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A show about Weird Stuff, hosted by AP Strange. AP interviews cool weirdos about their work, and invites friends on to discuss second sequels in franchises in a series called "Third Time's the Charm". Other fun surprises await...
Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. There is nothing else. Life is an obscure oboe, plumbing a ride on the omnibus of art. In the misty corridors of time, and in those corridors, I see figures. Strange figures.
AP Strange:Welcome back, friends, to the AP Strange Show. We got a good show for you tonight. Happy New Year's. This is our New Year's show, and it is brought to you by the Talkie Tina doll. It's the it's it's it's the big hit right now with all the kids.
AP Strange:Perfect gift for any young girl with plenty of preprogram phrases like you're my best friend, and I'm Taki Tina, and I don't like you very much. Good stuff. Good clean fun for girls of all ages, or boys for all ages. They we don't have to be gender specific with this doll. And in fact, it's it's, it's great for the elimination of verbally abusive stepdads as well.
AP Strange:So, if you're looking for an after Christmas gift, if you got a gift receipt that you wanna turn something back in and exchange it, think about the Talkie Tina doll. It's a it's it's a good bargain for your money. And tonight, being that it is a New Year's program here, one of my favorite things on New Year's as a kid was watching the 3 stooges marathon, but, eventually, there came conflict with the twilight zone marathon. At some point, I think the sci fi channel and then sometimes other channels would run twilight zone over and over again. And I I was I was then in a quandary and had to go back and forth, figure out if I wanted to watch stooges or zone.
AP Strange:And, I always you know, I ended up watching plenty of Twilight Zone and in reruns syndication. I I've owned different collections at different times. It's long been a favorite show of mine. And, so I wanted to do a New Year's show. And, in thinking about it, I got a good guest.
AP Strange:I I had the perfect guest in mind already because we had talked about it briefly once before. So, submitted for your approval. She is an artist. She's a writer. She's a podcaster.
AP Strange:She is, on, with with her own show and website, 6 Degrees of John Keel, which has been on hiatus for a little bit because she's writing a book. But don't worry. You will hear more of her, and you're gonna hear plenty of her tonight. Welcome to the show, Barbara Fisher.
Barbara Fisher:Hey. How's it going?
AP Strange:Great. Great. Great.
Groucho:It's good
AP Strange:to talk to you again.
Barbara Fisher:It's good to talk with you. And, Yeah. Talky Tina, man. Everybody should have one, I think.
Groucho:I
Barbara Fisher:you know, because if your stepdad sucks, well, she has the cure for that. Right.
AP Strange:It's a doll that'll never leave your side no matter how hard you try.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yep. Yep. Monster Garage cannot keep that doll down. There's no no tools.
Barbara Fisher:No no, you know, fire. Nothing. Nothing keeps her down. She just bounces right back.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that was that was an episode we didn't really have on our list, but that seemed like the best, the best sponsor spot tonight, because that one, it's like that one's been parodied before. That's one of those episodes that is huge. But every time I watch it, man, it slays me.
AP Strange:Like, Telia Savales is so good in that. It's such a
Barbara Fisher:powerful performance. Yeah. It is.
AP Strange:So
Barbara Fisher:It's one of those it's one of those episodes that, by all rights, should be stupid.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:It should be just, oh my god. It's a living doll. You know? Right. But you gotta remember when this was made, that wasn't a trope that everybody saw every day.
Barbara Fisher:That wasn't a thing. That that started the trope. Right?
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:So it it wasn't a thing that you you know, it wasn't tiresome. And what's really interesting is, the doll, was actually based on a real doll that had just come out at that time. Her name was Chatty Cathy. I collect dolls, by the way. I know it it's hard to believe looking at me.
Barbara Fisher:I don't look like a doll collecting lady. But I do like dolls, and I do collect them. And part of the reason I collect them is because they're creepy.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:So a lot of my dolls have a little creepy edge to it. So, anyway, Chatty Cathy was big when they when this came out. It came out in, what? Season 3? Or was it season 1?
Barbara Fisher:No. I think
AP Strange:it was the first season.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I think you're right. I think it I think you're right. I've tried to write down all of those facts and figures for people, but you can just look up living doll Twilight Zone, and you'll get there.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:Anyway, that doll was really popular, and they used the woman, the voice actress, who voiced the Chatty Cathy doll. So when you're watching so when you're watching the show, Talky Tina has the same voice as your kid's Chatty Cathy doll.
Groucho:Wow.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. That's creepy. And, interestingly, it it's June Foray. And she did she did Rocky on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. So she she has that kinda voice that's just a little bit, you know, it's kinda got that Legend
AP Strange:of her actress. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. She's great. And, yeah. So I love that. Oh, and the the step or not the stepmom.
Barbara Fisher:The mom's name in it is Annabelle.
Groucho:Right. I
Barbara Fisher:did not think about until I watched it, like, a week ago and went.
AP Strange:Yeah. That's a weird kinda synchronicity there. But yeah. No. June Foray is one of those all time classic voice actresses.
AP Strange:She did, she did witch Hazel in the Bugs Bunny cartoons too.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's right. The green witch with with her heel clicking and her hairpins flying out behind her.
Barbara Fisher:I love
AP Strange:that. Yep.
Barbara Fisher:That's a that's a that's a role model for me, man.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. The premise of it is absurd, really. I mean, it's but what's great about it is you don't see the doll move, and Telly Savalas' character is the only one that hears it saying, like, mean things to him.
AP Strange:You know?
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:Or not even really mean, just, like, judging him harshly for being verbally abusive. And and, they were so good at scripting it and acting it out in a way that you got the full scope of what was going on through kind of overacting. It was like a melodrama. Like, you have a limited amount of time, so you had to get that all in there. And, the actors really had to be on they really had to be on to make that work, and Savales definitely is.
AP Strange:You get the full range of his insecurities and, which makes him an asshole.
Groucho:And Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. He's great in it. Like Yeah. Seriously amazing.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:I again, you know, I hadn't seen it in years, although that one scared me as a kid. Right. I collect dolls, but I don't like them, you know, saying unsanctioned things.
Groucho:Right.
Barbara Fisher:That's a little nerve wracking. But, man, I was so impressed with how he did it. And you could watch it, and you could go, hey. You know, maybe he's having a schizophrenic episode. Maybe Right.
Barbara Fisher:I mean, he's a little old for it to be his first one, but, you know, maybe he's cruised through the first couple of them, and then it died back. You know? And then Right. Something about that doll just got him. And Mhmm.
Barbara Fisher:Man. But, yeah, he tries to destroy her in all these different ways. And she's like the the cat that came back the very next day. She keeps coming back, but you don't see her, you know, walking along. She's not like Chuckie.
Barbara Fisher:You know?
AP Strange:She just ends up there. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. She just ends up in places where she shouldn't be. It's amazing.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's that's the other half. Because the two kinds of episodes that I was really interested in talking about tonight were, ones that that could have a connection to or or are analogous to high high strangeness cases and for Tiana that we love so much. And also the social messages in them, which are timeless and
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah.
AP Strange:Unfortunately, very relevant today.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:But, but, yeah, I mean, I think at its best, the show was always people focus a lot on the twist endings, but, really, what it is is that whole program, the whole time, you're left with a lot of options. And even after the episode's over, you you can choose to believe any number of things actually happen. Right?
Barbara Fisher:Right. Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:So it's it's, it's a perfectly done show.
Groucho:Oh, yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I mean, the the living doll episode in a lot of ways reminds me of a, Ray Bradbury story called the tiny assassin.
AP Strange:Oh, yeah. Yep.
Barbara Fisher:And but it that was a baby. That was an infant Right. That was, you know, trying to kill its parents.
AP Strange:That story is so twisted.
Barbara Fisher:I I love that story though, man. And you can tell I grew up with Edgar Allan Poe and Ray Bradbury and watching the Twilight soon and all this stuff because yeah. I just love this stuff. But, man, the just the idea of it being at least an infant can move, you know, like it's supposed to. Although, they're not supposed to be quite that coordinated.
Barbara Fisher:And so yeah. Yes. And that story, as a mom, I I read it as a really interesting take and an early take on the idea of postpartum psychosis.
AP Strange:Right. Right.
Groucho:You
Barbara Fisher:know, because there's postpartum depression, which is bad enough. You know? Right. I mean, that's when you just feel like everything's awful and terrible. But some people can go into a psychosis with that.
Barbara Fisher:And so that's what that that story is kind of about. But it's Ray Bradbury. So he, you know, he takes that and runs with it to the, you know, 100 yard line. He just he just goes, you know, and really pushes the envelope. So I appreciate that.
Barbara Fisher:And when I watched the end of The Living Doll, that's what I thought of, because I had forgotten exactly how the the living doll story went. I just knew, oh oh, she doesn't like him.
AP Strange:Now
Barbara Fisher:something bad's gonna happen. And I didn't remember what the bad thing was. So as soon as that happened, I was like, oh, Ray.
AP Strange:This is
Barbara Fisher:like Ray, but for a sad. You know?
AP Strange:Well, Bradbury was friends with all those guys, like Richard Nathanson and Charles Beaumont, and Jerry's Jerry Storer. Like, these are all sci fi writers that hung out together.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:I think they were called, like, the West Coast Sorcerer's or something, the Sorcerer's Club.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:There was some kind of nickname for these guys. And it's kinda sad that Bradbury's only got one episode. There's they did one episode that was based on a Bradbury story. I Sing the Body Electric.
Barbara Fisher:And But
AP Strange:imagine Yeah. It's good. But imagine imagine if they did the illustrated man as a twilight zone also. That would
Barbara Fisher:So wonderful. So wonderful. They they could have done the the tiny assassin too. That would have been you know? The one thing I wanted to jump in with, though, the the way that it's shot.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:The, I mean, people are not used to this style of
AP Strange:short
Barbara Fisher:form TV shows anymore with these kinds of very cinematic shots. It's really, really interesting to look at. And, you know, I grew up with black and white TV. Yes. I'm that old.
Barbara Fisher:But, and we were poor too, so we didn't get color for a little bit. But I was used to where, you know, they with with black and white television, you you had to do things for contrast so that everything didn't turn into this gray mush. And everybody's like, which character is that? I can't see. You know?
Barbara Fisher:So you always had that interplay with shadows and, light. But the directors on the Twilight Zone really latched onto that and and pushed it as far as they could. They really it's each one's like a little movie.
Groucho:Mhmm. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It it it really I mean, it's just beautifully done.
AP Strange:Yeah. It's high quality.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Around. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, anybody who's like, I don't like old things.
Barbara Fisher:Well, you know, you do. You just don't know you do yet. You haven't seen it, and you haven't looked at it. So you should.
AP Strange:I think I I think one aspect of that is, like, a little bit of German expressionism influence in there. Because, I think it was, Karl Froomes was a cinematographer and director from, like, Universal Movies. And he he was working for Desilu Productions in the early days and kinda helped develop how early TV was shot, different camera settings and everything. And, you do see that in some of the episodes. Like, one of the ones I picked, because it's an all time favorite of mine, is, Perchance to Dream.
Barbara Fisher:Oh.
Groucho:Because
AP Strange:This one is so wild and
Groucho:Yeah. I
AP Strange:think it's the 9th episode of the show. So It
Barbara Fisher:is. I just watched it today. Right.
AP Strange:Yeah. No. I mean, this one has, carnival scenes that are just straight out of a nightmare. I mean, it basically you know, it's just the the shifted camera angles so that it's at about a 45 degree tilt sometimes.
Groucho:Mhmm.
AP Strange:Log rolling in. And it I mean, it looks like the kind of the same stuff you'd see in, like, the cabinet of doctor Caligari or something like that. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:In a way, the the way it's shot. And, but, obviously, it's a different quality of film and everything. But, but, yeah, I mean, the the angles, the the, the the the the way they the way they, the way they frame things is just a little bit off kilter. And you see that a lot in the sixties, but I think The Twilight Zone was kinda doing it for anybody else.
Barbara Fisher:You know? I feel like you're right. I feel like Yeah. That's that's, yeah. I think that's a 100% right.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. There are parts of, you know, all of these episodes that I watch that, you know, I love the silent film by Murnau Nosferatu, which, okay, obviously, I can't wait to see the the new one that's coming out. But anyway, I'm not gonna get off on that. But I love that film because of the German expressionist aesthetic. That high contrast use of shadow to distort reality or present supernatural reality.
