Don't Touch That Dial
We look back on classic TV shows and discuss the shows and stars that made watching TV before streaming, DVRs, and VCRs a whole lot of fun.
Don't Touch That Dial
The Twilight Zone
Happy Halloween! This episode takes us to Rod Serling’s series The Twilight Zone, which redefined science fiction and horror on TV. We explore how its storytelling, social commentary, and unforgettable twists continue to unsettle TV audiences decades later.
Welcome to season three of Don't Touch That Dial, a classic TV pocket. So join us as we remember the shows that made watching TV in the days of antennas so much fun.
Anthony Stoeckert:Grab your remote and get ready for some fun and laughs.
Keith Loria:And remember, Don't Touch That Dial.
Anthony Stoeckert:Hello, TV fans, and welcome to a very scary and suspenseful episode of Don't Touch That Dial, a classic TV podcast. This week we are entering the Twilight Zone. I'm Anthony Stecker.
Jody Schwartz:And I'm Jody Schwartz, and I'm Keith Alaurea.
Anthony Stoeckert:So it's Halloween time, and we thought it would be that's why we thought it would be fun to talk about the Twilight Zone. But at the same time, we also thought uh we would share a uh Halloween memory or two, if we can think of any, because we just came up with this idea like 10 seconds ago. Jody, you raised your hand.
Jody Schwartz:Yes, one just did come to mind, and it's nothing spectacular, but it it's amusing. Uh when I was in the eighth grade, I was going to a uh a costume party. A friend of mine was having a party. I don't remember if it was actually on Halloween or around Halloween, but he was having a costume, she was having a costume party, and I decided I was gonna dress up as Tom Sieber for uh for this uh costume party.
Anthony Stoeckert:What grade is this again?
Jody Schwartz:Eighth.
Anthony Stoeckert:Eighth, okay.
Jody Schwartz:Eighth grade. And I had a Met jersey, and I uh I I I didn't have like regular Met pants, but I did have the baseball pants from Little League. And so I wore those and I wore my Met hat. And then my father ruined it for me because he said, Well, you know, you're not left-handed. You're you're left-handed, you're not right-handed. Come on, I'm a left hand. He's like, It's gonna, I'm like, oh my god, it's gonna look he should have been Jerry Kuzman with John Matlock. Well, that that was I actually since switched it to that because uh the jersey I had did not have a name or a number, it was just it was just a Met jersey. It didn't in those days it was not easy to get uh jerseys with players' names on it. Like maybe get one anywhere in those days, so it was just a generic Met jersey. And yeah, I actually then said, Yeah, I'm Kuzman. I switched on the fly.
Anthony Stoeckert:This isn't uh this just reminded me of this, and it doesn't really have anything to do with what we're talking about, but um I don't want to say who it is, Jody, but it's someone you and I knew who I worked with, and um sadly he passed away a couple of years ago. But he he threw lefty and batted righty, or vice versa, on like in Little League, and he could not get over Field of Dreams how they got Shulish Joe Jackson wrong. Yeah, and like you couldn't talk about the movie with him. He just and and it's like, but it's such a good movie. I don't care what side of the plate Shulish Joe is batting from. I'm like, and maybe there's some sort of mysterious thing about it, and he's like, No, they're like it's just he just couldn't take it. Maybe in heaven or whatever this world that they were coming from, that's where the legitimate he would he would not accept that.
Jody Schwartz:I actually remember being out with you and this person and him saying that.
Keith Loria:But he but he accepted that dead people just came in from a cornfield.
Anthony Stoeckert:That was probably the rest of it's the rest of it's fine, everything else, but that that just drove him crazy, yeah. So yeah, he loved players who batted lefty and threw righty. So I guess did Shulas Joe throw righty?
Jody Schwartz:He he did throw righty. Uh you know what? I was just the opposite. I threw lefty and batted righty.
Anthony Stoeckert:If you can call what I did batting, but Keith, do you have a Halloween story?
Keith Loria:I mean, I have a lot of Halloween memories. I I remember, you know, I used to read Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown to my kids every year when they were little. I remember going out with you know the Ben Cooper masks, Fonzi, and Batman. I think we may have talked about that in our last.
Anthony Stoeckert:What was our last Halloween? Um, so I'm gonna call it Bradley Cooper.
Keith Loria:I'm gonna talk about um my first Halloween in college. For whatever reason, they decided to do trick-or-treating in the dorm that I lived in, um, you know, which was fun. And me and my roommates wanted to dress up as the Cotter, the sweat hogs.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah.
Keith Loria:Um were you Barberino? I was Barberino.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, I could have guessed, yeah.
Keith Loria:But but we didn't do it, we didn't go through it because we couldn't find the the costumes, we couldn't get like what we needed to get, but it was perfect because one roommate really was a dead ringer for for Epstein, just with the different color hair, but you know, curly hair, it would have worked nice, and my other roommate would have been great for Washington.
Jody Schwartz:My hair was like that when I was in college, too. Although I gotta tell you, I would have been a perfect Horschak.
