47 Fun Facts About Twilight Zone

On which network did The Twilight Zone originally air from 1959 to 1964?

CBS aired the series from October 1959 to June 1964; the network had wanted a rating of at least 21, and early numbers fell short.

How many seasons did the original series run?

Five seasons ran from October 1959 to June 1964, and the final two were marketed simply as Twilight Zone, without the 'The'.

How many episodes of the original series were made?

Serling, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson between them wrote 127 of them.

Which actor plays the book-loving Henry Bemis in 'Time Enough at Last'?

Burgess Meredith played Henry Bemis; he returned to the series in 'The Obsolete Man' as a librarian sentenced to death by the state.

In 'To Serve Man', what does the alien book of that title turn out to be?

The book is a cookbook: the nine-foot aliens had promised to end hunger and war on Earth, and were fattening humans up to eat them.

What is the name of the towering alien race in 'To Serve Man'?

The aliens are the Kanamits; Richard Kiel, later Jaws in the Bond films, played the visiting Kanamit.

In 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet', William Shatner's character sees a creature doing what?

Bob Wilson sees a gremlin sabotaging the plane's wing, tearing at an engine cowling; nobody else sees it until the torn cowling is found after landing.

Which future Superman director directed 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'?

Richard Donner directed it, the first of six Twilight Zone episodes he made, all in the fifth season; he went on to direct Superman in 1978.

In The Twilight Zone's 'Living Doll', what is the name of the wind-up talking doll that torments Telly Savalas's character?

Talky Tina was voiced by June Foray, who was also the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and of the real Chatty Cathy doll.

In 'It's a Good Life', where does six-year-old Anthony Fremont send people who displease him?

Anthony wishes them 'into the cornfield'. Billy Mumy played the six-year-old whose powers have cut the town off from the rest of the world.

In 'It's a Good Life', in which fictional town has the rest of the world disappeared?

The town is Peaksville, Ohio; the episode came from Jerome Bixby's 1953 short story, which Serling adapted.

In The Twilight Zone's 'Eye of the Beholder', what do the hospital doctors and nurses look like when finally revealed?

Pig-snouted, twisted humanoids surround a patient, Janet Tyler, who is beautiful by our standards; two actresses played her, one bandaged, one unmasked.

In The Twilight Zone's 'The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street', what first sets off the neighbours' spiral into paranoia?

A power outage kills the stoves, cars, phones and even portable radios; the twist reveals aliens on a hill who simply flicked the lights to let the humans destroy themselves.

In the episode about Nan Adams' cross-country drive, what does she finally realise about herself?

The hitchhiker who keeps reappearing along her cross-country drive is Death, waiting patiently for her to catch on.

In 'The Invaders', the tiny spacemen menacing Agnes Moorehead's farm woman turn out to be from where?

The 'invaders' are astronauts from Earth; Agnes Moorehead never speaks, and the only dialogue is the astronaut's radio warning about a planet of giants.

In 'Nick of Time', William Shatner becomes obsessed with what in a small-town diner?

The penny fortune-telling machine, a 'Mystic Seer' napkin holder in a Ridgeview, Ohio diner, answers yes-or-no questions; Shatner's Don Carter cannot stop feeding it pennies.

In 'A Stop at Willoughby', where does the exhausted commuter find himself when his train stops?

Gart Williams wakes in a deserted 19th-century railway car, stopped in sunshine at peaceful Willoughby; Serling called it his favourite story of the first season.

In 'Kick the Can', residents of which retirement home discover the secret of youth?

The home is Sunnyvale Rest; George Clayton Johnson wrote the 1962 episode, which was remade as a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983.

In 'The Midnight Sun', what does Norma believe is happening to the Earth?

Norma believes Earth is falling into the Sun as the heat climbs; the twist reveals the sweltering scenes as a fever dream, and the planet is really drifting away from the Sun and freezing.

Who directed 'The Masks', the only woman to direct an episode of the original series?

Ida Lupino directed 'The Masks' in 1964; she had also acted in the season-one episode 'The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine', making her the only person to both act in and direct the original series.

What was the title of the very first episode, broadcast on October 2, 1959?

'Where Is Everybody?' opened the series on October 2, 1959, with Earl Holliman alone in a deserted town; season two's opener 'King Nine Will Not Return' reworked the same idea.

Which composer wrote the famous dissonant guitar-and-bongo theme introduced in season two?

Marius Constant, a Romanian-born French avant-garde composer, wrote the cues as stock library music for CBS; two of them were spliced together as the theme from season two.

Which composer wrote the original season-one theme, later replaced?

Herrmann, of Psycho and Vertigo fame, also scored seven episodes including the pilot.

What was the plot of the 1957 pilot pitch 'The Time Element'?

William Bendix played a man who dreams he is in 1941 Honolulu, trying to warn of the Pearl Harbor attack; CBS shelved it until Desilu Playhouse aired it in 1958, and its success got The Twilight Zone made.

