1960s – Page 51 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Twilight Zone – Shadow Play

★★★★★ May 5, 1961 Season 2 Episode 26

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

This one is a Twilight Zone classic. Dennis Weaver stars in this episode as Adam Grant. Weaver has always been a favorite of mine. He starred in the movie Duel, as McCloud, and in the first 9 seasons of Gunsmoke as Chester. Again and again The Twilight Zone cast these episodes perfectly.

This one is about a nightmare that Adam Grant finds himself trapped in. Grant has created this world with many of the same faces but different characters. It starts with him in a court room being convicted of first degree murder. We don’t see the crime…just Adam being thrown in jail and on death row…but something is off and he knows it. This episode is one of the must see Twilight Zones.

The writer Charles Beaumont once again explores a nightmare in Shadow Play as he did in Perchance for a Dream.

From IMDB: The title refers to the ancient art of shadow play or shadow puppetry using opaque figures that cast shadows on clear curtains. Such entertainment is known in countries throughout the world and is presented in theaters and by traveling troupes.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Adam Grant, a nondescript kind of man, found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice, he’s scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn’t prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or even death itself. It’s something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer, something found only in – The Twilight Zone.

Summary

When Adam Grant is found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced he lashes out telling everyone that he will not be murdered again. Grant claims to be having a recurring nightmare where he is found guilty and executed. The characters around him change and so he argues that all of them will vanish if he dies. It leads newspaperman Paul Carson to question what is real and what might just be a figment of someone else’s imagination. DA Henry Ritchie visits Grant in jail and decides to try and do something about his claims, no matter how far-fetched his claims might be.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone’s feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live, instead, – in The Twilight Zone?

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Dennis Weaver…Adam Grant
Harry Townes…District Attorney Henry Ritchie
Wright King…Paul Carson
Bernie Hamilton…Coley
William Edmonson…Jiggs
Anne Barton…Carol Ritchie
Tommy Nello…Phillips
Mack Williams…Father Beaman
Gene Roth…Judge

…

Traffic – Paper Sun

Lets go back to the psychedelic sixties with this song that was released in the Summer of Love. The song fit perfectly with the times even featuring an Indian sitar played by Dave Mason. That year had singles such as “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Ruby Tuesday”, “Sunshine Of Your Love”, “Nights In White Satin”, “Whiter Shade of Pale”, “See Emily Play”…the list goes on and on. This is a great example of British psychedelia.

Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi wrote this song in 1967 when Winwood and Capaldi were members of two different bands. They were on tour together, and after a show put the song together in a hotel room.

When Winwood and Capaldi formed Traffic a short time later with Dave Mason and Chris Wood, they recorded Paper Sun and released it as their first single.

The song peaked at #5 in the UK, #4 in Canada, and #94 in the Billboard 100 in 1967.

Jim Capaldi: “I got the title from a newspaper in a boarding house in Newcastle,” “I was half-asleep, lying there writing this lyric in my head at about 3:30 in the morning. I woke up Steve with this idea and then we went into the living room where there was a little upright piano and finished the song.”

Paper Sun

So you think you’re having good times
With the boy that you just met
Kicking sand from beach to beach
Your clothes are soaking wet
But if you look around and see
A shadow on the run (on the run)
Don’t be too upset because it’s just a paper sun

Ah paper sun, ah paper sun

In the room where you’ve been sleeping
All our clothes are thrown about
Cigarettes burn window sills
Your meter’s all run out
But there again it’s nothing
You just split when day is done (day is gone)
Hitching lifts to nowhere, hung up on the paper sun

Ah paper sun, ah paper sun

Standing in the cool of my room
Fresh cut flowers give me sweet perfume (too much sun will burn)
Too much sun will burn (too much sun will burn)
Too much sun will burn

When you’re feeling tired and lonely
You see people going home
You can’t make the train fare
Or the sixpence for the phone
And icicles you’re crying
Down your cheek have just begun
Don’t be sad, good times are had
Beneath the paper sun

Ah paper sun, ah paper sun

Daylight breaks while you sleep on the sand
A seagull is stealing the ring from your hand
The boy who had given you so much fun
Has left you so cold in the paper sun
In the paper sun, in the paper sun, in the paper sun, in the paper sun

Twilight Zone – The Silence

★★★★★ April 28, 1961 Season 2 Episode 25

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

This one is a very good episode with some fine acting by Franchot Tone and Liam Sullivan. There is not just one twist at the end of the episode but two of them. This episode has no supernatural events and it is not a typical episode of the Twilight Zone. It’s pure story and what a story. It was set in a prestigious Gentlemen’s Club with a talkative younger man named Jamie Tennyson (Liam Sullivan) and the grumpy older fellow named Colonel Archie Taylor (Franchot Tone).

Tennyson annoyed Taylor to no end with his non stop chatter. We didn’t get to see a lot of this but Taylor does hate the man. After handing him a note and then announcing to every one…he bet Tennyson $500,000 that he could not be completely quiet for a year. The story goes from there.

Below is a very interesting real life story on the set about the wonderful character actor Franchot Tone.

