Rod's older brother, author Robert, recalled that at the age of six or seven, Serling entertained himself for hours by acting out dialogue from pulp magazines or movies he'd seen.

The scripts utilize visual images to show the locations, what the characters look like and emotions they are experiencing ; in comparison, Serling fleshes these all out in the short story with strong nuances, inner dialogue and elaborate memories that are not easily translated to the screen.

Reynolds claimed Rod Serling pulled the episode from its scheduled screening date, out of concern for the families of Reynolds and Bare.

The " Stamford " and the " Westport / Saugatuck " stops called out by the conductor in the episode exist in real life – Metro-North Railroad stops in Fairfield County, Connecticut include Stamford, Connecticut and the Westport station serves the town of Westport, Connecticut where series creator Rod Serling once lived.

" interrupts Gregory, who walks over to his safe and pulls out a tape marked " Rod Serling ".

At the foot of the staircase in the Loren mansion — as Dr. Loren and the robot servants walk out of camera range, Rod Serling moves into view behind them:

In one of the few times Serling accommodated his sponsor during an episode, " Ross " takes out a pack of cigarettes and lights and smokes one using three hands.

Voice actor Mark Silverman dubs the voice of host Rod Serling and the shot of Serling ( masked out of its original environment and placed onto a background showing one of the ride's elevators ) is cut short.

When Serling visits Walden's crew chief, Sergeant Altameyer ( Seth Gilliam ), who is dying of cancer in a hospital, Altameyer manages to get some words out, further confusing Serling, before self-medicating himself into unconsciousness.

When Serling puts pressure on Monfriez during a car ride, Monfriez forces him to get out of the vehicle at gunpoint, then commits suicide by driving into an oncoming train.

In addition, he was a regular cast member in the Rod Serling western series The Loner ( which lasted one season from 1965 to 1966 ; Bridges pulled out in disagreement over the violent content of the show ), and in the two NBC failures San Francisco International Airport ( 1970 / 71 ) and a Police Story spin-off Joe Forrester ( 1975 – 76 ).

Years later, Rod Serling, who counted radio fantasists like Cooper, Oboler, and Norman Corwin among his inspirations, would use a similar process to churn out his many teleplays for The Twilight Zone, a series that in many respects was to television what Lights Out was to radio.

When Dr. Serling Roquette was working on an " Anti-Fog ," the Sensei finds out her project and sends Cheshire to dispose of Dr. Roquette only for her to run afoul of Young Justice while Professor Ojo operates the " Fog.

Throughout the 1950s he directed over 140 episodes of shows like Playhouse 90, Climax !, and Danger, including The Comedian, written by Rod Serling and starring Mickey Rooney as a ragingly vicious television comedian.

She appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the 1957 live CBS-TV broadcast of The Comedian, a harrowing drama written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer.

The first was Planet of the Apes ( 1968 ), a science fiction feature film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner from a screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling.

It was made into a motion picture and released in February 1964, with a screenplay by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner.

* The Comedian ( 1957 TV drama ), a live drama written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer

He appeared extensively in television, including the 1957 live 90-minute broadcast on Playhouse 90 of The Comedian, a drama written by Rod Serling and directed by John Frankenheimer in which Mickey Rooney portrays a television comedian while O ' Brien plays a writer driven to the brink of insanity.

As Playhouse 90 moved into 1957, Frankenheimer directed a science fiction drama, The Ninth Day ( January 10, 1957 ), by Howard and Dorothy Baker, about a small group of World War III survivors and a Serling original, The Comedian ( February 14, 1957 ), featuring Mickey Rooney as an abrasive, manipulative television comedian.

The film, written by Rod Serling, costarred Fredric March as the President and Ava Gardner as a former flame of Lancaster's, was nominated for two Oscars.

The anthology series format popularized by Rod Serling rarely appeared in science fiction television after the 1980s, though aspects of this were used in both The X-Files and the 1990s reincarnation of The Outer Limits.

A brief resurgence of production beginning in the early 1970s yielded the Mutual Broadcasting System's The Zero Hour ( hosted by Rod Serling ), National Public Radio's Earplay, and veteran Himan Brown's CBS Radio Mystery Theater and General Mills Radio Adventure Theater, later followed by the Sears / Mutual Radio Theater, The National Radio Theater of Chicago, NPR Playhouse, a newly produced episode of the former 1950s series X Minus One, and works by a new generation of dramatists, notably Yuri Rasovsky, Thomas Lopez of ZBS and the dramatic sketches heard on humorist Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.

It contains Binghamton High School ( formerly Binghamton Central High School ), which is noted for Helen Foley Theater, named by Rod Serling for his drama teacher.

Serling appeared in an art gallery setting and introduced the macabre tales that made up each episode by unveiling paintings ( by artist Tom Wright ) that depicted the stories.

Night Gallery regularly presented adaptations of classic fantasy tales by authors such as H. P. Lovecraft, as well as original works, many of which were by Serling himself.

Serling wrote many of the teleplays, including " Camera Obscura ", " The Caterpillar " ( based on a short story by Oscar Cook ), " Class of ' 99 ", " Cool Air " ( based on a short story by H. P.

By the final season, Serling, stung by criticism and ignored by the show's executives, all but disowned the series.

