Another thorough TZ site: http://tzone.the-croc.com/

All time favorites (a few):
Where is Everybody? -To Serve Man -Eye of the Beholder -Will the Real Martian Please Stand up -Time Enough At Last -Living Doll -Kick the Can -Terror at 20000' -Monsters on Maple Street -What You Need -The Lonely -Escape Clause

As a kid I never missed an episode just before going to bed....

What was the title of the TZ where astronauts had landed in the desert of some barren planet (much like we are witnessing in the pics from the Rovers)? They decide to venture off in separate directions seeking anything that may assure them of survival. By the end of the story, they are all ready to give it up. When they reconnoiter, one crewman returns crawling back (near death, unable to speak from thirst and exhaustion). Just before dying, he frantically draws a diagram in the sand of huge alien beings with outreaching arms.

The last crewmen interpret his delirious behavior as a warning of what await just over the next dune. They depart in haste in the opposite direction, back into the vast expanse of the unmerciful desert.

As the camera pans up and away (in that classic last twist of irony that made TZ what it was), you witness the men walking to what will obviously be their doom. You also get a panoramic view of the region.

Over the next dune? The meaning of the designs?

Powerlines and a highway. They had landed back on earth in the middle of a desert.

I have many TZ video and s.s. collections, but this one eludes me!?




[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 03-18-2004).]

I've skimmed through Marc Scott Zicree's "Twilight Zone Companion", and can't find the episode described. Maybe it wasn't a TZ after all.

I've just thought of another episode of TZ that is rather Bradbury: "Nothing in the Dark" by George Clayton Johnson. Old lady is visited by death (embodied by Robert Redford).

This is a story Ray has told more than once. Except, I think whenever Ray tells it, the old lady survives - and death goes away with a flea in its ear. Live forever!

When Johnson tackles the story, death isn't such a bad thing after all, and the old lady goes off with him, arm in arm.

- Phil

Thanks for the link, Phil. Is the old message board by any chance there with the messages still on it? It was the sixth incarnation of the board, and we'd worked it up to a marvelous point when ZAP. Everyone please also check out http://www.tzworld.com/ Eric's site, which provided a very nice haven for us while we were without Matt's site. Matt was cautious and overcautious in returning, removing not only the articles (the initial source of problems) and scripts but even pictures. I think there is an episode guide, but considerably less detailed than the former.

The story you described sounds the most like "I Shot an Arrow into the Air," an episode I haven't seen, but from descriptions I think they come to an even worse end in that. Yours does sound like a TZ though.

Donn Albright named the number of TZ episodes Ray had problems with as four. Two were the pilot, "Where is Everybody?" and "Walking Distance," and another may have been "A Stop at Willoughby," the other in which a Bradbury name is mentioned. I know Serling and Bradbury hashed over the first two and resolved their differences regarding them, but I have never been able to learn the identity of the fourth episode which clinched it all--all I know is some sort of final break occurred sometime between the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 and September of that year, so I guess I should pay especially close attention to episodes from the end of 1961-beginning of 1962 season.

Every time I see an episode with REAL resemblances to an ACTUAL Bradbury story, it turns out to be by someone else. Even the ones most "reminiscent" of Bradbury are usually by friends and acquaintances of his, not by Serling. "Nothing in the Dark" is by far the MOST Bradbury Zone I've seen, with similarities to "There Was an Old Woman" (a phrase even used in the closing narrative) and a close resemblance to "Death and the Maiden," but again, not by Serling, and Bradbury never had a problem with Johnson. (I know--if he remained friends with people who WORKED on the series, why should I worry about just WATCHING the series, so why DO I?)

Obviously writing is a very solitary experience and Ray is self-contained enough that he can take or leave being around people. Rod was not--he NEEDED attention, which he would take in positive or negative ways--he was almost a split personality and the more I read about Rod and about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, well, I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but I got this little voice saying classic case...classic case! Rod, by the way, was an EXTREMELY different personality even from his own brother--he was like from a different planet in some ways! I just see Rod as being tragically flawed to the point that it killed him. Excessive stress, externalized by chain-smoking, finished him off at age 50. You can work up frustration over this but I don't see actual hatred. (And it doesn't seem to be the sort of anger as in the time travel story in "One More for the Road" about the gifted young writer wasting his talent, though some of that does emerge from Serling's biographer.)

