Category: 1950s

Carl Perkins – Blue Suede Shoes

Well it’s one for the money, two for the show
Three to get ready, now go cat go

This song could be the definition of rock and roll.  One of the many great Sun records that were released. Carl Perkins is a guitar hero to me with his rockabilly style that he never lost. I see why George Harrison and a generation was such a fan of the man. This song is up there with Johnny B Good as a Rock and Roll standard.

This song was written by Carl and it soon became a rock and roll anthem. This is another song that by law…you have to know if you are in a rock band. It’s probably better known by a singer from Memphis…named Elvis. I always favored this version…it has Carl playing guitar and that is all I need.

Carl recorded this in Memphis in 1955 for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. As he was driving to make his first national appearance to promote it on the Perry Como Show, he got into an accident that seriously injured him and killed his brother.  He later said he was 85 miles away from being the first rockabilly on national television.

Perkins never fully recovered, either emotionally or career-wise. With Perkins unable to touring and promote it, Elvis’ cover version became a massive hit. Presley’s copy was done at RCA studios in Nashville. Perkins did have some hits after this but nothing like Blue Suede Shoes. Interestingly enough…Elvis’s version only made it to #20 in the pop charts.

This single was released in 1956. The B side was Honey Don’t. The single peaked at #2 in the US Charts and #1 in the Country charts.

I always wondered about blue suede shoes and what was so special about them. Blue suede shoes were a luxury item in the South…you would only wear them on a special night out. . You had to be careful with them though, since suede isn’t easy to clean.

Perkins never owned a pair, but Johnny Cash told him a story about someone who did. Cash told Perkins a story from his days serving in the Air Force in Germany. Cash’s sergeant…C.V. White. He would wear his military best when he was allowed off base, and at one point said to Cash, “don’t step on my blue suede shoes.” The shoes were really just Air Force-issued black, but white would say, Tonight they’re blue suede!

The story Perkins told is that later on, he was playing at a high school sorority dance when he came across a guy who wasn’t paying much attention to his date, but kept telling everyone not to stop on his “suedes,” meaning his blues suede shoes. At 3 a.m. that night, Perkins woke up and wrote the lyrics based on what happened that night and the story he heard from Cash. He couldn’t find any paper, so he wrote it on a potato sack.

Perkins based the beginning of this song on a nursery rhyme One For The Money: “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go.”

Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, came up with the idea of changing the line “Go, man, go” to “Go, cat, go.” He thought the change would make it seem like less of a country song and more of a rocker…it worked!

From Songfacts

Sam Phillips discovered Elvis Presley but sold his contract to RCA for $35,000. The money helped Phillips finance this and other records by artists like Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, but Elvis became The King. Elvis recorded this later in 1956. His version hit US #20 and UK #9.

This was the only Top 40 hit for Perkins on the pop charts, but his influence reaches much further. He was extremely influential to other artists, including Elvis, The Beatles, and Johnny Cash. Perkins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

The lyrics describe some of the things that Perkins would prefer over getting his shoes scuffed, and the list includes some derelict behavior: stepping on his face, stealing his car, burning down his house and drinking his liquor. Some in the Sinatra-loving older generation were horrified, and used the song to back their case that rock ‘n’ roll was the Devil’s music.

This was the first song to hit the US Pop, Country, and R&B charts at the same time. Released on January 1, 1956, the song made a slow climb up the charts, appearing on all three in May, which is when it reached its peak of #2 on the Pop charts.

In Perkins’ original version of this song, there are two deliberate beats after each of the first two lines: “One for the money… bomp, bomp; two for the show… bomp, bomp.” The Elvis version eliminates the pause between the lines and speeds it up considerably.

Dave Edmunds, who later toured with Perkins, tells a story about recording the song with the rock legend for a segment to air on The South Bank Show, a UK program. According to Edmunds, Perkins played the intro without the beats between lines, insisting that when he recorded it, that was a mistake. Edmunds began pleading with him to do it as he did on that record, but then realized the absurdity of explaining to Carl Perkins how to play “Blue Suede Shoes.”

In later appearances, Perkins did play the song in line with his original recording, often with Edmunds by his side. One of his last appearances was with Edmunds performing the song on The Jay Leno Show in 1997 (Perkins died the next year).

The B-side of the single was “Honey Don’t,” which was covered by The Beatles.

This song was a family affair: Perkins’ brother Jay played rhythm guitar on the track, and his other brother Clayton played bass (W.S. “Fluke” Holland was Perkins’ drummer). Jay died from a brain tumor in 1957, and Clayton took his own life in 1974.

The charting versions of this song in America were by:

Carl Perkins – #2, 1956
Elvis Presley – #20, 1956
Boyd Bennett – #63, 1956
Johnny Rivers – #38, 1973

Pat Boone, Conway Twitty, The Dave Clark Five and Merle Haggard are among the many to record it. A version by Buddy Holly surfaced in 1964 on an album of outtakes called Showcase.

The “better not step on my shoes” trope found its way back to the zeitgeist when Spike Lee included a scene in his 1989 movie Do The Right Thing where a character gets very upset when someone steps on his Air Jordan sneakers.

Perkins, backed by Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom of The Stray Cats, recorded a new version of this song in 1985 for the soundtrack of the movie Porky’s Revenge! The soundtrack was produced by Dave Edmunds, who also got Willie Nelson, Jeff Beck and George Harrison to record songs for it, leading to a gaping disparity in quality between the film and the soundtrack.

Later in the year, Edmunds spearheaded the “Carl Perkins and Friends” concert special, recorded October 21 in London and aired January 1, 1986 on Cinemax. Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and Rosanne Cash were among the “friends.”

The Count performed this song on an episode of Sesame Street. It became a counting exercise (one, two, Blue Suede Shoes).

Blue Suede Shoes

Well it’s one for the money, two for the show
Three to get ready, now go cat go
But don’t you, step on my blue suede shoes
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes

But you can knock me down, step in my face
Slander my name all over the place
And do anything that you want to do
But uh uh honey lay off of my shoes
And don’t you step on my blue suede shoes
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes

Oh let’s go cat!

But you can burn my house, steal my car
Drink my liquor from an old fruit jar
Do anything that you want to do
But uh uh honey lay off of them shoes
And don’t you, step on my blue suede shoes
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes

Rock!

