The Art of Manliness - Life Lessons From The Twilight Zone

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.820 the twilight zone is arguably one of the best and most influential shows in television history

00:00:15.440 the reason it endures and is still being watched and talked about more than 60 years after its

00:00:19.600 debut can not only be traced to its superior storytelling and innovations in the genres of

00:00:23.740 horror science fiction and fantasy but the fact that each episode is embedded with the lesson

00:00:28.300 on how to grapple with life's moral and existential dilemmas here to unpack those life lessons is

00:00:33.160 mark dowiedziak author of everything i need to know i learned in the twilight zone today on the show

00:00:38.020 mark and i discuss the parable-like morals from a selection of twilight zone episodes drawn from

00:00:42.040 those that are my favorites mark's favorites and simply classic and since halloween is coming up

00:00:47.020 mark and i both offer our picks for the just plain scariest episodes to watch after the show is over

00:00:51.840 check out our show notes at awim.is twilight zone

00:00:58.300 all right mark dowiedziak welcome to the show well thanks for having me so you wrote a book a few

00:01:10.280 years ago called everything i need to know i learned in the twilight zone and this book grew

00:01:15.560 out of i mean you had been you had introduced your daughter to the classic television shows you loved

00:01:20.300 and when she was a teenager you decided it was time for her to watch your very favorite television show

00:01:26.880 which is also one of the favorite shows in my family and that's the twilight zone and as you

00:01:32.060 watch the show together you found yourself discussing life lessons that were embedded in

00:01:37.420 the episodes and realize the twilight zone you know really offers a good guide for life like there are

00:01:43.980 parables and morality plays in the episodes and so you wrote a book about those lessons and i think

00:01:49.320 it's interesting you watch this with your daughter she loved it you mentioned in the book that you've

00:01:54.180 taught classes college classes and when you mention classic television right kids are not they don't

00:02:00.800 know what the honeymooners are anymore the andy griffith show has fallen out of the collective pop

00:02:05.300 culture consciousness but when you mention twilight zone the kids still know about twilight zone my kids

00:02:11.500 they're 11 and they're 9 they're low to watch anything in black and white and i'm like i want to watch

00:02:16.820 this classic movies of black and white no i don't want to watch that but twilight zone they're all over

00:02:22.120 they love the twilight zone so what is it about the twilight zone that gives it such timeless cross

00:02:27.900 generational appeal the twilight zone was is and forever will be great storytelling and you're not

00:02:35.700 asking somebody who is young when you introduce this to them you're not asking them to watch a 90

00:02:41.100 minute two hour movie you're asking them to watch a half hour episode it's easily digested and it has

00:02:47.820 the appeal of sitting around the campfire of let me tell you a story well who doesn't want to hear a

00:02:54.700 story what you know and especially youngsters and you know i discovered the twilight zone when i was

00:03:00.160 very young i discovered the twilight zone when i was not old enough to have seen it in its original run

00:03:06.340 it it ended in 64 i was about seven years old seven going on eight when it ended its run

00:03:13.560 it's always too young for it but but i grew up in new york and a station near wpix channel 11

00:03:21.900 immediately started rerunning the twilight zone and i started watching it at about the age of 10

00:03:29.120 on in reruns and i loved it for the reason probably most kids my age would have first loved it i didn't

00:03:38.080 know there were morality tales in these things i didn't know there was something metaphoric going on

00:03:43.280 behind this i was watching it for the spook out factor it had that same appeal of you know you

00:03:49.800 remember when you were a kid and you try to creep out your friends with those urban legends that

00:03:54.800 everybody knew that always existed everywhere yeah and you know and it always said and the only thing

00:04:00.100 that was left they found the hook on the bumper of the car right you know that those kinds of stories

00:04:05.080 that was the appeal of the twilight zone for me at 10 years old and i loved it you know because i

00:04:11.040 would become a horror fan at seven years old i love the old universal horror movies i loved anything

00:04:17.560 that was was was like that the 1950s science fiction movies about giant creatures sacking major cities i

00:04:25.300 loved it all and here comes the twilight zone and it it gave you a a daily creep out and and and who

00:04:33.420 didn't want that at 10 years old and then when i was a teenager i started watching them and then you

00:04:39.640 start to sense there's something more going on here there's something going on behind all of this

00:04:46.460 sort of creepiness so the twilight zone can hook you when you're very young just as it hooked me

00:04:51.500 as a 10 year old in 1966 it can hook a 10 year old today for the very very same reason it has that

00:04:59.140 wonderful amazing fantasy storytelling aspect to it and why wouldn't it the principal writers were

00:05:06.360 rod serling charles beaumont and richard matheson which you know it's like the 1927 yankees a fantasy

00:05:12.660 storytelling that was was working on the show so that's the the i think that that's the the short

00:05:18.940 answer then you also have great performances you had these these great dialogue written by these great

00:05:25.480 writers and then they handed it to these great actors twilight zone brings a lot of storytelling heat

00:05:30.500 and that's very very appealing to all ages and you can age up with the twilight zone so you can be

00:05:37.320 watching it at 10 and just saying well this is a creepy show i love it then at 13 14 you can start

00:05:42.940 to watch it and realize there's something more and then as an adult you realize these are life lessons

00:05:49.220 that you can carry you know with you all the way through so it's just got a tremendous amount of

00:05:56.320 appeal to it and time you know the proof is in the pudding because we're talking about a black and

00:06:01.820 white show that started in 1959 yeah good yeah good storytelling is transcendent it's like fairy tales

00:06:07.760 we all know these fairy tales and i think people will still talk about the twilight zone 100 years from

00:06:12.780 now i i agree you know and i think one of the things that gives it that sort of intellectual grit is