Franchot Tone Liam Sullivan

The episode present a lot of challenges. The first headache went to George Clemens (Cinematographer). The set where the character Sullivan was to be imprisoned was made up entirely of panes of glass. When I saw the set, I pretty near lost my lunch, Clemens recalls. How in the world am I going to get a light in there, and show light, without getting reflections? But Buck Houghton had hired the right man, and Clemens persevered. Once I started on the thing, he says, I think I only had to take two panes of glass out in the whole picture.

The first days shooting went just fine. The opening and closing scenes of the episode, both of which take place in the main room of the mens club, were completed. The company broke for the weekend. But the biggest problem was yet to come.

On the second day of shooting, Franchot Tone didn’t show up, Serling recalled years later. And we waited and we waited. The call is six in the morning. When it got to be ten a.m. and everybody had been sitting there in their own smoke waiting and no Franchot Tone, we get his agent who tracks him down. He is in a clinic.

Stories differ. According to Liam Sullivan, Tone told him that he’d been at a party and, in attempting to pick a flower for his date off a bush on the terrace, had fallen down a hillside and landed on the driveway of the house next door. According to Serling, Tone had approached a girl in the parking lot of a restaurant and her boyfriend had taken offense and beaten him up. Whatever the truth, the result was still the same: half of Tones face was scraped raw.

With one days shooting in the can, recasting was out of the question. Serling: I said, So be it. Come on in, Franch, and well shoot the other side of your face, which we did.

The result was indeed odd. During the opening scene of the episode, we see Tone full face. When the scene changes to the glass cage in which Sullivan is imprisoned, we only see Tones face in profile or with half of it obscured. Then in the final scene, we see Tone full-face again.

Surprisingly, the effect works to the episodes advantage. The scenes in the middle are those in which Tone tries to convince Sullivan to break his silence, using every dirty trick he can think of, including relaying ugly rumors about Sullivans wife. Speaking out of the corner of his mouth, only half-turned toward Sullivan, Tone seems predatory and sly, what he says takes on an added suggestiveness. The impact was not lost. In fact, director Boris Sagal once recalled that at the time a number of critics complimented him on the effect!

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

The note that this man is carrying across a club room is in the form of a proposed wager, but it’s the kind of wager that comes without precedent. It stands alone in the annals of bet-making as the strangest game of chance ever offered by one man to another. In just a moment, we’ll see the terms of the wager and what young Mr. Tennyson does about it. And in the process, we’ll witness all parties spin a wheel of chance in a very bizarre casino called the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Jamie Tennyson is an overly talkative member of a private men’s club. He is challenged by fellow member Col. Archie Taylor to keep his mouth shut for one year. Should he do so, he would win $500,000. Taylor dislikes Tennyson and if nothing else, finds this a way to get a bit of peace and quiet at the club. Tennyson will live in a room in the club, under observation and will communicate in writing only. As the months go by, Taylor begins to worry that Tennyson may just succeed. He can’t believe Tennyson’s will but neither party proves to be completely honorable.

SPOILER VIDEO…DON’T WATCH

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Jamie Tennyson, who almost won a bet, but who discovered somewhat belatedly that gambling can be a most unproductive pursuit, even with loaded dice, marked cards, or, as in his case, some severed vocal cords. For somewhere beyond him, a wheel was turned, and his number came up black thirteen. If you don’t believe it, ask the croupier, the very special one who handles roulette – in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Franchot Tone…Archie Taylor
Liam Sullivan…Jamie Tennyson
Jonathan Harris…George Alfred
Cyril Delevanti…Franklin
Everett Glass…Club Member
Felix Locher…Club Member

…

Twilight Zone – The Rip Van Winkle Caper

★★★★ April 21, 1961 Season 2 Episode 24

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

This episode shows what greed and selfishness can do to the best laid plans. Oscar Beregi Jr who plays Farwell, was in three Twilight Zones including the classic Deaths-Head Revisited and is very good. This is a time travel episode…sort of. Four expert criminals and one is a professor (Farwell) rob a gold shipment. There is no way they can cash in with everyone looking for the gold and them.

The professor Farwell devised a way ( suspended animation) for them to sleep a 100 years so they would be able to sell the gold in the future . The show is carried by the two veteran character actors, Oscar Beregi, Jr. and Simon Oakland. Like most Twilight Zones…I enjoyed the twist at the end. It’s a good solid episode.

If Farwell would have used his head, he could have patented the suspended animation process and would have been rich without turning to a life of crime.

The Rip Van Winkle Caper was filmed at the same location as the previous episode “A Hundred Yards Over The Rim.”

The futuristic vehicle which is shown at the end of the episode is a modified version of Robby the Robot’s car, first constructed by MGM for the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet

$1,000,000 in gold in 1961 ($35.50/oz.) would weigh over 28,000 ounces or 1760 lbs.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Introducing, four experts in the questionable art of crime: Mr. Farwell, expert on noxious gases, former professor, with a doctorate in both chemistry and physics; Mr. Erbie, expert in mechanical engineering; Mr. Brooks, expert in the use of firearms and other weaponry; and Mr. De Cruz, expert in demolition and various forms of destruction. The time is now, and the place is a mountain cave in Death Valley, U.S.A. In just a moment, these four men will utilize the services of a truck placed in cosmoline, loaded with a hot heist cooled off by a century of sleep, and then take a drive into The Twilight Zone.