Keith Loria:That's what we needed. So yeah, but we didn't do it, so I I went out, I I wound up going as Charlie Chaplin, and uh, you know, could have been Groucho just as easily, I guess, with a mustache. Um, but I remember there was this one girl. So this this was the funniest part of the story. There's a girl that was trick-or-treating, she just had on like a black um bodysuit with a moon on it, and nobody knew who she was. And I like I we were kind of like behind her in the trick-or-treating lines, and she just got disappointed every time, like no one could guess what she was. She was night, that was her thing.
Anthony Stoeckert:Oh, okay.
Keith Loria:No one was ever gonna get it, but but I ran into her later and I was like, and I saw her costume, I go, and I pointed, and I go, night, right? She's like, Oh my god, yeah, she was so happy that someone knew it. And I only knew because you know, I heard her say it like 30 times to people, so that was very nice of you, and we became friends, and we became friends after that, and but I never told her that.
Jody Schwartz:That that was very nice, but you cheated on the test.
Anthony Stoeckert:I hope she's not listening.
Keith Loria:Oh, of course she's listening. Come on, do we have millions of listeners? How could she not be? Yes, but she only listens at night. Exactly.
Anthony Stoeckert:The only uh story that I can think of, and it has to do with the Ben Cooper costumes, is I really wanted to be Batman. I was Jody was a Marvel guy, I was a DC Comics guy. I was an Archie guy, I really wanted to be Batman, but I guess the store didn't have Batman, so my mother very nicely got me Superman, and the mask was just like a red Lone Ranger mask. Yeah, I remember that. Like, what the F is this? I'm like, you don't want to walk around. I wanted one of the plastic masks, you know, not a Lone Ranger thing.
Jody Schwartz:I remember the plastic mask. Someone I I remember a friend of mine having the Superman one.
Anthony Stoeckert:The Superman one. I think later on when we were older, they made one with like a Superman face on it. But when, you know, when I was in like first or second grade, the Superman costume was a red Lone Ranger mask.
Jody Schwartz:Yep, I remember that. I remember that. Um I I was I I had one of those Spider-Man ones one one year, being a Marvel guy. Yes, the Spider-Man. The Spider-Man one was um, I guess like a lot of them. Though those masks were very uncomfortable. And and you could feel like the steam of your breath like in the mask. It was yes, it was very gross, actually.
Anthony Stoeckert:It was yeah, and then you would lift it up, and then the the rubber band would break.
Jody Schwartz:And yeah, yeah, yeah. You were lucky if you got through the whole, you know, through the whole hollow the whole trick-or-treating experience without the mask breaking.
Anthony Stoeckert:Lucky if you got in that to an hour, yeah. It was a staple.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, it was it was and not even a good one, you know.
Anthony Stoeckert:So but all right, so let's talk Twilight Zone.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah.
Anthony Stoeckert:You know, we this is a show we saw in reruns, uh, for those in New York, Channel 11. Scariest show ever.
Jody Schwartz:Freaky. Not every episode was actually scary, but they were all they were all freaky. They they all made you like, oh, you know what I mean? They that some of them were scary, some of them were outright scary, some of them were just like, ooh, you know, like disturbing. Disturbing, some of them made think a little bit. Very thought thought provoking. Very thought-provoking. People really think about things, very, very thought-provoking. Uh, you there was always, you know, and you know, there was always that wrap-up at the end, you know, where when Rod Sterling would would tell you, you know, how it you know connected with the world, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, this is why you suck, and this is why it happened. You know, so uh, but yeah, definitely some episodes outright scary. There's one I want to talk about, which was definitely a scary one.
Keith Loria:Yeah, can we say Twilight Zone might have been the first TV series that I ever binged, just because they would have them, was it New Year's or oh July 4th. Oh, July 4th, okay. Yeah, they would just have them for 24 hours. 24 hours.
Jody Schwartz:It was great.
Keith Loria:And they didn't do that with a lot of shoes back then where they would binge things.
Jody Schwartz:So yeah, those those they used to call them marathons, those marathons were binging before that was a thing.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah, I don't think they used the word binging. No, no, no.
Jody Schwartz:They called them marathons, they would say the Twilight Zone Marathon, and they would do it on New Year's Day with the odd couple, the odd couple marathon, the honeymoon's marathon. Honeymooners marathon, yeah. Also, and most uh most impressively, the It's a Wonderful Life marathon, which all through Christmas.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah. So, but um, and I I never like watch those marathons, I would just see episodes when they were on. It's a like you would want to watch one after another. Oh, I love doing that.
Jody Schwartz:Loved it. Yeah, yeah, well, I I I agree, but that was a good show to watch one after the other if you were in that kind of mood, you know.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, I would feel like after two or three, it would be like, okay, I'm I've got enough I'm I'm scared enough, I'm disturbed enough. I, you know.
Jody Schwartz:You go hide in the basement.
Anthony Stoeckert:All right, well, Jody, why don't you talk about the episode you wanted to talk about?
Jody Schwartz:Okay, well, in terms of scariness, this doesn't it doesn't get much scarier than an episode called Living Doll, which was a season five, episode six episode from November of 63. I believe it was the last episode aired just ahead of the assassin the Kennedy assassination.