This episode originally aired on September 2, 1942, and was later adapted for television by Rod Serling as a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone.

In elementary school, Serling was seen as the class clown and dismissed by many of his teachers as a lost cause.

Serling was wounded and three comrades were killed by shrapnel from rounds fired at his roving demolition team by an anti-aircraft gun.

After selling the scripts, Serling had no further involvement with them ; they were sold by Crosley to local stations across the U. S ..

Frustrated by seeing his scripts divested of political statements and ethnic identities ( and having the Chrysler Building removed from a script sponsored by Ford ), Serling decided the only way to avoid such artistic interference was to create his own show.

After five years and 156 episodes ( 92 written by himself ), Serling grew weary of the series.

As Voorhis was unavailable for subsequent episodes, however, narration for both the episode and the introduction was re-recorded for consistency by Serling himself ; his presence later became a hallmark of the series.

Smith also appeared in a number of films, often as himself ; The Candidate ( 1972 ),, The President's Plane Is Missing ( 1973, a made-for-television production of the Robert J. Serling novel of the same name ), Nashville ( 1975 ), Close Encounters of the Third Kind ( 1977 ), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas ( 1982 ), the " The Odd Candidate " ( 1974 ) episode of the television series The Odd Couple ( playing himself ), the " Kill Oscar " episode ( 1977 ) of The Bionic Woman ( playing himself anchoring an ABC newscast ), and both V ( 1983 ) and the subsequent 1984 television series.

Serling returned from the successful mission in Leyte with two wounds ( including one to his kneecap ), but neither kept him from combat when General Douglas MacArthur used the paratroopers for their typical purpose on February 3, 1945.

" Once Renard opens the paper and looks at the racing page, several in-jokes are apparent in the names of the listed jockeys, which include " Serling ", " Clemens " ( referencing director of photography George Clemens ), " Houghton " ( referencing producer Buck Houghton ), " Butler " ( referencing set decorator Rudy Butler ) and " Denault " ( referencing assistant director Edward Denault ).

( 1957 ), written by Arthur Hailey ( who also penned the 1968 novel Airport ) about an airplane crew that succumbs to food poisoning ; and The Doomsday Flight ( 1966 ), written by Rod Serling and starring Edmond O ' Brien as a disgruntled aerospace engineer who plants a barometric pressure bomb on an airliner built by his former employer set to explode when the airliner descends for landing.

One of the longer-running police dramas of the day, the series featured appearances by a number of actors, familiar and unfamiliar, among whom were Lynn Borden, Kim Darby, Antonio Fargas, Tiny Tim ( in the pilot TV-movie ), Randolph Mantooth, Cal Bellini, Sharon Gless, Dabbs Greer, Bernie Kopell, Frank Gorshin, Jess Walton, Pernell Roberts, Alan Oppenheimer, Dan Kemp, E. G. Marshall, Harrison Ford, John Schuck, Ingrid Pitt, Susan Saint James, Ivan Dixon, Harry Townes, Pat Hingle, Norman Alden, Anne Francis, David Carradine, Charo, Joseph Campanella, Bill Quinn, Bernard Fox, Tyler McVey, Robert Webber, Alan Hale, Jr., Marion Ross, Marcia Strassman, Susan Sullivan, Suzanne Pleshette, Bo Hopkins, James Hong, Jeanne Cooper, Paul Winfield, Harold Gould, James Farentino, Robert Reed, Bill Bixby, David Cassidy, David Hartman, Dana Elcar, Tina Louise, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Robert Karnes, Tyler MacDuff, Greg Mullavy, Rod Serling, Gene Raymond, Francine York, Peter Mark Richman, Jennifer Gan, Clu Gulager, Joel Grey, Van Williams, John Hoyt, Scott Glenn, William Windom, Joshua Bryant, Dorothy Malone, Robert Alda, Barbara Rush, Jack Kelly, Jason Wingreen, George Takei, George Wallace, John M. Pickard, Diana Muldaur, Jodie Foster, William Katt, Lee Grant, Steve Forrest, Susan Olsen, Michael Lerner, Edward Asner, Eddie Garrett, Darwin Joston, John Rubinstein, Jack Lord, Scott Marlowe, Norman Fell, Gavin MacLeod, Gary Collins, Johnny Seven, William Shatner, Bobby Darin, Martin Sheen, Cheryl Ladd, William Daniels, William Schallert, Burgess Meredith, Vic Tayback, Arch Johnson, James Drury, Ed Flanders, Bruce Lee and Ellen Corby ( Grandma Walton of TV fame ).

The details were covered up ( Boylar's parents were told that their son was killed by enemy fire ), and Serling was shuffled off to a desk job.

Serling then sees Walden's medic, Specialist Ilario ( Matt Damon ), who also praises Walden ; by his account, Walden was the one who came up with the idea of the improvised incendiary.

Staff Sergeant Monfriez ( Lou Diamond Phillips ), however, tells Serling that Walden was a coward and that he was responsible for destroying the tank.

Under pressure from the White House and his commander, Brigadier General Hershberg ( Michael Moriarty ), to wrap things up quickly, Serling leaks the story to newspaper reporter Tony Gartner ( Scott Glenn ) to prevent another cover up.