As far as the rating on this one. I was in between 4.5 and 5…it could go either way. It is a great episode.
James Coburn (French) and John Anderson (Goldsmith) are terrific in this Twilight Zone episode. The Old Man in the Cave dwells on a small group of Atomic Holocaust survivors whose status quo is maintained by an unseen source that lives in a cave. Mr Goldsmith is the leader of this group and he is told what to do by this cave dweller.
Coburn’s character is the neighborhood bully with power. He swaggers in with his men and take over the group. He mock’s Mr. Goldsmith about the faith he has with the cave dweller’s instructions. Against Goldsmiths vehement objections, they distribute food and liquor branded contaminated by the Old Man in the cave. Resentful over their past restrictions, the townspeople force Goldsmith to open the cave. The “Old Man” is seen…but as what?
The ugly side of human beings is on full display in this episode. Humans without faith in something can be scared, frightened, and in turn… scary.
From IMDB: Based upon the short story “The Old Man” by Henry Slesar. Though it was copyrighted in 1962, the story went unpublished until 1980, when it appeared in the anthology Microcosmic Tales from Taplinger Pub. Co.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Henry Slesar
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
What you’re looking at is a legacy that man left to himself. A decade previous he pushed his buttons and a nightmarish moment later woke up to find that he had set the clock back a thousand years. His engines, his medicines, his science were buried in a mass tomb, covered over by the biggest gravedigger of them all—a bomb. And this is the earth 10 years later, a fragment of what was once a whole, a remnant of what was once a race. The year is 1974 and this is The Twilight Zone.
Summary
Ten years after an atomic apocalypse, a small group of survivors manage to eke out a very difficult existence. They’ve managed to survive in large part due to the advice they receive from an old man who lives in a cave outside of the town. Goldsmith acts as the intermediary and the old man’s advice on things like crops or the safety of a batch of old canned goods are usually correct. When four soldiers led by Major French arrive in the town, the social order is upended with the townsfolk attacking the old man’s cave but not really prepared for what they find inside
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Mr. Goldsmith, survivor. An eyewitness to man’s imperfection. An observer of the very human trait of greed. And a chronicler of the last chapter—the one reading “suicide”. Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be. This has been The Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) James Coburn … French John Anderson … Goldsmith Josie Lloyd … Evie, townswoman who says, “We already took chances. The old man told us not to plant on the north acreage.” John Craven … townsman who asks, “Been to the cave, Jason?” John Marley … Jason Uncredited (in order of appearance): Natalie Masters … townswoman Don Wilbanks … Furman
This episode launched a lot of horror movies like Child’s Play. It did have a future star…the great Telly Savalas as a stepfather named Erich Streator. Mr. Streator is not a likable character but yet you may have a little pity for him as the show goes along. He shows glimpses of being a decent human being but fails miserably with his role as a stepfather. You do have to look deep to find sympathy.
He has a great wife (Mary La Roche) and a stepdaughter (Christie) who loves her new doll. The doll can talk and move… “My name is Talking Tina and I love you very much.”
You have so much sympathy for his wife Annabelle…even without the doll. Some people might say that the episode is predictable but remember…there weren’t many shows out about talking dolls at the time…maybe none. There is no comedy in this one like the Chucky movies that came decades later. The doll is working as Christie’s protector…at least you think so. Is it all in Erich Streator’s head?
From IMDB:
June Foray, the voice of the “Talky Tina” doll, was also the voice of Mattel’s “Chatty Cathy” doll, upon which the doll in this episode was based.
Tina and Christie are both nicknames for Christina. The doll and the child share a name, so among many other interpretations it could be argued that the doll is a proxy through which Christie expresses hostility toward her stepfather and protects her shy, frightened mother.
According to The Twilight Zone Companion, this episode was written in one day by Jerry Sohl, even though credit was given entirely to Charles Beaumont.
The child actress who portrays Christie is credited as being the voice of “Lucy Van Pelt” in the classic TV special, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.
This show was written by Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, and Jerry Sohl
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Talky Tina, a doll that does everything, a lifelike creation of plastic and springs and painted smile. To Erich Streator, she is the most unwelcome addition to his household—but without her, he’d never enter the Twilight Zone.
Summary
Erich Streater is upset when his wife comes home with her daughter Christie having bought her yet another doll. Christie loves her new Talking Tina doll but her stepfather takes an immediate dislike to it. Anytime he is alone with the doll, it spouts abusive comments to the effect that it hates him and that it’s going to kill him. He’s convinced that his wife is behind it all, something she vehemently denies. He tries to get rid of the doll but it always seems to reappear – and also seems intent on following through with its threats.
***WARNING…VIDEO SPOILERS***
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Of course, we all know dolls can’t really talk, and they certainly can’t commit murder. But to a child caught in the middle of turmoil and conflict, a doll can become many things: friend, defender, guardian. Especially a doll like Talky Tina, who did talk and did commit murder—in the misty region of the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Telly Savalas … Erich Streator Mary La Roche … Annabelle Streator Tracy Stratford … Christie Streator June Foray … Talky Tina (voice) [uncredited]
Rod Serling was great at this kind of low-life character. They were not evil but just the bottom of society. Mickey Rooney plays Grady who was small in more ways than one. He was a jockey who was disqualified from racing and he blames everyone but the one responsible…himself. Mickey Rooney runs a gamut of emotions from rage to grief to terrible self-loathing and is credible throughout. He carries the show…although he must because he is the only actor in it. A bit of Twilight Zone justice is dished out at the end.
This is another character that you won’t have much sympathy with at all. It is an impressive one-man show. Agnes Moorehead did this in The Invaders and was incredible.
This one is by no means a bad episode. It’s just not a classic one. I think the basic story was done better in Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room, another episode of a self-pitying loser being lectured by his alter ego.
From IMDB: With exactly one performer appearing–either in image or voice, not counting Rod Serling’s routine turn as host–this episode features the smallest cast of any in the series. Close runner-ups include The Twilight Zone: Where Is Everybody? (1959), The Twilight Zone: King Nine Will Not Return (1960), The Twilight Zone: Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room (1960), The Twilight Zone: The Invaders (1961) and The Twilight Zone: Two (1961).
