The Time Element Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Twilight Zone

By the time Rod Serling sold his idea of a 30 minute television show covering the premise of "imaginative fiction" he called The Twilight Zone, he had already made a name for himself in Hollywood. His "Requiem For A Heavyweight" (starring Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn, and Keenan's father, Ed Wynn), "The Velvet Alley" (starring Art Carney), "The Dark Side Of The Earth" (starring Van Heflin, Dean Jagger, and Earl Holliman), had been successful productions. Most of Serling's early teleplays were broadcast live on programs such as Playhouse 90. "Requiem" won emmys for best single performance of the year. Jack Palance won for best single performance. Ed Wynn won for best supporting actor. Ralph Nelson won for best art direction. And, Serling won for best teleplay writing. That show alone established Serling as one of the best television writers, and the offers began to pour in. Everyone wanted a piece of Rod Serling. He felt he had finally made it. In fact, the New York Times called him "the best writer in all the land."One of Rod Serling's problems at this time of his life was he couldn't say no to anybody. So many offers began pouring in and Rod accepted the challenge of taking every offer requested of him. "No writer in the field was more sought after than Rod Serling."*During these early days of television, shows like Playhouse 90, an hour and a half show, was broadcast live. It was because of Serling's contributions to Playhouse 90 that the program was rated one of the best shows on television. Each time Rod was involved in a Playhouse 90 show, he flew from his home in Westport Connecticut and stayed in Hollywood for weeks at a time. The year was 1957 and Serling was spending almost as much time in Hollywood as he was in Westport.The Twilight Zone never would have come into its own without the help of Bert Granet. Bert was the one responsible for producing the shows on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. He was even involved in some of the "I Love Lucy" shows. The show that Bert Granet was interested in wasn't The Twilight Zone's first episode entitled "Where Is Everybody?" No, it came about from a teleplay that Rod had written and sold to CBS in 1957. The script he submitted to CBS was an hour long program. Rod entitled it "The Twilight Zone: The Time Element, by Rod Serling."CBS bought the teleplay, read it, hated it, and immediately shelved it. Bert Granet, however, wanted to produce something with Rod Serling's name on it. Rod was introduced to Bert through Robert Parrish. During their meeting, the topic of The Time Element came up. Serling told Granet that CBS wasn't interested in it. Granet sought out the teleplay. He bought it from CBS for an enormous amount of money by 1958 standards: $10,000.The Time Element came about through Rod Serling's call to duty to fight the Germans in World War II. The nightmares he endured after the war got him to wishing he could have gone back in time and warned everyone of the impending attack by the Japanese. Through these thoughts, he crafted The Time Element and gave it to William Dozier. Dozier was the network chief of West Coast Programming. The Time Element script that Serling gave to Dozier was a 60 minute program. Dozier liked the script, but in the back of his mind, he knew that CBS would never go for an hour "science fiction" program. CBS wouldn't go for it, the sponsors wouldn't go for it, and worst of all, the anthology type shows on television were in their death throes. Television viewers wanted to see the same characters each week, at the same time, and on the same station.Dozier knew it would be a terribly hard sell and told Serling to cut the script down to 30 minutes. Even with that, it was still going to be a hard sell.Serling was terribly upset with the thought of writing 30 minute tv shows. The thought absolutely appalled him. Here was multi-emmy-winning Rod Serling, one of the most sought after writers in the country, stooping so low to write a 30 minute show each week. The thought of that didn't sit well with him at all. But, in the end, Serling agreed to do it.Instead of working on The Time Element, he wrote a story called "The Happy Place," a story about no one being able to live past the age of 60. While he was involved in writing stories for The Twilight Zone, he also had other writing obligations from his inability to say "no" to anyone who asked him to write something. He wrote "No Blade Of Grass" for MGM. He wrote "Panic Button."During this time, CBS was wanting more Twilight Zone scripts from Serling. His "I Shot An Arrow Into The Air" came about through a story Madelon Champion shared with him.Continued in the Text Comments secion.

Channel: Entertainment
Uploaded: June 17, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Author: drapersmokes

Length: 01:57
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Tags: desilu  element  playhouse  time  twilight  westinghouse  zone  

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