Barbara Fisher:So they use shadows. They use reflections. They use light. And and they there's just the camera is often low and then shooting upwards, and that gives, you know, an a sort of an imposing view of a character, or it's shot from above and then down to make the character look smaller. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And so The Twilight Zone just grabs all of that and uses it, and it really it really does. It's it's such good storytelling. It's so artful, and it's so impactful. So I I yeah. I could totally geek out.
Barbara Fisher:But talk more about, Perchance to Dream because that I I had forgotten all of that plot until I watched it today.
AP Strange:I mean, that is one that I'm that I'm always coming back to, and it's just basically, a man goes to a psychiatrist, and he doesn't he doesn't wanna see the psychiatrist, but his doctor basically recommended it, and and he's going there just to make his doctor happy. But it's a man that will not go to sleep. You know? He refuses to go to sleep because if he does, the woman that's in his dreams is gonna kill him. And so it's this lady, Maya, the cat lady, that that is, like, kind of a burlesque dancer at the carnival in his dream.
AP Strange:And she she is terrorizing him. He has a heart condition, and he's just gonna, he he knows if he goes back into the dream. If he falls asleep, he's gonna go right back into that dream, be stuck on a roller coaster next to her, and she's gonna shock him to death. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:And it's it's a wild, wild ride. I mean, it's so intense. The the guy that stars in it, had his name last night, but I he's really just showing the scenery the whole time because it's like a monologue on his part. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. Just a just an awesome story. And, like I said, the carnival scenery, Maya, the cat lady, all of that, just amounts. And, of course, you get the twist ending. I don't know if we're revealing twist endings on this yet.
AP Strange:We didn't discuss that. Should we just talk to say what happened at the end or make people watch them?
Barbara Fisher:I feel like we we should try to get them to watch them, but I don't know. I'll I'll follow your lead. If you start giving off secrets, I'll I'll I'll jump in with it. But Alright.
AP Strange:Well, that one, I'm not gonna. But, I mean, it is Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Because it's
AP Strange:But, I mean, it's something that you see come back. It's it's the interplay of reality and the astral or, like, what is reality. It's it it plays with a lot of those ideas. It's not dissimilar to, like, ahead of its time, I guess, because it's not too dissimilar to, like, the Freddy Krueger idea. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, she doesn't have, like, you know, knifey claws, but she's still pretty scary. You know? Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:I I really liked, the actress. I didn't catch her name because I I was just watching it
Groucho:and then was just gobsmacked at
Barbara Fisher:the end and went, oh, look. Good. Good. Oh, I gotta go fix dinner, so I can't, like, you know, so I I'll write it down later, did I? No.
Barbara Fisher:I didn't. But they they did a really great job with portraying her as clearly dangerous. And yet, you know, you just look at her. She's like, oh, she's just a showgirl, dude. Why are you so and then they'd show her eye makeup, and then I was like, yeah.
Barbara Fisher:She's she's kinda creepy. Or you see a reflection of, like, a quarter of her face, the upper quarter, and you see the eye. That's the first time you see her. You just see her eye. And I was like, yeah.
Barbara Fisher:That's It
AP Strange:seemed like it seemed like her makeup was asymmetrical too. Like, she had
Groucho:to yeah.
AP Strange:So it was kinda really off putting.
Barbara Fisher:It was. They I mean, she was beautiful in her outfits, you know, or the very late fifties, early sixties, super tight, slinky, you know, Catwoman like vibe. But, there was also just it was off putting. Like you said, it's kind of like, I don't know. I don't know.
Barbara Fisher:You know, you
AP Strange:Back in the days when they had a little, like, strip tease tent at the carnival, I guess.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Something for the dads to go to. I I I don't know.
AP Strange:But, yeah, it does make me wonder, like, rewatching it. Because I watched it again last night just to make sure, you know, it's fresh in my memory. But, you almost wonder if she was being malicious and trying to kill him or if she, you know, I wonder this all the time about supernatural entities because a lot of times their people's lives are changed almost for the better after having an encounter with something that initially terrified them.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:So it's almost like, was she actually trying to, like, cause some kind of shift in this guy's perspective to make him less anxious and and settle down. You know? Or was she trying to kill him? It's hard to know.
Barbara Fisher:And that's and that's that's where you have to weigh that. You know. Oh, she's she's beautiful, but she's a little creepy too. Oh, and her laugh, that crazy yeah. That was that actress has a really good crazy laugh.
Barbara Fisher:And she she deploys it with great aplomb and to great effect. It actually made my dog, you know, sit up and, you know, look around it, you know, who's laughing? Because we have really good speakers on the TV. So,
AP Strange:Oh, that's funny.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. She
AP Strange:My dog reacted to it too. And I was like, oh, it's kinda because he hates cats, so I thought it was kinda funny. He was
Groucho:like, oh, he hates the cat lady. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Dogs know, man. They know when somebody's not on the oven up. But what you say is, you know, maybe she was just trying to get him to chill out because she kept telling him, you know, hey. This is fun. This is fun.
Barbara Fisher:You don't need to worry. It's fun. Right. We're having fun. And was like, well, maybe you're having fun, lady.
Barbara Fisher:But And
AP Strange:it was like lucid dreaming because he knew it was a dream.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Thing. You like you you said yourself, it's just a dream. You can't be hurt here. You know? Let's just go do go on a ride, you know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's get on the roller coaster. Let's let's go into the haunted house. Let's do this.
Barbara Fisher:And, yeah. And the whole time he's, you know, dragging his feet, but he's still attracted to her. So he kinda goes along and it doesn't end well for him. But you hope. You hope for him, you know?
Barbara Fisher:And what I was thinking when you said, well, you know, so many people after a supernatural experience, they they end up even though it was scary to start out with, they they end up with positive changes if they if they can get past that fear. Mhmm. And, you know, it also makes sense because if if the nonhuman intelligence that's messing with someone is feeding from their emotions, which that could have been with her. Well, you don't wanna kill dinner, you know, unless there's nothing else to be had from dinner.
AP Strange:Right. Right.
Barbara Fisher:And then you have to go on to the next one. But in some cases, you know, with her, if she was feeding off of his intense anxiety and yet attraction to her, well, she wouldn't really wanna kill him, would she?
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who knows? It's
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Exactly. It's a nonhuman intelligence with it.
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. It's so wild. And, like, I I have to mention the title too. That was part of the artful nature of these.
AP Strange:They have, like, Shakespeare driven titles for things. Perchance to Dream is from Hamlet's soliloquy. You know. Mhmm. And so, it's it's really good stuff.
AP Strange:What dreams may come. That that made me think that Richard Nathanson wrote that one because he wrote the book What Dreams May Come later.
Barbara Fisher:It's true.
Groucho:It's true.
AP Strange:But that was actually Charles Beaumont. So those were, like, Rod Serling's 2 main guys, Beaumont and Mathieson, and they were both super heavyweights. But I didn't know that much about Beaumont until earlier today, and I was looking up looking him up. Man, that guy had a real short life, and it was pretty pretty tragic. Like, geez, he only lived to be, like, 37.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:He just had some weird debilitating disorder where he couldn't think or act anymore and, you know, couldn't get his thoughts together or get himself together and just to the point where some of the episodes were actually written by Jerry Storr but credited to Beaumont. That way, he could still get some income. He did it kind of as a solid for his friend. But, yeah, that's crazy and kind of sad too.
Barbara Fisher:That's extremely sad. Yeah. Yeah. And that sounds like a Twilight Zone episode too.
AP Strange:Right? I guess there's, like, a
Barbara Fisher:An art and yeah.
AP Strange:I think I read that there was either a book or a documentary that was supposed to have come out this year about him, in particular, his work with The Twilight Zone. So I'd be interested in checking that out. Because, I always had Richard Mathison on the mind with it because he was he wrote a lot of the wraparound stuff. You know, he expanded the whole intro during the opening credits. He often would write the the little monologues that Rod Serling would do before and after.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. So yeah. Mathison. Has a really good way with words.
AP Strange:Yeah. He he's one of my all time favorites. I love his short stories too. But, I mean, in addition, he wrote, like, the the shrinking man, which became the movie, the incredible shrinking man, I am legend. Yep.
AP Strange:That's, which became The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and then The Omega Man with Steve McQueen. And then later, I Am Legend with Will Smith.
Barbara Fisher:So Yeah. It's been made into films, like, over and over and over.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Light changes each time.
AP Strange:Right. So, I mean, I I just to be a fly on the wall hanging out with, like, Mathieson and, and Beaumont and Bradbury and Serling. Like, imagine that. It was crazy.
Barbara Fisher:That would be amazing. So cool. Like, so cool. And Serling wrote so many episodes that are absolute classics too.
AP Strange:Yeah. He did. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And, you know, when I was young, when when I was watching it on reruns, when I was really, really young, I didn't give a hoot about him because he's always scaring me to death. Just the his voice would scare me after a while and, you know, so I hide behind the couch. But, as I I got to be a teenager, he he was just so incredibly cool.
Groucho:Like Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Although, in my head in my head, Indrid Cold looks like him in my head.
AP Strange:He almost has he almost has, like, an MIB kind of quality too.
Barbara Fisher:Yep.
AP Strange:He's like a phantom, and it's like he's this weird archetype where the I loved when they would do, like, the really fast spin camera
Barbara Fisher:thing where
AP Strange:it would just spin over and he's just standing there.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And he's Yeah.
AP Strange:He's he's often in the scene. It's not like they went back to a studio or he's got just, like, a space thing behind him. He he's just sitting at the table in the diner casually or just, like, standing on the street corner, stepping out from behind something. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Or the main character just walked past him, but he was so far in the in the background that he was, you know, not in focus, and then the camera comes back and there he is.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And yeah. So in my head, when I first read about Indrid Cold and the Mothman Prophecies, it was him. It it was Rod Serling.
AP Strange:Wow. That's crazy. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And his smile is somewhat creepy too. So in my head, even to this day, that's that's who Indrid Cold looks like.
AP Strange:Well, I feel like his teeth were always showing whether he was smiling or not. Like, he's it was, like, almost like he was talking through his teeth a lot of
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
Groucho:But I guess
AP Strange:he was a boxer at one point.
Barbara Fisher:I didn't know that.
AP Strange:I was really mad about him. I think either right before or after the army, he he he was boxing quite a bit. And, yeah, like, broken nose and stuff. So that might have informed his jawline. But,
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. That might have also been why his the when he spoke, it always looked like his upper lip didn't move, and that may actually be part of
AP Strange:why. Could've had nerve damage or something from him hitting the face too many times. Yeah. Because they weren't exactly safe about boxing back in those days.
Barbara Fisher:No. They're not greatly safe about it now. I mean, you're getting hit in the head.
AP Strange:There's no way around it. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. It's not a very safe way to, you know, make a living. Right. But, you know, but I could see it. I could see it.
Barbara Fisher:And he always had a cigarette.
AP Strange:That's a bigger thing. Cigarette. Yeah. That's a dumb smoking cool
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. I know. Right?
Barbara Fisher:Do I look like Rod Serling? No. You don't, ma'am. You look like a woman with a cigarette. Stop.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Just stop.
AP Strange:But I can't think of too many other people that are like that where they're kinda just always on the periphery, and, and they just come out of the shadows. Like, for me growing up, it was Simon Robert Stack when I watched Unsolved Mysteries because he'd come walking out of the fog to tell you some terrifying bullshit.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Somebody disappeared, and 15 kids were killed and
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Buried in a bus in the desert. Yeah. All of these awful things.
AP Strange:The other one I could think of is, Alfred Hitchcock. He liked to put himself in the movie just kind of in the scene somewhere, but it was wasn't as dramatic. You know, he usually didn't have a line. It was just, you know, he'd be reading the paper as he stand by or something like that.
Groucho:Yeah. So
AP Strange:yeah. But I love that kind of stuff. They they just kinda seem Rod seemed like the perfect omniscient narrator because he's always present. He's literally everywhere. You know, he he's just off camera all the time.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. It's like I said, he's great. He's just he's just amazing. And, yeah, he's he's also sort of nightmarish once I paired him with the ultimate Man in Black.
Barbara Fisher:So after that, now when I think of Men in Black, if they don't have the dead white face, you know, then I think of him.
Groucho:So Yeah. Sorry, Will Smith.
Barbara Fisher:I don't I don't think of you. I love you, Will Smith, but I don't think of you. I think of Rod Serling. I'm sorry.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean and it's funny too because he was anything but sinister in real life. Like, he had so many messages that he wanted. I mean, that was kind of the impetus for The Twilight Zone, because he was tired of, having to fight with people and censors to get some of his, social messages across or any of his social messages across.