Anthony Stoeckert:Oh wow.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah. Anyway, Telly Savalas was uh was in that episode and he played a uh a man who uh this this is thing he he could not have children and he he was uh he he uh just physically couldn't have children. He was married to a woman who had a daughter from a previous marriage, and he was pretty hostile toward the daughter because he was angry that he couldn't have um children of his own with his with his wife. And the daughter brings home a new doll she got called Talkie Tina, and he's you know very upset. You know, again, he's has this hostility toward the kid as it is, and now he doesn't like the wife wasting money on the doll. And the the dot talkie Tina says, My name is Talkie Tina and I love you. And but she, you know, he's very hostile to it. And then when he takes the doll away from the girl, the doll says to him, My name is Talkie Tina, and I don't like you. So right off the bat, he throws the doll away, the doll calls him. The doll calls from wherever I don't know where the doll found a phone, but the doll calls him and change. In those days there were no cell phones, you actually had to get quarters, not even quarters, dimes. The doll calls him and and threatens him, and then he goes back in and he looks in the daughter's room and his stepdaughter's room, and the and the uh the doll is in bed with the girl. The doll had returned from from the trash that he threw her. He he tries to destroy the doll with a vice, with a blowtorch, and with a saw, and cannot do it. This doll will not die. And then again, the doll, you know, comes back into the uh into the house, and finally he just you know, he just breaks down or he just accepts that you know he he was trying, he's gonna try to be nice. Oh, by the way, there's one point when he takes the doll away from the little girl, and the little girl starts crying and calls him daddy, and she said he yells at her, I'm not your daddy. I mean, he was very, very mean in this in this episode. Little little girl, too.
Anthony Stoeckert:He was nicer on Alice.
Jody Schwartz:Oh, Telly Zavalis was much nicer when he was no question. No, no question. She was much nicer in in all the in uh Battle of the Network stars, too.
Keith Loria:But who loves you, baby?
Jody Schwartz:Who loves you, baby? Yes. That's uh then he just decides that you know he's he's sufficiently scared where he's gonna accept the fact that he loves the daughter and you know everything. He gets up to check on the girl because he hears a noise, and the doll who had been sleeping with the girl is no longer there. He hears noise downstairs, he goes down. The doll is now laying on the floor and trips him and he dies. He he he he hits his head and he dies. The doll literally kills him.
Anthony Stoeckert:Wow.
Jody Schwartz:The wife comes down, sees her husband lying there dead, picks up the doll, and the the doll says, My name is Talkie Tina, and you better be nice to me.
Anthony Stoeckert:Wow.
Jody Schwartz:And that is how this episode ends.
Anthony Stoeckert:Did that freak you? When did you watch this for the first time?
Jody Schwartz:The first time I watched it, I was I was a I was a kid. I I don't know exactly how old I was, but I'm guessing I was 12 or 13. Whatever, whatever age I was staying up and watching Twilight. It was usually me on the on like a Friday night, you know. So so it wasn't, but so there was one night where uh yeah, I was up late on a on a Friday night and I was watching it. So I'm guessing I was around 11 or 12. And yeah, it scared the crap out of me watching, watching that episode. And you know what? I've seen it many times since then, and it's always you know, gives me a little yeah. I actually watched it this morning, and I'm still like is that why you're under the covers hiding? Oh, yeah, yeah. That you know, I I I used to say, you know, because I have I have two sons, I'm like, I'm glad we didn't have daughters because the dolls would scare the crap out of me because anyone know that's that's really scary and intense.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah. Did were there was was the show controversial? Controversial? I'm saying the word wrong in the day, like did they have warnings? Did they let their kids watch it? Because when I was a kid, I was like, well, if it's in black and white from the 50s or 60s, it must be completely family friendly.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, no.
Anthony Stoeckert:Does anyone know if the what what the the the Yeah?
Keith Loria:I mean it wasn't a family show, I'm sure.
Jody Schwartz:No, but it it pushed the envelope. It definitely, you know, and that's what Sterling wanted, you know. Rod Sterling created it, he narrated it, you know, he did that little wrap-up at the end, you know. He did the intro in the beginning and he wrote most of the shows.
Anthony Stoeckert:But like, do you think like adults told the kids, all right, go to bed, we're gonna watch Tele Zavalis get killed by a doll?
Jody Schwartz:I think there had to have been a point where I I don't rem I don't know what time they showed it when it aired originally, but you had to figure that it wasn't shown during a time when they thought kids would be watching. Yeah, I agree.
Anthony Stoeckert:Interesting.
Jody Schwartz:You know, I I I I you know what I think one thing about television shows, you know, from from you know the 50s and 60s as opposed to and maybe even the 70s as opposed to later was that I think a lot of times the networks were saying, okay, you know what, parents, you have to do your job here. Don't don't don't depend on us to police this for you.
Anthony Stoeckert:You know, well they always referred to 8 p.m. as the family hour.
Jody Schwartz:Right. Yeah.
Anthony Stoeckert:So I guess you wouldn't show anything um, you know, scary or too scary or anything then.
Jody Schwartz:No, I I'm my guess is when it aired. I don't even I don't know, you know what? I I always knew it as something that aired late at night until they started doing the the marathons, you know, on July 4th. I I I always thought it was I always considered it one of these things that aired late at night. You watched right, right?