I am POSITIVE there were personality conflicts, serious and insurmountable (and the more I read about both, the more I'm glad to speculate on just what) and the objections regarding similarities in the work were just an excuse Ray put up. The Serling biography does give one example of a longtime friend breaking off all contact with Serling, which was entirely due to personality and behavior issues. Rod simply did not relate to people in the way that Ray does, and the way he chose to do things did make certain people very angry! I still can't see such issues defining him as a bad person, or really resenting someone for such things years after they're dead!

Rod: Dog Person! Ray: Cat Person!

Live and let live, I say!

A very fascinating discussion occuring here that deviates from the folder subject, but what the hey. From what I understand, it was the episode that stole from "Death and the Maiden" that was the final straw. Ray was very generous to Rod Serling and he doesn't like to dwell on the negative, so he doesn't generally talk about this. Still....while Sterling cultists will disagree, Serling was a narrative-clepto and Bradbury gave him every chance to come clean and he didn't. Today, Rod Serling is looked at as brilliant scribe of weird tales when, as cool as "The Twilight Zone" was, Serling just ripped a lot of shit off.

Trying to drop in here more often as this place is just darned cool!

[This message has been edited by Sam Weller (edited 03-18-2004).]

Granted, the stuff about Serling. But he did have a great passion and skill for building on ideas and bringing his own soul/demons to them. Let's call him a catalyst without whom we never would have had the Twilight Zone. I've always felt that he ran with a lot of radio writer, Arch Oboler's ideas or - methods. That was his role, that was his path and I don't believe there was any malice involved He just had a lot to say and said it according to his gifts.

The better Serling biography gives a great deal of credit to the influence of Norman Corwin, a dramatist famous in radio days who went on to write books. Besides having a brilliant mind, Mr. Corwin is a fine gentleman and very good friend of Ray's.

Sam, the whole TZ plagiarism thing makes little sense and the MORE I learn the LESS sense it makes! The stories which seemed to have most incensed Ray bear the least resemblances to the sources from which they are supposedly taken. I challenge anyone to watch the episodes and read the stories.

"Where is Everybody?" and "Here There Be Tygers." The only resemblances are that both concern American astronauts, space exploration, and psychological issues--as do nearly countless scores of other futuristic stories going back at least as far as Jules Verne!

"Walking Distance" and "The Black Ferris"--which are both set in America, written in English, and relate to childhood and carnival rides. Ray's story had a ferris while Rod's featured a carousel--and Binghamton DOES have a carousel which Rod loved as a kid! Does this mean that no one familiar with such rides, in their own town or elsewhere, should EVER write about them? I guess I should never write about a ship because of "Moby-Dick"? That is setting--not plot--and even as far as plots, only so many are out there. And, most bizarrely, when the novelization, "Something Wicked This Way Comes," came out AFTER the TV show, Ray changed the ferris wheel to a carousel! What was THAT?

"A Stop at Willoughby"--again, I'm quite familiar with Ray's work and if pressed might find some of his stories with some resemblances, but nothing just leaps to mind.

"Nothing in the Dark" is by far the strongest resemblance, but that was written by George Clayton Johnson (or, at least, aired with his name on it)! Again, why did Bradbury get mad at Serling and never say boo to Johnson?

I will continue to watch TZ and probably continue to be puzzled looking for resemblances which may or may not exist. Any episode of the original "Star Trek" involving beaming down to an alien planet resembles "Here There Be Tygers" more than does "Where is Everybody?" One episode in particular (Trekkers help me out here) where the planet materialized the crew's thoughts--which, in Sulu's case, as I remember, actually WAS a tiger--was VERY much like several stories of Ray's--and yet Bradbury professed admiration for Roddenberry and his work! I've seen resemblances between Ray's and other authors' work which he says aren't there. For instance, I asked if he were influenced by Saki and he said no, it was "all John Collier."