00:06:20.400 exactly that is you know rod serling figured something out with the twilight zone you know i

00:06:27.040 tell this in the book this is this is and it's no secret anybody who writes about the twilight zone

00:06:31.800 can't get away from the fact that when rod serling started his career in broadcasting radio and television

00:06:38.280 in the late 40s and early 50s television in particular was still the wild west it was a new medium

00:06:45.280 there were no rules they were making it up as they went along you could do just about anything

00:06:50.340 if you could figure out how to do it with no money and no budget and no special effects and no stars if

00:06:57.680 you could figure all that out you could do anything and as the 50s progressed television grew up and by the

00:07:05.680 end of the decade when there were no rules at the beginning of the decade by the end of the decade it was

00:07:10.560 nothing but rules and all of a sudden it was getting harder and harder for rod serling who had made his

00:07:16.480 name as one of the angry young men of television he and patty shayefsky were probably the two leading

00:07:22.800 writers in the era what was then called the the golden age of live drama and by the end of the decade

00:07:30.200 it was getting almost near impossible to get the message out everybody would be was now it was like

00:07:36.000 well the sponsor won't like that the stations in this area of the country won't like that or the

00:07:42.200 censor won't like that and it was it was becoming very very frustrating so rod serling took a calculated

00:07:49.440 risk he fled into the twilight zone and he took a gamble and the gamble was basically i can write about

00:07:56.220 the very same themes i've been writing about realistically all this time all of the great themes of rod

00:08:03.560 serling's career prejudice how we treat children how we treat old people i can write about all of that

00:08:11.400 and the sponsors and the censors will not lift an eyebrow as long as it's couched in fantasy

00:08:18.920 and he he was right if he the twilight zone addresses all of those things and he didn't have any problem

00:08:30.040 getting the message across anymore and you know in the book i call rod a moralist in disguise

00:08:35.300 and that is actually an expression that comes from mark twain and it actually comes from a letter

00:08:40.620 that a little french girl sent to mark twain in the last decade of his life a very perceptive young woman

00:08:48.520 named helene picard who wrote him essentially a note saying i know the world knows you as a funny man

00:08:55.800 but i detect that behind all of the laughter and the humor is a very serious person who's trying to

00:09:02.260 teach us something and mark twain wrote back to this amazing young woman in france a letter which

00:09:08.420 basically said you've got it you're on it you're 100 correct don't tell anybody but i am a moralist in

00:09:20.500 disguise now is there a better description for rod serling than that basically what mark twain did

00:09:27.680 with humor which was mark twain once said that for humor to live it must not professedly teach and it

00:09:36.620 must not professedly preach but it must do both if it will live in other words the moral had to be

00:09:43.620 hidden the moral had to be hidden behind the laughter and so what rod serling did was rod serling used

00:09:50.300 fantasy the way mark twain used humor he hid the message in fantasy he was like mark twain a moralist

00:09:59.400 in disguise and so the each twilight zone especially rods contained what i would call a parable you know

00:10:09.980 now parables are storytelling and it's a great way to teach somebody a lesson while entertaining them

00:10:18.800 and you want to say to yourself now where have i heard that before where have i heard this whole

00:10:24.480 notion of parables uh being moral lessons and you might say oh oh oh you you you mean the new

00:10:32.320 testament you're talking about about christ well actually you can go all the way back to the greeks

00:10:38.340 and aesop you know it actually even goes back farther than that the best way to sort of get

00:10:43.960 every aesop's fable ended with the unsaid words and the moral of the story is and you could say

00:10:52.480 the same thing about the twilight zone right he who has ears to hear let him hear that's what rod was

00:10:58.340 trying to do right right i think that's a good point you make about the twilight zone like he was

00:11:03.460 a moralist in disguise and what i love about the twilight zone i'll watch some other tv shows or movies

00:11:08.620 where it's obvious there's some sort of moral message or philosophical message they're kind of

00:11:13.000 trying to convey but it always feels ham-fisted feels like they're just beating you over the head

00:11:18.260 with it and it doesn't land as much and when i watch the twilight zone i always when i when i'm done with

00:11:24.120 an ep like a good episode of the twilight zone not all of them are great but like a really great

00:11:27.780 episode you you're you're left kind of disturbed and disoriented and like you stew on it for days weeks

00:11:34.860 sometimes i'm there's like episodes i think about just years after i've seen it i'm still thinking

00:11:39.320 about it and i think that's the talent the talent and the expertise of rod sterling those other writers

00:11:45.680 oh so let's dig in some of these lessons from the twilight zone there were 156 episodes during its

00:11:50.940 five season run so there's a lot to choose from so i thought to narrow it down i'm going to focus on

00:11:56.680 the episodes that have had the greatest impact on me and my family so start with two episodes that

00:12:02.340 kate and i my wife we reference quite a bit to each other and it's walking distance and a stop

00:12:08.560 at willoughby and you make the case that these two episodes are part of a character progression

00:12:13.260 and a theme development that certainly began even before twilight zone but let's let's talk about

00:12:19.120 these two episodes first let's talk about walking distance readers digest version of this story

00:12:23.060 what is this oh i guess we gotta we do we gotta do the spoiler alert if you haven't seen the twilight

00:12:27.280 zone you should probably stop listening right now and go watch it and then come back and listen to

00:12:32.960 this so there we go you got your spoiler alert so walking distance what's the readers digest version

00:12:38.100 of this story gig young plays a businessman in his 30s a burned out businessman who is being driven

00:12:46.240 into the ground by the rat race and the new york lifestyle and he is driving and his car breaks down

00:12:53.920 and it happens to break down just about a mile or two from his the town where he grew up and so he

