Rod Serling was prescient...Sleepwalking into fascism

[Nevilledog]

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Rex Chapman🏇🏼
@RexChapman
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Rod Serling was a genius who never shied from big topics, greed, morality, paranoia, racism, sexism, bigotry, conformity, McCarthyism and here he shows how easy it is to sleepwalk into fascism. It's as relevant today as it was 62 years ago…


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6:11 PM · Jul 7, 2022

[vercetti2021]

1. Rod saw humanity for what it was

Not just this episode. But the Shelter, Monsters are Due on Maple St, the Obsolete Man, Deaths Hand Revisited.

He saw how humanity was set by some laws. But when those laws fail. Humanity will fail. Civility fails. People turn on one another. We are seeing it play out. Especially in America now.

Rod would be an enemy of Fox and the entire right as too "woke" nowadays. Heck I'm sure some do think that.

[electric_blue68]

6. Even in chaos there still kind, and brave people....

it's not all of humanity.

[dweller]

2. That's Hopper

isn’t it ?


✌🏻

[Nevilledog]

4. Yes

[Boomerproud]

3. Twilight Zone had many episodes that were morality plays.

I was very young but remember watching one episode about a unrepentant Nazi returning to Dachau and being confronted by ghosts of his victims. He was found dead at the end and it left up to your imagination whether he killed himself or... I was traumatized by that episode and had vivid nightmares about being in a concentration camp.

[vercetti2021]

8. Deaths hand Revisited

And that old SS officer didn't kill himself but the ghosts drove him insane and they took him to a insane asylum. It ends with one of the doctors saying why does the Auschwitz still stand. And Rod giving an explanation of why they do.

[PlanetBev]

5. I saw the debut episode on October 2, 1959

“Where is Everybody?” was the first episode. I was just turning nine, but I was immediately hooked.

All these decades later, I am still in awe of the man. I was so sad when he died at the age of 50. What a loss. What more masterful works would he have produced?

[electric_blue68]

7. I've seen a bunch but not all. Wonder if it's streamed. I'll go look.

[vercetti2021]

9. It is

Hulu and Paramount+

[electric_blue68]

10. Ah, ty. Have to fix my Hulu account.

[Cha]

12. Hey, electric_blues.. I met him in

person in the early '70s.. I wrote about it in Post# 11. He was So Nice!

I feel like I got close to the Twilight Zone.. and it never let up!

Please Fight to Save Our Democracy💙 in 2022 & 2024!:

[electric_blue68]

13. Hi Cha Oh, that's cool!...

And what a nice tip.

I forgot he died young, since back then I was 22.
A shame he could done so much more.

[Cha]

14. I know.. I was walking Through

the room and it just came on TV.. I was shocked.. I was in California then.

I just looked it up.. it was June 28, 1975. Serling was born Dec 25, 1924 so he was only 51! 💙

Please Fight to Save Our Democracy💙 in 2022 & 2024!:

[electric_blue68]

15. I looked it up, too.

[Cha]

11. I waited on him and his Students

from the University of Florida in an Italian restaurant, Gino's.

He left me a $50 tip.. it was in the early
'70s.. I liked the Twilight Zone and after I was particularly enamored.💕🤷‍♂️😎

Rod Serling was a Genius.. little did I know then.

Please Fight to Save Our Democracy💙 in 2022 & 2024!:

[Hugin]

17. So cool!

So very, cool!

He is one of those few people I have trouble thinking of as ever having been real and mortal. Sort of the opposite of Sherlock Holmes.

I guess it’s because of how I became aware of him. My older cousins were voracious readers and they left piles of paperbacks in their wake. Some of them were Serling’s story collections or collections he edited. I read those until they fell apart.

Due to the time frame I grew up in, “TZ” was rarely on and when it was, there were only a few episodes. So, I wasn’t as aware of it.

One day I remember putting the pieces together, “Oooooooh!” Then I proceeded to collect as many of those as I could on VHS. I watched those videos until they fell apart.

Starting off with the best like that makes life difficult.

[Cha]

19. Mahalo for your Experiences

with Getting to know the Twilight Zone, Hugin!

I feel we are living it Now!

Please Fight to Save Our Democracy💙 in 2022 & 2024!:

[Hugin]

20. Mr Serling prepared us as best as he could.

It's up to us.

[Cha]

21. That's a good way to look at it..

Mahalo! :groupohug:

Please Fight to Save Our Democracy💙 in 2022 & 2024!:

[Norbert]

16. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street is the first TZ I remember seeing

Very telling episode for a young mind to get his head around.

The end says it all (paraphrased).

Maple street is not much different from anywhere else. All we need to do is take away their power, mess with their devises and the result are the same with few exceptions.

We will go from one to the other, one to the other, one to the other...

[Liberal In Texas]

18. Serling was a national treasure who was taken from us all too soon.

He died at 50 years old from complications of open heart surgery in 1975. He was a heavy smoker and had had three heart attacks. If only they'd had today's advances in heart surgery and smoking hadn't been tolerated and even encouraged in all the advertising '75 if he might have lived longer.