When Rod Serling created The Twilight Zone, he created an anthology series that to this very day continues to find new fans and amaze old ones as well. The original series is held in such high regard that there have been several attempts over the years to recreate the magic of it. The Gold Key comic books, several new TV series, and even Serling himself tried to catch lightning in a bottle twice when he started Night Gallery.
Steven Spielberg, who got his start on Night Gallery and went on to help produce Twilight Zone: The Movie. The movie contains four separate stories with a wraparound piece featuring Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks.
A Horrible Accident Happened On Set
Unfortunately, the film’s original run back in 1983 was marred by a tragic accident that happened during the filming of the movie’s opening story, “Time Out.” One night while the team was filming a helicopter scene, the segment’s star Vic Morrow and two child actors were caught in a helicopter accident that cost all three of them their lives. The segment’s director, John Landis was—rightfully so—in litigation for years over it.
Burgess Meredith As The Narrator
Rod Serling, unfortunately, passed away in 1975. In his stead narrating each segment of the movie is none other than Burgess Meredith. While we don’t see the legendary actor at all throughout the movie, he is no stranger to being a part of The Twilight Zone.
Meredith starred in not just one of the series’ most memorable episodes, “Time Enough At Last,” he also starred in three more episodes, one of the most of any actor. Meredith also starred in “Mr. Dingle, The Strong,” “The Obsolete Man,” and “Printer’s Devil.”
Bart Simpson Is In The Movie
The Simpsons has and still is leaving an indelible mark on pop culture. The series has poked fun and paid homage to The Twilight Zone several times over the years, but the voice of Bart Simpson herself, Nancy Cartwright, made an early appearance in the movie. She played, Ethel, the girl hunted down by cartoon monsters in “It’s A Good Life.”
“Time Out” Is An Original Story
The movie featured (or tried to feature) and original story,“Time Out,” in which a hateful bigot Bill Connor is forced to see life from the lenses of people he hates. For example, a Jewish person in WWII and a black man being hunted by Klansmen. The story elements actually come from two classic episodes “A Quality Of Mercy,” and “Death’s Head Revisited.”
Animal House Reference
The “Time Out,” segment was directed by one of the film’s producers, John Landis. Landis famously also made Animal House. During the segment, Bill Connor ends up in Vietnam and mistaken by his troops as one of the Vietnamese and is fired upon. The scene is actually an in-joke callback to the classic comedy. The scene ends with two soldiers saying they shouldn’t have shot “Lieutenant Niedermayer.”
In Animal House’s closing credits, they state that Douglas C. Niedermayer was killed in ‘Nam by his own troops. It’s like a meta twist within a meta twist long before M. Night started doing this.
Shatner Was Considered
Along with “Eye Of The Beholder,” “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet” is quite possibly the most popular episode of the series. Director of the feature film’s version, Joe Dante, was considering recasting William Shatner in the role. Instead, the movie went with John Lithgow as the beleaguered airline passenger trying to warn the rest of the passengers and the crew of a monster on the wing of the plane.
The actors played with this shared experience when Big Head finally made his appearance known on 3rd Rock From The Sun. When Dick meets Big Head, BH describes the horrifying experience. Dick frantically replies, “the same thing happened to me!”
The Miracle Mile
After meeting the girl of his dreams, Harry agrees to meet Julie after her shift. A power outage means that his alarm didn’t go off. When he heads to a payphone to try and call her, he hears a man screaming about nuclear war and another man tells Harry to forget everything he heard.
It turns out that he wasn’t imagining any of this in the movie, Miracle Mile. The 1988 the film was finally made. It was one of 1983’s Ten Best Unmade screenplays and was almost chosen to be the entire story for Twilight Zone: The Movie before the anthology idea was selected.
Original Series Callbacks
With the series being so beloved, the entire movie is one big callback, but within every segment are all sorts of callbacks to the original series. In the third chapter, “It’s A Good Life,” for example, Mrs. Foley is asked where she’s from and where she’s going, she answers “Homewood (from the episode, “Walking Distance”)” and “Willoughby (from the episode, “A Stop At Willoughby”).”
Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks argue if a specific episode is from the series or The Outer Limits. The movie is littered with tons of Easter Eggs, Rod Serling even makes a cameo—he’s in the eyeball that shows up during the credits.
Each Segment Had Its Own Director
One of the coolest parts of the movie is that each segment wasn’t just directed by a different director, they all chose which story they wanted to do. John Landis (Animal House) directed the original piece, “Time Out,” as well as opening prologue and epilogues.
The incomparable Steven Spielberg brought his whimsical style to adapting “Kick The Can.” Writer and director of Gremlins brought his penchant for lunacy to “Its A Good Life,” and the creator of Mad Max directed “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet.”
The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
With so many classic episodes to choose from, it’s interesting that the landmark, “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” and its themes of paranoia and distrust didn’t make its way into the movie. Instead of bringing the whimsy, Steven Spielberg was actually all set to direct an updated version of the episode. It would have most likely been an intense 25-30 minutes of the movie, but after the Vic Morrow tragedy, Spielberg opted for something a little more uplifting.