Well it’s one for the money, two for the show
Three to get ready, now go cat go
But don’t you, step on my blue suede shoes
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes

Well it’s blue, blue, blue suede shoes
Blue, blue, blue suede shoes yeah
Blue, blue, blue suede shoes baby
Blue, blue, blue suede shoes
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes

Twilight Zone – Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville

★★★★ April 11, 1963 Season 4 Episode 14

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is a good episode. It has two plot lines that I love…time travel and deals with the Devil. If the devil looked like  Julie Newmar…there would be a lot of deals signed. Albert Salmi as the greedy Feathersmith is fantastic. He is one of my favorite chacter actors of that time. You may recognize John Anderson as Deidrich…he was a character actor until his death in 1992. He had 246 acting credits on various tv shows. 

If you could go back knowing what you know now. Would it be something small or  large you would miss because you were so excited? Chances are yes…and that little something could start a chain reaction…and you might just regret it. 

The special effects in the Twilight Zone are usually great. The only bad thing I can say about them in this one is Salmi’s “old” makeup. I believe though it’s a product of our times. With high definition tv now…you can see it clear but back then on 60’s tv…it was probably fine. This one is marked low in IMDB which I totally disagree with. It does have it’s faults but is an enjoyable episode. 

From IMDB: Ms. Devlin’s Travel Offices are on the 13th floor. This is unusual in the US (and suitable to her nature) as most buildings before the 1980’s skip the 13th floor when numbering floors in their buildings. The number 13 has long been considered unlucky.

Albert Salmi previously appeared in The Twilight Zone: Execution (1960) and The Twilight Zone: A Quality of Mercy (1961), all of which involve time travel. In “Execution” and “Cliffordville” his characters are very unlikable, although that is not the case in “Quality.”

This show was written by Rod Serling and Malcolm Jameson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Witness a murder. The killer is Mr. William Feathersmith, a robber baron whose body composition is made up of a refrigeration plant covered by thick skin. In a moment, Mr. Feathersmith will proceed on his daily course of conquest and calumny with yet another business dealing. But this one will be one of those bizarre transactions that take place in an odd marketplace known as the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. William J. Feathersmith, tycoon, who tried the track one more time and found it muddier than he remembered, proving with at least a degree of conclusiveness that nice guys don’t always finish last, and some people should quit when they’re ahead. Tonight’s tale of iron men and irony, delivered F.O.B. from the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Albert Salmi … Feathersmith
John Anderson … Deidrich
Wright King … Hecate
Guy Raymond … Gibbons
Christine Burke … Joanna
John Harmon … Clark
Hugh Sanders … Cronk
Julie Newmar … Miss Devlin
Mary Jackson … Miss Pepper (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – The New Exhibit

★★★★★ April 4, 1963 Season 4 Episode 13

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode of the Twilight Zone is really good. It has everything…some horror, mystery, and a great twist at the end. It could have been a 50’s type horror movie. You expect Vincent Price to come on at any time. Martin Balsam plays Martin Lombard Senescu and he is fantastic. He is a sympathetic character that loves his job at the wax museum…maybe a little too much. Will Kuluva as Ernest Ferguson plays the owner of the museum who sees the writing on the wall, the museum is not as popular as it was and will have to close. He is a kindly older gentlemen who cares… and gently lets Martin go…but not without granting Martin a favor. 

The pacing in this one is good. They use the hour to breathe life to the characters.  The story builds nicely and there is a good payoff in the end.  

There was a sad story behind the scenes. Charles Beaumont (his real name was Charles Leroy Nutt) was credited as writing this but Jerry Sohl had started ghostwriting for him by this time. Beaumont was only 35 and had been the top writer for Playboy and he wrote some of the very best Twilight Zones. He was probably the best writer the Twilight Zone had besides Rod Serling.

He was starting to forget things and could not concentrate. He was diagnosed with Alzheimers Disease or Picks Disease…they could not know which one until he passed. He passed away at 38 years old in 1967 and his son said he had the body and mind of a 95 year old. 

Jerry Sohl helped him out and split everything 50/50 and did all the writing in his name. He wrote for Hitchcock, Route 66 and Playboy under Beamont’s name. Sohl would write more Twilight Zones but not be credited. They had to keep this a secret because it was against Writers Guild rules.

Sohl’s script went before the cameras virtually unchanged, with no rewrites at all. This was the case with most of the scripts he ghosted. They went right in, and the reason is that Chuck Beaumont scripts were always so great that they didnt have to do anything.

Jerry Sohl on visiting the set:

Here I am standing with Chuck Beaumont, he recalls, and John Brahm, the director, comes up, puts his arm around him with the script that / did and says, Chuck, youve done it again! And here I am, standing right next to Chuck, unable to say a word!

This show was written by Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, and Jerry Sohl (uncredited)

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Martin Lombard Senescu, a gentle man, the dedicated curator of murderers’ row in Ferguson’s Wax Museum. He ponders the reasons why ordinary men are driven to commit mass murder. What Mr. Senescu does not know is that the groundwork has already been laid for his own special kind of madness and torment found only in the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Martin Lombard Senescu is a gentle man and the curator of Murderer’s Row in Ferguson’s wax museum. He loves his work and is fascinated by what drives men to commit the crimes that they do. He’s informed by his boss Mr. Ferguson that the property is being sold to developers who will raze the building and erect a supermarket. Martin brings 5 of of wax figures home but after a year his wife is at her wits end. Martin spends all of his time in the basement with his beloved friends and the cost of keeping them is eating into their already limited income. When Martin finds Emma dead in the basement he buries her there. When her brother Dave shows up, he too is apparently killed. After Mr. Ferguson finally finds a buyer for the wax figures, Martin reluctantly agrees to let them go. There is a new addition to the exhibit however.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The new exhibit became very popular at Marchand’s, but of all the figures none was ever regarded with more dread than that of Martin Lombard Senescu. It was something about the eyes, people said. It’s the look that one often gets after taking a quick walk through the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Martin Balsam …Martin Lombard Senescu
Will Kuluva…Ernest Ferguson
Margaret Field…Emma Senescu (as Maggie Mahoney)
William Mims…Dave
Phil Chambers…Gas Man
Leonard Bremen…Van Man (as Lennie Bremen)
Eddie Barth…Sailor (as Ed Barth)
Craig Curtis…Sailor
Milton Parsons…Henri Desire Landru
David Bond…Jack the Ripper
Bob Mitchell…Albert W. Hicks
Robert McCord…Burke (as Robert L. McCord)
Billy Beck…Hare
Marcel Hillaire…The Guide