00:13:02.500 leaves the car with the mechanic to be fixed and since he has some time on his hands he decides hey

00:13:08.280 that's walking distance i can walk back to my hometown see what it looks like now and he indeed walks not

00:13:16.160 only back to his hometown he walks into his own past and encounters himself as a little boy and the

00:13:22.920 hometown that he knew then this you know one of the inspirations for this is that every summer rod

00:13:31.020 serling would pack up everything and his family his his wife and two daughters and he would spend the

00:13:36.920 summer on cayuga lake at a the family cottage on the lake and they would spend these idyllic summers

00:13:43.800 he actually got a great deal of writing done during that time and he would always take one day during

00:13:50.080 every summer to go back to binghamton which is where he grew up and that episode is basically

00:13:55.260 about binghamton where he grew up and the park where you can go to today if you ever get to binghamton

00:14:01.980 go to recreation park recreation park rod serling was born on december 25th 1924 recreation park

00:14:11.440 was opened a few months later they grew up together and he had a carousel it had a bandstand it was the

00:14:20.240 idyllic place of summer recollection for rod serling so that episode is extraordinarily autobiographical

00:14:29.160 the character was about rod's age when he was writing it and he was feeling burned out by he had

00:14:36.740 accomplished a lot he had done a lot you know since the end of the war as a writer and he always had

00:14:44.120 this felt this pull on the past the nostalgia of his childhood and that's what that episode is about

00:14:52.040 and it's an amazing i would i would get venture to guess that if you could have asked rod what his

00:14:57.480 favorite episodes were he might have named walking distance and stop at willoughby they are certainly

00:15:04.260 rod's daughter who is also a very fine writer and serling and wrote the forward for my book

00:15:10.000 i think and those are two of and's very very favorite episodes too as well yeah and walking

00:15:16.280 distance so martin sloan he goes back to his childhood and it seems like he gets frustrated

00:15:20.900 because he wants to go back there and kind of recreate it and then everyone there is like who's

00:15:25.540 this weirdo you know this 36 year old man saying that he's this my son who's actually 12 or whatever

00:15:31.740 nine and then his dad finally the martin sloan's dad finally realizes okay i think you actually are

00:15:37.840 my son from the future and his dad said look you know i know you're having it might be hard you know

00:15:44.200 you're having a hard time in your life but you you can't go back you can't live in the past like you

00:15:50.060 have to you have to create those good memories for yourself in your life like this is this is done

00:15:56.060 you have to move on there's an amazing exchange the dad says is it so bad where you are and martin

00:16:03.860 says i thought so and the dad says look around you know you might find you know summers there too

00:16:13.300 and i think that's an amazing you do you have to live in the moment you have to live you can't live

00:16:17.800 in the past you can't you know it's one of the great episodes of lessons of that episode is you

00:16:21.900 you you can't you you can love the past you can appreciate the past but you can't live in the

00:16:28.900 past you know we're doing this interview that was one of my mother's favorite lessons to us when we

00:16:34.280 were growing up you know as we were getting older she always talked about living in your time and

00:16:39.940 living in your moment and not you know living in the past and you know today is my uh is actually

00:16:46.260 my parents wedding anniversary so it has a sort of a pull for me too and then in a stop at willoughby

00:16:54.000 same sort of thing you have this guy in his 30s late 30s super successful but he's just getting

00:17:00.220 beaten down by the rat race and my wife whenever whenever we feel like really busy we always uh you

00:17:06.220 know we got work and then there's kids we got to be out and we're like push push push like the boss in

00:17:09.880 that episode push push push all the way push push push and to escape this this guy goes to this

00:17:16.720 idyllic past that he never actually lived while sleeping on a train on his commute yeah he falls

00:17:24.020 asleep on the train he wakes up and the train is an old-fashioned train and that the conductor

00:17:28.820 is your old-fashioned conductor and he's yelling out willoughby next stop willoughby

00:17:34.780 and he train pulls in and then you know he he awakes and he thinks what was it a dream was it not

00:17:43.080 and as things get worse and worse for him he's determined to get off at willoughby he's determined

00:17:48.700 to to find that idyllic place and it's it's a very very bittersweet episode as we both know because it

00:17:57.240 ends it like a lot of twilight zone it ends in a way that's sort of open to interpretation

00:18:02.880 is what happened what exactly happens is is that a happy ending to willoughby or is yeah

00:18:08.700 no you know right sometimes you're having those moments like i want to get off at willoughby you're

00:18:14.240 like wait a minute no maybe i don't want to get off at willoughby yeah it's a really interesting or

00:18:19.520 is he in a better place do we envy martin you know the last thing we see of martin is he's in this other

00:18:25.800 realm he's in this other place and he's having this sort of huckleberry finn existence that he's dreamed

00:18:31.420 of and again i'm not so sure it is as as downbeat and ending as a lot of people think but it is you

00:18:38.920 know he he did you know one of rod's recurring themes and it is was was how people get used up

00:18:46.360 and we cast them aside and you know he basically talked about business doing that and he'll talk

00:18:52.660 about it again his first great piece for television was patterns you know which was about aired about

00:19:01.040 five years before the twilight zone premiered and patterns sort of addresses this issue of

00:19:06.960 when you've taken all the talent somebody's had and you pushed them to the extremes and they've given

00:19:12.780 you everything they have how do we treat them at that point how do we reward do we just cast them

00:19:17.840 aside as arthur miller says in death of a salesman like a piece of fruit like a dried up thing do we

00:19:23.420 just cast that aside then and you know rod is always sort of talking about that he talks about

00:19:29.040 you know i don't know how many writers in the 1950s into the 60s and even today sort of talk about how

00:19:36.340 we treat people as they get older and maybe they lose a step and you know the twilight zone was always

