My 10 Favorite ‘Twilight Zone’ Narrations
The best from the show’s intros and outros
Rod Serling in the “Night of the Meek” episode. Photo courtesy of Paul from Shadow & Substance.
For as long as I can remember, I have been a huge fan of The Twilight Zone* and one of my favorite parts of the show is the opening and closing narration from Rod Serling, which acts as the perfect frame for each story, something that puts everything we see in the episode into perspective. And even taken out of that context, some of the intros and outros have always struck a chord with me and have been my favorites. The following are ten of them.
1. “Picture of a woman looking at a picture. Movie great of another time, once-brilliant star in a firmament no longer a part of the sky, eclipsed by the movement of earth and time. Barbara Jean Trenton, whose world is a projection room, whose dreams are made out of celluloid. Barbara Jean Trenton, struck down by hit-and-run years and lying on the unhappy pavement, trying desperately to get the license number of fleeting fame.”
Episode: “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine”, Season One
2. “You’re looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours of dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive…In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn’t come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.”
Episode: “Long Live Walter Jameson”, Season One
3. “Ancient folk saying: ‘You can catch the Devil, but you can’t hold him long.’ Ask Brother Jerome. Ask David Ellington. They know, and they’ll go on knowing to the end of their days and beyond — in the Twilight Zone.”
Episode: “The Howling Man”, Season Two
4. “Mr. Jamie Tennyson, who almost won a bet, but who discovered somewhat belatedly that gambling can be a most unproductive pursuit, even with loaded dice, marked cards, or in his case, some severed vocal chords. For somewhere beyond him a wheel was turned, and his number came up black thirteen. If you don’t believe it, ask the croupier, the very special one who handles roulette — in The Twilight Zone.”
Episode: “The Silence”, Season Two
5. “The recollections of one Michael Chambers, with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or, more simply stated, the evolution of man. The cycle of going from dust to dessert. The metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone’s soup. It’s tonight’s bill of fare from the Twilight Zone.”
Episode: “To Serve Man”, Season Three
6. “The carcass of a goat, a dead finger, a few bits of broken glass and stone — and Mr. Alan Richards, a modern man of a modern age, hating with all his heart something in which he cannot believe and preparing — although he doesn’t know it — to take the longest walk of his life, right down to the center of The Twilight Zone.”
Episode: “The Jungle”, Season Three
7. “You’ve just witnessed opportunity, if not knocking, at least scratching plaintively on a closed door. Mr. Julius Moomer, a would-be writer who, if talent came twenty-five cents a pound, would be worth less than car fare. But, in a moment, Mr. Moomer, through the offices of some black magic, is about to embark on a brand-new career. And although he may never get a writing credit on the Twilight Zone, he’s to become an integral character in it.”
Episode: “The Bard”, Season Four
8. “Mr. William J. Feathersmith, tycoon, who tried the track one more time and found it muddier than he remembered — proving with at least a degree of conclusiveness that nice guys don’t always finish last, and some people should quit when they’re ahead. Tonight’s tale of iron men and irony, delivered f.o.b. from the Twilight Zone.”
Episode: “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville”, Season Four
9. “Bob and Millie Frazier, average young New Yorkers who attended a party in the country last night and on the way home took a detour. Most of us on waking in the morning know exactly where we are; the rooster or the alarm clock brings us out of sleep into the familiar sights, sounds, aromas of home and the comfort of a routine day ahead. Not so with our young friends. This will be a day like none they’ve ever spent — and they’ll spend it in the Twilight Zone.
Episode: “Stopover in a Quiet Town”, Season Five
10. “Exit Mr. Garrity, a would-be charlatan, a make-believe con man and a sad misjudger of his own talents. Respectfully submitted from an empty cemetery on a dark hillside that is one of the slopes leading to the Twilight Zone.”
Episode: “Mr. Garrity and the Graves”, Season Five