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah. How about you, Keith? You got an episode?
Keith Loria:I do, and I I I almost uh don't want to talk about it because I have a flight in about three hours. You're not gonna top living doll. I'll tell you that right now. But but my favorite nightmare at 20,000 feet.
Jody Schwartz:Great one.
Keith Loria:Let me let me read off the the the narration. Portrait of a frightened man, Mr. Robert Wilson, 37, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave. Isn't my serling impersonation amazing? I thought he was here.
Anthony Stoeckert:I was about to say that's a great impression. Can you do Rod Serling?
Keith Loria:Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from his sanitarium, where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this, on an airliner, very much like this one. So, in general, William Shatner in this episode plays a man who had a nervous breakdown on a flight, which I don't know if I knew that before I just read this. And he was flying again. You know, he's very nervous, he's having a lot of problems, you know, sitting down, he asks for water, he's the stewardess comes over to him, and they were called stewardesses back then to ask him what was wrong. And what happens is he sees something on the wing. And it it's it's it's you know, this this monster, and he's trying to do something to the wing, and no one believes him. Every time he calls someone over to look, gets his uh seat companion to look, nobody sees it but him. I oh my god, I I hate flying, and this this frightened me the hell out of me when I was a kid. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.
Jody Schwartz:And I'm oh I am still wrapping my head around the fact that Keith hates flying. Uh you're on a plane more than anyone I know.
Keith Loria:I know. I do it a lot, but I don't I don't enjoy it. I hate every second of it.
Jody Schwartz:Wow. Wow. I don't know that there's been a week that you haven't been on a plane.
Anthony Stoeckert:So I don't know if this is going to be controversial. Yes, it's a great episode. I actually like the version in the movie better with John Lithgow. Why? I just think the the the gremlin's scarier. The gremlin and the Shatner one's just this guy in a big furry suit. Yeah. And the gremlin in the movie version is um you know scarier. And you know, the production values are it's very well done. The production values are higher, and uh, you know, I well it was 30 years later. I love William Shatner, but John Lithgow's a slightly better actor.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, that that's that's just what it is. John Lit are fighting words. Don Lithgow's an incredible actor, and William. Yeah, William William Shatner's William Shatner.
Keith Loria:So there was an episode of Third Rock from the Sun. Yes, I was about to get to that. Where Shatner guest stars and he cut and uh Litgow Lithgow picks him up at the airport and and they do a joke about you know being something being on the wing.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, so well well Shatner says something was on the wing, and then Lithgow says, Hey, the same thing happened to me. Yeah. Yeah. So I Shatner is playing the big giant head. Yes, they're their uh their extreme leader.
Anthony Stoeckert:I think with the movie, the thing is they really didn't change that episode. They basically followed the story and told it really well with you know more better effects, but they didn't go overboard. Whereas, like with the uh the one about the mean boy, they completely changed the story and and made it worse.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And let's not even get into the killer segment.
Anthony Stoeckert:Well, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, that's not uh bringing things down.
Jody Schwartz:So but uh but yeah, basically with with that segment on the movie, they did the same thing with a better actor.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So but and again, the episode's still great, don't get me wrong. Amazing, but yeah, you know, I just think the movie version is um is better. And I happen to like that movie overall. So I have another William Shatner one.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, oh I know what you're gonna say. It's gonna be a good one.
Anthony Stoeckert:Oh my god, this thing creaked me out so much. It's called The Nick of Time. Yeah, and Shatner and his wife are in a small town. Are they waiting? Did their car break down? Is that what it is?
Jody Schwartz:I think that's why they were there originally.
Anthony Stoeckert:And they're waiting for their car to be repaired, so they go to a diner, and the diner has this fortune telling machine. Oh, yes, yes, and there's like this demon head sort of thing on the and they, you know, oh, for fun, they go, Oh, uh and that demon head thing was scary. Oh yeah, yeah. It's this little plastic demon heading on it, yeah, on a spring.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, that scared the crap out of me.
Anthony Stoeckert:And the fortunes are basically just telling them, you know, don't leave. You you you should never leave this town or something.
Jody Schwartz:Not even that. He says, Is it a good time to leave? He actually asks and he says, No, there's danger, you know. So you know, you know, yeah. It was like a magic eight ball.
Anthony Stoeckert:And does he dismiss the first one? And but and then and then to prove how silly it is, he does another one and they keep getting worse and worse. So, and it it you know, it's very tense and all, and then at the end they finally decide that they are just gonna leave. They're not gonna let this machine dictate their life, but they're really nervous. And then when they come back, they they leave, and then this young couple comes back at the end, and I don't know if it's the husband or the wife says, Maybe today's the day we can leave. Yeah, oh my god.
Jody Schwartz:That was that's a freaky one. Yeah, that's a freaky one. And it's not it's no talkie tina, but it's freaky.
Keith Loria:They used that fortune teller thing before, like that there was other episodes that had a similar theme with a fortune teller on uh oh really, yeah.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, all the future stars who were on this, uh I should have looked at it. I know Robert Duvall was on one. Robert Redford played death in an episode, if I recall correctly.
Jody Schwartz:The the the professor from Gilligan's Island?