00:19:44.600 sort of talking they that recurs in a lot of episodes of how we treat aging parents how we treat older

00:19:51.420 people and how we treat the most vulnerable people in our in our society how we treat children that's

00:19:57.120 another theme of the twilight zone that that comes back a few times and i think it's something we all

00:20:02.060 can relate to because you know we we are we pushed into careers we all get pushed hard there's there's

00:20:08.780 always a lot of stress and you know there there is this kind of wow wouldn't it be nice to escape

00:20:16.180 wouldn't it be nice to to go to a place like willoughby oh you know where you can live your

00:20:21.520 life to the full measure as as they say in the episode and i think it's a beautifully crafted

00:20:28.440 episode and what's interesting about those episodes you're not left with solutions about the problem

00:20:33.200 but you're less thinking about and stewing on like well i think like willoughby will come up

00:20:38.140 throughout my life where i'm having a busy moment i'll think about willoughby it's like what

00:20:42.240 what does willoughby got to teach me so i think that's one of the the geniuses of rod sterling

00:20:46.300 um another iconic twilight zone episode is time enough at last give us a summary of the show and

00:20:54.400 then talk about why in the book you said this is like one of your least favorite episodes even though

00:20:58.580 it's iconic so you got to talk about why you don't like it i don't want that to sort of color that

00:21:03.340 because i it's not one of my least favorite because i really like almost everything about it i like the

00:21:08.400 way it's shot i like the glee performance i think it's you know burgess meredith plays a fellow who

00:21:14.040 loves to read he is a teller in a bank and his boss his wife everybody is he's very unpleasant people

00:21:22.060 basically want him not to read they're always trying to stop him from from reading so he spends his

00:21:31.160 lunch break in the bank vault and when he does there is a nuclear exchange the world is destroyed and he

00:21:36.680 is saved he is the last man on earth and he walks through the rubble and he realizes

00:21:44.240 everybody's gone and he even contemplates suicide until he sees the library and he realizes

00:21:52.160 this can be his survival this he can go through eternity there's books forever he can read and he

00:21:59.060 now has time to read there's time enough at last and as he is stacking the books up on the steps of the

00:22:05.180 library the glasses slip his reading glasses slip from his his face and shatter and he picks the

00:22:11.540 glasses up and says that's not fair there was time there was at last there was time enough at last

00:22:17.920 now it's it is probably the most iconic twilight zone episode as far as o henry type of ironic endings go

00:22:27.420 it is probably the most powerful and it has probably the most powerful visual image of the twilight zone

00:22:34.040 the broken glasses so i appreciate it on all those levels but it is an outlier and when i say that is

00:22:41.220 the twilight zone worked according to a certain set of rules and one of the rules was that you were

00:22:47.140 rewarded and punished by what you brought into the twilight zone if you brought in kindness mercy

00:22:54.980 empathy a caring for children and older people if generosity if you brought all of that into the

00:23:02.500 twilight zone you were rewarded for it on the other hand if you brought in greed if you were mean if you

00:23:09.560 were a bully if you brought in all of the nasty aspects of the human existence you were punished for it

00:23:17.180 the fellow in time enough at last to me to my mind did nothing to merit that awful ending you know

00:23:28.200 what is his crime you know he wants to read well how dare he so it's an outlier it's a powerful episode

00:23:36.080 and i and i don't want people to understand that i don't like it but i do think it stands out because

00:23:42.220 it's one of the episodes that does not really play according to the rules of the twilight zone

00:23:47.040 now having said all that i had i could not ignore that episode when i wrote the book

00:23:52.620 and i could not not come up with a life lesson for it and the life lesson was again was was supplied

00:24:01.340 by my mother and the life lesson i put on it which i think is a valid life lesson when we were kids and

00:24:08.460 we there would be squabbles among us as we were five kids growing up and as there were squabbles if

00:24:15.920 if it was not settled to one of us our satisfaction we would say but that's not fair and my mother's

00:24:24.260 favorite expression was nobody said life was fair i hated that when i was a kid i didn't really like

00:24:35.320 it in the twilight zone either but i acknowledge it as the truth life isn't fair and nobody said life

00:24:42.720 was fair and that's what burgess meredith's character says at the end he says that isn't

00:24:50.300 fair and we agree with him it isn't fair so that's you know that's my take on that episode and by the

00:24:58.080 way ann serling uh agrees with that 100 she's another one who who just feels like the you know

00:25:03.920 the payoff is not it does not fit any crime he's not he does not really commit a crime now i've heard

00:25:12.060 people say it's really about the fact that you know he is so absorbed in books he's cut himself

00:25:18.180 off from other people and that is a legitimate interpretation of the story and if that's your

00:25:24.740 interpretation no you can't be wrong in your interpretation i don't happen to agree with it

00:25:29.380 because of how the characters are played the wife may be the most evil person in the whole history of

00:25:37.400 the twilight zone and that's saying something that awful unpleasant who commits one of the worst crimes

00:25:44.160 when she takes his book of poetry and says to him here read some poems for from this for me and he's

00:25:52.780 delighted because he thinks oh she finally gets it she finally understands my love of the written word

00:25:58.360 poetry and he opens the book to see she has defaced every page she has gone to the extent of making

00:26:07.460 every page unreadable i don't know if there is a a more despicable act in the history of the twilight

00:26:16.620 zone than that that's that goes beyond mean so no i don't buy that as far as the explanation but

00:26:26.820 again it's my it's my life lesson and and i think it's a valid life lesson we're gonna take a quick

00:26:32.720 break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show well another episode that kate and i

00:26:41.300 reference again and again to our kids and to each other is a nice place to visit what's that show about

