3x12a "Money for Nothin' and Your Tix for Free"

Contest time!  We’ve partnered with Fathom Events and CBS Home Entertainment to give away five pairs of tickets to The Twilight Zone: A 60^th Anniversary Celebration, which will screen in more than 600 movie theaters across the U.S., on November 14^th, 2019. Along with a new short documentary about Rod Serling, they’ll be showing 6 quintessential episodes (“Walking Distance,” “Time Enough at Last,” “The Invaders,” “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” “Eye of the Beholder,” and “To Serve Man”). Wanna go? FOR FREE? Well, of course you do! And you can…. but you have to enter.

Event details: https://www.fathomevents.com/twilightzone

Contest details: Email us at zonepod@gmail.com with the following: your name, the two participating theaters closest to you (find out at https://www.fathomevents.com/twilightzone), and your favorite of the six episodes being screened at the event. Deadline is midnight, Pacific Standard Time, on Sunday, November 3^rd, 2019.

The Twilight Zone is a trademark of CBS, Inc.

Between Light and Shadow: A Twilight Zone Podcast is a nonprofit podcast. Music clips and dialogue excerpts used herein are the property of their respective copyright owners; we claim no ownership of these materials. Their use is strictly for illustrative purposes and should be considered Fair Use as stated in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. section 107.

Merch Spotlight: Kanamit Cookbook Journal

Here’s a nifty little item.  Need a blank steno book, for journaling or other purposes, but you want something interesting and maybe kinda cool?  Bif Bang Pow!'s Kanamit Cookbook Journal ($9.99 plus shipping) may be just what you need.

Measuring 8” x 5”; it’s really nice looking. It replicates the notorious Kanamit cookbook (the Kanamit language is faithfully rendered on the front cover and, in a cleaver touch, the English translation appears on the back cover,  handwritten as it appears in the episode).

If you're hoping to use it to, say, accompany a Kanamit Halloween costume (which I'm gonna do one of these years), it's unfortunately too small.  A very minor complaint.  It seems a bit pricey at $9.99 plus shipping, but it's pretty damned cool.  Recommended, especially if you want to scrawl some recipes down....

Merch Spotlight: Kanamit Tin Tote

Vintage metal lunch boxes are highly collectible, so it comes as no surprise that we’d be seeing new ones popping up in the vintage style with modern branding. They’re now called tin totes, apparently; I guess most people aren’t using them as lunch boxes, which is probably why they aren’t packing matching plastic thermoses inside.  BifBang Pow! jumps into the tin tote fray with the Kanamit Tin Tote ($12.99 plus shipping), available now.

Back (same as front, unfortunately).

Left side.

 Right side.

 Top.

 Bottom.

Not a whole lot to say about it either way:  it’s a metal lunchbox, so if you grew up in the seventies or earlier, you probably had a few (I remember having a Marvel Super Heroes one, and maybe a Star Wars one too).  It seems a bit small, but I guess my hands are much bigger than they were in the second grade (I have the same problem with Hostess products… well, had, now that they've vanished from the earth).

If I have a complaint (and you know I do; don’t I always?), it’s about the graphic design choice.  It’s frankly a bit loud and obnoxious, nearly identical to the 2013 TZ Calendar that I blasted a couple of months back (perhaps the same person designed it? I dunno).  I get a graffiti vibe from it, which isn't a compliment.  I can think of so many classy, elegant, mega-cool designs for this. For starters, how about a black and white background (say a starry night sky), with the Kanamit on the front, the Kanamit space ship on the back, and the Kanamit language blurb (“To Serve Man”) on the sides?  Bif Bang Pow! has been great about respecting the black and white nature of The Twilight Zone on so many other items… it’s puzzling why they splashed so much blue onto this.

The upcoming Doorway to The Twilight Zone Tin Tote, meanwhile, looks mostly monochromatic (and elegantly classy), so I’ll definitely be ordering it (it’s due sometime in March).

TODAY ONLY! Twilight Zone T-shirts available from Shirt Punch!

