The Twilight Zone
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The Twilight Zone
@thenightgallery.bsky.social
Fan of the Twilight Zone? Join me, Rod Serling Memorial Foundation board member Paul Gallagher, for daily quotes and facts from TZ, Night Gallery, and Serling's other works.

On X as @TheNightGallery and at thenightgallery.org.
January 3, 1964: Twilight Zone's "You Drive" airs. A man guilty of a fatal hit-and-run accident finds that his car is determined to reveal his crime.

Scripted by Earl "The Waltons" Hamner. Stars Edward Andrews.

He's being chased by a 1956 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan!
January 3, 2026 at 10:25 PM
When Twilight Zone returned for Season 4 in January 1963, its name had changed, technically speaking. The "the" from Seasons 1-3 had been dropped.
January 3, 2026 at 8:25 PM
January 3, 1963: Twilight Zone’s fourth season debuts as a mid-season replacement (now at an hour-long) with Charles Beaumont's "In His Image," about an inventor who quite literally reinvents himself.

Stars George Grizzard (from Season 1's "The Chaser").

#S4E1
January 3, 2026 at 6:25 PM
Well, the books are almost closed on the 2025-2026 Twilight Zone marathon. Whether you watched on Syfy, H&I, or if you made your own marathon with streaming or discs, I hope you've had a nice time!

It'll wrap up on Syfy with "Nothing in the Dark" at 6am EST. #RIPRobertRedford
January 2, 2026 at 9:55 AM
"This is designed for the reasonably impressionable among you who find nothing to laugh about when somebody mentions the words 'black magic.' John Dehner stars in another small excursion into the darker regions of the imagination."
— Serling next-week promo for TZ's "The Jungle"
January 2, 2026 at 9:40 AM
"When you got to do The Twilight Zone, it was a class act all the way."
— actor Ben Cooper of TZ's "Still Valley"

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 9:10 AM
"Well, they did it. They shot him down. I never thought they'd do that to Pinto Sykes. Not that easy."

#S3E7

James Best joins an all-star cast in Twilight Zone's "The Grave," including Lee Marvin, Strother Martin, Lee Van Cleef, and Stafford Repp.

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 8:40 AM
"Most of our stories are a little far out. This one is very close in."
— Serling next-week promo for Twilight Zone's "The Shelter"

#S3E3 #TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 8:10 AM
"The Obsolete Man" marked one of the few times that Serling did his closing narration on-camera. He obviously wanted to underscore his message here.

And don't miss these lines that he wrote for the episode, but were never filmed: buff.ly/4gwY1OX

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 7:40 AM
Shelley Berman of TZ's "The Mind and the Matter" was a famous stand-up comic at the time. You can find some of his bits on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=npuA...

#S2E27 #TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 7:10 AM
In an earlier draft of Twilight Zone's "The Silence," Serling had Taylor resort to a more physical form of intimidation to get Tennyson to give up on the bet: by turning the thermostat way up.

The scene, however, was never filmed.

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 6:40 AM
"It was a very good script. I was so fortunate to play Fats."

— Jonathan Winters on his role in "A Game of Pool," which he called "probably the best dramatic piece I've done."

Written by George Clayton Johnson. Also stars Jack Klugman.

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 3:40 AM
"The entire set was constructed so it could be tilted. In the scene when we stand on each other's shoulders, the tube was tilted so we wouldn't hurt each other."

— William Windom (the Major) on filming "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" #S3E14

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 3:10 AM
"I think that 'Eye of the Beholder' is probably the most difficult director's job that came down the pike."

— Douglas Heyes, who directed this episode and several other classic Twilight Zones

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 2:40 AM
"I looked out and the clouds looked like snow banks. I thought, 'What if I saw somebody skiing out there?' In thinking about it more intensely, [I realized] it would not make for a very scary story. So I put this THING on the wing."
—Richard Matheson on "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
January 2, 2026 at 2:10 AM
Serling's script for "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" originally called for the Venusian to have two extra eyes, not one.

The original name of the episode was "Nobody Here But Us Martians." Before that: "Night of the Big Rain."

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 1:40 AM
Agnes Moorehead "chose to play the part like an animal under attack. Her performance got more and more animalistic as she was being attacked."

— Douglas Heyes, director of "The Invaders"

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 1:10 AM
"That alien has become one of my most famous roles, but it's not my favorite. I prefer the ones where I get to act, not the ones where I was hired to just walk around, looking big and scary."

— Richard Kiel on Twilight Zone's "To Serve Man"

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 12:40 AM
"I recognized the moral was we are our own worst enemies — as we have found out [again] in the last couple of years."

Jan Handzlik (Tommy) recalls filming "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street": thenightgallery.wordpress.com/2020/03/13/t...

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 2, 2026 at 12:10 AM
"I don’t think I’ve ever done any other project that people talk to me more about than that show. Roughly every two or three months, someone comes up to me and mentions Time Enough at Last." -- Burgess Meredith

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 1, 2026 at 11:40 PM
While they were filming the father’s plea to save his son in "Long Distance Call," it became obvious it wasn't working. Here's how it was quickly rewritten: buff.ly/4fBNh0k

One of 6 eps in Twilight Zone's second season that CBS pushed Serling to videotape to save money.
January 1, 2026 at 11:10 PM
"Think of all the money you've won—enough to last you for the rest of your life. Can't you leave well enough alone?"

Twilight Zone's "The Prime Mover" stars Christine White, but most fans know her better as Bob Wilson's wife in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 1, 2026 at 10:40 PM
Serling drew the title for "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Arrow and the Song."

He based his script on an idea pitched to him at a dinner party by Madeline Champion, a family friend. She was paid $500.

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 1, 2026 at 10:10 PM
"I was thrilled to be doing [The Twilight Zone] because it was one of the most popular shows on the air at the time — and rightly so, with its wonderful scripts."

— Jacqueline Scott, "The Parallel" #S4E11

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 1, 2026 at 9:15 PM
"If you change the past, who knows what you do to the present?"
— unused line from an early draft of TZ's "No Time Like The Past"

#S4E10

Written by Rod Serling. Stars Dana Andrews.

#TwilightZoneMarathon
January 1, 2026 at 8:15 PM