Twilight Zone –  I Dream Of Genie

★★1/2 March 21, 1963 Season 4 Episode 12

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This episode is one of the light ones. You will notice the star of this episode right off the bat if you are a fan of the Andy Griffith Show. It’s Howard Morris…who is better known as Earnest T Bass. He does what he can do with the script. It’s slow paced and dull in spots. It does have a good moral to the story and a good twist at the very end…getting there is the challenge in this one. I feel like a broken record in a few of these longer episodes…but the hour works against itself in this one. One thing I will say…Howard Morris and Jack Albertson as the Genie are good in their parts. 

The best moments in I Dream of Genie is when Howard Morris is in the fantasy roles imagining how a wish would turn out if he made it. There are some funny moments but the journey is too long to get there. A thirty minute version of this still wouldn’t save much. 

 

This show was written by Rod Serling and John Furia

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Meet Mr. George P. Hanley, a man life treats without deference, honor or success. Waiters serve his soup cold. Elevator operators close doors in his face. Mothers never bother to wait up for the daughters he dates. George is a creature of humble habits and tame dreams. He’s an ordinary man, Mr. Hanley, but at this moment the accidental possessor of a very special gift, the kind of gift that measures men against their dreams, the kind of gift most of us might ask for first and possibly regret to the last, if we, like Mr. George P. Hanley, were about to plunge head-first and unaware into our own personal Twilight Zone.

Summary

A smart aleck genie appears from a lamp to a meek man, George P. Hanley. Hanley is so used to bad luck, he imagines how each of three possible wishes could go very wrong – but the genie will grant him only one wish.

 

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. George P. Hanley, former vocation; jerk. Present vocation; genie. George P. Hanley, a most ordinary man whom life treated without deference, honor, or success, but a man wise enough to decide on a most extraordinary wish, that makes him the contented, permanent master of his own altruistic Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
George P. Hanley…Howard Morris
Ann…Patricia Barry
Watson…Loring Smith
Starlet…Joyce Jameson
Genie…Jack Albertson
Roger…Mark Miller[1]
May…Molly Dodd
The P.R. Man/Scientist were played Milton Parsons
Masters…James Millhollin
Sam…Bob Hastings

Muddy Waters – Hoochie Coochie Man

What a great song by the one and only Muddy Waters.

The song was written by the great blues writer Willie Dixon. Muddy Waters recorded this song in 1954. Before Waters recorded it, he tested it out at the Chicago blues club Zanzibar. Willie Dixon gave Waters some advice before the band hit it: “Well, just get a little rhythm pattern, do the same thing over again, and keep the words in your mind.”Muddy recorded it a few weeks later with Dixon on bass.

Record label head Leonard Chess went south to bolster sales, and
partner Phil Chess told the magazine that the record had sold an astounding 4,000 copies in a single week. It became Muddy’s top selling single, and spent three months in the national charts, where it peaked at #3 in the R&B charts in 1954.

Willie Dixon would bring Muddy other songs that solidified his hoochie
coochie image: “Just Make Love To Me,” “I’m Ready,” and “Natural Born Lover.”

What a band backing Muddy! The musicans on the recording were Muddy Waters on lead vocals, guitar, Little Walter on harmonica, Otis Spann on piano, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Willie Dixon on bass and Fred Below on drums.

British blues musician Long John Baldry named his 1964 band Long John Baldry And His Hoochie Coochie Men in honor of this song.

Willie Dixon: “People believe in mystic things. Like people today believe in astrology. That’s been going on for generations, since biblical days. People all over the world believe in it. Even before Jesus was born, according to the Bible. The wise men saw the stars in the East and were able to predict about things. All of these things are mystic. They say, ‘Hoochie coochie people are telling fortunes.’ You know, like the wise men of the East. They call them ‘voodoo men’ or ‘hoochie coochie men.’ They used to call them ‘hoodoo folk’ and ‘two-head people.’ They got many names for everybody.” (this appears in Zollo’s book Songwriters On Songwriting)

Wilie Dixon: “There was quite a few people around singing the blues,” 
“But most of ’em was singing all sad blues. Muddy was giving his blues a little pep, and I began trying to think of things in a peppier form.”

Author/musician Roger Reale: “The stark realism, the drama, and especially the vocal delivery are what do it for me on ‘Hoochie Coochie Man.’ It’s half conversational; Muddy gets your attention without overdoing it. And those lyrics about ‘a gypsy woman’ always felt kind of fascinating.”

Hoochie Coochie Man

Gypsy woman told my momma, before I was born
You got a boy-child comin’, gonna be a son-of-a-gun
Gonna make these pretty women, jump and shout
And the world will only know, a-what it’s all about

Why’know I’m here
Everybody knows I’m here
And I’m the hoochie-coochie man
Everybody knows I’m here

On the seventh hour, of the seventh day,
On the seventh month, the seventh doctor said:
“He’s born for good luck, and I know you see;
Got seven hundred dollars, and don’t you mess with me

Why’know I’m here
Everybody knows I’m here
And I’m the hoochie-coochie man
Everybody knows I’m here

Gypsy woman told my momma
Said “Ooh, what a boy,
He gonna make so many women,
Jump and shout for joy”

Why’know I’m here
Everybody knows I’m here
And I’m the hoochie-coochie man
Everybody knows I’m here

Gypsy woman told my momma, before I was born
You got a boy-child comin’, gonna be a son-of-a-gun
Gonna make these pretty women, jump and shout
And the world will only know, a-what it’s all about

Why’know I’m here
Everybody knows I’m here
And I’m the hoochie-coochie man
Everybody knows I’m here

I got a black cat bone, I got a mojo too
I got John the Conqueror, I’m gonna mess with you
I’m gonna make you, pretty girl, lead me by the hand
Then the world will know, the Hoochie-Coochie Man

Twilight Zone – The Parallel

★★★★1/2 March  14, 1963, Season 4 Episode 11

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I kept saying that the 4th season was not a great season of the Twilight Zone. As someone (Paul) pointed out…there are some really good to great episodes. He was right…there are some great episodes in the season. This is one of them. After watching this season over…it’s much better than I gave it credit for. Is it as good as 1, 2, 3, or 5? No, it’s just different with the hour format. Not apples to oranges, just different.