Which legendary filmmaker did CBS reportedly offer the hosting job to when the show struggled in season one?

He turned it down, and the network reversed course and expanded Serling's on-camera role instead.

Which run of the show was expanded to hour-long episodes?

The fourth season, January to May 1963, ran hour-long episodes: CBS had dropped the show from its fall 1962 schedule, then brought it back mid-season to fill an hour slot.

What did Rod Serling do with his ownership share of the show after it ended?

Serling sold his share of the show to CBS; he did not foresee syndication and missed out on the royalties that followed.

What was the creator's later anthology series, which debuted in 1969?

Night Gallery, hosted by Serling, began with a 1969 TV-movie pilot and ran as a series from 1970 to 1973.

In which upstate New York city did the show's creator spend most of his youth?

Serling grew up in Binghamton, whose park carousel inspired 'Walking Distance'; he was born in Syracuse and later taught at Ithaca College until his death in 1975.

Which teleplay won Rod Serling his first Emmy, in 1956?

'Patterns', a Kraft Television Theatre drama about a boardroom power struggle, won Serling the 1956 Emmy for original teleplay writing and made his name overnight.

Which two producers made the 1983 film Twilight Zone: The Movie?

Steven Spielberg and John Landis produced it and each directed a segment; Landis wrote an original story, while Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller each remade an original episode.

Which actor was killed with two child actors in a helicopter crash while filming Twilight Zone: The Movie?

Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen died in July 1982 when a helicopter crashed during John Landis's segment; the tragedy brought criminal trials and new set-safety rules.

Who developed the 2019 revival of The Twilight Zone for CBS All Access, alongside Simon Kinberg and Marco Ramirez?

Jordan Peele developed the revival with Kinberg and Ramirez; it premiered on CBS All Access and was renewed for a second season halfway through its first.

Disney's Twilight Zone drop ride is set in which fictional building?

The ride is set in the Hollywood Tower Hotel, a fictional Hollywood hotel whose guests vanished when lightning struck on Halloween night 1939; riders board its haunted service elevator.

In which year did the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror open at Disney-MGM Studios in Florida?

It opened on July 22, 1994; a Twilight Zone-themed copy followed at Disney California Adventure in 2004, rethemed to Guardians of the Galaxy in 2017.

Which two writers, along with the show's creator, wrote nearly every first-season script?

The trio was responsible for 127 of the series' 156 episodes.

Which cost-cutting experiment did CBS force on six season-two episodes?

Serling called the result 'neither fish nor fowl'; it saved only about $6,000 an episode and was never repeated.

In 'Number 12 Looks Just Like You', what happens to everyone upon reaching adulthood?

Fashion model Suzy Parker played seven different characters in the episode.

In 'The Masks', a dying man forces his relatives to wear grotesque masks during which celebration?

Jason Foster makes his heirs wear the masks until midnight on Mardi Gras in New Orleans; when the masks come off, their faces have permanently taken on the ugly shapes.

Which FCC chairman praised the show in his 1961 'vast wasteland' speech about television?

Newton Minow, President Kennedy's FCC chairman, listed The Twilight Zone among the few quality programmes on the air in his May 1961 'vast wasteland' speech to broadcasters.

In 'Walking Distance', whom does Martin Sloan meet when he revisits his hometown?

Gig Young's Martin Sloan wanders into Homewood and finds himself as a boy, along with his long-dead parents; his father tells him to go back to his own time.

Which season-five episode was actually a French short film that won the 1963 Academy Award for best short?

'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' was Robert Enrico's French film of the Ambrose Bierce story; producer William Froug bought it as an inexpensive fifth-season filler, and it was left out of the original syndication package.

Which hour-long sitcom replaced The Twilight Zone on CBS's fall 1962 schedule, only to be replaced by it in January?

Fair Exchange, an hour-long Anglo-American sitcom, flopped in fall 1962; CBS brought The Twilight Zone back in January 1963 as hour-long episodes, a format Serling disliked.

Which company replaced Kimberly-Clark as a sponsor when the show nearly died after season one?

Instead of dropping Serling as host, CBS expanded his role by having him deliver an on-camera opening introduction too.

In the radio-drama version of The Twilight Zone licensed in 2002, which actor takes Rod Serling's old role as narrator?

Stacy Keach narrates; producer Carl Amari licensed the rights in 2002, and each 40-minute episode stars a Hollywood name such as Jim Caviezel or Jane Seymour.

Besides the Fourth of July, on which holiday does the Syfy channel traditionally run its marathon of The Twilight Zone?

The marathon runs on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, a tradition the Sci-Fi Channel began in the 1990s alongside the Fourth of July one; episodes are trimmed to fit modern commercial breaks.

Who played the unmasked Janet Tyler in 'Eye of the Beholder'?

Donna Douglas, later Elly May in The Beverly Hillbillies, played Janet Tyler once the bandages came off; Maxine Stuart played her under the bandages.