A Fool's Utopia 10.08.09: The Twilight Zone
Posted by Ron Martin on 10.08.2009
This week in one man's utopia we celebrate a landmark for the Twilight Zone, continue our Halloween festivities and talk late 70s/early 80s Halloween costumes. On top of all that, Ron confesses his love for Brutal Legend, looks for three sitcom stars and fast food playgrounds.
<
It's become such an iconic scene, with its floating door, creepy music and background of stars that it almost doesn't register. It's as if we're born with a Twilight Zone gene. Somewhere where light meets dark and good could be evil lies the The Twilight Zone.
Last Friday, The Twilight Zone celebrated it's 50th anniversary. That's right. On October 2, 1959, Rod Serling first appeared on television screens with his stunted way of talking that somehow simultaneously made things creepier and more important. The first episode, "Where is Everybody," focused on an astronaut wannabe living in a delusional world he'd created while training for the isolation of space. It set the tone for the series early.
Remembered for tantalizing plot twists, eerie reveal and an overall creepy atmosphere, The Twilight Zone would become a supernatural staple. It was not born that way. Serling, an accomplished telewriter in the 1950s, was frustrated with the networks refusal to step into hot button topics of the times. Anything currently being discussed in Congress, the White House or on the front of newspapers was a big no-no for satirical TV. Serling needed to share his views on discrimination, the human mind, nuclear power and the like. He chose to hide his viewpoints in metaphors and the horrorific. On the surface, The Twilight Zone was a chilling way to spend an evening wrapped up in suspenseful storytelling. Hidden (sometimes purposely not very well) underneath the monsters, robots and aliens was a social commentary shared by no show of its time and very few that would follow. With most every paranormal stretch there was a lesson or at least a question for one to ask himself.
For five years, The Twilight Zone haunted the airwaves midway through the 20th century. The ratings were never a celebrated affair and the show has too mentioned when in discussion of the first ever cult classic TV show. As with most cult shows today, The Twilight Zone's rating were on the mid to lower side, the quality of the product thought provoking and intelligent while simultaneously being suspenseful and sometimes frightening. The bulk of the series was written by legendary writers Serling, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson. Being an anthology series, the cast changed over each week allowing the best and brightest actors to get in on the act. And they did. Everyone from William Shatner to Elizabeth Montgomery to Telly Savalas lined up to take roles in the series. The list of stars/would be stars to participate is as impressive as there is as far as guest stars go.
Among its many other influential aspects, The Twilight Zone would be one of the first shows to record episodes on videotape as oppose to film (for just a few episodes in a costcutting maneuver). It obviously opened the door for other cherished supernatural/horror anthology series such as Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Amazing Stories, Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside. Many episodes would become so ingrained into American pop culture that to this day references to The Twilight Zone in general or even specific moments in specific episodes are made without need of explanation. They are just generally accepted by society as a whole. Personally, I think this is the greatest compliment any writer could ever receive.
Right now, The SyFy channel has exclusive rights to The Twilight Zone running two episodes most weeknights at 2 AM. On the Fourth of July and New Years holidays, they run hours long marathons. Take the opportunity to catch a few episodes on DVR, turn the lights down and curl up on your couch. The stories may be 50 years old, but they are still as mind-tingling and pertinent as anything on TV today.
SEVEN DAYS CLOSER TO HALLOWEEN
A recap of daily Halloween activities.
Thursday
Went to Target to check their always decent Halloween spread. Last year's theme was DOMO, whom I had never heard of until Halloween at Target, but spent most the rest of the year tossing random DOMOs on the end of my sentences. This year was some random monsters who I have also never seen, but I am sure they are big somewhere and I just don't know about it. Very disappointed to see that Jones Soda has gotten incredibly lazy and just carted out the same old flavors from last year. They didn't even bother to change the cans around. Sigh. Bought a few things, but I scoped out much more for November 1 when most things will be half price. I'm looking at you gorilla costume and Elvira's Heavy Metal Halloween.
Friday
I thanked God, but not because it was Friday I thanked the good man above because during my trip to Target, they had an entire shelf stocked with the angelic, soft blue tones covering a little thing I like to call Boo-Berry. That's right, bitches, THE SEARCH IS OVER! Friday morning bought with me a great dilemma, did I eat the Boo-Berry or did I forgo the sweet blueberry bliss of crunchy ghost and marshmallowy…uh, ghosts and keep the box of cereal so I am never far from my blueberry box of hope every again? The verdict? I popped open the box and much happiness ensued. They had tons at Target. I can always restock for safe keepings. In fact, I had two bowls. FYI, there are three different variations of marshmallow ghosts, all blueberry flavored, but I did enjoy the variety.