This show was written by Rod Serling
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
The name is Grady, five feet short in stockings and boots, a slightly distorted offshoot of a good breed of humans who race horses. He happens to be one of the rotten apples, bruised and yellowed by dealing in dirt, a short man with a short memory who’s forgotten that he’s worked for the sport of kings and helped turn it into a cesspool, used and misused by the two-legged animals who’ve hung around sporting events since the days of the Coliseum. So this is Grady, on his last night as a jockey. Behind him are Hialeah, Hollywood Park and Saratoga. Rounding the far turn and coming up fast on the rail—is the Twilight Zone.
Summary
Grady is a champion jockey who has recently been banned from the sport owing to his participation in race fixing and the drugging of horses. He claims he is innocent and currently has an appeal with the racing commission but his agent isn’t hopeful. Suddenly, Grady begins hearing a voice – his own as it turns out, speaking to him from his own mind. As Grady rages over the unfairness of it all, he is granted his one true wish.
***WARNING…VIDEO SPOILERS***
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
The name is Grady, ten feet tall, a slightly distorted offshoot of a good breed of humans who race horses. Unfortunately for Mr. Grady, he learned too late that you don’t measure size with a ruler, you don’t figure height with a yardstick, and you never judge a man by how tall he looks in a mirror. The giant is as he does. You can make a parimutuel bet on this, win, place, or show, in or out of the Twilight Zone.
Richard Erdman plays Patrick Thomas McNulty who is an insufferable know it all bore. He is a self-proclaimed idea man…but not a good one. He is given a gift…a very special gift that he wanted to exploit. Mr. McNulty was given a stopwatch that could control time. This story is made for the Twilight Zone but it helps when you have sympathy for the main character. You don’t in this one but yet it still works. It does have a good Twilight Zone ending.
It reminds me a little of Time Enough at Last but not as good. Erdman does a great job playing McNulty because he is a convincing pain. The inspiration for the episode came from a book written by John D. MacDonald published a year earlier called “The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything”. Much later the book was made into a movie called The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything in 1980.
The biggest disappointment is Potts, he is the fellow that gave McNulty the stopwatch. The dialogue doesn’t give us many clues…its supposed to make Potts seem the kind of eccentric character who might give a total stranger a mysterious and magical device, but it plays very flat. Potts is no more than a plot device, the intention being to get the watch into McNulty’s hands as quickly as possible. It was a wasted opportunity in not exploring that charcacter.
The reason I bring it up is an early draft of the script featured an alternate closing shot: One of the “frozen” people, whom McNulty has just run past, turns to face the camera after McNulty vanishes around a corner. It’s Potts, who smiles and winks at us…indicating that, as with the watch he gave McNulty, there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Michael D. Rosenthal
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Submitted for your approval or at least your analysis: one Patrick Thomas McNulty, who, at age forty-one, is the biggest bore on Earth. He holds a ten-year record for the most meaningless words spewed out during a coffee break. And it’s very likely that, as of this moment, he would have gone through life in precisely this manner, a dull, argumentative bigmouth who sets back the art of conversation a thousand years. I say he very likely would have except for something that will soon happen to him, something that will considerably alter his existence—and ours. Now you think about that now, because this is The Twilight Zone.
Summary
After Patrick Thomas McNulty gets fired from his job, he goes to a neighborhood bar where his non-stop chatter drives all of the customers away. One of the last patrons in the bar has a gift for him: a stopwatch. It’s a strange gift and he has no idea what he might do with it. When he presses the button however everything around him stops. He returns to work the next day and tries to market it, but to no avail. He then returns to the bar and again drives everyone out the bar with his bombast.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Mr. Patrick Thomas McNulty, who had a gift of time. He used it and he misused it, and now he’s just been handed the bill. Tonight’s tale of motion and McNulty – in the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Richard Erdman … Patrick Thomas McNulty Herbie Faye … Joe Palucci, the bartender Leon Belasco … Potts, the drunk who gives McNulty the stopwatch Doris Singleton … Secretary to McNulty’s boss Mr. Cooper Roy Roberts … Mr. Cooper, McNulty’s annoyed boss Richard Wessel … Charlie, drinker in Palucci’s bar Ray Kellog … Fred, who delivers coffee to McNulty’s office Ken Drake … Daniel, last patron in Palucci’s bar who tells McNulty, “Come on fella, we’re trying to watch.” Sam Balter: … sports announcer on TV in Polucci’s bar Al Silvani … one of the drinkers in Polucci’s bar
There is something about the 1950s and 60s with great instrumentals. This one has that great echo swimming all around the guitar lines by the great guitarist Duane Eddy.
Speaking of swimming…this was recorded in a Phoenix studio that had an echo chamber that was originally a large water tank. A single speaker was placed at one end of the tank, the microphone at the other, and the guitar was piped in there.
Who said that the 70s and 80s were the two decades of albums with multiple singles? The 1958 album this song came off of was named…Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel.
Now that title demands respect. The title is not the only reason it demanded respect…FIVE charting singles came off of it. Ramrod #27, Cannonball #15, The Lonely One #23, Moovin’ N’ Groovin’ #72, and last but not least…our song for today…Rebel Rouser peaked at #6 in 1958.
The album was released in 1958 and it peaked at #5 in the Billboard Album Charts and #6 in the UK.
Lee Hazlewood produced this track and helped Eddy get his distinctive guitar sound. Hazlewood went on record duets with Nancy Sinatra and also her hit “These Boots Are Made For Walking.”
The hand claps and shouts were provided by The Sharps, who later changed their name to the Rivingtons and had hits with Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow and The Bird’s the Word. As any Family Guy fan will tell you…The Trashmen later covered The Bird’s The Word in 1963.
Duane Eddy:“We were recording in Phoenix, starting my first album, and one of the guys said, ‘Man, that guitar sounds twangy.’ And (Hazlewood’s business partner) Lester Sill fell down laughing. He’d never heard that word and it became a running joke. ‘Is that twangy enough?’ So we finished the album and called it Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel. To be honest I never really liked the word. I thought it was kind of corny and rather undignified, but at the same time so many people liked it I just shut up and went with it.”