Anthony Stoeckert:Yes, he he uh tried to save Lincoln from he tried to stop the the Lincoln assassination. Yeah, didn't he work?
Jody Schwartz:He couldn't fix a hole in a boat.
Anthony Stoeckert:How is he gonna Jack Clugman was in I think three episodes at least, yeah, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah. Was it three? There were two I can think of, but but okay.
Anthony Stoeckert:He played the guy, he um he played pool with Jonathan Winters.
Keith Loria:Was he really the devil or something?
Anthony Stoeckert:Jonathan Winters was the devil, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. And then um there's one where he's like he seems funny when you think about it, Jonathan Winters. There's one where Jack Klugman finds a boy in an amusement park or something, and it's his dead son or something. Am I getting that right?
Jody Schwartz:I oh god, it's been a while. I think I don't remember that. I haven't seen that one in a while.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, I and then um he's like the um he's like the captain of a spaceship in another one.
Keith Loria:The space, the the ones that dealt with like uh aliens and spaceships, those are always really cool, especially when it was you know with the twist endings. Like I remember one where it's a cookbook. There were there were two astronauts, a man and a woman, that landed on a planet. They realized they couldn't get home and they had no communication with anybody, and they're like, Oh, I guess we're forced to live here now. And at the end, you find out their names were Adam and Eve.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, oh wow, it's cool.
Keith Loria:Yeah, it was really cool. And I just remember the first time I saw that when I was a kid, and I'm not even sure I've seen it again. Maybe I saw it in one of the marathons, but that one just always really stood out to me. And the other one where the town is is losing their power and everyone keeps blaming their neighbors.
Anthony Stoeckert:Monsters would do on Maple Street with Claude Atkins.
Keith Loria:Yeah, oh, another great one, and again, it was just aliens kind of playing with them.
Anthony Stoeckert:Well, you don't find out till the end, they're all like they all turn against each other. I mean, we're summarizing it in a minute, but it goes on for 20 minutes.
Jody Schwartz:That's a great, that's a great episode.
Anthony Stoeckert:And the aliens say yeah, you see the aliens on the hill, on the the hill watching them going, see, we don't have to uh we don't have to kill them, we can just you know they'll they say, yeah, you know, we we've done this with so many communities.
Keith Loria:Wherever we do this, the same outcome happens. They all turn on each other.
Anthony Stoeckert:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jody Schwartz:The the episode to serve man, when you know, when he goes up in the spaceship and she's like, It's a cookbook.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, and the Simpsons parried in it beautifully.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:How to serve Man and he blows off it's space dust. It's space dust. It's like a how to serve man a delicious meal. How to serve man a delicious meal. I like the the uh the aliens like if your goal was to make Zarkov to prepare a cry, mission accomplished.
Anthony Stoeckert:We were once in a bookstore and Jody grabbed a book, a cookbook, and it's a cookbook.
Jody Schwartz:For years I couldn't stop myself from doing that.
Keith Loria:Oh, you still do it.
Jody Schwartz:Oh, without question. Except there are no more bookstores.
Anthony Stoeckert:So the first episode I saw, do you remember the one with the dolls in the in the drum? I don't know what it was, not a drum, a barrel, a garbage. It was a donation thing for toys. Oh yeah.
Keith Loria:Oh yeah, I definitely remember that.
Anthony Stoeckert:That was the first one I ever saw.
Keith Loria:Oh, wow, you remember? I don't remember the show.
Anthony Stoeckert:I remember that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I didn't watch it like a lot when I was young, and I don't know what led to me. I was probably over at a friend's house and we watched it.
Keith Loria:So but you had a friend? It wasn't me.
Anthony Stoeckert:I had some friends a strong word. He he let me watch TV with him if I brought snacks.
Jody Schwartz:We didn't know you then, so how about that?
Keith Loria:Yeah, I was gonna say, how can I have a friend?
Jody Schwartz:We didn't we didn't know you like them.
Keith Loria:So Jody, I know you watched a couple others, like what other ones did you?
Jody Schwartz:Well, the actually the first episode I ever saw, and I just re-watched this morning, was one called The Shelter, which is from uh season three, episode three, September of 61. And this doctor, Dr. Bill uh Stockton, he had built a nuclear shelter in his house. And he built it just with just with just enough room and air and provisions for him and his wife and his son. And he's having people over his house one night, as you know, his neighbors, and they're having just like a fun time, and they're even kidding him a little bit about being so paranoid that he built this shelter. And then they hear on, you know, you should know that the climate at that time, this this was 1961. There was always this fear then that you know we we were gonna be attacked, you know, a nuclear attack was was very real in people's minds. And there was a uh a news report that came on the radio that there was some unidentified, you know, flying objects, and they were afraid it might be a nuclear attack of some kind. And all his neighbors now know he has this nuclear uh shelter, and they want, you know, they want to be in the shelter, they want to save themselves, and he's not, you know, there's not enough room for them. And they all, you know, like the aliens when they start to turn on each other, and they actually now all the neighbors are now saying how some of the neighbors shouldn't go in because they're not as you know patriotic as we are. There's a Hispanic neighbor who they're all saying you're not remembering this now, yes. Yeah, you're not a real American. By the way, Jack Albertson is in it um from Chico and the Man, and uh he is not playing a nice guy.