Ever heard of Shirt Punch?  It's a company out of Canada that creates pop culture-oriented T-shirts, frequently in a humorous vein.  Their T-shirts are a measly $10.00 each, and each design is only available for 24 hours.  Crazy? Kinda.  Wacky enough to fall under the Twilight Zone umbrella?  Well, it appears that the answer is a resounding yes.

Today they're offering two different TZ shirts.  Check 'em out!

It may be a bit hard to tell, but the text on the second design is Serling's first season narration in its entirety.

Both shirts went on sale at 9:00 last night (PST), so they'll only be available for about 14 more hours.  If you're at all interested in them, I'd say get over there and order one (or both, like I did) NOW!

New TZ Merchandise Available Now!

After my severely depressing post the other day, I thought I’d brighten things up a bit by mentioning new TZ merchandise that’s now available and in stock at Entertainment Earth….

 

Henry Bemis bobblehead ($12.99 plus shipping)

Icons of The Twilight Zone (Revisited) bobblehead ($14.99 plus shipping)

Kanamit Cookbook Journal ($9.99 plus shipping)

I’m ordering all three on Friday (payday), and I’ll be spotlighting each of ‘em in a couple of weeks.  But you don’t need my opinion to make up your minds, right?  Click on the links above and place your orders!  Order ‘em before you miss out…. Like I did, on this particular item:

 

Kanamit's Cookbook Set - SDCC Exclusive (sold out)

I’m kicking myself for not ordering this as soon as it became available.  Yeah, I’ve got the original Kanamit, but now I’ll never be able to reenact the shot in which the two salute one another in the airport, just moments before the true meaning of “To Serve Man” is revealed...

Kanamit's Cookbook Set announced!

Ha! I knew Bif Bang Pow! wouldn't stop at just one TZ exclusive for this year's San Diego Comic Con (they previously announced the Invaders Classic Moments diorama, detailed here and available for pre-order here).  The other exclusive is a tasty offering of cannibalistic culinary delights.

The Kanamit's Cookbook Set brings together all of Bif Bang Pow!'s "To Serve Man" items into one convenient three-course meal.  It includes the Kanamit Tin Tote (aka lunch box) and the Kanamit Cookbook Journal (aka 160-page blank book), both available separately.  The third item is the real draw, the main entree, as it were.  Remember the marvelous Kanamit action figure from 2010 (reviewed here)?  Well, he's back, only this time he's clad in black, so now collectors (me included) can own both distinct Kanamits!

Imagine all the geeks who will reenact this scene.  I know I will.

While the tin tote appears to be identical to the stand-alone version, the journal included in this exclusive set appears to differ from it's individually-sold counterpart.  The basic journal is spiral-bound affair (pic directly above), but the exclusive version appears to be bound like a paperback book (pic further above). The cover on the exclusive journal looks like it might be velvety, but pictures can deceive.  Either way, awesome!

July 2012 is the projected release month, and $29.99 is the asking price here.  It's a great value if you break it down:  TZ action figures run $20.00 each, the lunchbox on its own is $12.99,and the journal is $9.99 on its own. This set represents a savings of $13.00, so it's both mouth-wateringly awesome and a great bargain.  Again, it's a SDCC exclusive, so don't delay.  Put on a bib and dig in!

I'll be alone no more.  Oh joy!

TZ Promo: “To Serve Man” (3/02/1962)

Season 3, Episode 24 (#89 overall)
Cayuga Production # 4807

“This is the way nightmares begin… or perhaps end: very simple, direct, unadorned. Incredible, and yet so terribly real that even while they are happening, we live them, digest them, and assimilate them.”

That’s Michael Chambers, who we meet lounging uncomfortably in a small compartment in a spacecraft. Chambers is addressing us in voice-over, one of the only times in the series’ five-year run in which a character provides narration (off the top of my head, this device was also used in season two’s “King Nine Will Not Return” and season five’s “The Long Morrow;” there might be a couple others). But it gets better: at the end of the episode, Chambers will break the fourth wall and actually look directly at us while he speaks. Cool!