AP Strange:And, there's a a famous conflict where it's talked about quite a bit where he had written a story that was inspired by the murder of Bennett Hill. And, once he said that, it was it was fine until he said in an interview that that was the inspiration for it. And then all of a sudden, the the networks got nervous, and they changed the story around. And he had a Jewish man being killed in the story instead of a black man. They changed it again.
AP Strange:It was just kind of a guy from a different country, and they moved the setting from the south to New England so that they wouldn't upset people in the Midwest and in the south. It wouldn't upset their sponsors and all that, you know. That was kind of, you know, what eventually led to Sterling being like, I want my own show because I you know? And I but I think that's also instructive because he had to change well, he didn't. The the other producers did.
AP Strange:You could you could see how, like, oh, the story is fine as long as you change everything about it.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:And, from Sterling's perspective, it's like, well, why not space aliens then? And it was like fly under the radar with these social messages if the characters came off of a flying saucer or existed in some, like, phantom realm, because because people are, oh, it's just goofy sci fi, but it had a powerful message hidden in
Barbara Fisher:there. Yeah. And, you know okay. I'm I'm gonna I'm I'm just gonna say it. You know, there's all of these, you know, people online who are supposedly Star Trek fans, and they say stuff like, when did Star Trek get woke?
Barbara Fisher:I'm like, dude, what show have you been watching? Right. Yeah. The original show is all woke all the time. So woke.
AP Strange:It's
Barbara Fisher:it's, Roddenberry made it to be woke. He, like Serling, wanted to tell those stories. And so I can just see somebody, when did the Twilight Zone get woke? Well
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean
Barbara Fisher:Maybe go back and watch it and use your brain, use your thinking brain and your listening ears and, you know, pay attention, and then you might see it. But
AP Strange:Right. See, this is the thing that kind of a a lot of the real the real geeks and nerds for this stuff, I think, kinda saw this all along. We always could could a lot of us could could, relate to it better because we felt a little bit more outcast. You know? Mhmm.
AP Strange:But I I for a general audience, just watching, you know, Star Trek as a space western
Barbara Fisher:and seeing
AP Strange:who Kirk beats up and then sleeps with the green lady or something and saves the day. Yeah. Or the, you know, the twilight zone is just spooky stories with, with flying saucers and monsters and things. And, you know, it's like yeah. I mean, the the it can be both, though.
AP Strange:It is both of those things. And, and we we were kinda talking before we started recording. There's a lot of overlap between Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. A lot of the original track actors appeared on the zone, and, some of the writers would go back and forth as well. I think Beaumont wrote some Star Trek, and some of it was based on, Mathison stories.
AP Strange:So,
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's lots of guest stars in in common as well. Right.
Barbara Fisher:And rewatching, I you know, suddenly, I'm like, oh, I know who that is. That's Susan Oliver. She was in the cage.
AP Strange:Oh.
Barbara Fisher:Zach is like, you know, he came in just in time for me to talk to the TV and say that. And he's just like, oh. She wasn't Star Trek, wasn't she? Yeah, okay. I just can I just had to go to the bathroom, and now I'm gonna go back to my recording and let you be a nerd over there?
Barbara Fisher:Right.
Groucho:You know?
Barbara Fisher:But yeah. It there's there's a lot of overlap thematically as well. You know? And so it was the time period. You know?
Barbara Fisher:There was there was a there was a sort of an artistic understanding of social issues and a desire to talk about those things. But it both of them sort of took science fiction and used that as a medium to talk about those issues and and get people to look at things maybe in a in a slightly skewed way. This is all almost like it was coming in under the radar for people. You know? And and the and the message sometimes the message came out and hit you in the head.
Barbara Fisher:But but a lot of times, it did. It kinda just flew in just a little bit and sort of snuck in on you. And when you think about it later, maybe days later or you talk about it with the guy at work and and you realize, wait a minute. Oh, you know, it's it's like that whole communist thing.
Groucho:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Barbara Fisher:But it was about monsters. Yeah.
AP Strange:Well, it's and some of those writers were, like, investigated as as as communist background. Like, I found an FBI file on on Bradbury once.
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah.
AP Strange:Bradbury's file. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:I would not be surprised by any of that. I believe that Roddenberry was investigated as well. I would not be surprised if Serling was investigated. Again, it's because of the content of their stories and what they were trying to convey. You know, apparently, normal Americans, you can kinda sneak stuff past them, but I guess the guys in the FBI are just way too advanced, and they notice every little thing.
Barbara Fisher:You know? So they so they're like, we gotta we gotta watch this guy. Yeah. No. We gotta watch this guy.
Barbara Fisher:While I'm polishing my lady's shoes, I will watch this guy.
AP Strange:Keep an
Barbara Fisher:eye on him. You know? Bring me his file. You know?
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. I I mean, we we have to kinda recognize too that, particularly with Star Trek, it was really Lucille Ball that got that Mhmm. Going. Because I I think with with Twilight Zone, he it was Sterling was able to pitch it and get it going and get it to work because producers and executives at the networks maybe wouldn't have caught on to what he was doing.
Groucho:You know? Like, I feel like I feel like people at the top of
AP Strange:the networks were probably too dumb to figure it out, but audiences mostly got it. Where where Star Trek had an advantage where Desilu Productions was was bankrolling it, and it actually kinda bankrupted Desilu Productions
Barbara Fisher:for a while. Yeah.
AP Strange:But that's how much she believed in it. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. People always you know, they just think she was she was just a comic actress and really good at slapstick. And she wasn't. She was really, really bright and, you know, a good writer herself.
Barbara Fisher:And, yeah, she really believed in the whole Star Trek idea and the ideals of it. So, yeah, I I I consider her the mother of Star Trek. So
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would too. I almost give her more credit than Roddenberry himself because
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. He had great ideas. But if she hadn't, you know, thrown the money at it and Yeah. You know, fussed at the network, then it wouldn't have happened.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, that's all important stuff to to keep in mind as as we go down the list because well, we we mentioned that there were some Star Trek actors in in the Twilight Zone before Trek happened. Because I think Star Trek started in 66.
AP Strange:Is that right? Am I
Groucho:getting that right? Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:So by that time, Twilight Zone had ended, I think.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:But, yeah, you had George Takei was in an episode that was so controversial that they wouldn't rerun it until Yeah. Like, the nineties, I think.
Barbara Fisher:And that's when I saw it. So yeah. Yeah.
Groucho:I only
AP Strange:saw it because I had a collection. It was like a VHS collection that you could buy, and that was, like, on the bonus tape. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. This has been hidden for years, but now you, because you bought this collection, get to witness this.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then we mentioned before recording, Leonard Nimoy was in one of the wartime episodes.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:I don't know about you, but this this is my own little sticking point. I'm never as enthusiastic about the ones that take place during a war or the ones that take place in the old west. Those are the Yeah. They're lower tier for me.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. I I will agree because, you know, yeah, Leonard Nimoy was in that episode, but I was kinda like it it was a good episode, but
AP Strange:It was. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:But it wasn't I I didn't get really excited about it. The the one war episode that I did like a lot wasn't really the war, it was the aftermath.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:You know? Or or there's the ones where there is no war until suddenly there is, and then there's the aftermath. And so it tells a different story. But when you're in the middle of the war, it's not nearly as as entertaining. And the old west ones are kinda like
AP Strange:Right. And I think that's just down to the fact that westerns were really popular on TV and in the movies. Like, people loved westerns, so they kinda just had to do that. You know?
Groucho:Well, it's it was it was to that.
Barbara Fisher:It was in the golden age of westerns at that time, which lasted for a very long time in Hollywood. So
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. I'm just not as crazy about those ones, unfortunately, because I feel like there are good stories. But, because it's, like, the 4th is made of fandoms. That one's kinda cool, but Yeah.
AP Strange:More of a time travel one. But, but yeah. But speaking of war or the aftermath of war, one of the episodes that you brought up, prior to getting ready for the show was, 2. That's kind of an interesting one. That's like a deep cut.
Groucho:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's
Barbara Fisher:it has barely any dialogue. Right. And it has 2 characters. And they are 2 two two individuals who were on opposite sides of the war. They were both in the military.
Barbara Fisher:You know this because they're wearing military uniforms. Interesting ideas of military uniforms. And one of them is an extremely young Charles Bronson. Like, so young, I was like, did they iron his face out? What happened?
Barbara Fisher:Oh my god. Because even when he was younger in the westerns, he just looked scraggy and rugged and, like, they chipped him out of stone. But this, it was a baby face. I was like, I have never seen him look like that young. I guess it was before he got typecast, and he had to, like, you know, run sandpaper over his face every morning to rough it up and make it look scary.
Barbara Fisher:And and his voice was different too because he was younger probably, and he hadn't smoked as much yet. So he didn't have the the sort of rough voice. And then the counterpart on the other side of the war was Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched. And she also looks like a baby. She is very young in this.
Barbara Fisher:And, basically, they they meet up in the ruins of a city, and it's post apocalyptic. You don't see anybody else. So somehow these 2 survived. We don't know how. But they're there, and they interact and react to each other
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:With barely any dialogue.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yep. And we're kinda led to believe that they're, like, the last two people on earth or for all, you know, for all
Barbara Fisher:Or at least in this area.
AP Strange:Yeah. For all intents and purposes, they might as well be. And they're still enemies. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. At the at the very beginning, they they they are not friendly. There there is no friendliness.
AP Strange:And it just kinda goes to the the absurdity of it. Like, you mentioned the uniforms. It looked like they went out of their way to not try to portray this as, like, America versus Russia or something like that.
Barbara Fisher:Although she did speak Russian.
AP Strange:Yeah. There was that one Russian word. I think he did to her. Right? Didn't he just say the word beautiful in in Russian to her?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. She she and then she said it again
AP Strange:Oh, okay.
Barbara Fisher:Like, later. And, it had to do with a dress. But they were still in their uniforms. My one quibble is they didn't look scruffy enough. Like, they didn't look like they'd been living in those uniforms for a few years.
Barbara Fisher:But Yeah. Maybe if they looked too nasty, it would have turned into gray mush on the screen. So
AP Strange:I'm working
Groucho:on that.
Barbara Fisher:You know, you know, it it's like a it's almost like a stage play in a lot of ways because
Groucho:I feel like a lot
AP Strange:of the best episodes are. Like, you can imagine it just being contained on a on a stage. You know?
Barbara Fisher:And and and the the acting was so physical, because, again, there's there's barely any dialogue. And, Bronson gets most of it. So what she is how she portrays her character is completely, really, through facial expression and movement. And, you know, it's so fascinating to watch her. It's like, you know, she's in the silly witch show, so you don't expect that.
Barbara Fisher:And she was really good. And I was like, woah. Wow. I I totally yeah.
AP Strange:Because she goes to change her clothes in the enlistment office, and there's all the propaganda against her side on the
Barbara Fisher:walls. And she gets pissed off. Yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. She gets pissed off, and she's like, oh, yeah. This guy's my enemy. And starts shooting.
Barbara Fisher:She's gonna shoot him. Yeah. Yeah.
Groucho:So she starts in, and he's like, what? I'm I
Barbara Fisher:yeah. Yeah. And it's
AP Strange:like a laser gun too. So it's kinda like we're pretty far removed from any reality that we know, you know. Yeah. Kinda but they they intentionally left that ambiguous, I think, because I I think Rod Serling says in the intro or outro that it doesn't matter when this is because it's could be anytime. You
Groucho:know? Yeah. This could be an
AP Strange:update of anywhere. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And that's true. And, there's a lot of stories in The Twilight Zone that have to do with the Cold War and have to do with atomic weapons and war itself and its futility and stupidity. And, gee, I can't imagine why that would be this overarching thematic
Groucho:Right.
Barbara Fisher:Juggernaut, really. It it's it's just it's just always there.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yep. I mean, yeah. Rod Serling was a World War 2 veteran. He went over there pretty young.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Fresh out of high school, and then, it's good. Yeah. You know, you think you talk about the absurdity and the cruelty and the awfulness of war. It's like he had a supply crate that was dropped for his his group. I'm not sure what the proper term is.
AP Strange:Platoon? I don't know.
Barbara Fisher:Unit, probably. Unit platoon.
