#arlenschumer

The GREATEST PILOT EPISODE in TELEVISION HISTORY is on ME-TV tonight @ 12:35am est: “The place is here...the time is now...and the journey into the shadows that we’re about to watch could be our journey...” —Rod Serling’s opening narration to The Twilight Zone’s pilot episode, “Where is Everybody?,” October 2, 1959 (directed by Robert Stevens). In “Where is Everybody?,” an amnesiac played by Earl Holliman wanders through a strangely deserted town and decries, “I’ve looked and I haven’t seen anybody around...maybe they’re all asleep or something, but literally, there hasn’t been a soul,” Serling himself observing the sleeping giant that was America in the Cold War conformity of the Eisenhower Fifties? Holliman turns out to be an astronaut in training (torn from the day’s headlines, following the April ’59 naming of the Mercury Seven astronauts by NASA) who, following 484 hours in an isolation tank to prepare him for solo space travel to the moon (three years before JFK’s moon speech), cracked from loneliness and began to hallucinate what we, the audience, thought was the “reality” of the episode—the first Twilight Zone twist ending and still one of its metaphysically best, its narrative structure upending the tacit agreement between storyteller and audience that what you’re being shown is “real.” A true pilot episode (and the greatest in the history of television) in that it included virtually all the existential and surreal motifs that would become associated with The Twilight Zone—isolation, fear, confusion with mannequins, hallucinogenic delusions that seem all too real—“Where is Everybody?” is finally a harrowing visualization of one man’s alienation from reality, indeed from one’s self, which would prove to be the defining, existential crisis facing man in the second half of the 20th Century, a time when the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge—the atomic bomb—first coexisted. arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone #twilightzone #thetwilightzone #rodserling #tv #television #tvhistory #televisionhistory #arlenschumer @dgareps @nyadventureclub @adamschumer @richardsyrettstrangeplanet https://www.instagram.com/p/CoVBerZJAO5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

IN HONOR OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH, video of my webinar on: THE ORIGIN OF THE BLACK GREEN LANTERN! At the dawn of the 1970s, legendary comic book artist Neal Adams forged brand new artistic identities for several mainstream comic book characters, including Batman and The X-Men, as well as two distinctive DC heroes, Green Lantern and Green Arrow. His photorealistic visual acuity enabled he and his writer/collaborator, Denny O’Neil, to break new ground telling the kinds of reality-based stories that could be told in “superhero” comic books, and in doing so, made their Green Lantern-Green Arrow run of (only) 13 issues one of the most honored and esteemed, memorable and influential in comic book history! One of the series’ most memorable creations was the 1972 debut of one John Stewart, a.k.a. “The Black Green Lantern,” DC Comics’ FIRST black superhero! The details of how he came to be–from the origin of his very name to his civilian identity’s occupation–are explored, featuring comic book panels, pages and covers presented so dynamically that they’ll make you look at, and understand, the legend of Green Lantern John Stewart as if for the FIRST time! https://youtu.be/wddTpTFA6ms #greenlantern #dccomics #nealadamsart #dennyoneil #juliusschwartz #superheroes #blacksuperheroes #blacksuperhero #johnstewart #johnstewartgreenlantern #arlenschumer #comicbookhistory #comicbookhistorian @dgareps @nyadventureclub @richardsyrettstrangeplanet @adamschumer https://www.instagram.com/p/CoXgcFirgs8/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

TONIGHT on ME-TV @ 12:35am EST, one of the GREATEST episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: “THE AFTER HOURS” (written by Rod Serling, directed by Douglas Heyes, originally broadcast June 10, 1960) The casting of the incandescent Anne Francis in Serling’s “The After Hours” is perfect, because, as a woman who turns out to be a department store mannequin, she actually looks like a human Barbie doll—which, like The Twilight Zone, debuted in 1959 and became an American pop icon overnight, acknowledged as an influence on the plethora of TZ mannequin/doll/dummy episodes by Barbie Bazaar magazine in its June 2003 issue: “The reason that Twilight Zone still amazes us is the wonder that underlies episodes like ‘The After Hours,’ that recall childhood fantasies of dolls and toys coming to life when no one is watching.” And childhood nightmares, too—witness the whispering of the store mannequins en masse to a frantic Francis, “Marsha, come off it!” Serling might have been inspired to write this episode by English writer John Collier’s 1940 short story “Evening Primrose” (collected in his award-winning 1952 anthology, “Fancies and Goodnights”), about people living clandestinely in a department store who eventually become mannequins, too. "The After Hours" is one of Serling’s most accessible Twilight Zones—for who among the American generations who’ve grown up in and around shopping malls has never been afraid of being locked in a department store at night? By tapping into such deep-seated American neuroses, Serling mirrored the anxieties and apprehensions of his audience, as this excerpt from the episode’s closing narration testifies: "Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street?" arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone #twilightzone #thetwilightzone #rodserling #annefrancis #mannequin #tv #television #tvhistory #televisionhistory #theafterhours #arlenschumer @dgareps @bearmanor.media @nyadventureclub @the_richardsyrettshow https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp2m21NsKup/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