“To Serve Man” is one of The Twilight Zone’s best-remembered (and most notorious) episodes, and it’s really pretty impossible to discuss it without spoiling the surprise. I’ll try, but I make no promises. Written by Rod Serling (adapted from a short story by Damon Knight; Serling adapted many stories in the show’s third season; a sign of his growing fatigue as the show’s primary contributor of scripts) and directed by Richard L. Bare, “To Serve Man” tells the tale (in flashback) of earth’s first close encounter with an alien species, and it’s a doozy.


The Kanamits arrive en masse and do NOT attack. Rather, they guide the nations of the earth to near-immediate world peace. Almost overnight, hunger, famine and war are rendered obsolete. Diseases are cured, military forces are disbanded, and an apparent new millennium dawns. The Kanamits proceed to institute an exchange program, in which thousands of earthlings make the long space voyage to their home world for a visit.


Spoiler alert: they ain’t coming back.

The side story involves a team of government code crackers, led by Chambers (well played by Lloyd Bochner, with that wonderful voice of his), who are charged with decoding the alien’s language. Their only help in this endeavor is a book, left behind by the Kanamit who addresses the United Nations upon arriving. Halfway through the episode, they decipher the book’s title: To Serve Man. It appears that the Kanamits are just as altruistic as they appear.


You know the punchline. I don’t need to say it.

The various Kanamits seen in the episode are played by Richard Kiel (all 7+ feet of him!), who is probably best known as the villainous Jaws from the James Bond film series. My pal Bill Huelbig scored me an autographed picture of Kiel a few months ago; it’s worth sharing again:


Oh, and for the second week in a row, the series graces us with a TZ babe. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Susan Cummings!


I have one gripe about “To Serve Man,” and it’s admittedly pretty minor. The Kanamits do not speak with their mouths, since they communicate telepathically, which means that their dialogue was recorded separately and added in post-production. Joseph Ruskin, whom we saw in season two’s “The Man in the Bottle,” provided the voices, but he isn’t the problem. The issue is a technical one; specifically, the quality of the recorded dialogue is downright terrible, muffled and hard to comprehend (oddly, Bochner’s voiceover narration sounds crystal clear). Perhaps this was an intentional effect designed to make the Kanamit voices sound strange, but the execution just plain sucks. It sticks out like a sore thumb, especially within the otherwise-clean remastered audio found on the blu-ray set.


“To Serve Man” makes effective use of Jerry Goldsmith’s scores from previous TZ offerings “The Invaders” and “Back There.” This may be the only time in the show’s five-year run that a stock-scored episode pulled all its music from a single composer’s work. Both Goldsmith scores have been released multiple times on both vinyl and CD, but unfortunately every single release is now out of print. But fear not! The scores can be found on Image Entertainment’s season two Definitive DVD set (and it’s more recent blu-ray counterpart). Oh, and the specific cues used in “To Serve Man” are of course available on the season three set(s).



Forbidden Planet alert! While the flying saucer shots are culled from the Ray Harryhausen classic Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, the life-sized underside of the ship and retracting stairway ramp is a leftover chunk of the United Planets C-57D Space Cruiser. We’ve seen this set piece before (in season one’s “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”) and we’ll see it again (in season four’s “Death Ship”). Man, Forbidden Planet is the gift that just keeps on giving.


The Kanamit, one of my favorite aliens from the entire series, has been well-represented from a merchandise standpoint. Sideshow Collectibles released an amazing 14" deluxe action figure around ten years ago (I have it, but I've never opened it... I was planning on unveiling it for my planned "Kanamit Week," which fell through. My Kanamit is in storage someplace... one of these days I'll dig it out and spotlight it). More recently, Bif Bang Pow! has released (or is about to release) five distinct Kanamit-related items: Kanamit bobblehead (black and white or limited edition color variant), Kanamit action figure, Kanamit lunchbox, and a Kanamit cookbook journal. There's also a "To Serve Man" apron (available here) that I'd love to get my hands on one of these days.



What can I say? “To Serve Man” is an absolute classic, brilliantly executed and frankly unforgettable. It’s attained pop culture immortality and, as such, has been endlessly parodied in film and TV (most notably on The Simpsons, which has spoofed many TZ episodes over the years). It’s the “Eye of the Beholder” of season three, no question, and it lives quite comfortably in my top ten favorites list.