AP Strange:Yeah. And his friend, the who was, like, the only other the only other Jewish, enlisted guy in in his in his group was was, joking around and entertaining the guys and making them laugh, and this crate falls out of the sky and, like, crushed them. And it's just like just like the pointlessness of of it all and just, like, you know, the the horrible tragedy of everything. And it like, like, that kind of, I mean, this is a real life thing. This isn't something that happened on the road.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I Happened right
AP Strange:in front of them. You know? It's it's horrible. It's
Barbara Fisher:oh, god. That's terrible. I didn't know that.
AP Strange:Oh, you didn't know about that? Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:No. I didn't. That's awful. But at the same time, you can see where some of his imagination came from with that too.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, he never stopped being angry about the war. He never stopped being angry, I mean, rightfully so, at Hitler. And, I I think that was part of the problem. The the other interesting thing about that was he was in the Pacific Theater fighting as a paratrooper, and he really wanted to be, like, kicking Nazi ass, but he was over fighting the Japanese instead.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:So there were there was a a lot of weird little conflicts going on with him during the war. You know? Yeah. He wasn't about to say any shit when he got back. No.
Barbara Fisher:No. He was not. He was not. And, yeah. So you see these episodes that either have war as a direct part of it or it's, you know, intimate.
Barbara Fisher:And it starts from the first, you know, the first season. There's there's an episode with the h bomb. And
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:You know, it it's a sad story. But Yeah. It starts out almost comedic. It's a little nubbish y guy who works as a bank teller, and he has a book in his lap. And I remember this from childhood, teenhood, not childhood, because I was I was basically that guy.
Barbara Fisher:You know, I always had my book open in in geometry class or algebra, and I was reading because I didn't give a shit about the math. You know? So I was and it always got taken away from me. So he gets he gets hollered at by his boss about it. And, it turns out his wife is awful to him and doesn't let him read at home.
Groucho:So
Barbara Fisher:that's why he's taken to reading at work. And there's, you know, these these scenes with his wife, and she's just a haridan, you know, tearing up his books and and and, you know, covering them up with ink. She she writes in them and, you know, blanks out the the words, and she's just terrible. And, you know, you watch that, and and she's so over the top and so awful that you're like, god, I wish she just I, you know. Right.
Barbara Fisher:Those woman's terrible. And But he's
AP Strange:so put upon. He never fights back, really. He just kinda
Groucho:He just accepts yeah. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:He tries to get past her and his boss. And then, you know, the last day at work, he he decides to hide inside the bank vault to have his lunch and read in peace. And he's reading a newspaper headline about, oh, the h bomb. We got the h bomb. It destroys everything.
Barbara Fisher:You know? And then Yeah. And there's this huge crashing boom, and we can all guess what that was. And, he comes out of the the vault, and the entire world is destroyed. It's, you know, it's all rubble.
Barbara Fisher:He goes all through the rubble. He can't find anybody who's alive. And, you know, he goes to his house, which is rubble, and his wife isn't there. And, you know, you're sitting there cheering going, yay. At least she got what she deserved.
Barbara Fisher:You know? Evil woman. And, he's he's just completely depressed about everything because he's the only person left. And and he finds food, and he's like, well, I won't starve. And then he finds either the remains of a bookstore or a library.
Groucho:It was I think it's not the library. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It's it's not super clear. I think it's the library, and he's so thrilled. And he has all these books, and suddenly, he realizes I have all the time in the world.
AP Strange:Yeah. Time Enough at Last.
Barbara Fisher:Yes. Time Enough at Last. That's the title of the story. And then it it yeah. I'm not gonna say how it ends, but it ends so sadly, and you just, man.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. It's hard for me.
AP Strange:It's not fair. There was time now.
Barbara Fisher:There was time. There was so much time, and it's just not fair. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. But that's kinda
Groucho:like He's
AP Strange:he's great, though. I mean, we we have we're just Meredith. We have to give him a a
Barbara Fisher:He was he was amazing in that.
AP Strange:Because because, as far as as far as lead appearances in The Twilight Zone, he had more appearances than anybody else except Jack Klugman. He and he and Jack Klugman were both in 4 episodes as as, like, a lead character. So, and I think I think Meredith gets one over on Klugman because he did the narration for The Twilight Zone movie that came out in
Barbara Fisher:the eighties. That's right.
AP Strange:He did. In place of Rod Serling. So Yeah. They brought him in. Yeah.
AP Strange:Because Rod Serling had died by that point. Again, too many cigarettes. So the the, but, yeah, Burgess Meredith, in a really entertaining episode called Dingle the Strong.
Barbara Fisher:I haven't rewatched that one. So yeah. But I I know about it.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, that that one's great because it has Don Rickles in it. So I'm gonna recommend that one. And then, the obsolete man was one that I was thinking of because he's a he's a librarian in that in an authoritarian world where, you know, like, if you can't serve your purpose, you're just put to death.
Barbara Fisher:Which is just great.
AP Strange:Yeah. Because, it seems it seems eerily similar too.
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, that's Certain
Barbara Fisher:the insurance company people.
AP Strange:That one that one to me seemed like a shrunk down version of Fahrenheit 451.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:The the where there's that librarian that that was secretly hoarding books in that in that book, and the fireman come and set burn the house down, and then the librarian won't leave, and she gets burned up with the books. You know? It reminded me of that. But, yeah, Burgess Meredith, he he's he he's a an all star on the show.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And what's interesting is, at least in time enough at last, you know, I knew it was him, but he doesn't sound like him or look like him. I knew exactly who he was Right. Because I can read. But if I had just, like, watched it because he has a very distinctive voice.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. But he was younger, and so he he didn't he didn't use that voice, and he didn't have quite as much of a a scraggly, croaky kind of sound to his voice. It wasn't so gravelly. And Yeah.
AP Strange:I wonder how much of that was an affects
Barbara Fisher:or Mhmm.
AP Strange:Art and how much because, I mean, I basically knew him from those Twilight Zone episodes, and but he more or less sounded the same. He was a little bit nousier in,
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Time enough in the past. But, the other ones, he his voice was kinda normal. But then I knew him as
Groucho:the penguin in in the,
AP Strange:Adam West Batman series. And and just, like, I always got confused because I'm like, is this 2 different guys with really similar names? Or because he's he's so different.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:But then later much later, he's in, like, the Rocky movies. Yeah. And, he was in a really bizarre movie with, Anthony Hopkins as a ventriloquist. Do you know this one?
Barbara Fisher:Yes. It's very it's very creepy. I hate ventriloquist dummies, probably because of Rod Serling in the Twilight Zone.
AP Strange:Yeah. I think there's at least 2 episodes with a ventriloquist
Groucho:dummy. Yep.
Barbara Fisher:Hit behind the couch for those. Did not like. I like them now. But when I was little, I was like, oh, those those things come alive, and they walk around at night. Nope.
Barbara Fisher:Those are made of nope. I don't like them, dad. I'm gonna hide back here.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, that's, that's another thing that's kind of become a trope but was new back then, really. I mean, I I think there is that uncanny valley aspect to a ventriloquist dummy, but I I the Charlie's own seems to me to be one of the first to really play with that. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Before that, it was all, you know, Charlie McCarthy and and Mortimer Snerd and Edgar Bergen, and it was all funny.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:You know? And nobody nobody thought it was scary at all. And then, you know, Rod Silvering was like, hold my beer. Yeah. I'm gonna fix that for y'all.
AP Strange:One thing that's great about, Edgar Bergen and his many characters is that his ventriloquist act was largely done on the radio.
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. Okay. I just looked it up. That movie, the ventriloquist movie is is magic.
Barbara Fisher:Yep.
AP Strange:And I I heard they were gonna remake this, and I don't can't understand why you would.
Barbara Fisher:You don't need to.
AP Strange:Yep. The first one, you had Anthony Hopkins and Burgess Meredith, and it I feel like there were a couple other big names in it.
Barbara Fisher:There were. It was
AP Strange:beat that.
Barbara Fisher:It's a really good movie. It's it's it's very creepy. Very creepy, very bizarre. And when it came out, I was older enough to, you know
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:Deal with the fact that yeah. But it still was, you know, I was being I wasn't behind the couch, but I was
AP Strange:because I remember when it
Barbara Fisher:was on HBO. It was it was yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. It's uncomfortable for sure. But
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah.
Groucho:But,
AP Strange:yeah, Burgess Meredith, an all star. Like I said, Jack Jack Clogman was in 4 episodes as well. People would know him from, like, the odd couple.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:He's kind of, like, his biggest thing. But, this is a little Twilight Zone trivia. And speaking of a guy that's just always kind of in the background is, Robert or sometimes listed as Bud McCord, was in, like, a 167 episodes. He's always kind of like an an extra or a minor character, only as a line or 2.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:That that's that's the guy that has the actual record for most appearances.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Those guy the character actor guys that, you know, I'm turning into my father, because whenever we'd watch anything and I grew up with the Stooges as well every Saturday. And, you know, Abbott and Costello, the Bowery boys, all of this stuff that is ancient. It's just bloody ancient at this point.
Barbara Fisher:But he knew every character actor. Everyone. Every all of them. So, you know, he could if if if you played Trivial Pursuit with him, don't play the silver screen edition, because he knows all of those guys by name. I might know them by their faces and go, oh, it's that guy that was in that episode of Gunsmoke or something.
Barbara Fisher:You know?
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Or I'll recognize somebody who is on Gunsmoke is on Star Trek is on, you know, the Twilight Zone or whatever. But I I wouldn't know their names. And, man, he'd just pop out with their names.
Groucho:So
AP Strange:Yeah. I can Yeah. I can be kinda like that. I mean, I'm kind of obnoxiously, it's like looking at your brain in that respect. Yeah.
AP Strange:Because we're talking about the episode 2 in Elizabeth Montgomery, and you're you're just saying, like, the the witchy lady from Bewitched. But, Dick York was also in an episode, and he played Darren on Bewitched. And that that's that's a crazy
Barbara Fisher:Darren 1 or Darren 2?
AP Strange:He was the first Darren.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. That's what I thought.
AP Strange:And he had
Barbara Fisher:He never paid attention to him. I'm I'm like in Dora. He was Durwood. I don't know.
AP Strange:Well, he was a really great comic actor.
Groucho:He
AP Strange:is. The Twilight Zone episode he was in, it's like he he flips a coin and it lands on its side. And that's that's that's the, inciting event. The the the spurs the rest of the action. So it's wild.
AP Strange:I'll I'll I have to tell people to look that one up. But speaking of Endura, this is funny because I think this is the 3rd episode where we've mentioned Agnes Moorehead for completely different reasons. But but you you had talked about this being one of your favorites as well, the invaders.
Barbara Fisher:So good. It okay. So if he didn't know about the Hopkinsville goblins,
Groucho:I
Barbara Fisher:would be so surprised. So surprised. So but there isn't a whole family of hillbillies in this episode. It's just one hillbilly lady. The one one one mee maw, and it's Agnes Moorehead being Meemaw.
AP Strange:This is a Madison episode. Right?
Barbara Fisher:Yes. Yeah. And it's so beautifully written. And, basically, what happens is she's minding her own business at night in a, you know, no electricity cabin, no running water cabin. And she she's cooking dinner or something, you know, and it's just very dark.
Barbara Fisher:Everything looks like it's lit by candlelight. So they did a really good job with the way they lit it to, you know, have it everything be visible that was necessary without it looking like, you know, they had a studio light right on it. They did a great job with this. This is another one with the camera angles that's just perfection. And she's stirring a pot, and then she hears this weird noise.
Barbara Fisher:And then she hears a thud on her roof.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And that starts it. Right. And as I was watching it, I'm like, this is so Hopkinsville. So Hopkinsville. You know, she she she is basically being terrorized by 2 little guys in suits, little space suit guys.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And I think they did a really good job with making them frightening even though they're just 2 little puppet guys.
AP Strange:Well, I think I think Matheson was really upset by how they look. Like, he he
Barbara Fisher:got a But it still works. An idea.
AP Strange:It works. And I think it works just fine. But I I mean, I think he was really frustrated because they do, like, what kinda look like little wind up toy robots.
Groucho:They do.
Barbara Fisher:But then they, you know, then they start stabbing her, and and then and then it's like, oh, woah. No.
AP Strange:Yeah. Now it's fine.
Barbara Fisher:Back in the, you know, the living doll and and the, you know, ventriloquist dummies and
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I don't know why I collect dolls because they're all really creepy, but whatever.
