KTLA Thanksgiving Marathon 2011

Turkey Day is upon us, and you all know what that means: KTLA (Channel 5, Los Angeles) is doing their annual Twilight Zone Thanksgiving Day Marathon. Starting Thursday morning, they’ll be airing the following episodes:

9:00 "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You"
9:30 "People Are Alike All Over"
10:00 "The Trade-ins"
10:30 "Stopover in a Quiet Town"
11:00 "On Thursday We Leave for Home"
12:00 "The Lonely" (a top 20 favorite)
12:30 "The Invaders"
1:00 "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
1:30 "And When the Sky Was Opened" (a top 10 favorite)
2:00 "Valley of the Shadow"
3:00 "The Fugitive"
3:30 "Third From the Sun" (a top 10 favorite)
4:00 "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"
4:30 "The Long Morrow"
5:00 "To Serve Man" (a top 10 favorite)
5:30 "The Eye of the Beholder” (a top 20 favorite)


KTLA is airing 16 episodes this year: 14 half-hour episodes and 2 hour-long episodes (last year’s schedule consisted of all half-hours). 5 of those 16 are top 20 favorites of mine, and 3 of ‘em are also in my top 10. Last year’s stats were a bit better, but this year’s lineup is no slouch. Happily, there are no turkeys in the bunch! No Dingle, no Bevis, no Harvey Hunnicut, no Oliver Crangle… sublime.

I don’t live in Los Angeles, so I don’t get KTLA, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be watching the marathon (commercials? Syndication cuts? Bah!). However, I still support such endeavors because, well, how else will The Twilight Zone find new fans? That newfangled internet thingamajig? Ha!

It would be nice if we could get some cross-promotion thing going with Bif Bang Pow! I for one would love to see some commercials for their action figures and bobbleheads…. Oh, and speaking of which… well, stay tuned. Got a bit of an announcement coming up…

KTLA Thanksgiving Marathon 2010

The title says it all. As in years past, KTLA (the venerable Channel 5 in Los Angeles) is doing their annual Thanksgiving Day Twilight Zone marathon (see here for details about last year’s marathon). Here’s this year’s schedule:

9:00 "The Hitchhiker" (a top 10 favorite)
9:30 "Shadow Play" (a top 10 favorite)
10:00 "Kick the Can"
10:30 "Spur of the Moment"
11:00 "The Silence"
11:30 "The Last Night of a Jockey"
12:00 "Perchance to Dream" (a top 10 favorite)
12:30 "Twenty-Two"
1:00 "Walking Distance" (a top 40 favorite)
1:30 "Mirror Image" (a top 40 favorite)
2:00 "A Passage for Trumpet" (a top 40 favorite)
2:30 "Nightmare as a Child"
3:00 "The Prime Mover"
3:30 "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim"
4:00 "Four O'clock"
4:30 "A World of His Own"
5:00 "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
5:30 "The Midnight Sun" (a top 10 favorite)


It’s a good assortment, much better than last year. Last year’s marathon consisted of 17 episodes (16 half-hour episodes and the hour-long “In His Image”), only four of which are among my top 40 favorites, and only ONE of which is in my top 10 (the aforementioned “In His Image”). This year, KTLA is showing 18 half-hour episodes, SEVEN of which are among my top 40 favorites, and FOUR of which are in my top 10. So yeah, good marathon. Trouble is, I don’t get KTLA where I live (Tualatin, Oregon), and even if I did, I wouldn’t be watching it. I’ve been spoiled by DVD (and now blu-ray) when it comes to The Twilight Zone: I won’t watch it trimmed for syndication, and I won’t watch it with commercials. Having said that, I’m glad KTLA continues to do the marathons every year. How else will the series gain new fans?

Heh, KTLA even threw in a real turkey (season three’s “Four O’clock”) because hey, it ain’t Thanksgiving without a turkey. At least it’s not “Mr. Dingle the Strong” or worse, “Mr. Bevis.” Thank heaven for small mercies.