This could be a 5 star…I went back and forth with the rating. The small details in this episode keep it interesting. 

This one is about a Parallel world. Steve Forrest who plays Major Robert Gaines is an astronaut that returns home from a troubled mission. He notices things wrong when he gets back…a different president, a gate around his yard that wasn’t there before, and small things that are wrong. His family also starts noticing little things…little things that only a loved one can see. 

From IMDB: Steve Forrest played the protagonist, Major Robert Gaines, in this episode while his elder brother Dana Andrews played the protagonist, Paul Driscoll, in the preceding episode The Twilight Zone: No Time Like the Past 

There is a moment after Maj. Gaines has spent the night with Mrs. Gaines where they attempt to embrace and she gives him a hard, questioning stare. According to producer Bert Granet, the intent of this interchange was to imply that sexual relations on the parallel world were slightly different from those of Maj. Gaines’ world, and that this had told Mrs. Gaines that he was no longer her husband. Unfortunately, in 1963 no direct mention of sexual behavior, even between spouses, was permissible, so that the scene is really too subtle to communicate this implication.

In the parallel universe, no one has ever heard of John F. Kennedy. The identity of the President of the United States in that universe is not revealed.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

In the vernacular of space, this is T minus one hour. Sixty minutes before a human being named Major Robert Gaines is lifted off from the Mother Earth and rocketed into the sky, farther and longer than any man ahead of him. Call this one of the first faltering steps of man to sever the umbilical cord of gravity and stretch out a fingertip toward an unknown. Shortly, we’ll join this astronaut named Gaines and embark on an adventure, because the environs overhead—the stars, the sky, the infinite space—are all part of a vast question mark known as the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Astronaut Major Robert Gaines is the latest to orbit the Earth but something happens while there. Ground control loses all contact with him and although he returns safely, he apparently blacked out and has no recollection of what may have happened. Nor can he explain how the craft landed on land – completely undamaged – when it was meant to splash down in the ocean. When Gaines returns home he finds that little things are different: he’s now a full colonel and has been for some time; his house now has a picket fence; he no longer seems to take sugar in his coffee; and even his wife senses he is different after she kisses him. It is soon apparent that Gaines has returned to an Earth in an alternate universe

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Major Robert Gaines, a latter-day voyager just returned from an adventure. Submitted to you without any recommendations as to belief or disbelief. You can accept or reject; you pay your money and you take your choice. But credulous or incredulous, don’t bother to ask anyone for proof that it could happen. The obligation is a reverse challenge: prove that it couldn’t. This happens to be the Twilight Zone.

 

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Steve Forrest … Major Robert Gaines
Jacqueline Scott … Helen Gaines
Frank Aletter … Colonel William Connacher
Paul Comi … Psychiatrist
Shari Lee Bernat … Maggie Gaines
Morgan Jones … Captain
William Sargent … The Project Manager
Philip Abbott … General Stanley Eaton
Fred Crane … News Anchorman (uncredited)

Billy Lee Riley – Red Hot

I first heard this song by the ‘Beatles in Hamburg on the Star Club album. They took the song and injected it with steroids…George ripped through it. The quality is terrible but the energy is not.

“Red Hot” featured Jerry Lee Lewis on piano. The song was written by Billy “The Kid” Emerson. Emerson had already had a minor hit when Elvis Presley recorded “When It Rains It Really Pours“. “Red Hot” was showing a lot of promise as a big hit record, but Sam Phillips pulled Sun Records promotion for the single and switched it to “Great Balls Of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis.

Riley earned notoriety throughout the South with his wild live performances, and in the late’50s his shows were banned by various town councils and college administrators who worried that Riley’s raucous “devil’s music” would corrupt the souls of innocent teenagers. Riley’s backing band, The Little Green Men, were the main Sun studio band. They were Riley, Roland Janes, J.M. Van Eaton, Marvin Pepper, and Jimmy Wilson, later joined by Martin Willis.

These are the kind of singles that the Beatles liked to cover…not massive hits but good songs that not many bands were covering.

Red Hot

My gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Yeah, my gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Well, she ain’t got no money
But man, she’s a-really got a lot

Well, I got a gal, six feet four
Sleeps in the kitchen with her feet out the door, but

My gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Yeah, my gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Well, she ain’t got no money
But man, she’s a-really got a lot

Well, she walks all night, talks all day
She’s the kinda woman who’ll have her way, but

My gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Yeah, my gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Well, she ain’t got no money
But man, she’s a-really got a lot

Well, she’s the kinda woman who louds around
Spreadin’ my business all over town, but

My gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Yeah, my gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Well, she ain’t got no money
But man, she’s a-really got a lot

Well, she’s a one man’s woman, that’s what I like
But I wish she wasn’t gonna change her mind everynight, but

My gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Yeah, my gal is red hot
Your gal ain’t doodly squat
Well, she ain’t got no money
But man, she’s a-really got a lot

…

Twilight Zone – No Time Like The Past

★★★1/2 March 7, 1963 Season 4 Episode 10

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I love time travel episodes. I wanted so much to love this one. No Time Like The Past has it’s charms but the hour long format works against it. It’s 4 time travel stories in this one. It could have been split up into two 30 minute episodes with the first three time jumps and the second episode the final jump. I think it would have been better for the hour long format to flesh out the first three time jumps. 

It was an interesting concept…to go back to the atom bomb dropping in Japan, the Lusitania sinking, and to try to kill Hitler. One of the flaws in this episode is he only gives himself a small amount of time to accomplish his tasks. In this case too much wasn’t a good thing. To sum it up…I wish they would have focused either on Hitler, Japan, and The Lusitania or the 1881 small town of Homeville, Indiana. The most interesting part of the episode is the 1881 Indiana story. 

Dana Andrews who played Paul Driscoll was a star in the 1940s in movies with Henry Fonda, Tyrone Powers, and more. 

