Rod Serling on Writing

Part 4 of a 16-part series featuring the master storyteller on video.

Ever since I launched Go Into The Story, I have regularly gone down the Internet’s rabbit hole in search of unique video clips featuring renowned writers. In 2010, I hit the Mother Lode: A series of 16 clips featuring Rod Serling chatting with what appear to be college students circa 1970.

Most well-known for the long-running TV anthology series “The Twilight Zone” (148 episodes, 1959–1964), Serling has over 70 writing credits including the screenplays for movies such as Seven Days in May and the original Planet of the Apes.

Back in 2010, I went through each clip and extracted some key quotes from Serling. Then as is often the case with the Internet, the videos disappeared.

However, they have emerged once again, a big hat tip to Doc Kane for surfacing them. As long as they are up, I will reprise the series. Today Serling ponders “The Twilight Zone” episode entitled Silence:

“There are two switches to this story. Number one, the year ends. And he is let out of his glass room, and in truth he has said not a word. But the guy who made the bet with him, despite the fact that he’s a member of the club, doesn’t have fifty thousand pounds. He doesn’t have five pounds. And here is a guy who has remained silent for an entire year to win a bet, and the guy can’t honor his bet. And the second switch is our talkative one is so talkative, that he really didn’t believe that he could stay quiet. So he had his larynx cut.”

This is a great 5-minutes, where you see not only how smart Serling was, but how excited he became when kicking around ideas with other bright minds. By the way, here is the ending of the Silence episode:

For Part 1 of the series, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Tomorrow: More of the interviews with Rod Serling.