00:26:47.440 what do you think is the the lesson from the show oh well let me back up on that one uh on a nice place

00:26:53.600 to visit why is that one particularly resonant to you okay so i guess we gotta talk about let's do the summary

00:26:59.540 of the show right okay um so you give us you're you're the expert so give us the summary of the show

00:27:04.440 then we'll talk about why it resonates with me it's the episode where it's where the the criminal

00:27:09.240 gets shot you know it's larry blyden it's one of larry blyden's two performances on it and he plays

00:27:16.760 a street thug just as common a criminal as you possibly can have and he gets gunned down during

00:27:23.220 a robbery and and an angel what he assumes is an angel appears who just calls himself pip played

00:27:30.260 by sebastian cabot and he is there to give him every everything he desires everything he he wishes for

00:27:37.600 and he gets the nicest apartment you know women throw themselves at him he got all of his life

00:27:45.620 desires every time he plays a game of chance any gambling he wins every slot machine pays off and at

00:27:52.140 the end he's bored he becomes absolutely bored with the fact that he's got everything he wants

00:27:58.500 and you know he says to the angel that you know he doesn't even understand how he ended up here

00:28:04.580 you know that maybe he should have been sent to the other place and the angel starts laughing and

00:28:11.040 tells him but this is the other place you are in hell and this is going to be your hell so now i am

00:28:20.320 dying to know if you'll pardon the expression there okay i am dying to know why that one

00:28:24.960 so appeals to you and your wife it was the idea that you can't know the sweet without the bitter

00:28:32.660 right or you and yet there has to be like an opposition in all things like if you want to know

00:28:37.440 what hot is you have to know what cold is and we tell our kids when you know life just is you get

00:28:42.180 whatever you want it becomes flat and i think i mean it resonates with us kind of in our this age of

00:28:48.780 you know algorithms giving you whatever you want in terms of content and you can get amazon shipped

00:28:54.440 to your door in a day i mean we're kind of creating worlds like this mobster of ours right you

00:28:59.600 just get whatever you want catered to you and people like my life just feels existentially flat

00:29:05.220 and i'd say well that's it's probably because of this right there's no friction in your life and

00:29:10.120 you need that that's that's our that's our takeaway from it and i agree you know that it goes back to

00:29:15.560 another mark twain quote which is you know mark twain once said something that along the lines of you

00:29:20.220 know happiness ain't a thing in itself you know happiness is just a comparison to something that ain't

00:29:27.260 happy you know that you need both how would you have any gauge as to what's happy if that's all

00:29:32.860 you knew that you have to have misery in your life you have to have tragedy in your life to understand

00:29:38.680 what happiness is there has to be a country so yes that is true and i think that's one thing that

00:29:44.800 that that's true about the whole twilight zone is that the twilight zone was very good at sort of

00:29:51.420 blending light and dark you know nothing ever works you know darkness is always pierced by

00:29:58.580 by light in the twilight zone and the flip side of it is that darkness is always lurking there no matter

00:30:04.960 how light you think something is and you know it's interesting because it's a black and white show

00:30:10.180 so the contrast works extraordinarily well in the twilight zone but that's you know the episode

00:30:17.620 and i put one of the lessons the more obvious lessons i put on a nice place to visit was that

00:30:23.480 if something is too good to be true it probably is yeah and i think that that's entirely you know

00:30:32.200 every day you know and and and as your kids get older they're going to have to be even more wary of

00:30:39.060 this than we are every day there are scammers out there you know trying to find a way in by presenting

00:30:46.860 something that looks too good to be true and they've become very sophisticated about this

00:30:51.620 and they're getting better and better at it and everywhere you look there are people who are

00:30:58.320 basically trying to present something which is too good to be true and the twilight zone told us

00:31:04.140 very early be wary of anything that's too good to be true you know if it looks too good it probably

00:31:10.920 is too good and so you know there's there's sort of that too you know i mean i think that that's

00:31:17.740 a sort of just because one of the great also things about the twilight zone is there is always

00:31:22.700 multiple lessons you can put on and interpretations on you can put on twilight zone and my interpretation

00:31:29.060 may not agree with your interpretation which is good because you know you're bringing your life

00:31:34.740 experience your belief systems your to the episodes that you you watch so your interpretation of a

00:31:42.900 twilight zone probably won't always be the same as mine you know that's the great thing about

00:31:48.920 metaphoric storytelling a primary example of this is the first chapter of the book that i wrote

00:31:54.280 it's not the first chapter in the book it's the chapter i wrote is the sample chapter to sell the

00:32:00.140 book to the publishers and it was the one on to serve man yes again that's another one yes we love

00:32:08.380 that episode yeah and you know i i think i put maybe you know seven or eight different interpretive

00:32:16.620 lessons in that chapter you know that it could be you know some of them were funny and a little flip

00:32:21.960 and some of them were more profound but they're all in there there it's not like any one of them is

00:32:27.420 illegitimate as a possible interpretation of i think you know the the main one i put on it was

00:32:33.820 never judge a book by its cover and that was somewhat being a little humorous with it but it

00:32:39.640 could be viewed as as basically a retelling of the trojan horse you know you could very easily just just

00:32:45.760 watch that episode that way but again there's some episodes which you could look at and you could

00:32:51.920 easily come up with uh five or six different interpretations for them yeah to serve man so

00:32:57.940 it's similar to that you know if something's too good to be true it probably is so the the story

00:33:02.540 there is aliens come to earth and they basically said humans we're going to give you everything we

00:33:07.560 want there's this book says to serve man on it and we're going to give you everything you want

00:33:11.720 you can go to this planet and you're going to be fed you're going to live for it's going to be great