AP Strange:But As long as they don't start talking to you.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Depends on what they say, I guess. But she's just again, she is a really good actress. She had a long career in Hollywood before she worked on TV. And she was just amazing in this.
Barbara Fisher:She doesn't say anything at all.
AP Strange:She she
Barbara Fisher:makes noises of, you know, frustration or exertion as she's fighting off these little evil creatures. And, you know, she climbs up on her you know, up through her attic up on the roof, and there's a UFO there. It's it's a saucer. It's a flying saucer. It doesn't have markings on it.
Barbara Fisher:And, yeah. I was I was just like it just reminded me. Because no matter what she does to them, they keep coming back.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And I was like, it's just like the Hopkinsville goblins, man. You know?
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:She's beating them with with, you know, everything she can get her hands on and and stomping them. Yeah.
AP Strange:Out the window and stuff.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Throwing them. Throwing stuff at them and, you know, just I think did she get a cast iron pan after them?
AP Strange:Yeah. I think she at least
Groucho:threatened him with it.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I feel like she did. And, She
AP Strange:got shot with her weapons at one point, and they kinda
Groucho:looked
AP Strange:at her skin, and she was, like, trying to fix it. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:Really great performance on her part. And that that one was on at the bar once. I was at a bar, and that was just on the TV. And I was just I was distracted in watching it. And the bartender and a couple other people around, I'm like, this episode is fucking great.
AP Strange:And then they see, like, the little spaceman creatures, and they're laughing at it. And I'm like, no. Just keep watching. And they're like, I actually turned the volume up. They They watched the whole episode, and they were like, what?
AP Strange:No. Oh my god. Like, it blew people's mind.
Barbara Fisher:I know. Right? And and that's the thing is, you know, once you get into it and you really start watching it, she carries it.
AP Strange:Yeah. You
Barbara Fisher:know, all through the, you know okay. Is this a little wind up guy? Well, it's a wind up guy that's shooting you with some kind of laser weapon and
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:You know, freezing your hand and then stabbing you with your knife that you're trying to get them with.
AP Strange:Yeah. It's
Barbara Fisher:a it's a it's a really good episode.
AP Strange:And to use the, like, stagecraft kind of analogy again of, like, a stage play where you're watching it in front of you, I would recommend people watch this with some suspension of disbelief and use your imagination a little bit. Because if you're watching a play, you'd have to kind of imagine the setting. Right? Yeah. You know, the Right.
AP Strange:And and you kinda have to do the same thing here. Like, I don't think the special effects are terrible for the time or anything like that or, you know, at all. But but I would much rather have limited special effects that are practical with a really good story than the best special effects in the world with a lackluster story.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:Or a
Barbara Fisher:bad actor. Actor. You know? And she was great. And, you know, I never thought why doesn't she say anything because she was by herself.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:There was there was nobody for her to talk to.
Groucho:Right. And
Barbara Fisher:then then I was like, I wonder
AP Strange:You find out at the end. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. You find out at the end what's going on. But, it all through it, you know, every time I'd start to think, well, maybe maybe she's mute or, you know, I don't know. You know, maybe
AP Strange:I'll tell you the first time I saw it, it never occurred to me that she wasn't saying anything. It didn't even occur to me. It was just like Yeah. She didn't have any lines, you know, but She
Barbara Fisher:didn't have any time, I guess, for for you know, what are you gonna do? Talk to these little guys? And, yeah, it doesn't you know, who are you? It wasn't
AP Strange:that much more suspenseful too because you don't really everything you know about what her thought process is conveyed through her face and Her actions. Yeah. Her actions and her, kind of nonverbal stuff that she's you know? Like you said, she'll make a noise and you could tell she's frustrated or scared or
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Things are in
Barbara Fisher:the dark. Pain or Yeah.
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:And she's she's never all without language.
Barbara Fisher:And, you know, like, she was good as Endora, but dang as as, you know, nonverbal meemaw, she was she was perfect.
AP Strange:She was great. Yeah. One little weird factoid with her is, she was in The Conqueror with John Wayne.
Groucho:It
AP Strange:was the last it it it was like, John Wayne is Genghis Khan.
Barbara Fisher:Which is what? What? I remember that movie. What?
AP Strange:It was mostly filmed, like, somewhere where a bunch of fallout had dropped from atomic bomb testing, and, like, pretty much everybody that involved with that movie got cancer and died. It's, like, crazy.
Groucho:Wow.
AP Strange:Good grief.
Barbara Fisher:Oh, did they throw them out in White Sands or something?
AP Strange:It was, like, downwind of White Sands, I guess.
Barbara Fisher:Okay. Yeah. Well
AP Strange:And then to make it even worse, just because they wanted when they when they brought went back to the sound stage and they were gonna shoot other footage, they wanted the sand to match, so they brought sand back with them from that.
Barbara Fisher:Great.
AP Strange:No. I've looked into this, and, like, a lot of the a lot of people involved did die of cancer, and it might have been from that. As far as John Wayne himself, he smoked, like, 5 packs a day. So, I mean Yeah. That that's that's that's a lot of smoking, you know?
AP Strange:So but, yeah, that movie might have killed might have killed Morehead and a bunch of other people besides. So
Barbara Fisher:That's really awful. I Yeah. Just bringing in the freaking sand.
AP Strange:You're bringing it with you?
Barbara Fisher:Dude, there's other white sands in the world. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.
AP Strange:You have the Mojave Desert right there when you go back to Yeah.
Groucho:Just put it
Barbara Fisher:some plain old sand. Just
AP Strange:put some kind of, put some kind of filter on your lens or something to make it match. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I know. Right?
AP Strange:It's it's weird.
Barbara Fisher:Or maybe just not go into the radioactive area. I don't know. Course, they may not have actually known.
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. They didn't know. I mean, a lot less was known about it at the time, you know. Yeah.
AP Strange:That was The government wasn't talking so much about it. So
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. They weren't.
Groucho:I mean
Barbara Fisher:yeah, they didn't warn anybody in New Mexico when they tested the first one. So, yeah, don't look out your door. Maybe go on vacation. Don't maybe go underground and live there for, I don't know, a few years.
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I remember in the eighties, when they they showed the day after. I think that was the name of it, but it was it was the the movie with Jason Robards that was about, oh, what would happen if the Russians and the United States finally decided to destroy everything with having a nuclear war. Everybody watched it. It was horrible, and it was horrific, and none of us liked it.
Barbara Fisher:And Yeah. It really did not help our nerves at all.
AP Strange:I was like a whole generation, I think.
Barbara Fisher:Yep. Sure did. It was like I think it was the year before or after I graduated from high school. But it it you know, primo. Perfect.
Barbara Fisher:You know, gen x, everybody loved that. It was great. Because by the time we were in school, we had they they stopped that, you know, crawl under your desk because the because at that point, it was, that's not really gonna help. So we'll just stop doing that to the kids, you know, because they used to have these air raid drills and you, you know, crawl into your desk and cover your face and, you know, whatever. So, you know, gen x, instead of that, we got Jason Robard's hair falling out and, you know, dying of teeth falling out and all that.
Barbara Fisher:It's terrible. Good god. Yeah.
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It was great stuff.
AP Strange:Well, that's the thing is, like, truth is actually a lot scarier than fiction.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. It sure is.
AP Strange:You're talking about, like, the radium girls, like, those poor girls that were putting radioactive things in watches and the stuff that happened to
Groucho:them as a result of that. Like you said, the
AP Strange:leg teeth falling out and
Groucho:just a
AP Strange:slow, horrible pep. You know? Yep. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And they were paid pennies, you know, because,
AP Strange:of course,
Barbara Fisher:capitalism is great. But, yeah, I used to say to my dad. I was like, so oh, and they that was the same year that they showed color film. I think it was on 60 minutes. I don't know.
Barbara Fisher:It may have been another news show showed it. But it was the Nagasaki survivors that
AP Strange:were
Barbara Fisher:filmed near the near the time of the the bombs. And, I I just remember looking at my dad. I'm like, how could they have done that? How? It's not right.
Barbara Fisher:And he said, well, they did need to end the war. And it did save a lot of lives in Japan and the United States because, you know, that they otherwise, it was gonna be an invasion. And Hirohito had told his people they would fight to the last man, woman, and child. Right. And, you know, as a young person, I I I just could not, you know, I couldn't.
Barbara Fisher:I was like, they had to have known something they had to have known. Now I know. No. They really didn't.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:They really didn't know. Does this make it better? No. It doesn't really. I'm still mad about it.
Barbara Fisher:I'll probably die mad about that.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is, like, I'm mad about war regardless, just any aspect of war. Like, there really really isn't a good reason for us to be killing each other. You know?
Barbara Fisher:No. It's stupid.
AP Strange:I mean, people love to pick sides, and I'm like, I just would rather people aren't killing each other. That's kinda where I'm at, you know, at all on
Barbara Fisher:the inside.
AP Strange:You know? Like, I feel like that's where Rod Serling was, and, he was anti war more than anything else.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:He he could he he was very good at pointing out what leads people to it. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Mhmm. And that that's what a lot of his his stories were about even when it didn't really seem like they were about it.
AP Strange:Yeah. And they'll sucker punch you that way. Right? You know, it's like because you're watching kind of a well, I mean, there is an air of paranoia to a lot of it. Like, rewatching the monsters are made the the monsters are due on Maple Street.
Barbara Fisher:I was gonna bring it up if you didn't.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:Yes.
AP Strange:In order to do this show, I'm like, well, I gotta watch that one again. And I was at the end of it, I mean, post Trump being reelected, I was like, shit. Shit. We are so true. Yeah.
AP Strange:I'm like
Barbara Fisher:Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, he he was talking about the red scare, obviously, in in this. And and he was also talking about how easily humans can be manipulated. Yep.
Barbara Fisher:Just and speaking of, paranormal stuff, the the 8 year old kid, I don't know his real name, that Yeah. Basically, a meteor goes over. Makes weird noise, weird light, light in the sky.
AP Strange:There's a blackout.
Barbara Fisher:And then then all the electricity goes out and cars won't start. So this is this is that high strangeness is happening. And there's this kid, you know, all the neighbors, they all come out of their houses and they're all like, what's going on? You know? Oh, yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. You know? And and did you hear that? Did you see that? Did you know?
Barbara Fisher:Hey. I'm gonna try to start my car. Oh, it's not starting. And this kid who I just called him, John Keel junior, basically says, oh, well, it was that thing that flew overhead. And then he starts talking about, oh, you know, that's why the electricity's out.
Barbara Fisher:It it it it caused a power surge, and and and they're putting the electricity out to keep us confused. And and they're like, they who? You know, they who? And he's like, it's aliens, and then his mom comes up, oh, little Johnny here. I think his name was Joey, but I thought of them as little John Kiel.
AP Strange:Comic books.
Barbara Fisher:His his he just reads the comic books and everything. But, you know, some of the some of the men decide, hey. We're we should go uptown and ask the police what's going on. The phones aren't working. The cars aren't working.
Barbara Fisher:We'll just walk uptown. And the kid is like, no, mister. Don't go. They don't want you to. They they really don't want you to.
Barbara Fisher:And, everything is about they don't want you to, and then little other things start happening. Like, 1 guy is trying to start his car, and then it starts.
AP Strange:Or it starts when he's not even in it.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. It starts without anybody.
AP Strange:Turn on. Yeah. And the lights turn on in his house. And yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And then the kid is like, they they have they have people living among us that look just like us. They they're they're infiltrating. They came first. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Right. Yeah. I'm like Yep. Kid, you're not helping.
AP Strange:Yeah. But, I mean, this is the kind of thing where, people just immediately start turning their swords on each other. Yep. And there's one guy that's just trying to be the voice of reason. I forgot the actor's name, but
Barbara Fisher:Bonnie Hawkins.
AP Strange:Yes. He went on to play sheriff Lobo later.
Barbara Fisher:Yep. Yep.
AP Strange:Yeah. He's, like, the only voice of reason there, and everybody else is, like, freaking out. And he can calm people down, but only so far.
Groucho:You
AP Strange:know? And they start lobbying accusations at each other where, like, the guy whose lights came on, it's like there's a woman that was across the street. She's like, well, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I've seen him just standing in his yard. Like, he's looking up at the sky
Groucho:like sky.
AP Strange:Like he's waiting for something. You know? Like
Barbara Fisher:It's like, okay. Yeah. Okay. People don't look at the stars in this town, I guess.