From IMDB: Dana Andrews played the protagonist, Paul Driscoll, in this episode while his younger brother Steve Forrest played the protagonist, Major Robert Gaines, in the succeeding episode The Twilight Zone: The Parallel .

This episode takes place in 1963, in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, in Berlin, Germany in August 1939, aboard the RMS Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland on May 7, 1915 and in Homeville, Indiana from July 1 to July 3, 1881.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Exit one Paul Driscoll, a creature of the twentieth century. He puts to a test a complicated theorem of space-time continuum, but he goes a step further, or tries to. Shortly, he will seek out three moments of the past in a desperate attempt to alter the present, one of the odd and fanciful functions in a shadowland known as the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Paul Driscoll does not much like the way the 20th century has developed thus far and decides to go back in time to change mankind’s future. He first travels to Hiroshima and tries to warn an English-speaking policeman of what is to come, but to no avail. He then travels to Nazi Germany and attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler but is thwarted when his rifle misfires. He then finds himself aboard the Lusitania but again is unable to convince the ship’s captain to alter course before it is torpedoed. When he returns to the present, he agrees with his colleague Harvey that the past cannot be changed. He still does not like the present, so decides to go back to July 1881 to live his life in the small town of Homeville, Indiana. Unfortunately he learns yet again that past events cannot be changed

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Incident on a July afternoon, 1881. A man named Driscoll who came and went and, in the process, learned a simple lesson, perhaps best said by a poet named Lathbury, who wrote, ‘Children of yesterday, heirs of tomorrow, what are you weaving? Labor and sorrow? Look to your looms again, faster and faster fly the great shuttles prepared by the master. Life’s in the loom, room for it. Room.’[1] Tonight’s tale of clocks and calendars in the Twilight Zone.

 

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Dana Andrews … Paul Driscoll
Patricia Breslin … Abigail Sloan
Malcolm Atterbury … Prof. Eliot
Robert Cornthwaite … Hanford
John Zaremba … Horn Player
C. Lindsay Workman … Bartender (as Lindsay Workman)
Marjorie Bennett … Mrs. Chamberlain
Tudor Owen … Captain of Lusitania
James Yagi … Japanese Police Captain
Robert F. Simon … Harvey
Adolf Hitler … Self (archive footage)
Gene Coogan … Fire Spectator Restraining Driscoll (uncredited)
Peter Humphreys … Steward on Lusitania (uncredited)
Robert McCord … Man Hearing About Garfield (uncredited)
Bobs Watson … Man at Dining Room Table (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – Printer’s Devil

★★★★★ Febraury 28, 1963 Season 4 Episode 9

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I’ve always liked sell your soul to the devil stories. This one has Burgess Meredith and that means chances are it’s a great one. Three out of four Twilight Zones he is in are classics. Time Enough At Last, The Obsolete Man, and this one are remembered episodes of the Twilight Zone. His eyebrows were pointing slightly upward, a twisted cigar in his mouth, he certainly looks the part. He is a grinning, leering Devil, full of subtleties. His interpretation goes well beyond the lines. Meredith is also listed as one of the writers. 

Robert Sterling plays Douglas Winter, a down on his luck newspaper owner who is about to get pushed out by a larger paper. Pat Crowley plays Jackie Benson who is Douglas’s much more acute girlfriend. The hour format doesn’t hurt this one at all…in fact it helps a bit. The fourth season is not full of classic episodes but I have always considered this one…one of the best. 

Ralph Senensky directed this episode. I want to use this opportunity to tell everyone who is interested that he has a blog and talks about all the shows he directed. The Waltons, Night Gallery, Twilight Zone, and much more. His memories are insightful about those old shows. He still posts and he is around 98 years old. 

Ralph Senensky: Actors like Burgess Meredith fascinated me with the preparation they brought to their roles. They didn’t just memorize their lines. As Beulah Bondi once said to me, “After the lines are learned, that’s when the work begins.”  I’m sure Burgess took his cue for how to work at the linotype machine from one of Jackie’s lines: “If he doesn’t play Chopin’s Polonaise, I’m going to be disappointed.”

This show was written by Robert Sterling, Pat Crowley, and Burgess Meredith

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Take away a man’s dream, fill him with whiskey and despair, send him to a lonely bridge, let him stand there all by himself looking down at the black water, and try to imagine the thoughts that are in his mind. You can’t, I can’t. But there’s someone who can—and that someone is seated next to Douglas Winter right now. The car is headed back toward town, but its real destination is the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Douglas Winter, the editor of The Courier, a failing newspaper, feels there is nothing to live for after a number of employees quit, including the Linotype operator. On a bridge while drunk, he looks down into the inviting water below. When he is going to commit suicide, he is approached by one “Mr. Smith”, who comments that it’s a short fall and probably wouldn’t do a very good job. He then asks Doug for a light, and, if he wasn’t quite ready, a ride into town. Amused and forgetting about suicide, Winter gives him a lift to a café, where Mr. Smith agrees to provide the editor with money to pay off debts and continue the operation of the newspaper. Mr. Smith also signs up to replace the linotype operator and be the sole reporter. With nothing to lose, Doug agrees to the proposition.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Exit the infernal machine, and with it his satanic majesty, Lucifer, prince of darkness—otherwise known as Mr. Smith. He’s gone, but not for good; that wouldn’t be like him—he’s gone for bad. And he might be back, with another ticket….to The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Burgess Meredith…Mr. Smith
Robert Sterling…Douglas Winter
Pat Crowley…Jackie Benson
Ray Teal…Mr. Franklin
Charles P. Thompson…Andy Praskins
Doris Kemper…Landlady
Camille Franklin…Molly

Heaven and Hell – by Don Felder and Wendy Holden…Book

Let me start this out by being completely truthful. I am not an Eagles fan whatsoever but I like biographies and I do respect the band as musicians and songwriters. This is a good book for Eagles fans and rock fans in general. It covers a lot of history of the Eagles and rock in the 60s and 70s.

Felder by far was the most versatile of the band. He was offereded a teaching job at Berklee College of Music in Boston before he even joined the Eagles.

What made me want to read this book was…the documentary on the Eagles released in 2013 (I also love rock documentaries). One of the reasons they made the documentary was because of this book! Don Henley and Glenn Frey were livid about Heaven and Hell and wanted to tell their side. The funny thing is… they ended up proving Don Felder right on most of what he wrote.