Saturday
Finished watching Halloween Havoc ‘98 and WWE Classics ON DEMAND. It's their month for "Things That Go Bump in the Fight" month which means lots of Taker, Kane with a little Papa Shango and Boogeyman mixed in. I was initially excited because I thought this was the one with the fantabulous Rey/Guerrerro match, but once the show started, I remembered that was '97. Still need to see that match. I did, however, get excited for a completely different reason (NITRO girls aside) because this is the one that had the infamous Hogan/Warrior II. Can I tell you that this deserve every thing ever said about it. Mix that with a ridiculous Rick Steiner beating Big Show/Scott Steiner by himself to win the tag titles only to lose to Scott Steiner one-on-one five minutes later, Lodi on a PPV card and Sting as a member of now Wolfpac, and this was a pretty horrid card. I enjoyed it though because in a perverse way I miss WCW. I did like the giant gargoyle holding the pumpkin with all the smoke in the aisles. Nice touch.
Sunday
While watching football (including my Colts dismantling of the Seahawks, they without a Hasselback among them), I munched on Halloween themed treats. This included some almost kind of healthy mini-granola variety. This were the chocolate chip Quaker Oats that are about 90 calories a bar. Even better, these dudes are half the size of their year round brethren, thus half the calories, right? If it weren't for those pesky purple, green and black chocolate sprinkles all over them, the 45 calorie theory may have held its ground. Very spooky granola snacks they were. I have never come across angrier ghost packaging that proudly displays the fact that his snacks are 40 % fat free. Mix that with all the lights turned out for maximum effect of my new Halloween candle silhouette type decorations and one of my fantasy QBs, Drew Brees, not throwing a TD pass for the second straight week and we have the makings of one of the scariest Sundays – ever!
Monday
I'm not one to mix holiday traditions. You won't find me with monster eggs to find on Halloween or using an advent calendar to count the days (that's what I have this column for). However, a couple of years ago when they had not taken our Christmas tree down at work by February, we decided we'd make the best of it and decorate it for St. Patrick Day. A tradition was born. Welcome to October's Halloween tree. I helped decorate it with dollar store merchandise. Though Halloween tree decorations do exist, they are insanely more expensive than their Christmas cousins. We did alright without them. There would be a picture of said insanely scary tree, but it should be mentioned that I have a day job at a bank where pictures just aren't allowed should "sensitive documents" get photographed and then used by bad people to steal identities and such.
Tuesday
Got caught up on Branded in the 80s where the author is counting down to Halloween by treating us to his favorite 31 monsters from The Real Ghostbusters. Brilliant!
FIVE RANDOM NOT RELATED TO ANYTHING ELSE THOUGHTS
1. Ah, the three sitcom star. The very question that have teased me and my friends more than a "free webcam" site for the last four years. Some interesting answers, let's take a look.
SHERMAN HEMSLEY – While very successful on The Jefferson and Amen, he only appeared in 15 episodes of All in the Family and was never a regular cast member. Tantalizingly close – welcome to my world.
BILL COSBY – This is an interesting situation because I don't know that we've ever discussed Bill. Obviously, The Cosby Show is one. Here's where it gets tricky. Do we count Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids? I know I said no voiceovers, but he actually appeared live in every episode. Also, Cosby (which would be the third show) fell just short of the 100 episodes (95) or five seasons (4) needed to get for sure syndication. I don't know that it was every syndicated, which is our definition of "successful." We'll have to look into this one.
LUCILLE BALL – Lucy has come up before, and it was a black mark on my record not to include her as I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy were all successes.
JOHN RITTER -- Three's Company for sure. However, Threes a Crowd lasted one season and is usually packaged in syndication packages with Three's Company. Hooperman last just two seasons and 8 Simple Rules three seasons with none of the latter three hitting 100 episodes or major syndication.
RAVEN SYMONE - Even though I never watched it (despite Holly Robinson being smoking hot), Hangin' With Mr. Cooper qualifies as a successful sitcom because it hit 101 episodes in five seasons! What about That's So Raven? Being Disney, I doubt it would every truly get syndicated and it did only have four seasons….but managed to get 100 episodes in. Her participation in The Cosby Show seals the deal. She is a three sitcom star…and one we have never thought of before. Congratulations, RavenTazECW.
Now, if Matlock were only a sitcom, you could add Don Knotts to the list. Oh well.