AP Strange:Right. And then he even says, like, insomnia. He's like, that's what you're accusing me of. I have insomnia. It's like, I have a hard time getting to sleep.
AP Strange:Like, you know, like, is that a crime? You know?
Groucho:It it yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It it is a crime, apparently.
AP Strange:Yeah. Well, that's what it becomes is everybody turns against everybody else. And I mean, pretty much by the end of it, it's like a melee, you know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. They're chasing each other around, and and one guy shoots another guy.
AP Strange:Yeah. They shoot the guy from the next neighborhood.
Barbara Fisher:Walk over. Yeah. And and, yeah. And it's great because
AP Strange:it's Well, you think that would be the sobering moment. Right? Where Claude Akins is shaking the guy by his big stupid Hawaiian shirt and being like, you shot the man. You killed him. It's like, you didn't know I didn't know who he was.
AP Strange:You know? You gotta believe me. I didn't know. You know? And then it's like, but instead, everybody turns on that guy.
AP Strange:They're like, oh, you were quick to accuse everybody. So what are you hiding? Maybe, you know
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Like Yeah.
AP Strange:You would think that that would be a sobering enough thing where, like, a man is dead here. Maybe we took those too far. But, no, instead, it just everybody gets riled up again, and they're all at each other's throats again, like, right away. You know? Yeah.
AP Strange:We can spoil this one, I guess, because
Barbara Fisher:it's Yeah. Because it it doesn't make sense unless you do it. You can spoil it.
AP Strange:Yeah. The the flying saucer sitting up on the hillside.
Groucho:You know? Yeah. That's right. It's my it's
AP Strange:my show. I'll do whatever I do and what I want. But there's a flying saucer sitting up on the hill, and the aliens are just, like, controlling everything from up there, you know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And and they're the ones turning on the lights and turning them off and
AP Strange:Yeah. Messing with people. And then and then he's like, so that's the process then? And he's like, yep. Pretty much with minor variations.
AP Strange:You just do this in a small community, and it completely destabilizes it. Like, humans are very predictable. Like, they'll all just tear each other to pieces.
Barbara Fisher:And we don't have to do anything but, you know, turn on their lights and turn off their lights and and scare them a little bit. You know? Yeah. I loved that.
AP Strange:Just terrifying.
Barbara Fisher:And and wow. It's Yeah. He's not wrong.
AP Strange:Well, the ending narration, I actually, made sure I had it ready because, this yeah. I would like I got chills hearing Rod read this at the end. He says, the tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices only to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, pre prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy.
AP Strange:And the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined in the twilight zone. So Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:See, I got chills, and and you're not even Rod Serling. It's it's a horrific, and it's so current.
AP Strange:Yeah. It it's timeless in a way that sucks. Like, it's like he says in there, like, it's a pity that we can't just keep this in this fictional realm. You know? But it it is a very real thing.
AP Strange:And these are things words can kill. Thoughts can kill. Prejudices can kill. Mhmm. And it really just makes me, like, every asshole troll that I've ever encountered on Twitter that's just harangued me for, overreacting to things.
AP Strange:It's like, no, dude. These things do kill people. They do. You just wanna, like, grab them by the lapels and shake them, like Claude Akins does with that guy at the end of the episode. Yeah.
AP Strange:Like, look what you've done. Like, you've killed a man. You know? It's, that's a that's a heavy one.
Barbara Fisher:And, of course, the the the excuse he gave was, well, I didn't know it was him.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:You're sup okay. Nobody taught you gun safety. I'm sorry. You're supposed to be sure of your target before you pull the trigger. Okay.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, we see this. Like, the man standing on the lawn looking at his guy is just an insomniac.
AP Strange:And we do this nowadays with, like, tweets. We'll find an old tweet that somebody tweeted, and and their whole identity becomes based on that one thing that says, like, 10 years here. You know? And, like and I I don't know. It could be the same as a guy standing out on his lawn, like, having a rough time, you know, because he can't sleep.
AP Strange:They we're I I think we're quick to judge people and divide, and that only benefits the people at the controls. Yeah. That's really what I wanna
Barbara Fisher:I I wish it was aliens. I really do.
AP Strange:Yeah. Me too. Because they probably have better things to do than
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I know. Right? Well, no. Except for in To Serve Man.
Barbara Fisher:That's different.
AP Strange:They were like To Serve Man. I mean, that's
Barbara Fisher:That is the classic episode
Groucho:that everybody knows.
AP Strange:Yeah. And it's not as heavy. I mean, it's got a great twist, but it's not it's not heavy in the way that the monsters are due on Maple Street. They're both Rod Serling stories. So that really kinda gives you the, that gives you the the full scope of of Serling's acumen with writing these stories, you know, especially aliens.
AP Strange:And we are talking aliens, flying saucers.
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah.
AP Strange:Really interesting ways of looking at this. So
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. To Serve Man is that's one of the ones I saw in reruns as a kid, and it did put me behind the couch again, because it was the big headed guy. I'd I didn't I don't like the big headed guys, man. I
AP Strange:Yeah. From from childhood guy too.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Big, big, tall. Not Ted Cassidy. He's the he was the other guy. I was sure it was Ted Cassidy, but I remembered wrong.
AP Strange:Yeah. And Ted Cassidy played Lurch on The Addams Family. So, yeah, but it was Richard Kiel, a very young Richard Kiel, who was known for playing Jaws in
Barbara Fisher:Yep.
AP Strange:One of the Bond movies. I forgot which one that is.
Barbara Fisher:There's 2 he's in.
AP Strange:Oh, okay. I think
Barbara Fisher:is he in Thunderball? He's not in Thunderball. Maybe he is. Maybe it is Is
AP Strange:it Diamonds or no.
Barbara Fisher:He's in one Moonraker. He's in Moonraker, but he's in another one.
AP Strange:Yeah. Okay. But I know he was also in a really bad movie called Yiga.
Barbara Fisher:Oh god. That's right. He was. That is a terrible movie. It's fun in a terrible way.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:There's a lot I found a lot of adjacent terrible movies in doing research for the show, and it was like, Charles Beaumont wrote, the queen of outer space. And I was like, what? He wrote it, like, as a satire, and then they just kinda faithfully made the movie as a serious movie, and that's why it's such a mess.
Groucho:I mean, I think that's if I'm
AP Strange:not mistaken, that's the one with Zsa Zsa Gabor as, like, a Venetian on a funny slasher.
Barbara Fisher:You know, that could be really funny and fun It is. If they had done it. Fun. Right.
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:Well, doing it wrong is equally funny, I think.
Barbara Fisher:Well, that's true. That's true.
AP Strange:But, yeah, to serve man, we have the candidates that come down, and they're these tall, big headed aliens. And, they're here to, like, help us out and and and give us
Barbara Fisher:Make our lives better.
AP Strange:This is where I feel like the disclosure people really want this. Yes. The and they don't understand the the ending that's possible here. But disclosure people think that the ETs are gonna come down and give us the technology, and all the world's problems will be solved. Right?
Barbara Fisher:Right. Which is what happens in the episode. All the world's problems are solved.
AP Strange:Yep.
Barbara Fisher:We have enough energy. We don't have to fight wars about it. We have enough food. Mhmm. It's wonderful.
Barbara Fisher:And People
AP Strange:are fattened up nicely in the
Barbara Fisher:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:The cannabis know how to serve man.
Barbara Fisher:Yep. Yep. And they give us they give us their manifesto.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:But it's in their language, which we can't read.
AP Strange:Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Until
Barbara Fisher:You know what I mean? Figures it out.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. Very end of the episode. Yeah. You know what I really like about the candidates in that episode is they seem to be talking, like, telepathically.
AP Strange:Like, his mouth doesn't move. You just hear the voice. Mhmm. Like, that's that's really cool because that that happens a lot in, like, contactee stories and and, alien encounters. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:The the kind of telepathic thing. I I have a theory that at least Richard Matheson was reading, like, Fate Magazine back then.
Barbara Fisher:I think so. I don't know if quite a few writers at that time.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. Some of some of his stories, I feel like, are are just, like, real life stories that he turned into a fictional story. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Mhmm.
AP Strange:One that I had written down was, like, the it was the last flight. A World War 1 pilot that lands in a World War 2 airfield.
Barbara Fisher:Yes. That's a great one.
AP Strange:And that that has so much crossover with actual stories in the UK of, time slips in the air where pilots had had flown through, like, kind of a time slip thing. And I'm like, I I think I have a fake magazine from around, like, 1959 that has that story in it. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. There's lots of lots of stories about time slips, with air airplanes. Of course, the Bermuda Triangle is classic.
Groucho:Right.
Barbara Fisher:But but there are there are stories of air of a plane flying into a cloud bank and then coming out the other side, both as a fictional thing, but it's also in weird store you know, weird true story reports and things.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:That, and and, Jenny Randalls wrote a whole book about it called, Time Storms. Right. And although in hers, it was usually cars. You would drive through a weird fog, or there'd be, you know, like a cloud on the ground, and you drive in it. And then time Yeah.
AP Strange:Wasn't there one in that book where somebody was driving in, like, Mexico and then came out of the other side of the cloud in, like, Argentina or something? Yep. Yep.
Barbara Fisher:Something like that. Yeah. That was yeah. Yeah. That would mess you up, like, a lot.
AP Strange:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't know how to account for that for sure.
Barbara Fisher:That's a that's a
AP Strange:no. I feel like, I feel like Jeff Ritzman had a weird story like that that he told years ago, on Paratopia and on Where Did the Road Go, where he was, like, driving from he was driving a a route that he always took in, like, Delaware and then ended up somewhere, like, way off course, like, in West Virginia or something. And, like, the the like, they couldn't possibly have driven that far in the amount of time, and it, like, really freaked him out. You know? Like Yeah.
AP Strange:But, yeah, I I can imagine. I mean, I've had minor events that I think I can chalk up to just, like, not keeping track of time the way I thought I was or just, you know, my mind wandering while I'm driving, but it's so unnerving to even end up someplace you didn't mean to be or something like that. I can only imagine ending up, like, 100 of miles away.
Groucho:You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. No. That's that's never a good thing.
AP Strange:Yeah. And, I mean, there is something about the plane, because there's a bunch of episodes with planes. And and those kinda tend to be my favorite, because, the other time slip on was the odyssey of flight 33.
Groucho:Mhmm.
AP Strange:And that's a Sterling story where they kinda fly into a cloud, and then they're flying over like dinosaurs.
Groucho:Yeah. That's right. There's dinosaurs and stuff, and
AP Strange:they keep going back into the cloud and hoping to come out in their
Barbara Fisher:own time. Just flew over Jurassic Park, dude. It was just Jurassic Park. That's all. They just they just flew into a movie and Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Down and
AP Strange:And then the the other classic plane one, of course, is, terror at 2,000 feet. Well, did they get the name right? Nightmare at 20,000
Groucho:feet. Yeah.
AP Strange:With Shatner and the man on the wing.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. The the whatever on the wing, the the dude in the rubber mask. It's pretty creepy.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, I think that was another thing that that, Matson wasn't thrilled about was the appearance of that man on the wing.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Because he wanted to look more like the classical see, that was kinda based on gremlins, like the idea of gremlins in World War 2 that were messing with planes and equipment and stuff. So, I think he was, like, making it he he wanted it to look more like a little imp or something like that. Kinda what you ended up seeing in the Twilight Zone movie. They remade that with John Lithgow instead.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:See, they
Barbara Fisher:should have taken they should have had Shatner again and then had an imp and then we could compare and contrast. You know? Is the is the original scarier or the other one scarier? Because they're such different actors. I don't really I can't really yeah.
AP Strange:John Lithgow is like
Barbara Fisher:I love him.
AP Strange:He's so good at being over the top. Like, if you need somebody to be over the top.
Barbara Fisher:Shatner. Yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. Like, John Lithgow is your guy. Like, I I mean, he he really he really blew that out of the water, I think. But, I mean, Shatner was good too. I mean, Shatner was great.
AP Strange:He was in 2 different episodes because he was in another one called nick of time, where he's in a diner, and there's a little fortune telling machine at the table. And he's like, can't even leave the table because
Groucho:he keeps asking the fortune telling machine what he needs to do next. You know?
AP Strange:I I think that's a that's an instructive one for people that are into divination.
Groucho:Yeah. And, Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:You you can't just keep asking.
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. At a certain point, you have to make your own decision and use your best judgment. You know? You can't just keep asking.
AP Strange:So, that's an interesting one. But, well, another one that that wasn't specifically planes, it's more of a rocket, and when the sky was opened did you watch this one?