00:33:16.060 and then at the end they find out like there's these decoders who are trying to decode the alien

00:33:20.480 language and they finally realize to serve man is it's actually a cookbook to it's it's a recipe

00:33:27.500 book on how to serve man to these aliens to eat right and the candidates is the the name of the race

00:33:35.240 and and again they they they arrive promising peace and prosperity and an end of hunger and an end of

00:33:43.460 drought and all this is like you know there it is if that ain't too good to be true i don't know what is

00:33:48.600 another episode you mention a lot in the book is mr beavis and when we initially watched this one

00:33:55.860 we didn't like it like my wife and i didn't like it and i think it's probably because like we're

00:34:00.120 probably too much of practical squares but you know mr beavis his just his weirdness kind of it

00:34:06.360 annoyed me and i kind of felt like he needed to get his life together like get a steady job you know

00:34:10.820 just act quit acting like an oddball but after stewing about this episode for a while

00:34:16.420 i've come to appreciate the lesson from the show so talk about what is what's the story of mr beavis

00:34:22.460 and what do you think the lesson is and why did you you seem like you were you're drawn to that one

00:34:27.160 quite a bit yeah i am actually mr beavis is um uh he's an oddball he is an eccentric he played by

00:34:35.460 orson bean he likes all these this this strange stuff like zither music and you know it's odd because

00:34:42.480 one of the things they say he likes is like he likes the works of charles dickens and it's like

00:34:46.120 why is that so odd you know you know maybe in 1959 1960 somebody you know drawn to an author from the

00:34:55.180 previous century seemed odd i don't know but he's out of step with the world he's out of step with

00:35:01.720 what the world is supposed to be like for a young man in around 1960 and he's out of step at work

00:35:08.820 he's considered you know but the children love him because he is this kind of grown child himself

00:35:14.860 so the children of the neighborhood love him his co-workers love him because he is his boss hates him

00:35:20.480 but the co-workers love him because he is he is warm and he is funny and he is he is an accepting

00:35:27.920 down-to-earth person and and and it'd be tough not to like him you know if you encountered him as

00:35:33.120 your co-worker or such and an angel played by henry jones appears and basically on the worst day of

00:35:40.680 mr beavis's life says you can have anything you want he offers him whatever he wants and of course

00:35:47.100 everything the angel gives him makes mr beavis more and more unhappy because it takes away the lifestyle

00:35:54.580 that he was happy you know he was not successful but he was happy and he understood what it meant

00:36:02.400 to be happy and that did not mean position and money and power and all of those things and at the

00:36:10.280 end the angel sort of understands this and restores his life to the way it was i think you know among

00:36:16.240 twilight's own fans this is not considered a favorite episode this would probably come out very low

00:36:21.060 it also falls into the category of the fact that there's a general consensus that rod's comedies

00:36:28.060 were not as strong as his other types of stories on the twilight zone by and large true although he

00:36:33.820 did write a couple of really good comedies and i you know mr garrity and the graves is a sterling

00:36:38.940 example of how he could write comedy and be successful with it but this one you know i think people

00:36:44.900 thought it was a little bit and i would have to say you know one thing i want to say is one thing i did

00:36:49.140 not do in the book was i treated these episodes for the the metaphoric storytelling not so much the

00:36:57.580 quality of them you know would i rank mr beavis among the finest twilight's own episodes of all time

00:37:03.840 no i would not do i like the message oh yeah i like it a lot i i do maybe because i you know i feel

00:37:12.920 like you know that's kind of one of my roles in life is that i've always been a little bit out of step

00:37:17.820 i have not lived my life in step with with me and that also it does make you a bit of an outsider

00:37:24.200 and you are going to be rewarded for that i would always tell you to tell my students i can't state

00:37:29.540 this you know is that uh there's a price to be paid for living life in your own way and there are

00:37:37.680 rewards for it and you know hopefully the rewards will outnumber the the drawbacks to living you know

00:37:46.660 a life that is not prescribed so yes i do like the the message of that episode a lot

00:37:52.600 another theme you see throughout the twilight zone is this idea of recapturing the magic of childhood

00:37:59.040 so i think the mr beavis kind of plays on that a bit but one episode that really captures it is

00:38:04.640 kick the can yes summarize this episode and and how has this episode helped you reconnect with

00:38:10.860 the magic and playfulness of childhood well ernest truex plays who is a wonderful actor and he's also

00:38:17.460 in another of the what you need as the the peddler who can always give people what they need out of

00:38:22.960 his box of goodies but you know he plays in the resident of an old folks home and it opens he thinks

00:38:30.380 his son is going to come and take him home and the son arrives to tell you basically there's no room

00:38:35.960 he's misunderstood him he has to go back into the old folks home and he sees a bunch of kids playing

00:38:44.480 kick the can and it starts him thinking that maybe you get old when you start to think you're old

00:38:51.340 you get old when you stop playing and he sort of thinks maybe the secret of life is kick the can

00:39:00.280 what if all of the residents could all play kick the can one night could they recapture their youth

00:39:07.580 could they recapture the magic of youth and his best friend tells him you know you're old you're

00:39:13.700 going to break a bone what's the matter with you you're acting like a fool and you know there's an

00:39:18.760 old saying you get old when you stop playing games not you know you you you basically when you you're not

00:39:24.420 in touch with your youth you know that you're you do you know you're no longer mentally young

00:39:29.900 and he tries to convince his friend to have an open mind and play kick the can and the friend refuses

00:39:35.880 and of course it works and the the residents are all transformed into children except his best friend

00:39:43.640 who pleads with the children take me with you and it's it he they they run off because they don't

00:39:50.600 recognize him anymore and i think that that is a it's a powerful episode it really is and it's not