Summary

Four thieves steal $1 million in gold bullion in a train robbery and hide the money in a mountainside cave. The four plan to go into suspended animation for approximately 100 years when they hope to awaken as extremely rich men with their heist long forgotten. When they awaken, they’re not quite sure what year it is. One of them, De Cruz, has his eye on getting as much of the gold for himself as he possibly can. The world they have awakened in isn’t exactly what they had hoped for.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

The last of four Rip Van Winkles, who all died precisely the way they lived, chasing an idol across the sand to wind up bleached dry in the hot sun as so much desert flotsam, worthless as the gold bullion they built a shrine to. Tonight’s lesson – in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Simon Oakland…DeCruz
Oscar Beregi Jr….Farwell
Lew Gallo…Brooks
John Mitchum…Erbie
Wallace Rooney…George
Shirley O’Hara…George’s wife

Jan and Dean – Surf City

You know we’re going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one, now…Two girls for every boy”

It’s time to mix it up a little before Fall arrives and think about summer and fun. This will wrap up the surfing weekend at powerpop…it’s been fun to feature these surfing songs and they will occasionally pop up here and there. I know people who look down upon songs like this…What do I tell them? Lighten up Moondog and catch a wave while you are at it.

As I said in a previous post…When I was a senior in High School…1985… for some unknown reason I really got into surf music at the beginning of the year. I listened to Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, Dick Dale, Link Wray, and The Ventures. I loved those songs then and now.

I remember watching Dead Man’s Curve when I was a kid about Jan and Dean and the terrible car wreck Jan Berry was involved in.

This song was written by Brian Wilson and he didn’t think he would ever finish it. Jan met him at a party and helped Brian finish the song. Dean also contributed some lines but never asked for any writing credits. “Two girls for every boy”…what teenage boy didn’t want to go there for a visit. It was the first surf record to hit #1 nationally.

Brian Wilson’s controlling dad Murry was furious at Brian for giving away a number 1 hit to someone else. Brian was happy that another group took his song and made a hit with it.

Surf music is bout fun… The Beach Boys expanded surf music and then left it with Pet Sounds. By that time Surf purists didn’t like it. They wanted the old formula songs… I wasn’t a purist…I like them all.

Surf City

Two girls for every boy

I bought a ’34 wagon and we call it a woodie
(Surf City, here we come)
You know it’s not very cherry, it’s an oldie but a goodie
(Surf City, here we come)
Well, it ain’t got a back seat or a rear window
But it still gets me where I wanna go

Yeah, we’re going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one
You know we’re going to Surf City, gonna have some fun
You know we’re going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one
You know we’re going to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now

Two girls for every boy

They say they never roll the streets up ’cause there’s always somethin’ goin’
(Surf City, here we come)
You know they’re either out surfin’ or they’ve got a party growin’
(Surf City, here we come)
Yeah, there’s two swingin’ honeys for every guy
And all you gotta do is just wink your eye

And I’m going to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now
Going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one
You know we’re going to Surf City, gonna have some fun
You know we’re going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one, now

Two girls for every boy

And if my woodie breaks down on me somewhere on the surf route
(Surf City, here we come)
I’ll strap my board to my back and hitch a ride in my wetsuit
(Surf City, here we come)
And when I get to Surf City, I’ll be shootin’ the curl
And checkin’ out the parties for a surfer girl

And I’m going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one
You know, we’re going to Surf City, gonna have some fun
You know, we’re going to Surf City ’cause it’s two to one
You know, we’re going to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now

Two girls for every
Two girls for every boy

Twilight Zone – A Hundred Yards Over the Rim

★★★★★ April 07, 1961 Season 2 Episode 23

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

This one is an excellent quality episode. A time travel episode that uses a place over the rim instead of a time machine. Future Walton’s sheriff John Crawford plays the café owner Joe. This episode resolves it self and has a satisfying end…and really plays on some of the time elements.

The episode has many good performances, but Cliff Robertson holds the show together. As Chris Horn, he plays his role with intelligence and conviction, seeming in movement, expression, and even his accent is on the mark. He really got into this role as you will read below and it shows. His performance is worth the price of admission by itself.

In order to save money, whenever possible Buck Houghton liked to schedule two shows utilizing similar locations back to back, so that the crew would only have to make one trip outside the studio. Both A Hundred Yards Over the Rim and The Rip Van Winkle Caper were shot in the desert near Lone Pine, California. First to be filmed was A Hundred Yards Over the Rim.

Some trivia from IMDB: Cliff Robertson did extensive research on the 1840s time period in which the episode is set. Robertson concluded that an easterner like Horn would have worn a stovepipe hat, whereas the director, fearing that such a hat would make Horn look comical, wanted him to wear an ahistorical Stetson. The dispute was finally taken to producer Rod Serling who, after hearing both sides, decided to let Robertson wear the stovepipe hat, as seen in the filmed version.