Barbara Fisher:No. I didn't watch this one.
AP Strange:Oh, okay. I I yeah. I don't know which ones I told you I was thinking about and which I didn't because I just got scattered notes here. But that that one's like a rocket goes up and comes back down, and there's 3 astronauts, and then they start being erased from existence. Oh.
AP Strange:Like, not just disappearing, but, like, one of the astronauts goes to the hospital to visit the other one, and he's not there, and nobody knows who he's talking about. Oh. Like, I don't know anybody by that name. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Oh.
AP Strange:That one's wild.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. The one I watched with 3 astronauts was, Elegy. Okay. And that's the one where these 3 astronauts land, And there's this they're on this planet that there's all of this all of this civilization, but no people except them.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:And so, you know, it turns out that they've died. And the only person who's there is the the person who's trying to get them to move along and go on from so it's it's a really, really odd episode. It's like it's good, but it's also kinda just just odd. It wasn't it didn't disquiet me at all. It just was it's just really strange.
AP Strange:Yeah. I think when you get into the later seasons, for one thing, they had an entire season where the episodes were an hour long for, like, 50 minutes or whatever. But I really think that the Twilight Zone formula works best as, like, a tight 23, 25 minutes where you really have to because you have to accelerate it. You have to make it manic, and you have to make people behave in ways that they wouldn't in real life because you need to get all of it in there. Yeah.
AP Strange:When you have more time, it kinda drags it out, I think. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. You have more, of a of an immediacy.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:And you have to tell your story very, very compactly and tightly to make it work.
AP Strange:Yeah. And Mathison, Beaumont, and Sterling were all experts at that. And when you get into the later seasons, I feel like they were having fun with it, with some of the ideas, and they were looking at doing spin offs. I watched this bizarre one called, it was it was the name of it was an angel in it. And, it was supposed to be, like, a spin off series with, like, an angel, like, keeps getting sent to earth, but he's, like, always fumbling and trying to help people.
AP Strange:I was like it it was it was entertaining enough, but it was goofy. And I'm just like, this doesn't even feel like the Twilight Zone.
Groucho:No. Because I
AP Strange:guess it wasn't. It was supposed to be a trailer for something else. And, like, Kick the Can, I watched that recently? That's kind of an odd one. Doesn't really have that same vibe.
AP Strange:But, yeah, I mean, some are better than others, but, I mean, that first season at least, that entire first season and the second one are are phenomenal. Oh, right. And then there were some episodes where they started using, like, videotape, or they they use some kind of different film.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. They used video in a few episodes. And the later series
AP Strange:yeah. Like, the one with the car salesman,
Groucho:and he all of a
AP Strange:sudden can't tell a lie.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Which really it it messes up his life so much.
AP Strange:Yeah. But I found it so distracting because the film quality just wasn't as good. Yeah. It didn't feel it didn't have that cinematic feel. And I'm like, I don't I think I would like this better if it just looked like the other episodes.
AP Strange:I don't know.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The ones that are done on on on video, you can tell. And and they're not not as good.
Barbara Fisher:Because part of what really draws me in is the very cinematic, feel of the of the cinematography and the direction.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And and it's interesting. It's both cinematic and a lot of them are like plays.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:You know, like the invaders. Again, that could have been a whole set on a stage, and they could have used lighting to move her into different parts of of her hovel Yeah. Her little cabin.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:And and it would have been just as you would have been leaning in on your seat, you know, to try and see what was happening. And some of the the ones without the really good film stock and the tight direction, it's not as you don't lean in and get all, you know, get your blinders on, and you're just looking at what's happening on the screen.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's a couple more that are well, there's a lot of episodes that are like that. I think all the best ones like we had said, Perchance to Dream takes place almost entirely at first in in the psychiatrist's office. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:The other shots would be difficult, but, there was one that I I, I had brought up. Let's see which oh, Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up is another UFO centric one, and that the entire episode takes place in a diner. Like, that you can do that as a stage play. That would be amazing. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And it feels like one as as you're watching it. It it very much you know, there's some beginning stuff with, a couple of cops. And it's another one of those that, you know, if you've read enough UFO cases, this sounds like so believable. Like, you have seen At
AP Strange:first, at least, it feels like a reenactment of UFOs.
Barbara Fisher:Yes. It's very archetypal.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And and, they end up at this diner. And there's a bus that had stopped at the diner. And the bus driver's there. And the counter man is there, and the cook, and he's the same guy.
Barbara Fisher:And then all of the passengers from the bus, which aren't very many people.
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, like, 8 people or something. And then that comes into a question because it's, like, well it's like, if you have 8 people here and there's 8 people in here, like, where did the other guy go? You know?
AP Strange:Yeah. So then it it it's sorta like The Monsters of You on Maple Street, but a lot more comical. They're all kind of, like, looking at each other to figure out who's the alien in the group. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And who who remembers who from getting on the bus? Because you got a you got a couple, a young couple who are very involved with each other. So they're worthless. They're not gonna notice anything, you know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I know that couple. Yeah. And then the bus driver is kind of like, well, 7 got on my bus, and that's how many I Right. I mean, well, do you remember all these people?
Barbara Fisher:You know, the cops are trying to do their job, and they're, you know, asking everybody. And the bus driver just, you know, gets pissed off about he's like, why are you asking me these questions?
AP Strange:Yep. And you got, like, Jack Elam sitting at the diner counter hamming it up. Because he's like the kooky old man, crazy guy, you know, with the
Barbara Fisher:with the laundromat. We going on you know, why aren't we getting back on the bus and and going wherever it is? They were Albany or something.
AP Strange:Boston.
Groucho:What's that? Yeah.
AP Strange:The guy was saying yeah. The guy the guy with the famous thing. Yeah. I need to be in Boston tomorrow. I I was talking about Jack Elam, the guy with the lazy eye at the counter, and he's making jokes the whole time.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:You know? And yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And then the craning guy. But that's that's because those 2 were, you know Yeah. Kinda going at it. It's like, why don't you have some more coffee? Why don't you just calm down?
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Well, obviously, we can't go in the snow. So, man, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I loved that.
AP Strange:That was a great episode with a great twist at the end. But also high strangeness effects in it with, like, the jukebox remotely turning itself on and off and stuff like that.
Barbara Fisher:Mhmm. And the phone ringing.
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah. The payphone ringing. Yeah.
AP Strange:It's like it's very Killeen.
Barbara Fisher:And there's a there's a bridge that is in question in that too.
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. That's the whole reason the bus is there. It's because the bridge was needed needed to be cleared with the snow, I guess, or they just weren't needed to be repaired. They wanted it checked out before they proceed.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:So that's why they were waiting.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:And, yeah. So, of course, I'm sitting there going, I know Mothman's not gonna show up. But
AP Strange:Right. Yeah. It's got some real Point Pleasant vibes to it.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. It does. It really does. Yeah. It could have been one of those horrible ponds at the at the TNT area.
Barbara Fisher:You know, they have all the chemicals and crap in them. Right. I could see it. Yeah. You could rewrite that whole story, in fact.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. It it'd be kinda cool to write something, like, fan fiction of, like, the cops remembering that night or something and, you know, writing about it afterward or thinking about it. You know? That's
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
Groucho:There's a
AP Strange:lot of things you could probably do with some of these stories because I feel like the original series, that was what they achieved there was never really achieved again
Barbara Fisher:No.
AP Strange:Either by Sterling or anybody else. You know? Like, Night Gallery is kinda fun, but it's no Twilight Zone. You know?
Barbara Fisher:No. It's not.
AP Strange:And they brought The Twilight Zone back in the eighties and again in the nineties, and I think they did in the 2000, and then Jordan Peele did more recently.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:And, I mean, I can enjoy some of that for what it is, but it's never
Barbara Fisher:it's never gonna happen. It's not the Twilight Zone.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It's different.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:I feel like they should, you know I I have no problem with different short format compilation stories, you know, like like it's a short story collection in a book done as a show, but just don't call it the Twilight Zone. Call it something else.
AP Strange:You know?
Barbara Fisher:So we don't get it in our heads that it's gonna be The Twilight Zone.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, there were other shows kinda like it. Nothing quite like The Twilight Zone, but you had The Outer Limits Yeah. Was around. And that was really a different thing.
AP Strange:Like, those stories were very, well, I feel like they were more the kind of stuff you would read in, like, Amazing Stories or Galaxy or any of those sci fi things. More just like fun sci fi stories. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:And then Albert Hitchcock presents you had the kind of suspense stories
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And kinda Crime stories. Yeah.
AP Strange:Sometimes sometimes there's a little bit of a supernatural element to it that, you know, it was always very subtle. You know?
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:But, I I mean, I think I think the zone also kind of, owes its tradition to radio plays as well. There was a lot of Sterling wrote for radio before TV. And some of those stories like, there's one about, like, the hitchhiker that had been done on the radio, like, a bunch of times before they made it the Twilight Zone episode.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:And, honestly, I don't think it works as a Twilight Zone episode. It's a cool story, but it, you know
Barbara Fisher:It's it's no. I I I don't like that episode as much as as others.
AP Strange:Yeah. I would rather just watch Carnival of Souls because it's pretty much the same thing.
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:But yeah. I mean, with the radio, you had, like, I think it was, like, Boris Karloff's Mystery Theater or something, and there was, like, Lights Out. And,
Barbara Fisher:Oh, yeah. Lights Out.
AP Strange:You had the Orson Welles stuff prior to that. And yeah. Yeah. So those are a lot of fun too. You can find sometimes you can find those on YouTube for anyone listening.
AP Strange:You can look up old episodes of those shows, and those those were wild. They're really, really strange.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. My dad had some records of a lot of those on vinyl.
AP Strange:And I have a couple of those too.
Barbara Fisher:We would listen to those. Yeah. He when he was a kid, he he was he had to go to bed at, like, 9 o'clock. And, you know, some of those shows were on later, and he always wanted to listen to those. So he built a crystal radio, but then he got caught with it.
AP Strange:Uh-huh.
Barbara Fisher:And so then he made a little microphone from bits of crystal radio set stuff and attached it to, like, an earphone, like, one of the little ear insert guys that that used to be the the way you did without headphones. You know? And he had a wire that he put that went all the way downstairs, and he planted the microphone next to the radio in the living room and ran, which is cool because it was right at the at the bottom of the stairs. So he and he, you know, he colored it dark so you couldn't see it And, you know, strung it up to his room so he could listen to the to the creepy stories. And it worked for probably, I think he said it was like 3 months before they caught it.
AP Strange:Wow.
Barbara Fisher:And and it's it's all because Graham was not a great, like, housekeeper. So she she did dust very assiduously, so he didn't get caught.
AP Strange:Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's dedication to the creepy stories. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yep. Yep.
AP Strange:But those those are a lot of fun. But, but, yeah, I mean, I really do think Twilight Zone is is one of a kind. I don't think there's anything quite like it. No. Never has been.
AP Strange:There will be. And they are timeless even though it is obviously like the early 19 sixties or late fifties. The way people are dressed and the cars and the technology and everything doesn't really matter. It it exists in another realm. That's
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah.
AP Strange:The the it's kind of a numinous realm where where none of that stuff really applies because it's it's a place outside of time because these messages are always going to be important. Right?
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And and, you know, I was talking about it with with my husband, Zach. And when we first met, he he really didn't like movies that were in black and white. And I was like, why? You know, because I grew up with the Stooges and and, you know, Abbott and Costello and the Universal Monsters and all of that. And, I was like, why?
Barbara Fisher:He said, I don't know. It just doesn't hold my interest. I'm like so, you know, the first one I showed him was Harvey.
AP Strange:Oh, okay. Yeah.
Groucho:That's a good one.
Barbara Fisher:Sucked right in to all the characters, and he was just like, oh, it was so good. You know? And so, you know, I got him to watch other films over the years, other classic films. But we didn't really, watch The Twilight Zone together. I don't know why.
Barbara Fisher:I think it was because we didn't have them on video. But now that they're streaming. Right? So I told them I was doing this episode, and I said, so I gotta rewatch a ton of, you know, The Twilight Zone. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, these it doesn't matter what time period.
Barbara Fisher:This does not this is still applicable today. People can still understand. I mean, yeah. There's a few things like telephone etiquette, I guess. And Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Everybody smoking cigarettes is a little weird. You know? But that's true for all old films, you know, because Right. They didn't stop that until, like, what, the eighties. You know?