Next week, “The Fugitive” introduces to a kind alien, beloved by children, on the run from ominous men in black. Steven Spielberg totally ripped it off when he made E.T., but the original is better. Tune in.

Kanamit Week Cancelled...

I mentioned a couple of months back that we’d be having a weeklong celebration of that towering alien rascal The Kanamit in March (to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of the premiere of “To Serve Man”). However, I regret to report that, due to circumstances beyond my control, Kanamit Week has been cancelled.

What circumstances, you ask? Life, man, just… life. Too much going on, and very little time to pour into this blog outside of the usual weekly episode promos. I had planned to spotlight my Sideshow Collectibles 14" Deluxe Kanamit action figure, which I acquired about a year ago, but it’s deep in storage someplace. Plus, Bif Bang Pow!’s coveted “To Serve Man” notebook (not to mention their Kanamit lunchbox) won’t be available for another month or two. I even had grand plans to make a 3-dimensional Kanamit head cake, but I don’t have the time or money to pull something like that off right now. Suffice it to say, the timing is sadly all wrong for Kanamit Week.

My spotlight of “To Serve Man” will be posted as planned this Friday, with the usual high-definition screen captures. Why Friday instead of the usual Thursday, you ask? Well, since this is leap year, the actual 50^th anniversary of “To Serve Man” (3/02) falls on Friday. Staying true to the actual anniversary dates requires a shift to Fridays from now through the end of the summer rerun season (until season four kicks off in January, when we’ll be back on Thursdays again).

Bill, That's a REAL Good Thing You Did... (2011 Edition)

My good friend Bill Huelbig celebrated his 57th birthday three days ago. I, um, completely spaced it this year. Yeah, I'm a pretty lame friend. To make matters worse, Bill sent ME an early birthday gift.

An attached note reads: "Happy (early) Birthday! This will inspire you when making next year's costume." Trust me, Bill.... it definitely has.

Richard Kiel, who played the various Kanamits in "To Serve Man," is probably best known as the metal-toothed villain Jaws from the James Bond films. More recently, he appeared in Happy Gilmore as Adam Sandler's ex-boss (and nemesis of golf pro Shooter McGavin). Bill met Kiel last month at the Chiller Theater Toy, Model & Film Expo. Hilarity ensued:

As reported earlier, Bill acquired Kevin McCarthy's autograph for me several years back. Bill's generosity has reared its beautiful head multiple times throughout our friendship, and I doubt I'll ever be able to repay him for all the cool things he's sent my way. But more importantly, he's a kind soul, a genuine sweetheart, and a real mensch.

Bill and I met through the Talking Herrmann forum at the Bernard Herrmann Web Pages (now known as the Society for the Appreciation of the Music of Bernard Herrmann). My Herrmann obsession was in its early stages, but Bill was a fan from way back. He sent me several compilation tapes of Herrmann's work, both well-known and esoteric, and focused my interest into a lifelong passion.

Bill, who lives across the county in New Jersey, came to Oregon for a visit.... in 2000, I think it was. I took him to Powell's Books, where he bought me a copy of Stephen C. Smith's excellent biography of Herrmann (A Heart at Fire's Center). That's the only time I've ever seen him in person, and it kills me to report that we didn't get a single picture together. He was in Seattle a few weeks back, a mere 185 miles away, and I wasn't able to meet up with him due to family commitments. I'm hoping to make it back east sometime in the next couple of years. Mark my words, when it finally happens, I WILL get a picture of the two of us.

Happy late birthday, Bill. I love you, my friend.

Bif Bang Pow! Celebration, Day IV: Twilight Zone action figures, Series II

As I discussed yesterday, Bif Bang Pow!’s first two Twilight Zone action figures (appropriately paired under the moniker Series One) are two absolute successes, but neither are characters that I was particularly excited about --- before I actually saw them, that is. The figures in Series Two, however, are a much different story. Both are characters that would easily make my top ten most wanted list, and one of them would sit safely at very top. Let’s take a look.