As far as classics go…you can’t get much more classic than this one. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet goes beyond the Twilight Zone into pop culture. It’s been parodied and remade, but this is the definitive version. The Twilight Zone the movie redid this one and they did a good job but it’s not as eerie as this one. The new Twilight Zone in 2019 also did a version.
William Shatner does a great job in this episode as a man (Bob Wilson) who just recovered from a nervous breakdown. Wilson is complex, intelligent, and insecure. He is a man on the brink, trying desperately to hold on to his recently regained normalcy. Shatner’s over-the-top mannerisms work in this episode. The episode still works, partly because of the claustrophobic airplane setting with an added violent thunderstorm. I’ve heard criticism on the monster makeup but if I saw that thing on the wing of a plane I was on…I would freak out also.
Shatner’s character reminds me of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but this time will he be vindicated?
Richard Donner (Superman and the Omen) directed this episode. The logistics involved in filming Nightmare at 20,000 Feet were enormous. The set consisted of the interior of an airline passenger cabin with the left airplane wing attached to the outside. This was all suspended over a huge water tank, in order to contain the water from the rain effect. Donner remembers the shooting as one big headache.
Richard Matheson’s scripts were so respected that they were filmed almost exactly as written. The only change was one of title, from Flight to The Last Flight.
To show what a great sense of humor Rod Serling had…read the last quote by him down below.
Richard Donner: Because you were suspended up, you had no stage floors. Every movement was a bitch. He lists the factors that had to be considered in virtually every shot. A man flying in on wires. Wind. Rain. Lightning. Smoke, to give the effect of clouds and travel and speed. Actors. You couldnt hear yourself think because of the noise of the machines outside. And fighting time, all the time. It was just unbearable. If any one of those things went wrong, it ruined the whole take. All of this consumed lots of time. We were supposed to take a fourth day in the tank set with the airplane
Then they found out that the studio had committed it to another company. We had to work all night to finish it up. We went overtime till early the next morning.
I love it, I do love it. Its just such an unusual thing for television, really, to see that much energy go into a little half-hour film. And the story was good, too.
From IMDB: William Shatner played an elaborate prank on set when he conspired with a friend who was visiting the filming, actor Edd Byrnes, to trick director Richard Donner into thinking Shatner died. Between takes, and when Donner was off set getting coffee, Shatner and Byrnes staged a fake fight on the set, which was suspended some 30 feet above a giant, empty tank. When Donner ran back in the studio to see what was happening the two men chased each other around the back of the airplane set and wound up atop the plane wing. Donner saw a body falling off the wing and Byrnes yelling in terror as it impacted the concrete floor. Donner said when he ran to the fallen, motionless figure, thinking it was a dead or grievously injured William Shatner, he was greeted with laughter the moment he realized it was just an articulated human dummy the two men had found in another part of the studio and threw off the wing. Donner later joked, “Honestly, my first reaction was, ‘Don’t tell me I have to shoot the whole show over again.'”
Rod Serling:The final story on Nightmare at 20,000 Feet occurred several months after the shooting. Matheson and I were going to fly to San Francisco. It was like three or four weeks after the show was on the air, and I had spent three weeks in constant daily communication with Western Airlines preparing a given seat for him, having the stewardess close the [curtains] when he sat down, and I was going to say, Dick, open it up. I had this huge, blownup poster stuck on the [outside of the window] so that when he opened it there would be this gremlin staring at him. So what happened was we get on the plane, there was the seat, he sits down, the curtains are closed, I lean over and I say, Dick at which point they start the engines and it blows the thing away. It was an old prop airplane. … He never saw it. And I had spent hours in the planning of it. I would lie in bed thinking how we could do this.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home—the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson’s flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he’s traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson’s plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.
Summary
Bob Wilson is on a flight when he sees a creature of some sort out on the wing of the aircraft. He’s only recently recovered from a nervous breakdown and isn’t sure that what he is seeing is real. Every time someone else looks out the window, the creature hides from view. When the creature begins to tamper with one of the engines he begs his wife to tell the pilots to keep an eye on the engines. If they see nothing, he agrees to commit himself to an asylum when they arrive at their destination. His paranoia drives him to a desperate act
***WARNING…VIDEO SPOILERS***
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
The flight of Mr. Robert Wilson has ended now, a flight not only from point A to point B, but also from the fear of recurring mental breakdown. Mr. Wilson has that fear no longer… though, for the moment, he is, as he has said, alone in this assurance. Happily, his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer, for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) William Shatner…Bob Wilson Christine White…Julia Wilson Edward Kemmer…the flight engineer Asa Maynor…stewardess Betty Crosby Nick Cravat [uncredited]…the gremlin
Steel is very good starring the movie star…Lee Marvin.
This episode has a parallel to the NFL in present day to me. With CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy), football as I knew it is gone. In 20 years it probably won’t resemble the game now. Steel is set in 1974 and boxing between humans is illegal. It was deemed as too dangerous and now robots fight each other intead of humans.
Lee Marvin plays Steel Kelly who was a former boxer until the law was passed to ban human boxing. He now owns an older model robot (an old B2) named Battling Maxo. Marvin is a determined, sad, and desparate character. He believes in his outdated fighter and will do anything to keep the broken down Maxo going…including doing the unthinkable.
Marvin’s gritty performance brings this episode up above normal ones. Taking the place of the boxing trainer would be mechanic Pole…played by Joe Mantell. He keeps Maxo going but knows the robot is washed up and busted. He wants to scrap him but Steel won’t hear of it…they keep looking for parts that just aren’t made anymore.