2. As silly as it may look, I really want to play Brutal Legend. There is no rhyme or reason as to why. I chalk it up to a fringe benefit of Jack Black having sold his soul to Satan back in the 90s. I may have to break down and dip into the next generation of gaming machines. Will they be on sale the day after Thanksgiving? I'm a Playstation guy, but if this Epic Mickey deal comes out on for Wii, that may be a deciding factor.
3. I may make this my official rant spot of the week. When I become President of the World, people who do not use turn signals shall receive life sentences with no parole. I have come down on this from my original stance of the death penalty for such criminals. If you're changing lanes and there's not much, if any, traffic, I'm okay with that. However, if you are jammed in traffic and/or actually turning, it's the lever that makes the little arrows blink on and off. Use it.
4. I have never watched an episode of Jon and Kate. I doubt there will ever be an episode that I do watch, should the show continue in some capacity. I stand firmly against giving people money just because they can pop out an insane number of children. I certainly don't think they should be rewarded with a TV show. However, none of them are really coming out of this looking very good, are they?
5. TV Thoughts:
Family Guy was much better this week. It could be the obsession I had with Kathy Ireland as a young teenager talking, but whatever it is, I definitely liked this week's episode better than last week's.
Let's hope for a long honeymoon for Jim and Pam after this week's wedding episode. I really think NBC missed the boat with this as far as advertising goes. The wedding has had no build up other than Pam asking for money this week. The previous wedding episode (Phyllis's from Season Three) was one of the best episodes in the series. I am hoping that trend continues.
I am woefully behind on Warehouse 13. I am hoping my vacation and Hulu will solve this problem.
This may seem insensitive, but if you marry a celebrity, I think you should take into consideration that said celebrity is going to fool around on you. Was anyone really surprised about the Letterman revelations?
--- Have you ever worn a Halloween costume consisting of a plastic mask that went around your face with a rubber band, a smock with some general picture on it and a trick-or-treat bag? Did you ever trick-or-treat for hours without being hampered by designation trick-or-treat times or nights? Was the most high tech Halloween decoration affordable to your family a series of witch cut outs for your window? If that's the case, it may be time for a little RETRO
Before we get into Halloween RETRO, I'd like to highlight something just as frightening, but a bit less celebrated. For any child of the 80s, McDonalds played a big role in their upbringing. It was cheap, it was fast and it was easy. That basically was the motto of the 80s. With McDonalds advertising almost solely to kids (who would hopefully in turn bug their parents to the point of making them take their kids to McDonalds), the concept of a playground for said kids to play while they enjoy their cheeseburger happy meal was a natural progression.
It should be noted that McDonalds playground have been around since the 70s but where not the convoluted mass of red and yellow plastic tubes, balls and bridges that you see in some oversized room in front of a McDonalds today. The McDonald's playland of yesteryear was one of maximum theming to go with the McDonaldland concept. Instead of the giant plastic aboration, we played on slides that looked like the Hamburgler...
ate at picnic tables under the apple pie tree…
put our friends in the Sheriff Mac jail….
bounced around on these filet-o-fish bouncy things…
slid on Hamburgler slides and everything you, or a bad acid trip could think of. Before the rest of the fast food world and our waistbands caught up to McDonalds, it was okay to be a kid well on his or her way to a life of sore ankles and fat rolls as long as everything on the menu had a place in McDonaldland. From the Apple Pie Tree to Birdie the breakfast menu, Grimace the shake and even these little guys when they were first introduced during the 80s.
What a nice transition. McDonalds Playland to spooky McNuggets Halloween commercial to Kooky Spooks, the inflatable Halloween costume. You have to be pretty old to remember these bad boys. I barely remember anything about them and I am pretty sure that I only remember their hybrid cousins that came a few years after the original Kooky Spooks hit the market. More on that a bit later.
In the late 70s, someone somewhere decided that Halloween was dangerous. The cheapo plastic masks held to your head by a rubber band that would break five minutes after being put on so that you would have to tie a knot in it that was too tight and pray that it didn't break again, was too restrictive on the view and hard to breathe in. My guess is that this was one bossy mom in some Midwestern city that knew how to croon enough to get heard, but that's just a theory. So the Kooky Spook was born.
As you can see by the box, the Kooky Spook offered many an advantage, not the least of which was a reflective piece of tape that allowed for more visibility at night. Apparently, the gigantic blown up testicle atop your head wasn't visible enough. I wasn't quite ready for this version of the Kooky Spook, but unfortunately, I can imagine myself getting ridiculously excited to get away from the $10 all plastic monstrocities and paint my face black to have a beach ball bouncing on my head all night.
I don't know who these girls are, but I am betting they do not list "my picture pops up when one does an image search for Kooky Spook Halloween costumes" as a life accomplishment. I would – anything I can get baby!
