Forest Whitaker isn't dead!

A fantastic guide for an equally fantastic sci-fi anthology.

Rest well,Mr. S. Your absence-and influence-is still felt.

Serling was a huge influence on my life. From his shows, I learned how to scare people (very useful in the design of many Jaycee haunted houses).

Love his shows. Love showing them to my teenage daughter and her friends (especially with the lights out - allowing their imaginations to get the best of them).

People tend to forget that he also did the screen adaptation of the first Planet of the Apes.

AlanSmithee: People tend to forget that he also did the screen adaptation of the first Planet of the Apes.

IIRC, Serling did the original draft, then it was rewritten all to hell.

Still made for a good movie, but it wasn't exactly what Serling wrote.

The HL sounds more like a Dragnet intro.

2wolves: The HL sounds more like a Dragnet intro.

I was thinking of the Brady Bunch intro.

Submitted for your approval.

FirstNationalBastard: AlanSmithee: People tend to forget that he also did the screen adaptation of the first Planet of the Apes.

IIRC, Serling did the original draft, then it was rewritten all to hell.

Still made for a good movie, but it wasn't exactly what Serling wrote.

True, but ISTR that he was the one who came up with the now-iconic "DAMN
YOU ALL TO HELL!" ending.

FirstNationalBastard: IIRC, Serling did the original draft, then it was rewritten all to hell.

Still made for a good movie, but it wasn't exactly what Serling wrote

I did not know that. Thanks.

jackandwater: It is true when they say the camera adds ten pounds. That cigarette looked like Rod was smoking a fatty!

TZ and Night Gallery, two of my fav shows growing up.

Fun fact: Serling HATED what Night Gallery had become after the pilot. NG was victim to executive meddling--NBC's then-director of programming hated Serling's depressing tone & demanded the episodes have a happy ending. Serling wasn't allowed any authority over his scripts and they were frequently rewritten to be dumbed-down & upbeat.

So, while the scripts were being re-worked & Serling increasingly sidelined, it sat in development hell for almost a YEAR after the pilot aired. Bad enough it lost whatever momentum it had started, NBC decided to put the series on a 4-week rotating basis w/McCloud & a couple of other shows, doom it to failure. NBC alienated NG's core audience and confused their regular demo. Serling called the show's inevitable cancellation a mercy killing.

Watch the show again & compare the pilot to any of the later episodes, There's a marked difference in tone, look, and story flow.

Erm.. wow. As someone who, at 20, lost his 50 year old father to a medical condition..

Oh, hell, it's a touching story.

Snark free on this one.

/Cope.

brigid_fitch: jackandwater: It is true when they say the camera adds ten pounds. That cigarette looked like Rod was smoking a fatty!

TZ and Night Gallery, two of my fav shows growing up.

Fun fact: Serling HATED what Night Gallery had become after the pilot. NG was victim to executive meddling--NBC's then-director of programming hated Serling's depressing tone & demanded the episodes have a happy ending. Serling wasn't allowed any authority over his scripts and they were frequently rewritten to be dumbed-down & upbeat.

So, while the scripts were being re-worked & Serling increasingly sidelined, it sat in development hell for almost a YEAR after the pilot aired. Bad enough it lost whatever momentum it had started, NBC decided to put the series on a 4-week rotating basis w/McCloud & a couple of other shows, doom it to failure. NBC alienated NG's core audience and confused their regular demo. Serling called the show's inevitable cancellation a mercy killing.

Watch the show again & compare the pilot to any of the later episodes, There's a marked difference in tone, look, and story flow.

And yet... they had "Ghost Story/Circle of Fear" on at the same time near the end.

Bag of Hammers: Rod Serling was a god damn genius.

That is all.

seconded!!! Genius on par with Tesla

//loved the beginning of the "Tower of Terror" ride at Disneyland

Bag of Hammers: Rod Serling was a god damn genius.

That is all.

Oh yes, he was.

And to this girl, Rod Serling was HOT.

slotz: Optimal_Illusion: "Turns out it's Man!"

Er...what?


/do you mean "It's a cookbook" perhaps?

Well, there were plenty of TZ stories that turned out to have a "IT'S MAN!" endings....

The episode with Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery as the last man and woman on a post-atomic turned out to be the story of Adam and Eve, the little Michelin Man invaders from the silent episode with Agnes Moorehead turned out to be human astronauts, and at the end of The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street", the aliens essentially said "All we have to is turn out the lights, and Man will turn on one another and face their greatest enemy... themselves!"