The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume LXII

I've seen this before.

"But I am not sure where," you say, scratching your scalp for an answer. Sometimes you remember, sometimes not. But no matter what the story is, chances are you are right, you have heard it before.

Where do stories begin?

They all have to start somewhere. Usually attributed to some storyteller weaving a tale that, no matter how unbelievable, which may be true or is outright fiction, most stories are repeated, over, and over again. Most of the stories we hear these days are not just gossip from friends and neighbors, but news coming at us from around the globe, and thanks to massive space telescopes, far beyond our galaxy as well. There are plenty of stories published in books, told over the radio, on podcasts, and through documentary and narrative films. Stories are everywhere and are embedded in our lives. Every day you will hear a story, whether you intend to or not.

So, I guess it should not have surprised me as much as it did, when I finished watching the 1980's revival of The Twilight Zone, that I thought I had heard some of these stories before. Because I did. I previously reported to you in Volume XXXIX what I considered the best of the original Twilight Zone, and today, I want to tell you about these 65 episodes I watched this summer.

They were fun. I have great affinity for the 1980's because it was when I finished high school and struck out on my own as an adult. I am sure that everyone holds fond memories of their early 20's, but one thing this show brought back for me was the 1980's style.

On film, even on cheap shows like this one, the style is the star. I love the sharp suits with wide ties, the big hair, women in dresses with the shoulder pads and epaulets. Too much jewelry. You can glimpse the style in many movies and shows from the era, and this series is no exception. It was like a time machine to a place I really loved. If you did not live through the 1980's or were too young to remember them, watching this series will give you a strong sense of what the world was like then. It has tales of drama, strife, and corruption, and vignettes of happy and simple people. The stories range from funny to sad to scary to bizarre, just as the original 1960's show. But, for cinephiles, they rarely reach the bar set by Rod Serling. The two series are not the same.

There was one episode that was written by Rod Serling, but it did not have the oomph that the old series had. That magic faded. The acting, writing and directing styles were completely different. That is okay, because they were new people creating in a different time. Notable episodes were directed by Wes Craven and Nightcrawlers by William Friedkin really stood out. Twenty minutes or so played out like a tense feature film. Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin wrote some episodes and worked as story editor for much of the series. It was by no means shoddily produced. For a small budget venture, they worked with what they had and told some wonderful tales. The special effects were childishly simple by todays standards, but the stories themselves should not be judged on the tools the producers had to work with.

The story is what is important. But again, where did they come from? How does the original seed get planted and sprout in the mind of a writer? Ernest Hemingway is credited with saying “the only kind of writing is rewriting.” Chances are good that somebody else told him that, but he wound up being the one with the gravitas to repeat it loudly enough to get credit for it. The phrase is generally used to convey to writers that they need to keep whittling their work until the editor says it is done. However, Hemingway may also have meant that stories repeat.

One of my favorite college writing courses was Mythology, where we learned of the roots of ancient storytelling and how what we hear today are regurgitations of other stories that were told long ago. Iranian history goes back 5,000 years. The oldest stories considered fiction are almost 4,000 years old. The Bible, Qur'an, and the Torah reach back to around 1,500 BC. They all share many of the same stories and depending on who you research, Moses (yes, That Moses) gets a lot of credit for writing the first five books of the Bible (which are also the whole of the Torah). The Greek myths were written down between 700 and 500 BC stemming from an oral history that likely dates back as far as 3,000 BC.

The New Testament appeared in the years after Jesus' death, when we started marking calendar years by his presence. Jesus was a popular guy. A story so hot and fantastic that four writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) worked to get the good news out there and were rather successful doing so. The story was just too juicy not to tell and with the price of ink and papyrus being practically nothing, who wouldn't want their own scroll? So the story repeated. Sales were good.

Before Jesus existed, the Egyptians wrote stories, too. They had Gods whose lives were full of drama, and they told those stories for about 3,000 years. So, scholars sometimes argue about whether or not the story of Jesus is just a retelling of the Egyptian story of Osiris. Turns out that even though they never met, and Osiris waned in popularity, these guys had a lot in common. Some may call the New Testament Osiris 2.0. Others reject that assessment because they say Jesus was real and Osiris was a myth. The real question is What would Osiris say?

Side note: I just want to say, that being a writer myself (or so I claim), I can only imagine how tough it must have been way back then to write anything down. Don't even think about getting copies, just the first draft must have been one heck of a chore. Especially for Moses. He had all kinds of crap to deal with. Talking to God, parting the Red Sea, walking all over the desert with everybody asking him where they were going all the time. "Are we there yet?"

Then, when he gets a few minutes peace, really into the groove, the ink is flowing as fast as the ideas, something happens. Something Moses doesn't tell you about. His dear sweet wife Zipporah comes in and says, "Did you take out the trash?"