The Kanamit

(from “To Serve Man”)

You know him. Nine feet tall. Bulging cranium. Sparkling white robe. And that curious black book that he carries around with him. Hails from a distant planet. Author (and series authority) Marc Scott Zicree described him as “an angel gone to seed” in his Twilight Zone Companion. Ladies and gentlemen, my favorite of all TZ characters, alien or otherwise: The Kanamit Ambassador. This, above all others, would have to be handled appropriately for me to take Bif Bang Pow! seriously for the long haul.

And seriously…. They’ve made me a happy, happy fan.


The Kanamit is actually a pretty simple character, visually speaking. In fact, the description above tells you pretty much all you need to know to replicate him. Add a goatee and you’re pretty much there. But don’t get the wrong idea. It’s the subtleties that make him or break him, and Bif Bang Pow! pulls him off beautifully.


Look at the head sculpt. Look at that face! It perfectly evokes the blank, almost dopey gaze of the character, but with that vague hint of menace that contributes to the episode’s shocking payoff. He could be an intergalactic savior, or he could've come all this way just to take a bite out of humanity.

Since all the TZ figures share a common base body, the question is begged: how can he be made taller? Easy: platform shoes, baby! I’m planning to (someday) put together a Kanamit costume for Halloween, so I guess I’ll have to go the same route (my pitiful human 6’1” just ain’t enough). Thankfully, his robe is just long enough to (mostly) conceal the shoes (as you can see, they look a bit goofy if fully exposed. Also concealed in the process are his MC Hammer-esque sparkly elastic pants!


But wait! A quick look at the episode reveals that the Kanamit indeed wears platforms! See for yourself:


Just another example of Bif Bang Pow!'s relentless attention to detail, I guess.

On the subject of the robe, it’s quite nicely done. Plain white would’ve been too, well, plain. I’m not sure offhand if the Kanamit’s robe sparkles in the episode, but it doesn’t seem out of place here at all. It looks great. I think a (very minor) improvement would be a stiffer collar, so it could stand straight up on both sides. A nice future figure might be another Kanamit, this time in the black robe that we see in the climatic spaceport scene. Maybe a convention exclusive variant…?



And what Kanamit would be complete without his cookbook? It’s here, and we even get the cryptic title “To Serve Man” in the Kanamit language. Despite its tiny size, the lettering DOES match the actual book in the episode. Nice touch!


Another success story. With their Kanamit action figure, Bif Bang Pow! has definitely Served Man. Heh, see what I did there?

* * *

The Devil

(from “The Howling Man”)

Who doesn’t want a devil in the house? The monks in the episode sure didn’t, but I’m definitely no holy man. I say bring on His Satanic Majesty!



The head sculpt is a revelation. Pointy ears, slightly droopy nose, fucking HORNS… you’d never mistake him for anybody BUT the Prince of Darkness. The wrinkles around the eyes give him a nice depth, suggesting a bit of world-weariness (hey, managing the damned and conning people out of their souls probably adds a few years to the ol’ mug). If I could change anything, I’d make his hair and beard a bit darker, but that’s just a personal preference and not a complaint.


The Devil is clad in a generic black jumpsuit with shiny black boots. Not really anything to write home about, but it’s episode-appropriate. It’s the cape that absolutely makes the outfit. Look at it! Enormous and regal, thick and satiny… and that giant collar (again, episode-appropriate) just slays me. And the chain holding the cape in place is actually metal, so carry your Devil through the metal detector at the airport at your own risk.

What, no pitchfork? What Devil is complete without a pitchfork? Well, did you SEE a pitchfork in the episode? You didn’t, so there you go. However, it occurred to me that Brother Jerome’s Staff of Truth might have been an appropriate accessory, but then I realized that The Devil would have nothing to do with such an object; in fact, he’d be rendered powerless against it. Should Bif Bang Pow! decide to produce a figure of Brother Jerome down the road, I imagine he’ll have it. Wow, the two characters would look amazing on a shelf together: The Father of All Lies versus The Man of Truth, a grudge match to end all grudge matches, a Pay-Per-View event for the ages!



That’s four figures, and four absolute knockouts. We’ll look at Series Three tomorrow. Do check back.