John Astin appears in this and I will watch anything Astin is in. This was before he became known as Gomez Addams.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

The year is 1847, the place is the territory of New Mexico, the people are a tiny handful of men and women with a dream. Eleven months ago, they started out from Ohio and headed west. Someone told them about a place called California, about a warm sun and a blue sky, about rich land and fresh air, and at this moment, almost a year later, they’ve seen nothing but cold, heat, exhaustion, hunger, and sickness. This man’s name is Christian Horn. He has a dying eight-year-old son and a heartsick wife, and he’s the only one remaining who has even a fragment of the dream left. Mr. Chris Horn, who’s going over the top of a rim to look for water and sustenance and in a moment will move into the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Christian Horn is member of an 1847 wagon train headed west. They are 1500 miles from St. Louis and are now in the New Mexico desert. Many in the wagon train are ready to turn back but Chris wants everyone to persevere. His son has had a fever for 11 days now and Chris goes off looking for water, only 100 yards or so from the others and suddenly finds himself in the present day. He can’t quite bring himself to believe what he sees or where he is but those he meets believe he’s a man from the past. The trip in time does have one positive outcome.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Christian Horn, one of the hearty breed of men who headed west during a time when there were no concrete highways or the solace of civilization. Mr. Christian Horn, and family and party, heading west, after a brief detour to The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Cliff Robertson…Chris Horn
John Crawford…Joe
Miranda Jones…Martha Horn
Evans Evans…Mary Lou
John Astin…Charlie
Edward Platt…Doctor
Ken Drake…Man
Robert L. McCord III…Sheriff

Chantays – Pipeline

The Chantays, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dick Dale, Anthrax, and Lawrence Welk. We will tie all of these artists together by the end of the post.

I thought I might as well continue the surf music theme that was started Thursday and ride the wave into the weekend.

This is one cool classic instrumental. Pipeline was originally the B side and the A side was a song called Move It. As with a few other singles through history…the B side took off and the A side became a trivial question.

Dick Dale also recorded this song with no other than Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1987. They really rocked up Pipeline for the movie Back to the Beach. You want variety? This song was covered by Lawrence Welk and Anthrax (video below). I would be willing to bet not many songs would be in that rare club.

I always wondered what “pipeline” meant…being a Tennessee guy I would not know that first hand. The title “Pipeline” refers to a term in surfing slang, in which a wave closes over your head while you ride it horizontally, so it looks like you’re in a rolling pipe made of water. This maneuver is also sometimes called “shooting the tube.”

Some odd trivia about the Chantays…they were the only rock and roll band to perform on The Lawrence Welk Show (something tells me Anthrax would not have been invited if they would have been around then). The Chantays were also honored on April 12, 1996, by Hollywood’s Rock Walk ,that was founded to honor individuals and bands that have made lasting and important contributions to music.

The song peaked at #4 in Billboard 100, #11 on the R&B Charts, and #16 in the UK in 1963.

From Songfacts

This was surf-rock group The Chantay’s only charting Billboard Top-40 hit. However, it is considered today one of the staples of the surf-rock genre. It was actually the B-side of a single; the A-side, “Move It,” never charted.

The unique sound of this track is partly due to its composition, which is inverted from standard practice. The bass and rhythm guitars are at the fore, while the lead guitar, keyboard, and drums are in the background. Also it was recorded in stereo even though it was going to be released in mono as the typical 45-RPM single record of the day.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that surf-rock tends to have a lot of instrumental work? That’s because it started out as strictly an instrumental form, where speed and precision playing was highly valued. In a way, it fathered the speed metal genre. We have The Beach Boys to thank for bringing vocal harmonies to surf music.

Dick Dale, who earned the title “King of the Surf Guitar,” recorded a new version of “Pipeline” with Stevie Ray Vaughan for the 1987 movie Back To The Beach. The movie reunited Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello 24 years after they starred in one of the first beach movies, Beach Party, which featured Dick Dale’s music.

Dick Dale with SRV

Dick Dale – Miserlou

I thought I would continue with the surfing theme of the Beach Boys song yesterday.

Love the beginning to this song…the twangy guitar that Dale plays like a rubber band. When I heard this song in the beginning of Pulp Fiction I knew I was going to enjoy the movie. Miserlou being used in the movie helped revive his career all over the world.

The song is a traditional Mediterranean song dating to the 1920s and originating in Greece. Dick Dale then reworked and beat the song over the head to his surf rock tone and sound…and it works perfectly.

In March 2005, Q magazine placed Dale’s version at number 89 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

This song was released in 1962.

Dick Dale: “The sound is a Stratocaster guitar. It’s the solidity of the wood – the thicker the wood, the bigger and purer the sound. It was a Strat. Not the Jaguar, not the Jazzmaster, all these things we created later, for different reasons. Even the reverb – reverb had nothing to do with the surfing sound, and here they got ’em on the cover going ‘That’s the wet, splashy sound of reverb.’ No! We created the reverb because Dick Dale did not have a natural vibrato on his voice. I wanted to sustain my notes while singing. So we copied the Hammond organ, which had a tank in it. We took the tank out, rewired it, and had an outboard reverb! It was for the vocal. Our first album, Surfer’s Choice, sold over 88,000 albums – locally! That’s like more than 4 million today. Dick Dale was already established as King of the Surf Guitar, and that album did not have reverb on it. It wasn’t even invented!”