Unless I see much more concrete examples I'll continue to believe that personal dislike was Ray's main problem with Rod. Yes, I am aware that Rod was accused of ripping off other writers, some of whom may have had a case, (open to examples if anyone has any) although even then I really believe it was rarely, if ever, deliberate. I am also aware of the Serling worship on the TZ site, and I happen to find it kinda cute--so SUE me! (Oh, and one more thing--Rod genuinely SUFFERED, physically and mentally, with stomach ulcers, personal problems, and so on, later in his rather short life by feeling he still carried a reputation that was "undeserved"--at least at that point--so I HOPE people are happy!)

Lastly, I understand that Serling saved every scrap of correspondence both to and from himself, (complimentary or otherwise!)--most of which went to two different colleges--and that there WAS written correspondence between him and Bradbury regarding this! Have you seen it, and/or know where a person might go about studying it? I am posting this openly on the board to make it clear I'm not trying to sneak around as regards this--I am REALLY genuinely interested in their OWN WORDS on this subject--and the Serling Foundation has been not much help about who I should ask regarding pursuing this.

I'm not just being deliberately defensive here. My mind was open on this subject--way too open, I'm beginning to think--for about twenty years--until I really began to examine the material for myself and embark on the process of forming a whole new opinion--(that is, that certain Bradbury followers may have sold me a pig in a poke regarding Serling)--the more informed an opinion, the better.

Shore Leave. The episode was called, Shore Leave. Sulu was chased by a Samurai, the tiger was after somebody else. Someone help me please.

I dunno, you seem to be doing fine. Now if someone can tell me why I bother, please do.

The thing is, a certain Bradbury expert, who shall remain nameless here, told me a story which I took to mean that Rod had blatantly ripped Ray off on four occasions, either by adapting Ray's stories for TZ without his permission, which were aired before Ray even found out about it, or knowingly letting someone else do so, and that he as good as admitted it to Ray's face, and that it was to Rod's face that Ray broke off their friendship.

Twenty years later I feel like a chump when I find out the stories were written by Rod (or maybe not even by him--the Johnson one seems closest), weren't even all that similar to Ray's, and most if not all of the confrontation seems not to have taken place face-to-face, but indirectly or through correspondence (which I would dearly LOVE to see!)

Based on this story (which I THOUGHT I heard--and am now not sure whether he told it wrong, I heard it wrong, or partly both) I developed an instant, I won't say dislike but sort of suspicion of Rod, whose work I had formerly admired and liked. Now I feel guilty for feeling that way, although to my knowledge and memory I never mentioned it to anyone in all this time. (By the way, I don't feel at ALL guilty about any suspicion of Hitchcock, which reports have it was not an altogether nice person, but Rod really seems to have tried or at least at heart wanted to be a good person, only to be continually frustrated by serious faults caused by a rather overambitious split personality.)

I've described my feeling as "cognitive dissonance"--that is, I want to like them both each in their own ways--though I will always like Ray better. I'm sure Rod suffered terrible conflict over this. It wasn't a Salieri and Mozart type of thing (as presented in the play--again, not real life). Rod TRULY admired Ray and his work and expressed that admiration to the very last--it's there in his final interview as well as other statements--and yet Ray, good and generous as he usually is, seems not to have one good thing to say about Rod, even thirty years after his death! It just really makes me wonder, what went wrong!?! Sam, if you can shed any light on this in your book, please do so and put a lot of us out of our misery! (George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan know as many details as anyone, but they either don't know the whole story or have never fully told it.)

Maybe I am not meant to resolve this. Perhaps it's more intriguing as an eternal enigma. But if people are trying to convince me to see Serling as a story-stealing snake based on what little flimsy evidence I've seen so far, I'm not buying, and not apologizing for my opinion!

Here again, for Sam's benefit, is an article I posted here before at least once. http://www.rodserling.com/msloan.htm

As a TZ fan once said, Ray Bradbury's story was about a ferris wheel, and the astronaut in "Where is Everybody?" was named Ferris. Call the lawyers!