Thanksgiving, TZ-style

My wife's favorite television show of all time is Friends. A few years back, I bought her the entire 9 (or is it 10?) season complete deluxe fancy-schmancy DVD boxed set. Guess how many times she's cracked it open. ZERO. She'd simply rather watch the show on TV, where it airs several times a day in perpetual reruns, which frankly dumbfounds me. I haven't watched The Twilight Zone on TV in…. Christ, it must be twenty years or so now. I won't recount the history of the various formats upon which I've owned the series (you can find that here), but in any case, I haven't needed to or, more importantly, wanted to watch the show on TV. There are commercials. Lots and lots of commercials. Worse yet, the episodes are shortened, often by several minutes, to make room for said commercials. It's butchery! It's tantamount to the defacing of art, and I'll have none of it. If I'm browsing through the channel guide and I see that The Twilight Zone is on, I'll switch over to it, only for a second, to see how quickly I can name the episode (and yes, before you ask, I'm always right). I never leave it on. I'm not supporting syndication cuts, and I've never been tempted to.

It seems KTLA is doing their annual Thanksgiving Day Twilight Zone marathon tomorrow. I don't find the marathon itself very enticing (they're showing "Mr. Dingle, the Strong," for god's sake). But dear god, look at this promo video!

Hmmm.... Blogger compresses it pretty heavily. For a much higher quality version, go here.

Wow, that video is a thing of jaw-dropping beauty. I've watched it probably 30 times in the last few days. You know that ugly montage of clips created for the Columbia House VHS tapes, and (unfortunately) later used on the Definitive Edition DVDs? This thing has it beat by a mile. There are also several shorter, episode-specific promos (as of this writing, only one of them has been uploaded to You Tube ("Nick of Time," see it here)… hopefully they'll all get uploaded for those of us who don't get KTLA. The guy who created these clips (I know him only as "Goonie") is a genius. I fancy myself a bit of a video-montage magician, but there's no way in hell I can match this guy's artistry. Oh, and incidentally, the guy doing the Serling voice is the same guy who voiced the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland.

Here's the list of episodes KTLA is showing this year:

9:00 a.m. - "Time Enough At Last
9:30 a.m. - "A Kind of Stopwatch"
10:00 a.m. - "A Penny For Your Thoughts"
10:30 a.m. - "Nick of Time"
11:00 a.m. - "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
11:30 a.m. - "Mr. Dingle, The Strong"
12:00 p.m. - "The Little People"
12:30 p.m. - "The Odyssey of Flight 33"
1:00 p.m. - "In His Image"
2:00 p.m. - "The Mighty Casey"
2:30 p.m. - "I Sing The Body Electric"
3:00 p.m. - "Long Distance Call"
3:30 p.m. - "Little Girl Lost"
4:00 p.m. - "Living Doll"
4:30 p.m. - "The Dummy"
5:00 p.m. - "The Trade-Ins"
5:30 p.m. - "The Eye Of The Beholder"

Several of the offerings are thematic pairs. Both "Time Enough at Last" and "A Kind of Stopwatch" feature… well, watches. "A Penny for Your Thoughts" and "Nick of Time" both feature… well, pennies. "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" and "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" both feature… well, Martians. And then it gets arbitrary for a while, but then we're back to thematic pairs at the end. "Living Doll" and the "The Dummy" both feature… well, dolls. "The Trade-Ins" and "The Eye of the Beholder" both feature… well, attempted body modification. I wonder if all this thematic matching was intentional…

I've gotta admit, I'm not entirely thrilled with KTLA's choices. You've got nine hours. Don't waste your viewers' time with "A Kind of Stopwatch," "The Mighty Casey" and (horrors!) "Mr. Dingle, the Strong." Where's "The Obsolete Man," for god's sake? How about "Third from the Sun," or maybe "Death Ship"? I'd be a bit more forgiving if the marathon was longer, but sheesh. Some really questionable choices in there.

But---- oh well. I won't be watching it, unless my cable provider suddenly adds KTLA. And I'd really only be watching it for those cool Goonie promos.