From Songfacts

Variations of the song have appeared in numerous movies, but when Dick Dale’s version was used to open the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, it revived both Dale’s career and the Surf Music genre. Dale earned his first appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman a few weeks after the movie came out, and became a popular live act once again. His success in the ’60s was limited to America, but this time he was welcomed in the UK, as well as Australia and Japan, where his sound caught on and he made tour appearances for the first time. Dale’s “Miserlou” was also used in the movies Space Jam and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.

Dale included a traditional version of the song on his 1993 album Tribal Thunder as a hidden track (you can thank Nirvana for the hidden track craze of the early ’90s). Dale was showing his producer how the song was done originally, and they decided to include it with the set.

Dick Dale got his start in the late ’50s playing with his band The Del-Tones for surfers at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California. With authorities concerned about the mix of young people and guitars, one of the requirements at the Ballroom was that every male patron wear a tie, so the audience was often made up of barefooted guys in surfer garb wearing ties that were handed out at the door.

This was used on Friends when Ross, Chandler, and Joey squared off against Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe in a game of touch football in the 1996 Thanksgiving episode “The One With The Football.”

…

Beach Boys – Don’t Worry Baby

This is my fourth song pick for Hanspostcard’s song draft. The Beach Boys Don’t Worry Baby.

Those who follow my blog and know me…know I like older music than my generation. I was once told by a co-worker that it’s “unnatural” to like music before you were born…which I think is hilarious and totally idiotic. I go through phases with music. When Hans and I talk about The Beatles I tend to listen to them and nothing else for a while…and the same with other bloggers.

I have done this my entire life…I get into something and I’m obsessed. I never really discard anything after my obsession dies down…it keeps coming back and in the case of the Beatles and others… never goes away.

In my senior year of high school I went through a surf music phase. I wore Hawaiian shirts and coco butter everywhere. I was looking forward to the Florida trip my friends and I were planning in spring. I would roll in the high school parking lot with Jan and Dean, Dick Dale, or The Beach Boys blaring out of my Mustang. I had a hell of a stereo system in my car. When Jan and Dean’s “Surf City” can drown out The Scorpions coming from another car…the system is loud.

During this time surf music hit the musical spot in me. The musicians on those surf records were incredible. This song dug deeper…much deeper. I still listen to the song. Don’t Worry Baby is about a girl and a car…when you are an 18 year old boy…a girl and a car are the two most important topics…at least they were to me. It has always stuck with me and I’ll never forget that year. My first serious girlfriend, a 66 Mustang, and Don’t Worry Baby… 1985 was a good year.

We did go on that spring trip to Cocoa Beach Florida. A fifteen-hour drive one way in a Celica Sports Coupe with 4 guys packed in there. We picked the name (Cocoa Beach) because it sounded great…Yep pretty stupid because we could have driven 7 hours to Pensacola instead.

It was written by Brian Wilson and DJ Roger Christian. This was conceived as a follow-up to the Ronettes #2 hit “Be My Baby.” When Brian Wilson heard the Be My Baby on the radio, he wondered aloud if he could match it. Wilson’s wife Marilyn reassured him, saying, “Don’t Worry, Baby.”

This is pop perfection by the Beach Boys.

Don’t Worry Baby

Well it’s been building up inside of me
For oh I don’t know how long
I don’t know why
But I keep thinking
Something’s bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
And she says “don’t worry, baby”
Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby

I guess I should’ve kept my mouth shut
When I started to brag about my car
But I can’t back down now because
I pushed the other guys too far

She makes me come alive
And makes me wanna drive
When she says “don’t worry, baby”
Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby

She told me “Baby, when you race today
Just take along my love with you
And if you knew how much I loved you
Baby, nothing could go wrong with you”

Oh what she does to me
When she makes love to me
And she says “don’t worry, baby”
Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby
Don’t worry, baby

Twilight Zone – Long Distance Call

★★★★★ March 31, 1961 Season 2 Episode 22

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

This one is one of my favorites. It’s dark and it still works today. It’s a great episode and features Bill Mumy as little Billy Bayles who just lost his grandmother or did he? The grandmother played by Lili Darvas tried to live through Billy vicariously in many ways and ignored what the mother of the child said or thought. You can feel the tension between the grandmother and her daughter in law.

This can happen in a family and cause trouble so it made the episode much more relatable. The darkness of the episode is shocking considering the time it was made.

**SPOILERS** below

This show was really heavy. It addressed the loss of a grandparent and two attempted suicides of a five year old boy. Not your average show in the 60s or now for that matter. Who knew a toy telephone could be so damn frightening? That was one determined grandmother…she wasn’t letting go of Billy even in the afterlife.

This episode is videotaped and it benefits from it…adding to eerie feeling.