I don't know the history, but even if there are discrepencies in the story, isn't it possible to appreciate the various gifts each had? Does this have to be categorically resolved? I'm sure Rod Serling is okay with it by now.

There are apparently at least two versions out there -- with only one direct participant alive to discuss it. He's apparently been pretty consistent with his version. I doubt he'll change his mind.

I've had several long converstaions with Ray about the Twilight Zone situation and his relationship with Serling. As a very positive individual, it is something Ray really doesn't like to discuss. The bottom line is that he felt betrayed by Rod. Ray's side, word for word, will be spelled out in my book. I don't want to put it all on here or I would be giving away my fire, as Ray would say!

Dandelion, I haven't seen the TZ episodes you speak of, so I can't comment on the comparisons. I can say that the entire squabble began with the pilot episode. I have also been told by certain nameless Bradbury experts that Serling was sued by several others writers who claimed plagirism. Perhaps Richard (on the board) can run a legal Lexis-Nexis search on this to see if any cases come up? Have you ever looked into this Dandelion? I haven't had the chance. I do know that Serling's letters are at UCLA and at University of Wisc. If anybody lives in those areas and wants to assist, by all means go check them out for all of us. If I get a chance, I'm going to try to drive to Madison, WI in the near future.

Happy Weekend!

Maybe it just boils down to: Great Minds Think Alike. I believe Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Serling both to be great minds cut from the same cloth in the same time period. Like minds also clash. There is also something to be said for how many stories are built around similar themes. Does Dorian Gray (sp?)ring any bells? The Black Ferris/Something Wicked has similar themes. It is this way for every venue of art. Remember George Harrison getting sued for "unconscious plagarism" in the crazy My Sweet Lord thing. Did he really rip off He's So Fine? No. How many times have we heard a story or seen a movie and said, "Oh if I did that I would have done this or that different." or, "Hey! I thought of that years ago." or even, "That gives me an idea." ?

Sam, I did some quick research, and could find no reported case dealing with a suit against Serling alleging plagarism. That does not necessarily mean that such a suit was never filed. Many cases end (via dismissal, decision, settlement and so forth) in the lowest courts and never see the light of day as a reported decision.

This is turning into quite a fascinating thread. If nothing else, Sam's comments above will make me want to buy his book when it comes out!

I have found one (undetailed) reference to allegations of plagiarism against Serling:

" He not only battled with TV executives, but also with other writers. He was accused of plagiarism. According to Dr. Todd Eklof, it was mainly "other writers struggling to succeed in the area of science fiction, [but] one very loud accuser, more than Serling's equal as a successful sci-fi writer, and his fellow Unitarian, was Ray Bradbury." Dr. Eklof adds, "Serling countered that he had never intentionally stolen another writer's work. Indeed, all the suits against him proved unsuccessful, with the exception of one in 1963 which, on the advice of his lawyer, Serling settled out of court for sixty-five hundred dollars." "

This is taken from an article at http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/page.jsp?what=RodSerling&who=Billectric

No reference is given, and I have no idea who Dr Eklof is.

From the article dandelion linked to (which is backed up by Zicree's "Twilight Zone Companion"), we know that on TZ Ray went from being an early insider to being a rejected scriptwriter. I can imagine that seeing Bradbury-like episodes week after week, and yet having his own script rejected, would be enough to instill a little bitterness.

The only place I have found where Ray talks about his experiences directly is in an interview reproduced in full in Steven Aggelis' thesis:
http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11182003-234211/unrestricted/Agge lis_Dissertation.pdf

This is a large document. Probably best to use the "Find" function for the word "Serling".

As for "Nothing in the Dark", which seems to have been the last straw for Bradbury: its writer, George Clayton Johnson, also collaborated on the animated film of Ray's "Icarus Montfolfier Wright". I don't know the precise timing, but this would appear to be around the same time that "Nothing in the Dark" was being produced.

- Phil

[This message has been edited by philnic (edited 03-20-2004).]

Phil, thanks for the archive link. The members are really enjoying it.