I remember what I am assuming is a spinoff line of Kooky Spooks a couple of years later, though I have no proof to back that up at all. There were commercials, however, when I was very young for a Halloween costume very similar to this where the extra head was on your shoulders, giving you two heads. Anyone remember this? It would have to have been much cooler than bouncing the extra head on top of your own. Everyone knows that.
Most people know Wang Chung from their megahit "Everybody Have Fun Tonight." Most people even know of this second hit, "Dance Hall Days" which actually came before "Everybody." Hence, this is a forgotten video and "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" is not. Taking place mostly in an actual dance hall, we are reminiscing about a music video that itself reminisces about the 40s, the heydey of dance halls. What a nice figured disco ball female creature has to do with the 40s, I do not know, but I do know that it gives me an odd sensation where it counts. I think I have found my Halloween costume, kids! "Dance Hall Days" still holds up okay with a catchy beat. Appearing on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack certainly doesn't hurt the ol' pocket book, now does it? You got to love the early 80s mullet that would make several comebacks and yet, somehow never be welcome.
Went to Target Sunday, saw Boo Berry, Franken Berry, and Count Chocula! Heaven!
Have had a little of all 3 the past few days. YUM!
Also enjoyed Family Guy this week. Loved the scene with Quagmire and the "jerk off" arm! Very funny!
Posted By: who6489 (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 12:26 AM
The three sitcom star thing? Kelsey Grammar is currently attempting it, but I don't think he's going to succeed.
Posted By: Guest#8290 (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 12:27 AM
I have never been more scared watching or reading something fictional than I was when I watched "Where is Everybody?" Other favourites of mine are "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and "The Shelter".
Posted By: Guest#1382 (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 12:35 AM
It turns out that you can get all 156 episodes of the Twilight zone on 28 DVDs for about $150 from Amazon. I've been tempted a few times to buy the set.
Posted By: Eric von Erich (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 01:22 AM
must make trip to Target . cereal gooood!!
Posted By: Guest#2079 (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 02:04 AM
Zombies Ate My Neighbors was awesome!
Posted By: PHOENIXZERO (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 05:15 AM
I love Dance Hall Days. Thanks!
Posted By: The Great Capt. Smooth (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 05:39 AM
I find all the hate for Family Guy on this site amusing... as it's obvious from Seth's success that the rest of America doesn't agree.
I think a lot of the hate the show gets is because people still haven't figured out Peter (the least intelligent character) isn't ACTUALLY the center of the show.
Family Guy is all about Brian, Stewie and Lois
Posted By: Guest#8202 (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 08:06 AM
Twilight Zone> Everything else.
Posted By: Q:? (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 08:26 AM
Zombies ate my neighbors!!
"Will they be on sale the day after Thanksgiving? I'm a Playstation guy, but if this Epic Mickey deal comes out on for Wii, that may be a deciding factor."
Actually the price on all three consoles just dropped significantly.. Finally, Epic Mickey was rumored to be a Wii exclusive, but the news about that was taken down almost as quick as it was put up, so it may not be an exclusive yet.
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on October 08, 2009 at 09:33 AM
I re-discovered Boo-Berry a few years ago after a long search. I have to say I was disappointed-they were almost sickeningly sweet.
I also agree on the blinker issue. If you want any proof Americans are lazy/inconsiderate, just consider the fact that some people will not flick their fingers to use the turn signal. Your hand is already likely there, all you have to do is move your fingers a little. I mean, you don't even have to shut it off if you are making a turn.
Posted By: DaveC (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Family Guy has started to piss me off. While I enjoy most of their shows, here lately it seems as though one of the missions of the writers, is to tell people that "having a religion" or "believing in a higher power" is dumb. This week they even had "jesus" say that all religions were just bogus. It is just ridiculous, insulting, and NOT funny.
Posted By: JWestmoreland (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 02:07 PM
"and this was a pretty horrid card"
Uh oh, should this guy expect a plethora of responses threatening to castrate him for not calling HH '98 one of the top 10 cards of all time?
Even though he's pretty much right on all accounts about this overrated show.
Posted By: COTD (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 03:47 PM
"This may seem insensitive, but if you marry a celebrity, I think you should take into consideration that said celebrity is going to fool around on you. Was anyone really surprised about the Letterman revelations?"
Letterman wasn't married when he had a relationship with a co-worker. He just got married this year. Stop making things up. He was a single guy, she was single, they did it a few times, neither of them are upset about it.
The TMZedia doesnt make money off this so they leave out these small details.
Posted By: Dont be a sheep (Guest) on October 08, 2009 at 04:08 PM