Bill Mumy would appear in three Twilight Zones. He would later become known in the TV show Lost In Space.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont, Bill Idelson, and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

As must be obvious, this is a house hovered over by Mr. Death, an omnipresent player to the third and final act of every life. And it’s been said, and probably rightfully so, that what follows this life is one of the unfathomable mysteries, an area of darkness which we, the living, reserve for the dead—or so it is said. For in a moment, a child will try to cross that bridge which separates light and shadow, and, of course, he must take the only known route, that indistinct highway through the region we call The Twilight Zone.

Summary

Billy Bayles loves his Grandma Bayles and likes the present she’s given him, a toy telephone which she says will allow them to communicate forever. Grandma Bayles is ill however and soon dies but Billy claims he can speak to her on their special telephone. When he tells his parents that she wants him to join her, wherever she’s gone to, they pay no mind. When he throws himself in front of their neighbor’s car however, it all gets deadly serious.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

A toy telephone, an act of faith, a set of improbable circumstances, all combine to probe a mystery, to fathom a depth, to send a facet of light into a dark after-region, to be believed or disbelieved, depending on your frame of reference. A fact or a fantasy, a substance or a shadow—but all of it very much a part of The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Philip Abbott…Chris Bayles
Lili Darvas…Grandma Bayles
Patricia Smith…Sylvia Bayles
Bill Mumy…Billy Bayles
Jenny Maxwell…Shirley
Reid Hammond…Mr. Peterson
Henry Hunter…Dr. Unger
Lew Brown…Fireman
Arch Johnson…Fireman

…

Twilight Zone – The Prime Mover

★★★★ March 24, 1961 Season 2 Episode 21

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

Buddy Ebsen who plays Jimbo Cobb has always been a favorite of mine. The soon to be Beverly Hillbilly star and the original Tin Man does a great job in this Twilight Zone. It is a good episode and keep an eye out for a car crash near the start…the crash was from the movie 1958 movie Thunder Road. Buddy has a talent (Psychokinesis) of being able to move things with his mind. Jimbo has a level head unlike his greedy friend Ace Larsen.

As Rod says in the closing narration… Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, the talent becomes a curse…which I thought was great.

The Prime Mover was based on an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson. Explains Johnson… Charles Beaumont could get an assignment, he needed a story, he didn’t have a story, none of his stories seemed suitable. He therefore bought from me my story. He paid me six hundred dollars for it. My name never ended up on the screen, it was an accident of production for which Buck Houghton apologized. I felt bad that my name wasn’t on it, but I thought it was a good show.

The slot machine seen at the first of the show was in the episode The Fever.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont, Rod Serling and George Clayton Johnson (uncredited)

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Portrait of a man who thinks and thereby gets things done. Mr. Jimbo Cobb might be called a prime mover, a talent which has to be seen to be believed. In just a moment he’ll show his friends, and you, how he keeps both feet on the ground, and his head in the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Ace Larson owns a roadside diner. It’s a dreary existence for him, his girlfriend Kitty Cavanaugh, and his friend and employee Jimbo Cobb. Through a serious accident just outside his diner, Ace learns for the first time that Jimbo has telekinetic powers. Ace the gambler sees an easy way to make his fortune, and the three of them set off for Las Vegas. Jimbo has little trouble making roulette balls fall on the right number or making any point with a pair of dice. Ace learns the hard way, however, that there can be too much of a good thing.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, the talent becomes a curse. Jimbo Cobb knew, right from the beginning, but before Ace Larsen learned that simple truth, he had to take a short trip – through The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Dane Clark…Ace Larsen
Buddy Ebsen…Jimbo Cobb
Jane Burgess…Sheila
Christine White…Kitty Cavanaugh
William Keene…Desk clerk
Nesdon Booth…Big Phil Nolan
Clancy Cooper…Trucker
Robert Riordan…Hotel Manager
Joe Scott…Croupier

…

Twilight Zone – Static

★★★1/2 March 10, 1960 Season 2 Episode 20

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

Robert Emhardt as Professor Ackerman does a great job in this. I have watched many shows with this great character actor. Dean Jagger is very good in the pivotal role of Ed Lindsay.

I’ve always liked this episode. The episode plays heavily into nostalgia and someone stuck there. People today would probably not think of old radio shows but it still works and with the radio it gives it a different feeling than an old tv show would. Now with Satellite radio you could live in the past with radio and it would not be strange.

When you watch something you have to keep in mind what time period it was filmed in. It relies on nostalgia a little too much but I did like the episode and it’s worth watching. This one was one of the episodes on videotape and unlike the scarier ones…this one suffers from it.

Static was based on a story by OCee Ritch (I’ve seen his name spelt OCeo and OCee), a friend of Charles Beaumont. The idea for it came from a party given by Richard Matheson attended by both Ritch and a fan of old-time radio who performed bits of radio nostalgia.

