilight
Zone stories, boundless literary appreciations and critical guides (spearheaded
by Marc Scott Zicree’s The Twilight Zone
Companion), photo books, script books, interview books, audio books, The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, and Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, which
ran from 1981-1989 and set the standard for a genre periodical of its time.
There have been toys, New Year’s marathons, Twilight
Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics, and exceptional home video offerings in
every format. And during all this time The
Twilight Zone has enjoyed an uninterrupted run in syndication. It adds up to
one of the most impressive cultural legacies from a man who never truly
believed in the lasting value of his work and who only wanted to be known as
having written something worthwhile.
-JP
Additional Images:
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (isfdb.org), The Grand Comics Database (comics.org), Amazon.com, Atlas Obscura, and Goodreads for providing information and images used in this post.
Special thanks to Christopher Conlon.
Special thanks to Christopher Conlon.
Note: A
listing for a large selection of Twilight
Zone related material can be found in the Vortex Library
Selected
Works:
Shows
as Host:
-The Twilight Zone (CBS,
1959-1964)
-Liar's Club (syndicated game show, one season, 1969-1970)
-Liar's Club (syndicated game show, one season, 1969-1970)
-Night Gallery (NBC,
pilot: 1969; series: 1970-1973)
-The Zero Hour (radio;
1973-1974)
Books:
-Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam,
1960)
-More Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam,
1961)
-New Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam,
1962)
-From the Twilight Zone (Doubleday/BCE,
1962)
-Rod Serling’s Triple W: Witches, Warlocks
and Werewolves (Bantam, 1963)
-Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (with
Walter B. Gibson; Grosset & Dunlap, 1963)
-Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone
Revisited (with Walter B. Gibson; Grosset & Dunlap, 1964)
-Rod Serling’s Devils and Demons (Bantam,
1967)
-The Season to Be Wary (Little,
Brown, 1967)
-Night Gallery (Bantam,
1971)
-Night Gallery 2 (Bantam,
1972)
-Rod Serling’s Other Worlds (Bantam,
1978)
Comics:
-The Twilight Zone (Dell/Gold
Key, 1960-1982)