The two robot faces were crafted by William Tuttle. Lifemasks were taken of the actors, atop which the robot faces were sculpted in clay. Foam rubber and latex copies were cast of these, which were then glued onto the actors faces. As for the inhuman, expressionless eyes, those were sections of ping-pong balls, painted black, with pinpoint eye holes through the center.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Sports item, circa 1974: Battling Maxo, B2, heavyweight, accompanied by his manager and handler, arrives in Maynard, Kansas, for a scheduled six-round bout. Battling Maxo is a robot, or, to be exact, an android, definition: ‘an automaton resembling a human being.’ Only these automatons have been permitted in the ring since prizefighting was legally abolished in 1968. This is the story of that scheduled six-round bout, more specifically the story of two men shortly to face that remorseless truth: that no law can be passed which will abolish cruelty or desperate need—nor, for that matter, blind animal courage. Location for the facing of said truth: a small, smoke-filled arena just this side of the Twilight Zone.
Summary
In the not too distant future, boxing has been banned and replaced by robot fighters in the ring. Sam “Steel” Kelly is a former boxer but now owns one of these pugilistic machines. Unfortunately his robot, which he’s named Battling Maxo, is getting old and many of its parts are no longer available. Kelly is broke and is doing everything he can to ensure Battling Maxo can enter the ring as the promoter has made it clear there’s no payment if there’s no bout. When Maxo breaks down however, Kelly decides to takes its place.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Portrait of a losing side, proof positive that you can’t outpunch machinery. Proof also of something else: that no matter what the future brings, man’s capacity to rise to the occasion will remain unaltered. His potential for tenacity and optimism continues, as always, to outfight, outpoint and outlive any and all changes made by his society, for which three cheers and a unanimous decision rendered from the Twilight Zone.
Sorry I could NOT find a video clip without a reviewer. He does give it away…just so you know.
CAST
Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Lee Marvin…Steel Kelly Joe Mantell…Pole Chuck Hicks…Maynard Flash Merritt Bohn…Nolan Frank London…Maxwell Larry Barton…Boxing Match Spectator (voice) (uncredited) Slim Bergman…Boxing Match Spectator (uncredited) Louis Cavalier…Boxing Match Spectator (uncredited) Ken DuMain…Boxing Match Spectator (uncredited) Tipp McClure…Battling Maxo (uncredited) Edwin Rochelle…Boxing Match Spectator (uncredited)
This one is not known as a classic, but it should be. Jack Klugman plays a bookie with a drinking problem named Max Phillips. Klugman’s transformation will resonate with viewers. Max gets a telegram that his son is dying in Vietnam. He realizes he wasted a great deal of his life dreaming instead of doing and working instead of spending more time with his son. He makes a deal with God for one more hour with his son. Afterward, he makes one more deal.
Klugman’s performances in his last scenes were some of the best of the series. How much time do we spend doing other things (even work) other than to be with our love ones? In Praise of Pip is a thought-provoking and touching drama about a man’s love for his son and a reminder to pay attention to what is really important in life.
This is Anne Serling’s (Rod Serling’s daughter) favorite episode of the Twilight Zone. She noticed a lot of the dialog in this episode that happened between her and her father.
The script originally had Pip stationed in Laos, but the network had Rod Serling change it to Vietnam.
I was surprised about the early mention of Vietnam in this one. There were officially no combat or special forces in Laos. The implication that the U.S. had troops fighting in Laos (even in The Twilight Zone) could be an embarrassment and might cause repercussions. U.S. Special Forces were fighting (in an advisory capacity) in South Vietnam. Suggest South Vietnam. This episode was produced about two years before the massive intervention of American forces in South Vietnam.
From IMDB: Bill Mumy’s father rarely joined his son on sets, but joined him on this occasion because the two often visited the pier they filmed on. His father recalled being impressed with Jack Klugman who introduced himself to the family and explained that father and son would be extremely affectionate. Mumy joined his own son Seth Mumy on set of Dear God (1996) with Klugman 30 years later.
This show was written by Rod Serling
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Submitted for your approval: one Max Phillips. A slightly-the-worse-for-wear maker of book, whose life has been as drab and undistinguished as a bundle of dirty clothes. And t fhough it’s very late in his day, he has an errant wish that the rest of his life might be sent out to a laundry, to come back shiny and clean. This to be a gift of love to a son named Pip. Mr. Max Phillips, homo sapiens, who is soon to discover that man is not as wise as he thinks. Said lesson to be learned in the Twilight Zone.
Summary
In the early 1960s, small-time bookie Max Phillips (Jack Klugman) hates his life. His only pride is his son, Pip, who is serving the U.S. Armed Forces in Vietnam. When a young man uses company funds to place a bet with Max, the man loses the wager. Max then returns his money, which angers Max’s bosses.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Very little comment here, save for this small aside: that the ties of flesh are deep and strong; that the capacity to love is a vital, rich, and all-consuming function of the human animal. And that you can find nobility and sacrifice and love wherever you may seek it out: down the block, in the heart or in the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Jack Klugman…Max Phillips Connie Gilchrist…Mrs. Feeny Robert Diamond…Pvt. Pip Billy Mumy: Young Pip Ross Elliott: doctor in Vietnam Gerald Gordon: lieutenant in Vietnam Russell Horton: George Reynold S. John Launer: Mr. Moran Kreg Martin: Mr. Moran’s enforcer Stuart Nisbet…surgeon in Vietnam
Again I will say…I want to thank you all who have stuck with me through this long haul. We are now finished with the 4th season! The 5th and also last season lasts 36 episodes.
I do have one to add that was on The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse that was a precurser to the Twilight Zone called The Time Element. It was a teleplay that premiered on November 24, 1958. It was Rod Serling’s first science fiction story.
After going through 4th season …it was better than I gave it credit for earlier. The hour long episodes changed the way I graded them because they were different than the 30 minute episode. Some did suffer from too much padding but some were able to tell a more complete story. You did have a few that didn’t click well at all.
If you want… please comment on what you think I got wrong, right, or just your favorite episodes.
In the spring of 1963, CBS renewed Twilight Zone for a fifth season, shortening it back to a half hour. The networks experiment had failed: Twilight Zone’s expanded size had not made for an expanded audience. The season contained 18 long episodes.
Rod Serling: Our shows this season were too padded. The bulk of our stories lacked the excitement and punch of the shorter dramas we intended when we started five years ago and kept to for a while. If you ask me, I think we had only one really effective show this season, On Thursday We Leave for Home. … Yes, I wrote it myself, but I overwrote it. I think the story was good despite what I did to it.
