I Could Watch Animated Rod Serling be Interviewed All Day

In 1963, TV legend, Rod Serling, was interviewed on Australian radio. In the interview, he does talk about his legendary creation, “The Twilight Zone“, even setting the host who had not seen the show at ease by mentioning that many of his friends and family members have not seen the show.

The more interesting parts of the interview are things that don’t necessarily center around “The Twilight Zone“. For example, Rod and his wife fly on separate planes all the time. That way, if one of them crashes, the other one can take care of their young children. It is grim and illogical, both things that Serling acknowledges. He proceeds to make light of it by discussing how much more dangerous riding in a cab and how he and his fellow veterans are much more frightened to ride in a cab in Japan than jumping out of an airplane during WWII.

Then while talking about the show, Rod gets to the center of what made him so amazing as a creator, imagination. How nostalgia fuels his desire to tell stories that look back (the basis for Walking Distance?) and how he realizes that you can never go home. His waxing about simpler times and his childhood, where/when he was quite the storyteller, allows him to mention the pleasure he gets from having kids be fans of his show. According to Serling:

The most unfettered imagination belongs to young people. And they don’t walk through life. They fly.

And that’s the reason we have astronauts orbiting now. And that’s why we are planning a trip to the moon. People talk about science fiction being very far out and very wild. I don’t think it’s any of these things. Everything we see in the way of space travel, space concept, scientific advancement, medical discoveries was already predicted by some good science fiction 25 years ago.

The man certainly has a way with words.