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The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, supernatural drama, black comedy, and psychological thriller, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist, and usually with a moral. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The first series, shot entirely in black and white, ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964.
Rodman Edward Serling was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator/on-screen host, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen, and helped form television industry standards. He was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood, clashing with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues, including censorship, racism, and war.
Erich Anton Paul von Däniken is a Swiss author of several books which make claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, including the best-selling Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968. Von Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the "paleo-contact" and ancient astronauts hypotheses.
Ancient astronauts refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies, religions, and human biology. A common position is that deities from most, if not all, religions are extraterrestrial in origin, and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans.
Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past is a book written in 1968 by Erich von Däniken and translated from the original German by Michael Heron. It involves the hypothesis that the technologies and religions of many ancient civilizations were given to them by ancient astronauts who were welcomed as gods.
In Search of... is an American television series that was broadcast weekly from 1977 to 1982, devoted to mysterious phenomena. It was created after the success of three one-hour TV documentaries produced by creator Alan Landsburg: In Search of Ancient Astronauts in 1973, In Search of Ancient Mysteries and The Outer Space Connection, both in 1975. All three featured narration by Rod Serling, who was the initial choice to host the spin-off show. Serling died before production started, and Leonard Nimoy was then selected to be the host. The series was revived with host Mitch Pileggi in 2002 and again in 2018 with Zachary Quinto, currently airing on the History Channel.
"Here There Be Tygers" is a short story by American writer Ray Bradbury, originally published in the anthology New Tales of Space and Time in 1951. It was later collected in Bradbury's short story collections R is for Rocket and The Golden Apples of the Sun. It deals with a rocket expedition sent to a planet to see whether or not its natural resources can be harvested for the human race. They discover a paradise which seems to provide for them whatever they desire even as they think of it. They ultimately decide to leave the planet and report that it is hostile and of no benefit to humans.
Men Into Space is an American black-and-white science fiction television series, produced by Ziv Television Programs, Inc., that was first broadcast by CBS from September 30, 1959 to September 7, 1960. The series depicts future efforts by the United States Air Force to explore and develop outer space. The series' star, William Lundigan, played Col. Edward McCauley.
The Twilight Zone is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959 to June 19, 1964. Each episode presents a stand-alone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone," often with a surprise ending and a moral. Although predominantly science-fiction, the show's paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show towards fantasy and horror. The phrase "twilight zone," inspired by the series, is used to describe surreal experiences.
Alan William Landsburg was an American television writer, producer, and director. He was the founder and CEO of Alan Landsburg Productions and the Landsburg Company and was involved in producing over fifty movies of the week. He had over 2000 hours of television production experience.
Cosmic Odyssey is a 2002 Canadian documentary television series about the cosmos, created by Avanti Pictures, narrated by William Shatner, and produced by Soapbox Entertainment for The Discovery Channel. In 2003, Schlessinger Media released the series in VHS video format. As of 2007, the series is syndicated on The Science Channel.
Ancient Aliens is an American television series that explores the ancient astronauts hypothesis, past human-extraterrestrial contact, UFOs, government conspiracies, and related pseudoscientific topics, such as remote viewing and psychic phenomena, in a non-critical, documentary format. Episodes, narrated by Robert Clotworthy, begin and end with rhetorical questions. Produced by Prometheus Entertainment, the series has aired on History and other A&E Networks since 2010. The series has been a target for criticism of History's channel drift, and for promoting unorthodox or unproven hypotheses as fact.
Planet of the Apes is a 1968 American science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and loosely based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle. Written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, it stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison. In the film, an astronaut crew crash-lands on a strange planet in the distant future. Although the planet appears desolate at first, the surviving crew members stumble upon a society in which apes have evolved into creatures with human-like intelligence and speech. The apes have assumed the role of the dominant species and humans are mute creatures wearing animal skins.
Raúl daSilva is an American filmmaker, writer and photoanimation specialist. He produced the photoanimated film The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an adaptation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, in 1975.
Ancient astronauts have been addressed frequently in science fiction and horror fiction. Occurrences in the genres include:
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau is a documentary television series about underwater marine life, directed by Alan Landsburg and hosted by French filmmaker, researcher, and marine explorer Jacques Cousteau. The first episodes of the series aired from 1968 until 1976. The English-language narration was by Richard Johnson and Rod Serling. It also featured his sons Jean‑Michel and Philippe, and his grandson Fabien. Jacques' wife, Simone Melchior, worked on board ship, and dived too, but she did not appear on-screen.
Sunn Classic Pictures, also known as Sunn International Pictures, Schick Sunn Classic Pictures, and Taft International Pictures was an independent U.S.-based film distributor, founded in 1971. The company was notable for family films and documentaries, and was purchased by Taft Broadcasting in 1980.
The Mysterious Monsters is a 1976 documentary film written and directed by Robert Guenette about the cryptids Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Yeti. It contained content from Guenette’s made-for-TV movie Monsters! Mysteries or Myths? that aired on CBS on November 25, 1974. That version had been produced by David L. Wolper in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution and was narrated by Rod Serling.
12 to the Moon is a 1960 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film, produced and written by Fred Gebhardt, directed by David Bradley and starring Ken Clark, Michi Kobi, Tom Conway and Anna-Lisa. The film was distributed in the U.S. by Columbia Pictures as a double feature with either Battle in Outer Space or 13 Ghosts, depending on the local film market.
UFOs: Past, Present, and Future is a 1974 documentary film that examines several prominent UFO sightings from the post-war to contemporary era. It was re-released in 1976 and 1979 under the title UFOs: It Has Begun to coincide with renewed interest in the subject due to the release of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It is based on the book UFOs: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Emenegger.
References
- ↑ D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423605874.