Looking back, Serling’s assessment was too hard. There had been a number of really good hour-long episodes, among them On Thursday We Leave for Home, Death Ship, In His Image, Valley Of The Shadows, Printer’s Devi and The New Exhibit. The Twilight Zone had not embarrased itself in this season.
The 5th season was not as consistent as the first 3 but it contains some of my favorite episodes.
This show closed out the 4th season and the one hour long experiment was over. The Bard is my least favorite episode of the entire series. I’ve seen some lists where it’s the bottom or near the bottom. On the other hand, I’ve seen some have it high. It’s a comedy episode that just doesn’t work. One thing that is interesting about this episode is the appearance of Burt Reynolds playing a Marlon Brando character. That added a star in my rating but even Burt couldn’t save this one.
Jack Weston plays Julius Moomer and the character is a no-talent writer who uses black magic to bring William Shakespeare back to write a television program. Even typing it sounds cringe-worthy. The plot had some good elements of a Twilight Zone but Weston’s character is just not likable. It might have worked in a shorter format with a different script.
Some may think this is a hilarious episode…I just never did.
From IMDB: William Shakespeare (John Williams) quotes lines from his plays nine times with a trumpet flourish sounding each time, and most of the time, him telling what play, act, and scene the quote came from. Three from ‘Romeo & Juliet,’ two from ‘Twelfth Night,’ and one each from ‘Troilus and Cressida,’ ‘As You Like It,’ and ‘A Mid-Summer’s Night Dream’, plus a partial one from ‘Hamlet’ (cut short when Shakespeare forgets the end of the “To be or not to be” line.
Cora (Judy Strangis) looks at the book , “Ye Book of Ye Black Art”, Julius (Jack Weston) is using to conjure black magic and refers to him as Faust. In a classic German legend based on Johann Georg Faust, he makes a pact with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The devil sends his representative, Mephistopheles. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a set number of years, but at the end of the term, the Devil will claim Faust’s soul, and Faust will be eternally enslaved.
Burt Reynolds’s character is clearly an amalgam of Marlon Brando and Paul Newman.
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
You’ve just witnessed opportunity, if not knocking, at least scratching plaintively on a closed door. Mr. Julius Moomer, a would-be writer, who if talent came 25 cents a pound, would be worth less than car fare. But, in a moment, Mr. Moomer, through the offices of some black magic, is about to embark on a brand-new career. And although he may never get a writing credit on the Twilight Zone, he’s to become an integral character in it.
Julius Moomer, a talentless, but relentless, self-promoting hack who dreams of becoming a successful television writer, uses a book of magic to summon William Shakespeare to write dramatic teleplays that Moomer will pass off as his own. Shakespeare becomes irritated by Moomer’s lack of appreciation and is even more appalled when he discovers the changes wrought on his plays by cynical television executives.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Mr. Julius Moomer, a streetcar conductor with delusions of authorship, and if the tale just told seems a little tall, remember a thing called poetic license, and another thing called the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Jack Weston … Julius Moomer John Williams … William Shakespeare Burt Reynolds … Rocky Rhodes Henry Lascoe … Gerald Hugo John McGiver … Mr. Shannon Howard McNear … Bramhoff Judy Strangis … Cora Marge Redmond … Secretary Doro Merande … Sadie William Lanteau … Dolan Clegg Hoyt … Bus driver John Newton … TV interviewer John Bose … Daniel Boone (uncredited) Rudy Bowman … Robert E. Lee (uncredited)
The story is not really scary but the setting will remind you of a horror movie. It takes place on a ship that is surrounded by fog. Mix that with black and white and the Wolfman film comes to mind. This is the first hour-long episode I watched many years ago. This episode benefits from the hour format. You see a couple who are teetering on breaking up decide on a cruise. Throughout the episode, you see the gradual healing and the companionship replacing turmoil. Their older fellow passengers help them both along the way. This story could not have been made as well in a half-hour-long format.
I would strongly recommend this and there is a twist but the twist is a little ambiguous. This is not an episode where a bad person gets cosmically punished for doing bad things. It does show real-life problems that you can relate to today. The cinematographer and set designers deserve praise in this episode.
From IMDB: Because of the large number of well-known actors in this episode, the closing theme featured a credit roll of cast names instead of the usual still frames. The remaining non-cast credits were then done with standard still frames. This was the only episode of the series to ever use a credit roll.
This was the last Charles Beaumont Twilight Zone screenplay to be actually fully written by Beaumont himself. Around the time this episode was made, Beaumont (then only 34) began suffering from the rapid onset of a degenerative neurological disorder (believed to be either Alzheimer’s and/or Pick’s Disease) which affected his speech, memory, and concentration, as well as causing him to physically age very rapidly. As the disease progressed, Beaumont was soon unable to meet his writing commitments. A number of his writer friends, including Jerry Sohl and William F. Nolan, supported Beaumont by ghostwriting stories with or for him and submitting them in his name, although Beaumont insisted on splitting the fees with his helpers. His last screen credit (also probably ghostwritten) was in 1965, by which time he was too ill to work at all, and he died on 21 February 1967, aged only 38, although his son later recounted that his father “looked ninety-five” at the time of his death.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Portrait of a honeymoon couple getting ready for a journey – with a difference. These newlyweds have been married for six years, and they’re not taking this honeymoon to start their life but rather to save it, or so Eileen Ransome thinks. She doesn’t know why she insisted on a ship for this voyage, except that it would give them some time and she’d never been on one before – certainly never one like the Lady Anne. The tickets read ‘New York to Southampton,’ but this old liner is going somewhere else. Its destination – the Twilight Zone.