"I will in a minute!"

"What are you writing?"

"It's - the Bible."

"What's that for?"

"It's just - a story about creation, and ancestry, and all kinds of stuff."

"Who wants to read about that?"

"Know what - let me go take out the trash!"

There could be more there, but I can only imagine.

Rod Serling had tons of great ideas for the Twilight Zone. I once heard that he claimed to wake up and write down his dreams. He did say “Coming up with ideas is the easiest thing on earth. Putting them down is the hardest.” He said a lot of cool stuff.

He also expanded on the origin story of Adam and Eve twice in the original series. First with the episode Two starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Bronson, then again with Probe 7, Over and Out starring Antoinette Bower and Richard Basehart.

The 1980's Twilight Zone also had stories I had seen before. A few were remakes from the original series. A Game of Pool, The Man in the Bottle, and Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Room were brought up to date with new devices and performances by actors we had only begun to meet. Bruce Willis took on the role of the man in the four-dollar room, not talking to himself in the mirror, but speaking to himself on the phone.

The After Hours, where mannequins visit the outside world and come home to their department store, I knew right away. That story has stuck with me since I was a little kid. Maybe because my grandmother told me about my grandfather being a department store window model in the 1940's at Hudson's in downtown Detroit. He would wear a nice suit and stand perfectly still. Little kids would look at him and the other models, trying to distract them to get them to move, when they finally did, the men would lunge at the glass, and the children would jump back, laughing. Again, something I can only imagine, but something I would never know if Grandma Brown had not told me about it.

So, that is where that story came from. Did Rod Serling hear about it? Probably not. There have been tales of statues coming to life for centuries.

But what about The Truman Show and Ghostbusters? I don't know what else may predate them, but there are two episodes in the 1980's Twilight Zone which aired long before those movies were made, which tell those same stories. Crazy as a Soup Sandwich, starring Tony Franciosa, is the wild and bizarre story of a bookie who fights demons and forces them into a box. It has weird colorful lighting, slanted camera angles, and over the top comedy, like 1960's Batman. Special Services stars David Naughton as the fellow who finds that he is the star of a TV show filmed with hidden cameras all over his house. These episodes are fun, but not as fleshed out as the movies they would eventually become.

How the screenwriters for these movies may have been influenced by these episodes is tough to say. Maybe they never saw these episodes. Maybe somebody only told them about them. Or maybe not. Perhaps they wrote their movies thinking that they had purely original ideas that nobody had ever thought of before. Looking back at this sliver of cinematic history, that is clearly not the case. Somebody else had the same idea once before whether they knew it or not.

Another side note: It was fun to watch David Naughton again. He really epitomized the late 1970's and early 1980's with his time in the spotlight. Back then he was everywhere. He had a disco hit single, portrayed An American Werewolf in London, and may be most memorable for dancing his way across northern California and singing Be A Pepper as the spokesperson for Dr. Pepper.

In recent years the cherry cola brand has been promoting Diet and original Dr. Pepper with a character named Lil' Sweet. Just like David Naughton, who seemed to magically appear alongside renown sports figures and other celebrities of the 80's with a bottle of soda in hand, American Idol alum Justin Guarini appears as the diminutive mythical creature who can pop out of cakes, washing machines, you name it, and seems to be anywhere and everywhere rewarding those he meets with an ice cold can of refreshment. He is hilarious.

But where does a character like Lil' Sweet come from? If you ask Justin Guarini, he is going to tell you all about his audition. But if you study the character, it is clear that his origins lie in those supernatural tales about Fairies, Elves, Leprechauns, and Djinn. There are dozens of mythical creatures to compare him to, dating back hundreds of years. Of all of the different kinds of creatures there are to compare, I would call Lil' Sweet a Kobold.

Kobolds are a few feet tall, inhabit homes, and bring gifts, sometimes grain or gold stolen from neighbors. The legends go back to 13th century Germany and if you are really nice to your resident Kobold, they may also bring beer. Who wouldn't want their own Kobold?

I will let you decide where you think the origin story for my favorite 1980's Twilight Zone episode comes from. Once again, like my favorite from the 1960's, it centers around a little kid.

Examination Day introduces us to Dickie Jordan who is celebrating his 12th birthday. The story is set in the future or a distant planet. Dad is reading the Galactic Times newspaper. Like any kid, he is thrilled to get a great birthday gift, a little TV set which turns out to be the equivalent of a cell phone. Mom and Dad let him know he can use it right after he comes home from his test. Dickie is scheduled for a government issued test that all kids his age take. His friends at school said it was easy. So, Dickie enters the test facility with high hopes. What a great day!

And that's all I am going to say. No spoilers. The episode is only 10 minutes long and here is the link to watch it on YouTube.

And please let me know where you think you have seen it before.

Trust me. It is worth it.

It is pure Twilight Zone.