Anthony Stoeckert:And um so maybe he's playing the character from Chico and the Man 20 years earlier.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, but he's not a lovable, uh a lovable crank. He he's a movie.
Anthony Stoeckert:Maybe he became more of a lovable crank as he got older.
Jody Schwartz:Maybe, maybe. And but it is funny because he does he does accuse an Hispanic person of not being a real American.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, there you go. I'm on this one.
Jody Schwartz:So, you know, so the writers were paying attention. In any event, there there's the the the the big scene is the neighbors get a battering ram. Now, I want to stop on this a minute. I I don't know how anybody ever gets a battering ram. Like the neighbors actually get together.
Anthony Stoeckert:What is a battering ram?
Jody Schwartz:It's like a long metal pole that you use to break down like a door.
Anthony Stoeckert:Oh, okay.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, yeah, a battering ram. I I'm I may I may be saying it wrong, but that they No, I I had heard the phrase, but I never knew what it was. So they're they're now going to the nuclear shelter where you know, to the shelter where the family is, and they're pounding on it, they're trying to get in, they're breaking the door down. And then um at this point, they've already, you know, said mean things to each other, it's already become horrible. And then there's a radio report saying it was a false report, it's harmless, not nothing, nothing to worry about. And now they have to kind of and now they're all trying to get back to normal, but obviously they can't. Too much is too much has been said.
Anthony Stoeckert:Wow, wow, cool.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, and that is the first one I ever saw. And I didn't I didn't even know, I'll give you a little story here. I didn't even know what the what the Twilight Zone was at that point. My cousin, who was, I guess she was around 15 or 16 at the time. I was 11, 10 or 11. And um, she she was watching us one night. She actually lived with us, and she was, you know, uh uh babysitting for us, and she would always let us stay up late. And she said, You gotta watch this show. And she was trying to describe it to me, but you know, it's hard to describe. It is. And then we watched this episode, and you know, that that was a lot for my you know, 11-year-old mind to absorb.
Anthony Stoeckert:Do you think that episode was inspired a little bit by the whole Orson Wells War of the Worlds thing?
Jody Schwartz:A little bit, I think it was. I think the the climate at the time it inspired by, but yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. But what's amazing to me is that it's still kind of relevant to now, you know, to no doubt. Yeah, and and you know, but when I was watching it today, the things that they were saying to each other in their anger and their panic, I'm like, yeah, I could I could see people saying that now. You know, I could see this coming up now.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah. There was something about like the look and the feel of those episodes because they tried to bring the Twilight Zone back and they can three times at least, and they can never forget it. And some of it might have been the limitations of production values back then, but those those, you know, they're all obviously sets and probably not the most elaborate sets because how many sets can you build for a show? But it created a feel, you know.
Keith Loria:You know, I I disagree a bit. I I've seen a lot of maybe not the most recent ones, but the ones that they introduced back when The Amazing Stories was on. They did one with and then there was another one Forest Whitaker hosting. And I watched episodes of both, and I enjoyed them both.
Anthony Stoeckert:I could not get into the the hour. I remember the hour-long one that would have like two or three stories in it, and I couldn't get into that or the Forest Whitaker one.
Jody Schwartz:There was one one of the more updated ones in the 80s when Elliot Gould was uh was a restaurant critic who took who took pride in um writing bad reviews on restaurants and putting them out of business. Like he that was his that was his thing.
Anthony Stoeckert:He would yeah, yeah, no, he was.
Jody Schwartz:He was a bad guy, and he would go to restaurants with the idea he's just gonna give them a bad review no matter what, because he wants to show his power of putting restaurants out of business. And he actually had a little uh like a box with dirt, and he would put a matchbook from the um from the restaurant as like a graveyard after each one went out of business.
Keith Loria:Oh wow, yeah, and what was the twist?
Jody Schwartz:Well, he goes to this Chinese restaurant that he hears about that everyone seems to like, but again, he's going there with the idea in mind he's going to ruin it, yeah. And then they give him a fortune cookie, and the fortune cookie says you're gonna get money or something. I don't remember exactly what it says, and then he writes the bad review, and then he um he the the fortune cookie comes true. He gets he Gets money from it. And now he's like, Oh my god, he's really, you know, he's really um happy about it. And he goes back, and now the the uh the the guy who owns the restaurant is kind of pissed at him because he's like, you know, you did this to me, and now people are canceling reservations. And he says that he promises he'll write him a good review if he could, you know, get another fortune cookie, and he does it, and this one says, You're going to die. Yeah. And in the end, he does die, and you actually see in that little graveyard he made uh a matchbook cover with his name on it. And the uh that's kind of cool. So that that that was as far as the the updated one goes, that that was and I'm telling you all this from memory from a few years ago, so I there might be things I've I've gotten wrong on that episode, but I don't know.
Anthony Stoeckert:Are any of those reboots available? Do they show them anywhere?
Jody Schwartz:Or the the one I just described, I know I saw it again on YouTube.
Anthony Stoeckert:YouTube, okay.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, YouTube has everything. Yeah, YouTube has everything.