Summary
Eileen and Alan Ransome’s marriage is going through a bad patch and they decide to go on a holiday to London. Eileen insists on traveling by ship and they book passage on the Lady Anne, an old ship that is not recommended by the travel agent but is leaving quite soon. When they arrive at the port terminal another passenger, Mr. McKenzie, insists strenuously that the young couple has made a mistake and tries to discourage them from coming along on what is a “private cruise”. Mrs. McKenzie keeps her own counsel but clearly shares her husband’s sentiments. Another passenger, Burgess, tries to warn them off as well. He and McKenzie offer them money, eventually $10,000, to leave immediately. The Ransomes take umbrage and refuse. The couple finds that all of the other passengers are quite elderly but unsurprisingly have a good deal of wisdom to dispense to the young couple. Alan and Eileen are just beginning to really enjoy the trip when the captain suddenly puts them off the ship at gunpoint with provisions and a promise to notify the authorities of their location. They are rescued but as for the Lady Anne and her other passengers — well, there’s the rub
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
The Lady Anne never reached port. After they were picked up by a cutter a few hours later, as Captain Protheroe had promised, the Ransomes searched the newspapers for news – but there wasn’t any news. The Lady Anne with all her crew and all her passengers vanished without a trace. But the Ransomes knew what had happened, they knew that the ship had sailed off to a better port – a place called the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Gladys Cooper … Millie McKenzie Wilfrid Hyde-White … Toby McKenzie Cecil Kellaway … Burgess Lee Philips … Alan Ransome Joyce Van Patten … Eileen Ransome Alan Napier … Capt. Protheroe Cyril Delevanti … Officer Jack Raine … Officer Colin Campbell … Addicott Don Keefer … Spierto Frank Baker … Otto Champion (uncredited) Sam Harris … Mersia Jones (uncredited) Freda Jones … Ship Passenger (uncredited) Colin Kenny … Ship Passenger (uncredited) Carl M. Leviness … Ship Passenger (uncredited) Scott Seaton … Ship Passenger (uncredited) Arthur Tovey … Ship’s Greeter (uncredited)
This is a not just a great episode…it’s a classic one. The episode takes place in 2021. James Whitmore plays Captain William Benteen and his acting in this is top notch. The writing also is one of Rod Serling’s best scripts. Captain Benteen reminded me of a cult leader…he doesn’t make the Jim Jones jump but he is similiar. Loving, caring, power hungry, narcissistic, and dictatorial. You see all phases and you also see regret but only when it’s too late.
The people in this episode are a remnant society who left the Earth looking for an Eden, a place without war, without jeopardy, without fear. What they found was quite different. They have been here 30 years. The planet is a nightmare place of two suns, unending day and terrible meteor storms. Despair prevails among the 187 survivors of the original colony and suicide is not uncommon. Their thirty-year survival is attributable to one source: the iron leadership of Benteen, their self-appointed Captain.
If you only watch one hour long episode of the Twilight Zone…make it this one. Human nature is on full display in this episode…both the best and the worse. This is a science-fictional examination of the positive and negative uses of power.
From IMDB: The cave that the colonists use as their meeting hall was originally the underground lair of the Morlocks in The Time Machine (1960).
When the rescue ship from Earth arrives, several colonists ask about various places on Earth during a meeting between the ship’s crew and the colonists. One of the questions is about the Finger Lake District of New York. This area had a special significance to script writer Rod Serling. It is located close to his home town of Binghamton, he and his family vacationed there frequently, and Serling named his company that produced “The Twilight Zone,” Cayuga Productions, after one of the lakes. He later taught at Ithaca College for the last five years before his death.
The striking diorama backgrounds of the planet, the model and the large-scale prop of the rescue ship sent to bring the colonists home, and the uniforms of the rescue crew were all originally created for Forbidden Planet (1956). This was a recurring feature on “The Twilight Zone” which was frequently filmed at MGM Studios, and often prominently featured recycled props and set pieces from “Forbidden Planet”. The previous episode, “The Incredible World of Horace Ford” featured copies of the original blueprints of designs for Robby the Robot, created by MGM production designer Robert Kinoshita.
This show was written by Rod Serling
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
This is William Benteen, who officiates on a disintegrating outpost in space. The people are a remnant society who left the Earth looking for a millennium, a place without war, without jeopardy, without fear, and what they found was a lonely, barren place whose only industry was survival. And this is what they’ve done for three decades: survive; until the memory of the Earth they came from has become an indistinct and shadowed recollection of another time and another place. One month ago a signal from Earth announced that a ship would be coming to pick them up and take them home. In just a moment we’ll hear more of that ship, more of that home, and what it takes out of mind and body to reach it. This is the Twilight Zone.
Summary
The colonists of Pilgrim I, Earth’s first space colony, have spent 30 years on their new home. It’s a lonely, barren place more akin to hell then Eden. Now, they’re awaiting the arrival of a ship to take them to Earth. Some colonists are at their wits’ end; another – the 9th in 6 months – commits suicide. Their leader, William Benteen, a tough drill sergeant-type, who they call Captain, does his best to keep them together. When the ship arrives, they’re given 3 days to prepare to leave. As the day of departure approaches, Benteen’s assumption that the community will stay together on Earth, is wrong; most will go their own way once on earth. Hearing this, Benteen decides they should stay. When the group decides otherwise, Benteen’s left with only one option.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
William Benteen, who had prerogatives: he could lead, he could direct, dictate, judge, legislate. It became a habit, then a pattern and finally a necessity. William Benteen, once a god, now a population of one.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) James Whitmore … Captain William Benteen Tim O’Connor … Colonel Sloane James Broderick … Al Paul Langton … George Jo Helton … Julie Mercedes Shirley … Joan Russ Bender … Hank Danny Kulick … Jo-Jo (as Daniel Kulick) Madge Kennedy … Colonist John Ward … Colonist Shirley O’Hara … Colonist Tony Benson … Colonist (as Anthony Benson) Lew Gallo … Lt. Engle
By the summer of 1970, the spirit of Woodstock was still echoing across the American counterculture, and a small mountain town in North Carolina decided it wanted a piece of that magic, or at least its own funky version. Enter: the Love Valley Rock Festival, an improbable blend of peace, pot, rock ‘n’ roll… and cowboys. It went down in July 1970 like a haywire Southern cousin to Woodstock, with more horses, and a whole lotta Allman Brothers.
What a festival this was, and what a town it still is. It happened in Love Valley, North Carolina. The headliners were The Allman Brothers, who at that time only had one album out and were largely unknown to the masses. This huge festival was soon known as Woodstock South. Between 100,000 and 200,000 showed up.