00:39:56.220 a rod serling episode it's a george clayton johnson the writer who contributed to the twilight zone who

00:40:01.500 was closest to rod's philosophy and view of life i think was george clayton johnson and that episode

00:40:09.560 really it's a beautifully performed it's it's just a wonderful cast and this notion that we now say you

00:40:19.000 know you need to be in touch with your inner child you need to be you know and i i agree with that you

00:40:23.500 know it's just it's it's a difference between valuing the inner child and not being childish

00:40:30.220 you know it's not not living your life in a childish way but never to lose sort of the childlike wonder

00:40:37.640 that you had and i think that's that's very much what that episode is about it's not just about how we

00:40:43.900 treat the older people in our lives that's certainly part of it but there's another part of it which

00:40:50.640 talks about you know the magic of retaining gk chesterton who is a wonderful writer and i've always

00:40:58.700 loved reading chesterton you know um chesterton once said that nobody achieves greatness who does

00:41:06.160 not hold on to something of the nursery i think that's a wonderful quote i think that's just

00:41:10.900 wonderful thing is that if you really do lose all sense of of that you will never really achieve

00:41:18.840 genius and greatness and i think that's i think that's true so we've been talking about the

00:41:24.340 philosophical life lessons from the twilight zone but as you said at the beginning the show also has

00:41:29.180 a creepiness factor that can be enjoyed in and of itself so with halloween coming up what do you think

00:41:35.680 are the scariest twilight zone episodes well what scares you is an extraordinary i'll ask you the same

00:41:42.420 question because what scared you is one of the most individual of responses anybody can have i think

00:41:49.760 this is like a rorschach test you know what the scariest episode of the twilight zone for me it comes

00:41:54.540 down to two the two episodes that i found the scariest and i would not put these among the the

00:41:59.120 very very very best twilight zone episodes if i was making a list of the very very best i would not put

00:42:03.180 but i would put them at the top of the list of the scariest one is 22 yes about the performer in the

00:42:10.040 hospital and she falls asleep and she dreams every night that she's following a nurse down into the

00:42:17.860 elevator down to the basement and there is a room that says 22 and it is the morgue and this the creepy

00:42:27.260 nurse comes out and says room for one more and she goes off screaming you know and she finally is

00:42:35.100 declared well and she goes to catch a plane at the airport and the flight number is 22 and the boarding

00:42:44.720 attendant is the nurse the creepy nurse and as she comes up with her ticket the creepy woman says room for

00:42:53.560 one more and she goes screaming off and it's what saves her because the plane bursts into flames on

00:43:00.520 takeoff i thought that was an incredibly scary episode i did it 10 years old and i still find it

00:43:07.560 pretty unnerving the other is the ring-a-ding girl uh which is an odd one to say but again it also has a

00:43:13.560 plane crash in it and i'm not really i'm not afraid of flying i've never i've flown my entire life i've never

00:43:18.560 been flying but i think that has an unnerving quality because it's about a an actress a successful

00:43:24.580 actress a star who is flying to a next job she's coming from europe and her fan club has sent her a

00:43:33.040 ring a very ring with a large stone and in the stone she can see people from her hometown pleading for

00:43:39.540 her to come home the next thing we see is that she's home and she decides to put on a concert at the

00:43:46.400 local high school auditorium where she had first appeared and a lot of people are upset about this

00:43:53.360 because there's a picnic there's the annual picnic and she goes ahead with the the concert

00:43:59.200 and a plane crashes into where the picnic was and countless lives have been saved because of her

00:44:06.700 promising to do this concert at the high school and you later find out she was on the plane

00:44:12.140 so it is it's got that wonderful twist ending it's got that what did we just see quality to it but i

00:44:20.980 think it's there's just something very very creepy about that episode too that always it always got to

00:44:25.120 me so those are mine what are yours okay so two have something in common it's the first two are the

00:44:33.160 living doll with talky tina sure creepy and then similar to that is the dummy also terrified i think

00:44:40.920 just i think it's a creepy thing like inanimate objects becoming alive creepy and then the other

00:44:45.580 one i would say it's a good life with the kid who can like think people dead basically that that's

00:44:52.220 the cornfield right it's in the cornfield yeah right well those are all good choices you know and

00:44:59.560 and i again i think it always goes back it probably you end up telling us a lot more about yourself than

00:45:05.020 you do the twilight zone when you answer that question so this is a good episode so if you're

00:45:08.700 looking for a scare for halloween 22 sure ring a ding girl the living doll the dummy and it's a good

00:45:15.860 life or great ones to creep you out i'm curious so those are the things your scariest episodes what

00:45:21.400 are you if for someone who's ever watched the twilight zone before what three episodes would you

00:45:25.820 recommend starting with i think to this day if you look at the the twilights and there are some

00:45:32.120 episodes which have have not dated well but there are some episodes which actually have grown in

00:45:38.940 resonance and i think the one episode that has probably grown more in resonance than any other

00:45:43.200 is the monsters are doing maple street first season episode about a you know idyllic suburban street

00:45:52.120 maple street where the neighbors all know each other and are all know each other's

00:45:57.860 kids and and and life is good on maple street and on a beautiful summer evening just as people are

00:46:04.880 getting ready to fire up the barbecues and the ice cream truck is going down the street something

00:46:10.880 flies overhead and then nothing works on maple street it doesn't matter whether it's run by gasoline

00:46:17.500 or electricity or whatever the phones don't work the cars don't work like you know the lights don't

00:46:23.800 work and they start to wonder what was it you know what did what that whatever what was it a meteor what

00:46:30.340 was it and as a teenager a young kid says you know that this is how it happens in the stories what

00:46:37.860 stories they you know send ahead a family that looks like us you know and the what went overhead was a