AP Strange:Yeah. Sometimes the language, the correct deal is and I wanna bring some of those back because I feel like at least once an episode, somebody says, what is this, a gag?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. There's nothing in your mouth. What are you talking about?
Groucho:Right. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And so I was just watching. I was like, you know, I'm gonna have to, like when Fox gets back from college, I think we should all sit down and watch some of these.
AP Strange:Yeah. Like, curate a a playlist of them or something.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. And and, you know, sit sit around together as a family because I mean, it's it's fun. They're short. You know? They're they're great for those of us who have seen too much stuff on social media and, you know, for the TikTok kids who have no attention span left or people who have, you know, ADHD and have no attention span left.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:I'm looking at myself here. You know?
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:It's great for that because the storytelling is just so well done.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. And it is compact like we were saying before. Everything is played out for you very quickly, like, in writing, etcetera. And some of them move a little slower than others, but, like, mostly, you're gonna get everything you need for your story, and you're not gonna see the ending coming most of the time.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the the, you care about the characters. That's the other thing.
Barbara Fisher:The the actors all do a really good job of portraying well, you're not gonna like this guy. You know? Right. Some some of the some of the main characters, you're just not gonna like him from the very get go. Portelli Savales.
Barbara Fisher:They are right away. Yeah. Portelli Savales, you just look at him, and you're like, oh, you're not Kojak, man. We're not gonna like you.
AP Strange:No. Nothing Kojak about him in that.
Barbara Fisher:No. We're not gonna like you. I'm sorry, Tilly.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Because I love him. I he's he's one of my favorite, actors from the 19 seventies shows.
Groucho:Oh, yeah.
Barbara Fisher:He was he was great. Yeah. And then there are other ones you look at them and you go, oh, well, this guy's he's he's pretty cool. You know? And you know right away.
Barbara Fisher:Or you know that this woman is is, you know, a good person. And well, and then there's that Maya the cat lady chasing the dude in his dream. And, you know, so you know right away. There's none of this. They're bland, stale characters.
Barbara Fisher:You you care about them. The the the writing and directing and acting is so good, you get pulled into it even though it's very short.
AP Strange:Yeah. They're all exaggerated characters. Mhmm. They're almost caricatures sometimes. You know?
AP Strange:It's but that's that's great because it draws you right in. You know exactly what you're looking at, or so you think.
Barbara Fisher:Until yeah. The twist. So And and that's part of that's part of why it it's like theater too. Yeah. Because, of course, stage acting is different than film acting, television acting.
AP Strange:And a lot of these guys came from the stage too. Yeah. You know?
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
Groucho:Yeah. So
Barbara Fisher:And and the like like, you know, I I was thinking about it, you know, after I would watch, I don't know, about 8 episodes at a at a clip, you know. Then I'd, go and look at something on YouTube or, like, an a fairly recent television show clip at, like, House.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:And the the film style is so different, and everything is different. And so it's a little bit jarring for a second there. You know? Oh. Oh, what's happening?
Barbara Fisher:You know?
Groucho:Oh. Oh. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:And but even so, you know, I I I chose House because he's so Hugh Laurie's character is so out there in your face. You know him. Right? Right. You you can tell.
Barbara Fisher:So even in a 3 minute clip, you you get that. So it's similar to The Twilight Zone that way, but it's it's still the storytelling is completely different, the color, the the way it's filmed. And it's it for a second, it turns into a a kind of, culture shock. So I would suspect that people used to watching modern television shows diving into The Twilight Zone, it would be a little bit of culture shock in the opposite direction. But once you get sucked in, you're sucked in.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, if you start with any of the episodes we talked about tonight
Groucho:Yeah. You'll be you'll be fine.
AP Strange:Expect you will be. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I mean, there's a million lists out there. I think that there are plenty of episodes that always get generally agreed upon as being the best ones.
Groucho:Mhmm.
AP Strange:And To Serve Man is certainly one of those. I would say I would say Living Doll is up there on that list.
Groucho:Yeah.
AP Strange:Little Girl Lost is another one that I I I would I love.
Barbara Fisher:That is so good.
AP Strange:Yep.
Barbara Fisher:And that reminded me of, Stranger Things.
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. That actually yeah. Actually, that is a lot like Stranger Things.
Barbara Fisher:And I to the point where I was like, did the dude who came up with Stranger Things kinda, like, see this as a kid, and it gets stuck in his head? And and then all this other stuff gets
AP Strange:The Simpsons did a parody of it on, Treehouse of Horror as well on one of their Halloween episodes where Homer falls into a different dimension
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:When he tries to hide in the closet. Yeah. But that one is great. I love it. I love that they just happen to know a theoretical physicist who can come over, and he's like, oh, I've seen this before.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. They call the dude at, like, midnight. Hey, physicist man who happens to be our friend. Come over here. Explain this to us.
AP Strange:She might have fallen into the 4th dimension or maybe the 5th.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:I love that. Why?
Barbara Fisher:I know. I know. I cracked up. I loved it. But at the same time, you know, I I'm like, well, I do have a lot of weird friends.
Barbara Fisher:You know? So I guess I
Groucho:could you know?
Barbara Fisher:I do know an astrophys Yeah.
AP Strange:I mean
Barbara Fisher:that I could call. You know?
AP Strange:Right. Either of us would have somebody on a short list.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. There's there's somebody that one of us would know.
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:Everybody's like, fine. We'll text you guys.
Groucho:Yeah. Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:No explanation why that was there. I love the physicist. They they were like, why? And he's like, I don't
Groucho:know. It just happens sometimes.
AP Strange:Yep. Yeah. We don't know. But, yeah, that explanation is almost exactly the same as in Stranger Things. And, actually, like the Marvel movies too, where there's there's some portal stuff going on in in, like, Thor, the Thor movies.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:It's a very similar, like, alternate dimension kinda thing. So Yeah. Well, we could talk about this show probably all night.
Barbara Fisher:We could
AP Strange:probably do 4 or 5 episodes of the show. But I've, I felt like we we got a good survey of them anyway for for New Year's cruising.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah.
AP Strange:The The only place I've found them streaming is Paramount Plus right now, which
Barbara Fisher:Paramount Plus. And you can get it on Amazon Prime, but, you know, Jeff Bezos and I don't like him. So
AP Strange:Right.
Barbara Fisher:I do Paramount Plus. Season.
AP Strange:Right? Yeah. You'd have to pay for the whole season or something.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Unless you're a Prime member, in which case then you can watch it for free.
Groucho:But, ugh,
Barbara Fisher:I don't like him. So
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. I've been trying to I'm watching it on Paramount Plus, but, that app just does not work on my TV. It sucks.
Barbara Fisher:It it actually works okay on ours, but
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:Our TV is weird. So yeah.
AP Strange:Yeah. Or, I guess, probably the sci fi channel probably still does the marathon on New Year's Eve. So
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. It probably does. Cable.
AP Strange:If you have cable, just go look at that. You know? But, yeah. So, what are you what are you working on these days? Are you still writing a book?
Barbara Fisher:Yes. And we're the the research itself is finished. Now we're putting it into a shape. Okay. Because what the research is right now is over 200 and some pages of type notes.
AP Strange:Oh, boy.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. But
AP Strange:weird news. Not your attention size bibliography?
Barbara Fisher:I I think I scared him, actually. It was much
Groucho:of a
AP Strange:Even bigger?
Barbara Fisher:He's like, how many more of pages of these? What what is happening? Yeah. It there is so much data that has been accumulated that we were we were like, okay. It could be 3 books.
Barbara Fisher:So what we've done is is we've hammered out a way to make it one book to start with that is an overview with the most important ideas set forth. But then there's all of this data.
AP Strange:Yeah. Just for context, the book is about light beings and light forms?
Barbara Fisher:It's about a question. Yeah. It's about anomalous light phenomena, generally not in humanoid shapes, because if we went with that, then I'd have another 250. That was the first that was the first, edit editing choice we made. It was like because if I I was, like, dude, there are so many beings made out of light
Groucho:Right.
Barbara Fisher:That I and he's, like, okay. So we'll let's just take those out for now. So it's mostly spheroid shaped things.
AP Strange:Okay.
Barbara Fisher:But it's kinda arbitrary at the same time. So we do have other shapes. And and the sources that we have are there's historical stuff from, you know, back in East Jesus way long time ago, stuff in, you know, that the Romans wrote about. There's stuff from the Vatican. I I don't I'm not allowed to go to the Vatican.
Barbara Fisher:I wish I was. But there are some things that are quoted from people who went to the Vatican and did some research. There's there are databases that that, you know, have been looked into that are there's just so much there's so much data. It's kinda scary in a lot of ways. So we've we've we've weathered it down, and we're just putting it into a shape.
Barbara Fisher:We'll start writing probably in January.
AP Strange:Cool.
Barbara Fisher:And and then we'll race each other.
AP Strange:Yeah. Let's
Barbara Fisher:see. Race faster. I think you'll win. Right.
AP Strange:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It's been a while.
AP Strange:Yeah. I look forward to seeing what you come up with because it is a fascinating subject. You know?
Barbara Fisher:I know. There's I've
AP Strange:had my own personal experience with with those things. So
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. I know. So many people have, and, you know, I I've had to stop collecting live reports from people, because I'm like, okay. We you know, Josh is sitting there going, just don't read another book. Stop it.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. But it's it's it's really big, And it it we're gonna keep it to one volume to start with and then later use the data for other projects. And meanwhile, I'm doing another editing job for Josh. So that's fun.
AP Strange:Yeah. I mean, it's a good partnership. It seems that you guys work well together. Yeah. So well, I definitely look forward to that.
AP Strange:And, the eventual return of your show, do you think your show is gonna come back? Yeah. Okay. Right.
Barbara Fisher:I think so. I think so. You know, right after the election, I was like, did I really and then I was like, you know what? People need stuff to cheer them up.
AP Strange:So kinda yeah. I mean, my my podcast was brand new, and then that election I recorded with Steve Berg the day of the election results.
Groucho:Oh, god.
AP Strange:It's like and I'm like, you know what? People are gonna need distraction. I'm totally comfortable being an entertainer. I'm still gonna put, like, quality stuff. I'm gonna still put messages in what I'm saying, but, but, you you know, sometimes people really do just wanna hear some spooky stuff or hear me goof off and talk about a movie or a TV show.
Groucho:So Yeah. Yeah. I
Barbara Fisher:and that's basically how I feel about it. And as to how the it's gonna just be me as as, the host. Morgana is a professional librarian now, so she really doesn't have time. So it's just gonna be me. And as for content, it'll be whatever I feel like talking about, whoever I feel like talking with.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Lots more stories from people, so it'll be fun.
AP Strange:Cool. Well, yeah, I look forward to that too. So, listeners, if you haven't checked out Barbara's show, 6 Degrees of John Kiel, go look that up, and there's I there's a good backlog of episodes there. You can Oh,
Groucho:yeah.
Barbara Fisher:There's 200 episodes.
AP Strange:Listened yeah. If you haven't listened yet, there's plenty there to listen to before the show comes back, so go check it out for sure. And then the website, because you have some writings up on the website as well.
Barbara Fisher:And Yeah.
AP Strange:Your artwork is up there as well.
Barbara Fisher:Yeah. Yeah. Because there's I did artwork for pretty much every episode. So
AP Strange:Yeah. Yeah. And you got some essays up there and blog posts and things that are really cool, so I'd recommend people check those out as well. But, it has been great talking to you again. It's been quite a while.
Groucho:So Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:It has been. It has been. And, thank you for asking me to to talk about this. I've had so much fun for the past couple weeks, like, watching, you know, the Twilight Zone and
Groucho:Yeah.
Barbara Fisher:You know, reentering the zone and going, this is so much better than I remember it. Dang. It's so good.
AP Strange:Yeah. It really does. Like I said, it takes you off guard. There's episodes you've seen a 1000000 times, and you're watching it. And then all of a sudden, there's, like, a moment where you go, ah, shit.
AP Strange:This is good. You're gonna be like, this is just really good. You know? Yep. So, yeah.
AP Strange:Well, I really do appreciate you coming on, and, this was fun to just geek out about Rod Serling and and his, wonderful universe. Yep. So, yeah. Alright. Well, happy New Year, Barbara, and to the listeners out there.
Barbara Fisher:Yep. Happy New Year, guys.
AP Strange:Yeah. Alright. Well, I will, I'll talk to you soon.
Barbara Fisher:Alright.