A man named Andy Barker always wanted to live in a western town. At the age of 29, he purchased some land in 1954 and relocated his family there. The land was in Iredell County, and he built the town, which was chartered in 1963. It has a saloon, hitching posts, a small church, and more. No cars are allowed in town…you can walk or ride a horse through.
It’s the place for riding horses, rodeos, and hiking trails with 2000 acres to cover. The population of Love Valley is currently 96. Through the years, it seems to stay around 100.
In 1969, Andy’s daughter Tonda wanted to go to Woodstock, but he thought she was too young. So he asked her and her 16-year-old brother, Jet Barker, to organize a festive concert in Love Valley. While in college, she had worked with an entertainment coordinator at the college and knew the ropes. She managed to secure the Allman Brothers Band, who at the time were known in the south but that is about it. They also got some more local bands to fill it out…it was a large bill. It took place on Thursday, July 16-18, 1970.
One interesting thing that happened was that the Hell’s Angels and Outlaws showed up to do battle with each other. According to witnesses, Andy Barker stopped them and confiscated a chain and ax from each and told them there would be no trouble here. They seemed to respect this man because after that, the gangs dispersed, and some camped out with no reported trouble. The festival went off without any major hitches.
Tonda:“It was perfect, it was like a dream. We had worked so hard and we could finally just sit down and enjoy it.”
Andy planned to make a documentary of it, but it didn’t happen. All we have to look at is some grainy footage, but that grainy footage shows Duane Allman a year before At Fillmore East was released. They were finishing up their second album, Idlewild South, at this time. Some very nice bootlegs are out there from their multiple sets.
Along with the Allman Brothers, the line up consisted of these bands: Big Brother and the Holding Company (without Janis), Radar, Peace Core, Wet Willie, Johnny Jenkins, Tony Joe White, Hampton Grease Band, Donnydale, Catfish Freedom, Sundown, Chakra, Hot Rain, Kallabash, Warm Stone Blind, Captain John’s Fishmarket. There were over 40 bands over that weekend.
Some, like Wet Willie, would go on to have a few hits. Tony Joe White had a top ten hit with Polk Salad Annie the year before.
The Love Valley Festival doesn’t get the press that Altamont or even Atlanta Pop did. There’s no movie, no official recordings, no box set retrospective. Just faded photos, whispered stories, and a ghost-town memory of the time the South went psychedelic under the watchful eye of a cowboy mayor with a dream.
It’s part of what makes digging through this era so damn fun. Not all the magic happened on the coasts. Sometimes it galloped in on horseback, plugged into a wall of amps, and raised a little hell in the Carolina hills.
Ed Buzzell was a UPI stringer and took these photographs…they are amazing. They don’t show many bands…just the people…you feel like you are there. (Unfortunately, Ed Buzzell or someone else took them down.) If you know where they are now, or if they are anywhere, please let me know in the comments.
Pat Hingle who plays Horace Ford is emotionally little more than an oversized child, lives with his wife Laura and his mother. He spends most of his time reminiscing about what he recalls as an idyllic childhood that was all play and no responsibility. This one is similar to “Walking Distance” but just not as effective…Horace isn’t as mature as the Martin Sloan characer in that episode. He fails to get the viewer’s compassion because of his imaturity.
When looking back on childhood with rose colored glasses… Horace may get a chance to peel back the nostalgia and find out what really happened in his youth. It does have a good story but some will be put off by the exaggerated aspect of Pat Hingle’s performance. I liked it and the more times I’ve watched this episode the more I appreciated it.
I have to ask this before I end. Pat Hingle who plays Horace Maxwell Ford…does he not look like Nick Nolte? It’s too bad when Hingle got older he didn’t play Nolte’s dad in a movie.
The writer to this one is Reginald Rose who wrote the great 12 Angry Men.
Reginald Rose:What I meant to do with The Incredible World of Horace Ford, was to tell a simple horror story about an everyday man with a somewhat exaggerated but everyday kind of problem and, in so doing, point out that the funny, tender childhood memories we cling to are often distorted and unreal. What happened to Horace when he finally made it back to his childhood was typical of what actually happened to so many of us again and again when we were children. He was ridiculed, rejected, beaten up. These are all familiar experiences to us, yet somehow we tend only to remember, as Horace did, the joys of swiping pomegranates from Ippolitos.
From IMDB:
This was not an original screenplay for The Twilight Zone (1959). It’s a remake of Studio One: The Incredible World of Horace Ford (1955), which was a live TV version starring Art Carney and Jason Robards.
This episode revisits themes used in The Twilight Zone: Walking Distance (1959) and The Twilight Zone: The Trouble with Templeton (1960) – namely, a person’s propensity to romanticize and try to relive a past that may not have been at all as good as they like to remember it.
The blueprints of Harold’s new robot toy are copies of the actual blueprints Bob Kinoshita made for the design of Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet.
This show was written by Rod Serling and Reginald Rose
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Mr. Horace Ford, who has a preoccupation with another time, a time of childhood, a time of growing up, a time of street games, stickball and hide-‘n-go-seek. He has a reluctance to check out a mirror and see the nature of his image: proof positive that the time he dwells in has already passed him by. But in a moment or two he’ll discover that mechanical toys and memories and daydreaming and wishful thinking and all manner of odd and special events can lead one into a special province, uncharted and unmapped, a country of both shadow and substance known as the Twilight Zone.
Summary
Toy designer, Horace Ford’s very enthusiastic about what he does, and his memories of childhood are beginning to become an obsession. But, those childhood moments which brought him great joy aren’t remembered by anytime else – even his mother. She doesn’t recall their time living on Randolph Street as such a great time. Horace goes to visit the old neighborhood, but when he gets there, he seems to have stepped back in time, and the past starts to spill over into the present. He returns to the street several times, and the scene repeats itself. He begins to realise -his childhood wasn’t the wonderful one he remembered
Exit Mr. and Mrs. Horace Ford, who have lived through a bizarre moment not to be calibrated on normal clocks or watches. Time has passed, to be sure, but it’s the special time in the special place known as the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling…Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited) Pat Hingle…Horace Maxwell Ford Nan Martin…Laura Ford Ruth White…Mrs. Ford Phillip Pine…Leonard O’Brien Vaughn Taylor…Mr. Judson Jerry Davis…Hermie Brandt Billy Hughes…Kid Mary Carver…Betty O’Brien Jim E. Titus…Horace…a boy
When I heard this song in the 90s…I knew then it was one of those songs that would become an instant classic.