Keith Loria:No, I don't watch, but isn't the Black Mirror show kind of like a Twilight Zone?
Anthony Stoeckert:Suppose yeah, I've seen a couple of episodes. There's a famous Star Trek type episode that I saw. Um, yeah, it's an anthology, it's horror. Everything though with that is related to technology, I think. Like every episode has some sort of statement to make about how technology affects our world and all. But yeah, it's it's it's pretty much there.
Keith Loria:All right. I I want to get back to uh another episode I really liked, and yeah, probably you guys did too. Um, it's probably one of the most famous ones. It's Burgess Meredith, Time Enough at Last.
Anthony Stoeckert:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith Loria:You know, it's just for those who may not have seen it, and Burgess Meredith was in four episodes, which I didn't know.
Anthony Stoeckert:Um, four. I knew about that one and Mr. Dingle. I can't think of the other two.
Keith Loria:Um, so he he plays a bank teller who loves to read. You see him, you know, get annoyed when he's reading his book, and people, his customers come in and want him to hell about, which is kind of funny. He was reading David Copperfield in the beginning. Um and then but people sound like second. This is funny, like his wife was really mean to him. His wife was like, Oh, I want you to read poetry to me. And he was so excited because he loves to read. And then when he looks at the book, she like X'd out everything, like he like almost with like a black sharpie, so he couldn't read anything. And she laughed at him. Yeah, I was like, That's kind of mean. Um so what happens is he goes in uh the bank vault to read during his lunch hour every day, and while he's there, he's reading the newspaper, and it says, you know, H bomb capable to total destruction. Um and he hears a big, you know, bomb go off, and he opens the vault and comes out, and everybody's dead. The whole world, you know, nuclear bomb, destruction everywhere.
Jody Schwartz:But he's safe because he was in the vault. Right, right.
Keith Loria:And he walks around town and you know, nobody's there, and he's just his life's over and he wants to end it. He wants to kill himself. And he decides, you know, he gets a gun, he decides to kill himself, but then he sees the library. And though, for some reason, the library is still intact. He goes in and books galore, he finds food, there's canned food galore, so he's enough food to live the rest of his life. He's got the books to read.
Jody Schwartz:There's a scene where he says, Well, I guess I'm not gonna starve.
Keith Loria:Right, I'm not gonna starve. And so the best best world for him. And then, of course, he trips, his glasses fall off, breaks the glasses, and now he can't see.
Jody Schwartz:And it ends with him saying, But there was so much time. There was time at last. But rock, there was so much time, rock.
Anthony Stoeckert:Now it's a great episode.
Jody Schwartz:He also said that in Rocky. Quack, quack, quack, quack.
Anthony Stoeckert:It's a great episode, but couldn't he have gone to like some ophthalmologist office and found a pair of glasses?
Jody Schwartz:Well, most of the buildings were destroyed. Well, I'm sure there was a magnifying glass somewhere. Yeah.
Anthony Stoeckert:I don't know. I would think somewhere along the line there'd be a you know, a Pearl Vision Center that was still open that he could have gotten a pair of glasses at.
Jody Schwartz:Or found the magnifying glass.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, you think a magnifying glass would have done it? I mean, if he had a prescription, I don't know. I don't know. He could have tried, he didn't have to give up right now.
Keith Loria:He could have looked around. Someone probably had a similar pair of glasses. He could have just kept finding glasses.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, there had to be something somewhere. I mean, there's books in canned food. There's got to be a pair of glasses somewhere.
Keith Loria:So I guess his eyes were really terrible, and they made that point pretty clear early on.
Anthony Stoeckert:Couldn't you see like his eyes like almost magnify?
Jody Schwartz:Because his glasses were yeah, his glasses, he had these really thick glasses.
Keith Loria:Yeah, so maybe he couldn't have even seen to get out of the library. Who knows?
Jody Schwartz:Those glasses looked so thick, it looks like they wouldn't even broken if uh if they that's true, that's true.
Anthony Stoeckert:Rod Serling is in the afterlife going oh for crying out loud, guys. Just uh how bad were the glasses?
Keith Loria:It was just a television show, guys. I don't remember that either. Were they completely broke like a tip picture? They were shattered, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:They were they were shattered.
Keith Loria:Okay.
Anthony Stoeckert:They had one little Nick, but he was um, you know, he was very uh he was very anal retentive, so I can't wear these.
Jody Schwartz:I'm actually like that with my glasses. I get one little Nick and I'm like, I gotta get new ones.
Anthony Stoeckert:Well, yeah, but it was the end of the world and you couldn't get another pair, you'd live with them.
Jody Schwartz:And he didn't wear glasses in Rocky. Come on. I have and he was much older in Rocky, too.
Anthony Stoeckert:I have one more episode I wanted to talk about, and it's a scary one. The hitchhiker.
Keith Loria:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's the guy that keeps she keeps picking up the same guy, right?
Anthony Stoeckert:Does she pick him up or she keeps driving by him?
Keith Loria:Probably just keeps driving by him.
Anthony Stoeckert:I'm not sure, yeah, but this woman's driving, and I think she passes by him because that's how that's that's why it's scary that he keeps showing up.
Keith Loria:Gotcha.