It’s a good book…I liked it because it helped document an important time in rock music…the sixties and seventies. The book is interesting for more reasons than the Eagles. Florida in the 1960s was a hotspot for future rock and roll stars. Don Felder, Tom Petty, Allman Brothers, Stephen Stills, and Lynyrd Skynyrd just to name a few were all playing clubs on both coasts of Florida.

Don Felder grew up in Gainesville Florida and worked at a music store. He gave young Tommy his first guitar lessons…that Tommy would be Tom Petty. He played in a band with Stephen Stills in high school. He then met future Eagle Bernie Leadon and they started to play in bands together. Felder was taught slide guitar by no other than Duane Allman! They played many of the clubs that the Allman Joys did.

It’s worth reading just for his pre-Eagle days.

When the Eagles first formed, their goal was to divide the writing and singing equally. That way, they reasoned, nobody would become a star or feel like a sideman. That had happened in their previous bands, and they didn’t create the Eagles to go through all that again. After a while that plan went out the window and the problems started.

You learn about the dynamics of the Eagles and how everything changed after Hotel California. Henley and Frey took over the band and called the shots. The problem was Felder was a full member (owner) in the band unlike Timothy B Schmit and Joe Walsh who were just paid employees then and now. When Felder would sugggest something or would want to know where the money was going…he was ignored or pushed off to Irving Azoff the manager by Henley and Frey.

He also covers the problems that Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner had with Frey and Henley….and the close friendship that he had with Joe Walsh.

This is not a gossip book. Felder doesn’t use the book just to slam Frey and Henley. Felder has faults and we see them in this book. He does seem to try to be even handed. As I’ve mentioned before…one look at the Eagles documentary and most of what he says will be verified. He covers their career…up until he was let go.

It’s an enjoyable book and I would recommend it. As I said, I’m not an Eagles fan but I enjoyed it.

Chuck Berry – Too Much Monkey Business

Love the Chuck’s bright guitar intro! Chuck is the father of rock and roll guitar. Everything comes from him. Rockabilly, pop, rock, hard rock, and heavy metal…Chuck is at the core.

The guitar influence he has over rock music is obvious but his rock and roll poetry shouldn’t be forgotten either. While Keith Richards was listening to his guitar closely…Bob Dylan was also listening to his poetry about life.

Too Much Monkey Business was released in September 1956 as the B-side of Brown Eyed Handsome Man. I love how Chuck spits out the lyrics to this song. Bob Dylan did something simiiar on Subterranean Homesick Blues a little later in the sixties.

Berry made up a word in this song, singing, “I don’t want your botheration.” This wasn’t the first time he used his own language: In Maybellene he sings about motorvating.

Too Much Monkey Business peaked at #9 in the Hot Billboard 100, #4 in the US R&B Charts, and #36 in the UK in 1956.

It’s incredible when you look at the output of Chuck Berry in the 50s.

From Songfacts

 In his comprehensive Berry-ography Long Distance Information: Chuck Berry’s Recorded Legacy, Berry fan Fred Rothwell says this is a song about “the everyday hassles of the average working stiff” and asks, “Who but Chuck Berry would consider writing about such an everyday irritant as losing change in a payphone, and who else would do it so succinctly…”

This echoes Berry’s sentiments; in his autobiography he says the song was meant to describe most of the kinds of hassles a person encounters in everyday life. 

Bob Dylan is one of the many musicians to draw influence from Berry. When Berry won a PEN Award for song lyrics in 2012, Dylan sent him a note saying, “That’s what too much monkey business will get ya.”

Too Much Monkey Business

Runnin’ to-and-fro, hard workin’ at the mill
Never fail in the mail, yeah, come a rotten bill
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Salesman talkin’ to me, tryin’ to run me up a creek
Says you can buy now, gone try, you can pay me next week, ahh
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Blonde haired good looks, tryin’ to get me hooked
Want me to marry, get a home, settle down, write a book
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Same thing every day, gettin’ up, goin’ to school
No need for me to complain, my objection’s overruled, ahh
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Take home, something wrong, dime gone, will hold
Order suit, hoppered up for telling me a tale, ahh
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Been to yokohama, been fightin’ in the war
Army bunk, army chow, army clothes, army car, aah
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in

Workin’ in the fillin’ station, too many tasks
Wipe the windows, check the tires, check the oil, dollar gas
Too much monkey business, too much monkey business
Don’t want your botheration, get away, leave me

Too much monkey business for me

…

Bing Crosby – Silent Night

This song is not only my favorite Christmas Carol… I think it’s up there with the best songs ever written. I hope everyone has a great Christmas/Holiday.

There are over 26,000 different versions of “Silent Night” on Spotify, meaning you could listen to a different rendition of the carol every night for 72 years.

Halfway through December 1818, the church organ in St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, 11 miles north of Salzburg in what is now Austria, broke (a popular version of the story claims that mice had eaten out the bellows). The curate, 26-year-old Josef Mohr, realized it couldn’t be repaired in time to provide music on Christmas Eve. He told his troubles to his friend, a headmaster and amateur composer named Franz Gruber, while giving him as a present a poem he had written two years earlier. Gruber was so taken by the rhythm of the poem that he set it to music, and on Christmas Eve there was music after all. Mohr played his guitar while the pair sang the song. It was the first public performance of “Stille Nacht” or as we know it “Silent Night.”

It is believed that Silent Night has been translated into over 300 languages around the world, and it is one of the most popular carols of all time.

From Songfacts

Bing Crosby’s version became his best-seller of the 1930s.

Music licensing company PPL announced in December 2010 that this carol tops the list of Britain’s “most recorded Christmas song of all time.” Said Mike Dalby, Lead Reporting Analyst at PPL: “Silent Night is a beautiful carol which encapsulates the feeling of Christmas entirely. Everyone from punk band The Dickies right through to Sinead O’Connor has recorded it, which exemplifies just how much it resonates with all different types of artists.”

According to PPL, Sinead O’Connor’s 1991 recording was the most popular version of the carol in Britain.