00:46:44.540 flying saucer and that maybe one of the families that live on the street are not who they say they

00:46:51.300 are so they everybody starts to look at each other with suspicion and doubt and all these people who

00:46:57.820 were the best of neighbors just a little while ago now are sort of looking at each other with a new way

00:47:04.460 maybe maybe these people are not now obviously rod serling was writing about the 1950s and the era

00:47:12.260 the period we had just come through the mccarthy era the red scare when people started to look at

00:47:18.760 their neighbors as you know there was a communist hiding in everybody's closet and under everybody's

00:47:23.800 bed and maybe they were the family next door and rod was clearly writing about the price that we would

00:47:32.280 pay as a nation if we went down this path of fearing and distrusting our our neighbors and our fellow

00:47:40.040 citizens well that message has just gotten bigger and bigger as we've become more and more divided as

00:47:45.740 a nation i mean it's become a cliche to say we are more divided now than at any time since the civil war

00:47:51.460 i don't know that that's true there have been many times we've been very divided people don't really

00:47:56.580 know american history as well as they should especially the people who espouse it but it is clear we are

00:48:03.140 at a point where the the message of that story is very very profound because what rod was basically

00:48:11.880 saying was what lincoln tried to tell us which is that a house divided against itself cannot stand

00:48:19.720 and rod added to that if we do not find a way to talk to each other to have a discussion a real

00:48:27.460 discussion without mistrust and fear and paranoia of creeping into it if we do not find a way to get

00:48:33.400 around that we ain't going to make it folks you know at the end rudd's narration comes in at the end

00:48:40.180 where he says that destruction does not always come with bombs you know that there are there are other

00:48:48.940 weapons there are weapons such as fear and mistrust and that is going to be our undoing it says you know

00:49:00.940 so i think that that's that would be number one on my list of episodes that people should watch if they

00:49:09.860 really want to know what the twilight zone could do at its finest with that i would add an episode called

00:49:15.260 the obsolete man which also stars burgess meredith and also to me is a is he as a much better episode

00:49:23.920 the time and if it lasts because i think the most heroic character in the twilight zone is the character

00:49:30.120 played by burgess meredith and in in the obsolete man he plays romney wordsworth a librarian dickensian

00:49:38.660 name wordsworth you know serling is obviously trying to make a comment with this character

00:49:45.180 name the story is set in a futuristic society and the books have become banned the written word has

00:49:54.560 become banned and the only thing that is allowed is what is prescribed by the state and fritz weaver

00:50:00.320 plays the authoritarian symbol of the state and romney wordsworth has been declared obsolete

00:50:08.540 he's been he's been he's a librarian he does not deny his love of the written word and the books

00:50:18.820 and he proudly states that he is a librarian and since there are no more books hence no more libraries

00:50:25.860 there is no need for romney wordsworth and he is declared by the state to be obsolete

00:50:31.860 and he can choose the method of his execution so he asks for a bomb to be placed in his apartment

00:50:42.680 to go off at a certain time and he invites the fritz weaver character to his apartment and he locks him in

00:50:53.620 and his death is going to be televised and we get to see how romney wordsworth greets death and how the

00:51:03.700 representative of the state greets death and it's an amazing episode the lesson which serling says later

00:51:12.020 you know that any civilization any society that does not value the individual is obsolete that state is

00:51:21.240 obsolete so there's a wonderful message about the worth of the individual the worth of reading the

00:51:29.720 worth it's the almost the opposite of time enough at last because this celebrates the importance of the

00:51:36.560 written word so i love the obsolete man that's one of my all-time favorite episodes monsters are doing

00:51:42.840 maple street and with that i would probably add um walking distance as probably if i was going to say

00:51:50.040 three episodes that everybody should watch those would top my three okay those are good ones well mark

00:51:56.760 this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work

00:52:00.120 well i have a website which is marknewitziak.com i have a facebook page i'm always ready to interact

00:52:07.980 with twilight zone fans i'm one of the easiest people to find online and otherwise so i always welcome

00:52:14.540 that the book is available through amazon.com it's been there and hopefully this will uh increase

00:52:21.420 a little interest will increase a little bit because 2024 will mark the serling centennial

00:52:27.180 and and i'm on the uh the board of the rod serling memorial foundation in bangampton new york

00:52:32.860 and one of the things we are trying to do and hopefully we'll do either you know next year but certainly

00:52:38.400 hopefully in time for the centennial year is get a statue of rod erected in recreation park in

00:52:46.160 binghampton brett and i would just strongly recommend to any twilight zone fan if you have not been to

00:52:52.420 binghampton it's a wonderful pilgrimage and recreation park is sort of the heart of the whole thing

00:52:58.060 and recreation park by the way still has a carousel and the carousel you can ride the carousel for free

00:53:05.960 as many times as you want and around the top of the carousel are panels paintings and each one depicts

00:53:16.900 a scene from the twilight zone and they're by a very wonderful artist named cortland hoe and so there's

00:53:24.420 a bandstand and in the middle of the bandstand there's a gold disc which has been planted in the

00:53:31.520 middle of the bandstand and all it says is rod serling walking distance so get to the bandstand

00:53:39.940 and get to the carousel because it is your own way of experiencing walking distance

00:53:48.160 well mark dowidziak thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:53:50.800 oh my pleasure my guest is mark dowidziak he's the author of the book everything i need to know i

00:53:57.040 learned in the twilight zone it's available on amazon.com you can find more information about

00:54:00.740 his work at his website mark dowidziak.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash twilight

00:54:05.500 zone where you find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:54:08.360 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:54:52.120 put what you've heard into action

00:54:56.840 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

Life Lessons From The Twilight Zone

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