This show was written by Charles Beaumont, Oceo Ritch and Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

No one ever saw one quite like that, because that’s a very special sort of radio. In its day, circa 1935, its type was one of the most elegant consoles on the market. Now with its fabric-covered speakers, its peculiar yellow dials, its serrated knobs, it looks quaint and a little strange. Mr. Ed Lindsay is going to find out how strange very soon when he tunes in to the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Ed Lindsay has been living in the same boarding house for over 20 years and he has become an embittered old man. He doesn’t like how the world has changed around him and his crotchety behavior has made him certainly the most disliked man there. When he turns on his old radio however, he gets music from the 1940’s on a station that, it turns out, has been off the air for 15 years. There’s a reason he hears the music however, a reason a fellow boarder reminds him of.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Around and around she goes, and where she stops nobody knows. All Ed Lindsay knows is that he desperately wanted a second chance and he finally got it, through a strange and wonderful time machine called a radio, in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Dean Jagger…Ed Lindsay
Carmen Mathews…Vinnie
Robert Emhardt…Professor Ackerman
Arch W. Johnson…Roscoe Bragg
Alice Pearce…Mrs. Nielson
Clegg Hoyt…Shopkeeper (the “junk dealer”)
Stephen Talbot…Boy
Lillian O’Malley…Miss Meredith
Pat O’Malley…Mr. Llewellyn
Eddie Marr…Real Estate Pitchman (uncredited)
Bob Crane…the disc jockey (uncredited)
Roy Rowan…the radio announcer (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Mr. Dingle, the Strong

★★★1/2 March 3, 1961 Season 2 Episode 19

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

This is a comedic episode that does have humorous moments. This is another one Serling wrote about human nature. Burgess Meredith plays Luther Dingle, a vaccum salesmen, who is pretty much a human punching bag. He lets people walk over him like the character played by Don Rickles . He is given the gift of strength by aliens and is observed. He then proceeds to over use the gift.

A year before, in an article about The Twilight Zone, a reporter had mistakenly referred to the main character of Mr. Denton on Doomsday as Mr. Dingle. Serling must have liked the name, for he created Mr. Dingle, the Strong. The casting as always is superb… it’s a very entertaining episode.

In this episode and many others like The Twilight Zone: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?, a majority of the actors are smoking due to the demand of one of the Twilight Zone’s sponsors, a cigarette company.

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

Uniquely American institution known as the neighborhood bar. Reading left to right are Mr. Anthony O’Toole, proprietor, who waters his drinks like geraniums but who stands foursquare for peace and quiet and for booths for ladies. This is Mr. Joseph J. Callahan, an unregistered bookie, whose entire life is any sporting event with two sides and a set of odds. His idea of a meeting at the summit is any dialogue between a catcher and a pitcher with more than one man on base. And this animated citizen is every anonymous bettor who ever dropped rent money on a horse race, a prize fight, or a floating crap game, and who took out his frustrations and his insolvency on any vulnerable fellow barstool companion within arm’s and fist’s reach. And this is Mr. Luther Dingle, a vacuum cleaner salesman whose volume of business is roughly that of a valet at a hobo convention. He’s a consummate failure in almost everything but is a good listener and has a prominent jaw. And these two unseen gentlemen are visitors from outer space. They are about to alter the destiny of Luther Dingle by leaving him a legacy, the kind you can’t hardly find no more. In just a moment, a sad-faced perennial punching bag, who missed even the caboose of life’s gravy train, will take a short constitutional into that most unpredictable region that we refer to as The Twilight Zone.

Summary

Luther Dingle is a meek and mild-mannered vacuum cleaner salesman. He spends some time in a bar but always seems to be in the middle of others arguments and always seems to get the worst of it. Courtesy of visiting – but invisible – aliens, he is given great strength, some 300 times greater than that of a normal human being. Dingle becomes something of a local celebrity but just how long will his powers last?

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Exit Mr. Luther Dingle, former vacuum cleaner salesman, strongest man on Earth, and now mental giant. These latter powers will very likely be eliminated before too long, but Mr. Dingle has an appeal to extraterrestrial notetakers as well as to frustrated and insolvent bet losers. Offhand, I’d say that he was in for a great deal of extremely odd periods, simply because there are so many inhabited planets who send down observers, and also because, of course, Mr. Dingle lives his life with one foot in his mouth—and the other in The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling…Narrator
Burgess Meredith…Luther Dingle
Don Rickles…Bettor
James Westerfield…Anthony O’Toole
Edward Ryder…Callahan
James Millhollin…Abernathy
Douglas Spencer…1st Martian
Michael Fox…2nd Martian
Donald Losby…1st Venusian
Greg Irwin…2nd Venusian
Douglas Evans…Man
Phil Arnold…Man
Frank Richards…Man
Jo Ann Dixon…Woman with carriage
Jay Hector…Boy wearing white helmet
Bob Duggan…Photographer
Robert McCord…Customer

…

Twilight Zone – The Odyssey of Flight 33

★★★★★ February 24, 1960 Season 2 Episode 18

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

This one is one of my all time favorite Twilight Zone episodes. It is a time travel episode and this time it gives you a reason for the time travel. After picking up a freak tail wind that accelerates the plane past three thousand knots and through a shock wave, the crew of Global 33 is unable to raise anyone on the radio. Descending below the cloud cover to get a site reading, they see a Manhattan Island devoid of buildings. They are back in time but when?

