Earlier this month, TVWriter™ brought you Contributing Editor Emeritus Herbie J Pilato’s thoughts about the 60th anniversary of one of our favorite TV shows, The Twilight Zone.
We’re far from the only ones who consider The Twilight Zone a major turning point in TV history. Recently, Herbie J was one of several Big Thinkers who took part in a discussion of the why’s and wherefore’s.
We’re pleased as punch to be able to share the wisdom:
by Michael Coate
“The Twilight Zone was an enormously creative television series anchored by one of the true giants of the medium, Mr. Rod Serling, a master storyteller who was given unprecedented control over his work. In terms of quality, no show touches it in consistent quality.” — Steven Jay Rubin, author of The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia
The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this retrospective commemorating the 60th anniversary of The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling’s classic anthology series which originally ran on CBS from 1959 to 1964.
The Twilight Zone premiered sixty years ago this month and for the occasion The Bits features a Q&A with a quartet of Rod Serling authorities and classic television historians who reflect on the timeless series (and its offspring) six decades after its debut. [Read on here…]
The participants are (in alphabetical order)…
Nicholas Parisi is the author of Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination (University Press of Mississippi, 2018) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation (www.rodserling.com).
Herbie J Pilato is the host of Then Again with Herbie J Pilato, the new hit classic TV talk show now streaming on Amazon Prime. Herbie J is the author of several classic TV tie-in books including Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Story (Jacobs Brown Press, 2019), Dashing, Daring and Debonair: TV’s Top Male Icons from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2016), Glamour, Gidgets and the Girl Next Door: Television’s Iconic Women from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2014), Twitch Upon a Star: The Bewitched Life and Career of Elizabeth Montgomery (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2012) and The Bionic Book: The Six Million Dollar Man & the Bionic Woman Reconstructed (Bear Manor Media, 2007). Pilato presides over his own production company, Television, Ink, which produces family-oriented TV shows and was a consulting producer on the DVD season sets of Bewitched, CHiPs, Kung Fu and The Six Million Dollar Man. For more details, or to order personally-signed copies of any of Herbie J’s books, visit www.HerbieJPilato.com, or email HJPilato @yahoo.com.
Steven Jay Rubin is the author of The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia (Chicago Review, 2017). His other books include The James Bond Films: A Behind-the-Scenes History (Random House, 1981), The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia (McGraw-Hill, 2002), Combat Films: American Realism, 1945-2010 (McFarland, 2011) and (with David Lee Miller and illustrations by Elizabeth Baddeley) The Cat Who Lived with Anne Frank (Philomel, 2019). Rubin has also written for Cinefantastique, Cinema Retro and Los Angeles Times.
Marc Scott Zicree is the author of The Twilight Zone Companion (Bantam, 1982; Silman-James, 2018 revised and expanded edition) and audio commentary contributor and producer of The Twilight Zone Complete Series Blu-ray set. Zicree is the co-author of the Magic Time book series and has written numerous episodes of television series, including Babylon 5, The Real Ghostbusters, Sliders, The Smurfs, Star Trek; Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is currently shooting Space Command with Bill Mumy and Doug Jones and which can be seen on his Mr. Sci-Fi YouTube channel.
The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format….