Anthony Stoeckert:And she's really freaked out, she thinks he's following him, she doesn't know how she's doing it. And then she pulls over and she calls her mother, and then she's told by someone, Well, no, uh, whatever her mother's name is, Mrs. whatever Mrs. Hughes can't talk right now. She hasn't gotten over the death of her daughter. And then the hitchhiker's there, and the the girl turns around and the hitchhiker goes, I believe you're going my way.
Jody Schwartz:Frightening.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, that was good.
Jody Schwartz:Scary stuff. You we talked about Burgess Meredith, you know, and and about uh we also talked about the uh the movie from the early 80s, and he didn't he I think he narrated the movie, yeah.
Anthony Stoeckert:He had the Rod Sterling up Yeah, as a sort of nod to the fact that he was in, you know, so many iconics.
Jody Schwartz:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that that wraparound with with Dan Aykroyd and um Albert Brooks. Albert Brooks. Yeah, I think they mentioned the the one with Burgess Meredith.
Keith Loria:I think they think they said that's how they start talking. That's how they start talking, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, yeah.
Anthony Stoeckert:Basically, this episode was like that wraparound. It's them just talking about their favorite episodes.
Jody Schwartz:And now I'm gonna peel off my mask. You want to see something really scary?
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah. I liked that movie. I don't think it got the best reviews, but I remember really enjoying it. And I saw it like 10 years ago and still enjoyed it.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, uh, it it wasn't bad. Uh, you know, it was you know, obviously the accident on the on the set dominated everything.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, I don't know how aware of that I was as a when it came out though, when I was like what, 15 or 16.
Keith Loria:I'm not sure how much I feel like I knew about it, like it was reported.
Jody Schwartz:I didn't see the movie until after it came on HBO. Like I didn't I didn't see it in the theaters, and so by the time I saw it, you'd heard very much about you know what had happened.
Keith Loria:I saw it in the movies.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, I saw it in the movie, and I had the novelization. Oh wow, written by Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel Psycho.
Jody Schwartz:Interesting. How was that? How was the novelization of it?
Anthony Stoeckert:Fantastic. I mean, you know, I was 15 when I read it.
Jody Schwartz:He's still reading it today. Can I can I can I please get a full review of second? Come on.
Keith Loria:I actually was gonna read it uh last week, but my glasses broke.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, yeah. I hear you. While you were eating canned food. Exactly.
Anthony Stoeckert:All right, anything else or are we good?
Jody Schwartz:Oh, we've exhausted this topic. Um, no, but we should best one quick one, a classic one to mention, Eye of the Beholder, which this woman, um, you the episode you don't see anybody's faces. And this woman, she has bandages on her face because she apparently had some sort of operation that was supposed to, she's supposedly ugly and disfigured, and um she's living in this like uh utopian state, it's called the state. And basically, if if if this didn't work on her face, she was gonna be sent to live with other people who look like her, and then they remove the bandages and like didn't work at all. There's no change. They they take the bandages off, and it turns out she's beautiful, and everybody else has like disfigured, ugly faces.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, from our point of view, from our point of view, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:And there's another guy there who's also looks like a handsome guy, and he's gonna go live with her in this place. She goes, Well, where we're gonna go, you're gonna be considered beautiful. Yeah, very, very creepy. And you don't for the entire episode, though, you don't see anyone's face, and you see backs of people and you know, sides that you know, it's really it's thinking about it.
Anthony Stoeckert:There's not a lot just from talking about these, there's not a lot of plot. Like we're just sort of saying a setup and then the ending, but they're all the episodes are great, they all hold your attention.
Jody Schwartz:Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we'd be talking forever if we went into every detail of these plots.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jody Schwartz:So by the way, everybody listening to this, spoiler alert.
Anthony Stoeckert:All right, we should remember which episodes we've talked about because we could easily do another one of these.
Jody Schwartz:This could be an annual Halloween event.
Anthony Stoeckert:Or fourth of July, maybe, in honor of the honor of the marathons.
Jody Schwartz:We should do one where we're watching the marathon together and record. We're live from the marathon.
Keith Loria:All right. Well, I'm about I'm about to take my flight and hopefully um go. This could be my last episode, depending on the good luck, Shatner. It's been nice knowing you guys. Um don't look out the window.
Jody Schwartz:Yeah, keep that thing closed, but God's.
Anthony Stoeckert:I don't look out the window when I fly. I don't know about you guys. I don't like looking out that window.
Jody Schwartz:Nah, I'm not a fan of that. You know what? I'd rather read or sleep.
Anthony Stoeckert:Yeah, yeah, but I I don't, I mean, I'm not like as bad as Keith, but I I don't need to be reminded where I am when I'm on a flight.
Jody Schwartz:And I agree. There's there's really virtually no reason to look out that window. There's no reason to do it.
Anthony Stoeckert:That's like the opening of uh high anxiety when I'm looking at it. Happy Halloween, everyone.
Jody Schwartz:That's a great way to end this.
Keith Loria:Thanks for listening to Don't Touch That Dial, a classic TV podcast. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe. Please leave a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen. We'll be back soon with another journey back in time to the days of static, laugh tracks, and seven channels.