Something happened to Serling to inspired him to write the episode… There was some mail on his desk at the production company, and on the top was an envelope from American Airlines, and he opened that one first. It was a brochure offering a mockup of a 707 passenger cabin to any studio that was going to film a scene. It was something they used in stewardess training and they decided to build another one. They had this one on the West Coast and they were going to rent it out or sell it. This gave Serling the idea…he even consulted with pilots to get the dialog accurate in the cockpit.

SPOILER

The most expensive piece of film ever shot for Twilight Zone was the dinosaur watching the plane go by..

This show was written by Rod Serling

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

You’re riding on a jet airliner on route from London to New York. You’re at 35,000 feet atop an overcast and roughly fifty-five minutes from Idlewild Airport. But what you’ve seen occur inside the cockpit of this plane is no reflection on the aircraft or the crew. It’s a safe, well-engineered, perfectly designed machine. And the men you’ve just met are a trained, cool, highly efficient team. The problem is simply that the plane is going too fast, and there is nothing within the realm of knowledge or at least logic to explain it. Unbeknownst to passenger and crew, this airplane is heading into an uncharted region well off the beaten track of commercial travelers—it’s moving into The Twilight Zone. What you’re about to see we call “The Odyssey of Flight 33.”

Summary

Global Flight 33 is en route from London to New York in what appears to be a routine flight in a modern jetliner. Suddenly however, the jet’s speed increases to an incredible 3000 knots and they arrive in New York rather quickly. Neither the captain or his well-trained crew can explain what happened – a strange tail-wind perhaps – but they are certainly not prepared for what they find as they survey the land below them.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

A Global jet airliner, en route from London to New York on an uneventful afternoon in the year 1961, but now reported overdue and missing, and by now, searched for on land, sea, and air by anguished human beings, fearful of what they’ll find. But you and I know where she is. You and I know what’s happened. So if some moment, any moment, you hear the sound of jet engines flying atop the overcast—engines that sound searching and lost—engines that sound desperate—shoot up a flare or do something. That would be Global 33 trying to get home—from The Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
John Anderson … Capt. ‘Skipper’ Farver
Paul Comi … 1st Officer John Craig
Sandy Kenyon … Navigator Hatch
Wayne Heffley … 2nd Officer Wyatt
Harp McGuire … Flight Engineer Purcell
Betty Garde … Passenger
Beverly Brown … Janie
Nancy Rennick … Paula
Jay Overholts … Passenger
Lester Fletcher … RAF Man
Robert McCord … Passenger (uncredited)

…

Twilight Zone – Twenty-Two

★★★★ February 10, 1961 Season 2 Episode 17

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

I like how diverse the Twilight Zone was from week to week. The last episode was a good comedic episode Penny For Your Thoughts…and this one is anything but comedic. I know some people who say the Twilight Zone really scares them. This one would fit that bill. It is one of the most frightening episodes of the show. This is one of the videotaped episodes that benefits from it. It gives it an eerie look that only helps the story.

Rod Serling adapted Twenty-Two from a short story in Famous Ghost Stories, edited by Bennett Cerf. In the original, an attractive young New York girl visits the Carolina plantation of some distant relatives. In adapting the story, Serling kept the basics but changed the setting from plantation to hospital and the vision from coach to morgue.

Arlene Martel (credited here as Arlene Sax) plays the nurse in the morgue who taunts Liz Powell with the “room for one more,” line. In order to make her look more sinister, they used makeup to give her a somewhat demonic look, complete with arched eyebrows.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Bennett Cerf

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:

This is Miss Liz Powell. She’s a professional dancer and she’s in the hospital as a result of overwork and nervous fatigue. And at this moment we have just finished walking with her in a nightmare. In a moment she’ll wake up and we’ll remain at her side. The problem here is that both Miss Powell and you will reach a point where it might be difficult to decide which is reality and which is nightmare, a problem uncommon perhaps but rather peculiar to the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Liz Powell – an exotic dancer – is suffering from exhaustion and is being treated at hospital prior to a scheduled engagement in Miami. She has a recurring nightmare where she takes the elevator down to the morgue and is invited in by an ominous-sounding nurse, who tells her, ‘room for one more’. Her doctor assures her there’s nothing wrong with her physically and she’s just overworked and tired. To Liz, the nightmare’s very real. The doctor suggests she try to break the pattern to see if she can get them to stop. The next time she has the dream, she travels down to the morgue but the dream goes off as before. With her medical issues taken care of, and her Miami engagement a day away, it’s time for Liz to leave. But it’s her nightmare over?

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Miss Elizabeth Powell, professional dancer. Hospital diagnosis: acute anxiety brought on by overwork and fatigue. Prognosis: with rest and care, she’ll probably recover. But the cure to some nightmares is not to be found in known medical journals. You look for it under ‘potions for bad dreams’ – to be found in the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Barbara Nichols … Liz Powell
Jonathan Harris … The Doctor
Fredd Wayne … Barney Kamener
Arlene Martel … Nurse in Morgue (as Arline Sax)
Mary Adams … Day Nurse
Norma Connolly … Night Nurse
Wesley Lau … Airline Agent
Angus Duncan … Ticket Clerk
Carole Conn … Sax Double (uncredited)
Jay Overholts … PA Announcer (voice) (uncredited)
Joseph Sargent … Ticket Clerk (uncredited)

…