When the organ builder finally did show up to repair the St. Nicholas organ, he was given a copy of the “Silent Night” composition and brought it home. From there, traveling folk singers got a hold of it and began incorporating the carol into their repertoire. It didn’t make its way to America until 1839.

As the song gained traction throughout Europe, Franz Gruber composed several different orchestral arrangements. He donated all profits from the carol to local charities for children and the elderly, and eventually died penniless.

According to Steve Sullivan’s Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Crosby, a devout Catholic, refused to record the religious song, arguing it would be “like cashing in on the church or the Bible.” Crosby met with Father Richard Ranaghan, a priest trying to raise money for overseas missions, and decided to donate the royalties to the cause. But Ranaghan died in a car accident later that year, so the money went to several charities throughout the US and abroad.

This song lends itself to interpretation because the first four bars are all on the same chord. Jim Brickman explains: “There’s room to treat it dynamically in a different way: in the tempo, in the sounds and silences, in the time signature.”

Silent Night

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.
‘Round yon virgin mother and child.
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.
‘Round yon virgin mother and child.
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Twilight Zone – Miniature

★★★★1/2 Febraury 21, 1963 Season 4 Episode 8

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

***Since we have two Holiday Weekends coming up,This will be the last Twilight Zone until  January 5, 2022…thank you***

The first thing you notice is a young Robert Duvall that stars in this episode. He gives a sensitive portrayal of Charley Parkes who suffers from some sort of social anxiety. Parkes has a hard time interacting with humans but finds a doll house with a doll that he feels comfortable with. He seems to be  retreating into a world of fantasy… but is he?  Duvall plays it brilliantly with sensitivity. 

Barbara Barrie plays Myra Russell and she would later play Barney Miller’s wife in the 1970s. Charles Beaumont’s script is thoughtful and sensitive and flows well for the most part…Duvall is a big reason.

Of all the hour-long Twilight Zone episodes, Miniature is the only one never put into syndication. The reason is that when the series was originally syndicated, Miniature was involved in a lawsuit. A script entitled The Thirteenth Mannequin had been submitted to Cayuga Productions prior to Miniature. The script concerned an old man who preferred the company of store mannequinsmannequins who ultimately come to life. The suit claimed that since both works dealt with main characters becoming involved inanimate human figures who come to life, Miniature had stolen the idea.

Ultimately, the case was dismissed, both by the initial judge and on appeal. The Thirteenth Mannequin was no ancestor of Miniature. The curious thing about this whole affair is that if any Twilight Zone episode was similar to The Thirteenth Mannequin, it was Serlings The After Hoursand that was written long before anyone at Cayuga ever heard of The Thirteenth Mannequin. Even when it was submitted, The Thirteenth Mannequin was not unique; The Twilight Zone had already explored its central idea.

Still, the damage was done. Because of the suit, Miniature was aired only once until… It was re-aired in 1984 as part of The Twilight Zone Silver Anniversary Special. For this showing, the dollhouse scenes were colorized in an early public demonstration of the then-innovative colorization process.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

To the average person, a museum is a place of knowledge, a place of beauty and truth and wonder. Some people come to study, others to contemplate, others to look for the sheer joy of looking. Charley Parkes has his own reasons. He comes to the museum to get away from the world. It isn’t really the sixty-cent cafeteria meal that has drawn him here every day, it’s the fact that here in these strange, cool halls he can be alone for a little while, really and truly alone. Anyway, that’s how it was before he got lost and wandered into the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Mousey misfit Charley Parkes finds the world unfolding before him in a museum doll house to be more real than his boring job and overbearing mother.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

They never found Charley Parkes because the guard didn’t tell them what he saw in the glass case. He knew what they’d say and he knew they’d be right too because seeing is not always believing, especially if what you see happens to be an odd corner of the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Robert Duvall … Charley Parkes
Pert Kelton … Mrs. Parkes
Barbara Barrie … Myra Russell
William Windom … Dr. Wallman
Lennie Weinrib … Buddy Russell
John McLiam … Guard
Barney Phillips … Diemel
Joan Chambers … Harriet
Chet Stratton … Guide
Richard Angarola Richard Angarola … The Suitor
Nina Roman … The Maid
Claire Griswold … The Doll
Norman Burton … Office Worker (uncredited)
Sally Kellerman … Office Worker (uncredited)
Joseph V. Perry … Office Worker (uncredited)

Twilight Zone – Jess-Belle

★★★★ Febraury 14, 1963 Season 4 Episode 7

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

I like this episode….it has a backwoods eerie feel to it. The show reminded me of the 1940s and 1950s horror movies like the Wolfman but set in a rural enviroment. There is some padding but that doesn’t stop this from being a good episode. Each character portrays superstitious beliefs and they play off of that for the story. A story of how love can sometimes blind people to the consequences of their actions. This was written by Waltons creator Earl Hamner Jr. 

If you noticed the date…This haunting love story originally aired on Valentine’s Day in 1963.

The stand out in this episode was Jeanette Nolan as the creepy Granny Hart. A woman not to be messed with. She has an authentic backwoods dialect that she used in a previous episode…The Hunt. She was a marvelous character actress. James Best plays Billy Ben Turner in this one. Before he was in The Dukes of Hazzard he guest starred in the Andy Griffith Show among many shows. The two leading ladies Anne Francis and Laura Devon were on the mark. Anne Francis was in another Twilight Zone….the classic “After Hours” where she played a mannequin. 

From IMDB: Jeanette Nolan played Granny Hart, from whom Jess-Belle Stone obtains a love potion to win over Billy-Ben Turner. In The Twilight Zone: The Chaser (1960), Nolan’s husband John McIntire played Professor A. Daemon, from whom Roger Shackleforth obtains a love potion to win over Leila.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Earl Hamner, Jr.

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

The Twilight Zone has existed in many lands in many times. It has its roots in history, in something that happened long, long ago and got told about and handed down from one generation of folk to the other. In the telling the story gets added to and embroidered on, so that what might have happened in the time of the Druids is told as if it took place yesterday in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Such stories are best told by an elderly grandfather on a cold winter’s night by the fireside in the southern hills of the Twilight Zone.