Most of this song was written by R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry. It is an anti-suicide song. Berry wanted to reach out to people who felt they had no hope. He quit the band in 1997 shortly before recording their album Up after an aneurysm. After that album, the band almost broke up, but decided to continue as a trio.
While he wrote this, he did not actually play on it. They used a Univox drum machine. R.E.M. bass player Mike Mills claims he bought Univox drum machine for $20, but it was perfect for the song’s metronome-ish feel.
It was on the album Automatic For The People, considered by some as the best album they ever released. The album peaked at #2 in the Billboard Album Charts, #1 in the UK, #4 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand.
The album title was inspired by Weaver D’s soul food diner in Athens, Georgia. They had a sign that said “Delicious Fine Foods – Automatic For The People.”
The song peaked at #29 in the Billboard 100, #8 in Canada, #7 in the UK, and #12 in New Zealand in 1993. I’m shocked now that it wasn’t in the top 10 in Billboard.
The string arrangement was done by no other than Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones.
Michael Stipe:“It saved a few. People have told me. And I love hearing that. That’s for me, that’s my Oscar, that’s my gold on a shelf right there… that something we did impacted someone’s life in such a profound way. That’s a beautiful thing.”
Mike Mills:Mike (Stipe) and I cut it live with this dumb drum machine which is just as wooden as you can get. We wanted to get this flow around that: human and non-human at the same time.”
Peter Buck: The reason the lyrics are so atypically straightforward is because it was aimed at teenagers.
From Songfacts
On many R.E.M. songs, Michael Stipe purposefully sings indecipherably. He sang very clearly on this one though, because he didn’t want his message getting lost. “I don’t remember singing it,” he noted in Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, “but I still kind of can’t believe my voice is on this recording. It’s very pure. This song instantly belonged to everyone except us, and that honestly means the world to me.”
The Nevada legislature commended R.E.M. for “encouraging the prevention of teen suicides,” noting this song as an example (Nevada has a high rate of teen suicide).
The music video was directed by Jake Scott, son of movie director Ridley Scott, famous for movies like Blade Runner (1982) and Gladiator (2000). Filmed on Interstate 10 in San Antonio, Texas, the clip is set during a traffic jam where people’s thoughts are revealed through subtitles.
The video won four MTV Video Music Awards: Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Editing and Best Cinematography. When it won for Best Direction, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, who were nominated for “Sabotage,” got to the podium before Michael Stipe. Dressed in character as his Swiss alter ego Nathanial Hornblower, he went on a rant, calling it a “farce” before being ushered off.
Disrupting an award for such a somber song is in poor taste, but it was hard to take this awards show seriously. Hosted by Roseanne Barr, it is best remembered for a cringe-worthy kiss between newlyweds Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. MTV didn’t harbor any resentment: they gave the Beastie Boys the Video Vanguard award in 1998.
This was used on an episode of The Simpsons when Marge is walking in a thunderstorm and thinks she has no friends.
In February 2010 a charity cover was recorded by a collection of artists, Helping Haiti, to raise money for the victims of the earthquake that devastated the country. It sold over 200,000 copies in its first two days making it one of the quickest selling singles of the 21st century in the United Kingdom. Joseph Kahn directed a music video for the cover that features cameos from the performers and footage from the earthquake’s aftermath. Kahn is known for directing clips for the likes of Eminem, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift.
This topped a poll compiled by PRS For Music, which collects and pays royalties to musicians in the UK, of the songs most likely to make a grown man cry. Second in the list came Eric Clapton’s “Tears In Heaven” followed by Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” PRS chairman Ellis Rich said: “From this chart, it is clear that a well-written tear-jerker is one that people can relate to and empathise with. It is this lyrical connection that can reach deep down emotionally and move even the strongest of men.”
In a rare authorized comedic use of this song, Mayim Bialik’s character on The Big Bang Theory plays this on the harp when she is upset over being left behind by her two girlfriends, who are shopping for bridesmaids dresses. Her “boyfriend,” played by Jim Parsons, comes by to cheer her up, resulting in an awkward cuddle scene.
Peter Buck likens the vibe of this song to Otis Redding’s “Pain in My Heart.” He wrote in the liner notes for Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011: “I’m not sure if Michael would have copped that reference, but to a lot of our fans it was a Staxxy-type thing.”
This was used in the 1992 film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry and Rutger Hauer. Speaking of the subsequent TV series, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Peter Buck said: “I’ve never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the idea that high school is a portal to hell seems pretty realistic to me.”
Pink and Kelly Clarkson sang this to open the 2017 American Music Awards. They were introduced by Jamie Foxx, who said the purpose was to “pay respect to all those affected by the events of the past year,” meaning the hurricanes, shootings and hate rallies that took place.
Another comedic use was on The Office in the season 2 episode “The Fire,” where Dwight retreats to his car and blasts the song after Michael takes Ryan’s side in a business discussion.
Everybody Hurts
When your day is long And the night The night is yours alone When you’re sure you’ve had enough Of this life Well hang on Don’t let yourself go ‘Cause everybody cries And everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong Now it’s time to sing along When your day is night alone (hold on) (Hold on) if you feel like letting go (hold on) If you think you’ve had too much Of this life Well, hang on
‘Cause everybody hurts Take comfort in your friends Everybody hurts Don’t throw your hand Oh, no Don’t throw your hand If you feel like you’re alone No, no, no, you’re not alone
If you’re on your own In this life The days and nights are long When you think you’ve had too much Of this life To hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes Everybody cries And everybody hurts sometimes And everybody hurts sometimes So, hold on, hold on Hold on, hold on Hold on, hold on Hold on, hold on
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 