Summary

After the love of her life, Billy Ben Turner, gets engaged to Ellwyn, the daughter of a rich farmer, a jealous Jess-Belle turns to a local witch to help her get him back. Granny Hart is known in the area as the person to go to for any potion you might want. Jess-Belle has no money, however, and all Granny Hart can give her is a potion that carries a high price. Jess-Belle is prepared to pay any price, and the potion she takes seems to work: as soon as Billy Ben sets eyes on her, he falls madly in love with her. When the clock strikes midnight, however, Jess-Belle is transformed and later realizes that she, too, is now a witch.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The episode did not feature a closing narration from Rod Serling. Instead, it ends with the folk song heard at the beginning:

Fair was Elly Glover,
Dark was Jess-Belle.
Both they loved the same man
And both they loved him well.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Anne Francis … Jess-Belle Stone
James Best … Billy Ben Turner
Laura Devon … Ellwyn Glover
Jeanette Nolan … Granny Hart
Virginia Gregg … Ossie Stone
George Mitchell … Luther Glover
Helen Kleeb … Mattie Glover
Jim Boles … Obed Miller
Jon Lormer … Minister

Twilight Zone – Death Ship

★★★★★ Febraury 7, 1963 Season 4 Episode 6

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

This is one of my favorite episodes of the 4th season. All three main actors bring something to the table. This one shows denial from the three main characters and the will to go on. They see a spaceship (their spaceship) has crashed and they see themselves dead. How is this possible? Are they really dead or is it just an hallucination? They spend the episode investigating different reasons as Captain Ross pushes the other two to the brink. 

Jack Klugman plays Captain Ross and he is great as always and he would appear in 4 Twilight Zones. Ross Martin appears as Lt. Ted Mason and Martin would have 130 tv credits in the 60s and 70s. He was turned down in starring roles  because of a heart condition and studios were afraid to take a chance on him in starring roles. He had mostly had guest appearances and was a great character actor. Fred Beir as Lt. Mike Carter had over 100 screen credits to his name.

This episode is quite creepy and the twist at the end is good…even if you guess it before hand. The hour long format works well in this episode. You get background information on each character. 

The special effects were really good for this one. Included in Death Ship are a number of futuristic props, including the spaceship itself (a leftover from the movie Forbidden Planet) and an on-bridge device that scans the planets surface. Realistic paintings show the wrecked spaceship and the exterior of a house back on Earth. Also worth noting are the day and night shots of the spaceship landing and taking off.

Russ Martin who was separted from his wife and daughter: I had found that certain personal things with regard to my own daughter motivate me or drive me or move me. Years ago, I was in a class taught by Marty Ritt, who is now a brilliant director, and one of the exercises we had was to move a distance of something like eighteen feet in three steps and sit in a chair. I mean, just move, three steps and youre sitting in the chair. And I said, Tt just cant be done. He said, You give yourself something thatll make you do that.

So I pictured my daughter under certain circumstances. Now, its horrible to me even now, as I mention it but the truth is that I pictured her at a window, inside a burning building, calling to me in near panic, Daddy! Daddy! And I took those steps! It was effortless to stride the length of a mans body. It was almost as though I had been shot out of a cannon, but that was because that was meaningful to me. And I used similar circumstances involving my own daughter, in my mind, in preparation for that scene, so that when I turned and saw her my heart just broke. The joy, the joy at seeing her!

Special effects supervisor Herbert Hirschman :  I supervised the construction and told them what I wanted. We built a miniature to show the ship landing and taking off. It was on a table with sand and little plants. The ship was suspended from invisible wires. And as the ship was slowing in the descent, I wanted to see the sand billowing up. It was very expensive, but I felt that it was essential to the credibility of the show. The attention to detail was well worth the effort; its a beautiful effect. It was an awful lot of fun, says Hirschman, I kept asking for more and they kept doing it.

IMDB: The story proposes that 1997 is the year that spaceships are being sent from an overpopulated Earth to find planets suitable for colonization. A similar notion was later used as one of the main premises of Lost in Space (1965), a series which starred many Twilight Zone alumni.

Of the three main actors, Jack Klugman (Captain Ross) was the only one who lived to see the actual 1997.

The spaceship E-89, is the same miniature prop that was originally created as the saucer-shaped United Planets Cruiser C-57D for the 1956 MGM science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956). The external set of the ship and its staircase, and the crew uniforms, are also from the same film. “The Twilight Zone” was able to make extensive use of props and costumes created for “Forbidden Planet” (including Robby The Robot) thanks to the fact that it was regularly filmed at MGM Studios, which kept all these items in storage in its prop department for many years.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

Picture of the spaceship E-89, cruising above the 13th planet of star system 51, the year 1997. In a little while, supposedly, the ship will be landed and specimens taken: vegetable, mineral, and if any, animal. These will be brought back to overpopulated Earth, where technicians will evaluate them, and if everything is satisfactory, stamp their findings with the word ‘inhabitable’ and open up yet another planet for colonization. These are the things that are supposed to happen.

Picture of the crew of the spaceship E-89: Captain Ross, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Carter. Three men who have just reached a place which is as far from home as they will ever be. Three men who in a matter of minutes will be plunged into the darkest nightmare reaches of the Twilight Zone.

Summary

In 1997, the spaceship E-89 arrives at the 13th planet in star system 51. Their mission is to collect plant samples to take back to an overpopulated Earth so it can be determined if the planet could be colonized. What they find however is a crashed spaceship of Earth design. Inside the ship they discover three dead crew members – but the dead are their duplicates and the crashed vessel is the E-89. The captain refuses to accept that they might be dead and explores several possibilities to explain what has happened including the theory that they may have time-traveled. The two crewmen hallucinate and come to believe they are already dead but the captain refuses to accept that and intends to prove that they are very much alive.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Picture of a man who will not see anything he does not choose to see, including his own death. A man of such indomitable will that even the two men beneath his command are not allowed to see the truth; which truth is, that they are no longer among the living, that the movements they make and the words they speak have all been made and spoken countless times before, and will be made and spoken countless times again, perhaps even unto eternity. Picture of a latter-day Flying Dutchman, sailing into the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Jack Klugman…Capt. Paul Ross
Ross Martin…Lt. Ted Mason
Fred Beir (as Fredrick Beir)…Lt. Mike Carter
Mary Webster…Ruth Mason
Ross Elliott…Kramer
Sara Taft…Mrs. Nolan
Tammy Marihugh…Jeannie Mason