TONIGHT on ME-TV @ 12:35am EST, one of the GREATEST episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: “THE HITCH-HIKER” (Written by Rod Serling, adapted from Lucille Fletcher’s radio play, directed by Alvin Ganzer, originally broadcast January 22, 1960) Perhaps Rod Serling’s greatest adaptation for The Twilight Zone is another take on the “Mr. Death” concept, “The Hitch-Hiker,” that Serling adapted from the famous 1941 radio play by Lucille Fletcher, that featured her husband at the time, Orson Welles, in the lead role of a driver who keeps seeing the same mysterious hitch-hiker all along his cross-country trip from Brooklyn to California. But Serling changes the male lead to female, making it one of the first of his many TZ episodes to feature an independent, single woman in the starring role, at a time when most women on television were either domesticated housewives like Donna Reed or screwball comediennes like Lucille Ball. Again, Rod Serling, The Visionary. And in the “Hitch-Hiker” lead role is ‘60s beauty, the enigmatic Inger Stevens (in the first of her two nuanced Twilight Zones; the other is season two’s “The Lateness of The Hour”). The Swedish-born Stevens had “a sadness hidden in that pretty face” (Bruce Springsteen, “Candy’s Room”), her soulful, sorrowful eyes betraying her failed suicide in 1959, while foreshadowing her unfortunate, successful attempt in 1970—which gives “The Hitch-Hiker,” in which we, and Stevens’ character, come to realize she’s been dead all along (shades of Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense), a meta-melancholy subtext. After the climax of this chilling, macabre story, Stevens, in voiceover, describes what it’s like to accept the radical reality of her own death, in some of Serling’s most heartbreakingly beautiful, simple but terse prose: “The fear has left me now. I’m numb. I have no feeling. It’s as if someone had pulled out some kind of plug in me, and everything—emotion, feeling, fear—has drained out. And now I’m a cold shell. I’m conscious of things around me now...the vast night...the stars that look down from the darkness.” arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone #rodserling #twilightzone #thetwilightzone #arlenschumer #ingerstevens @dgareps https://www.instagram.com/p/CpAue9Ar7QH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

FORTY YEARS AGO TONIGHT, Bruce Springsteen recorded songs for what would become his sixth album, NEBRASKA. NEBRASKA, an acoustic MASTERPIECE of the 20th Century, ranks alongside Woody Guthrie’s, Hank Williams' and Bob Dylan’s greatest acoustic works, and has the same generational gravitas as Alan Lomax’s landmark 1940 Library of Congress collection, Folk Songs of The United States. Every one of its 10 songs has, aurally, a different type of acoustic sound, so that no two sound exactly alike—all the more remarkable given the relatively primitive, limited recording process. “Atlantic City,” with its echoey, distant backing vocals (and whoops and whoas like only Springsteen does), has an evocative hollowness, like the Jersey Shore in winter. “Open All Night” is a Buddy Holly song sung from beyond the grave. “Used Cars” sounds as up close and personal as a lullaby. “State Trooper” strips down the classic, bass-heavy “Peter Gunn” riff to its stark nakedness, befitting the hair-trigger edginess of its narrator’s potentially violent state of mind. “My Father’s House" is both a waking dream and a haunting nightmare, Bruce's most personal song in this collection, and my favorite song on the album (with a long, ethereal, keyboard coda inexplicably available only on the Japanese CD!). The songs on NEBRASKA have inspired countless cover versions (most notably Johnny Cash’s two samplings on his ’83 album named after one of them, "Johnny 99"), other musicians (like Sting and Kelly Clarkson) to get more personal, Sean Penn to make a film (1991’s Indian Runner, based on NEBRASKA’S “Highway Patrolman”), and a book of short stories based on the album’s lineup (Deliver Me from Nowhere—its title cribbed from a line in “Open All Night”—by Tennessee Jones, 2005). If you’ve never liked Bruce Springsteen (gasp!), if you think he’s only the guy who screams “Born in the USA” (choke!), give NEBRASKA a listen. #brucespringsteen #nebraska #acousticguitar #springsteen #arlenschumer @dgareps @dbbushman @adamschumer @richard_syrett https://www.instagram.com/p/CYRmUw-Leum/?utm_medium=tumblr

This THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30th @ 6:00pm EST: THE 61st ANNIVERSARY OF THE FLINTSTONES Free Webinar! Cartoon studio Hanna-Barbera’s most famous creation, The Flintstones, was the first animated television comedy series to air in prime time when it debuted 61 years ago, at 8:30pm on a Friday night, September 30th, 1960, on the ABC-TV network. It was an instant hit, spawning a merchandising bonanza during its six-season run—166 episodes—before leaving the air in 1966. The Flintstones had it all: lovable characters, outlandish situations, great music (from Hoagy Carmichael to the British Invasion’s Beau Brummels), crazy dancing, parodies of the pop culture of the time, and guest-star appearances by “real world” celebrities in stone-age settings of side-splitting hilarity! So, on the occasion of The Flintstones’ 61st Anniversary, join me as I present an overview of the development of the series via a plethora of early concept sketches, rare visual clips, and an analysis of The Flintstones’ storied place in American television history! You’ll see the show in ways that will make you look at—and enjoy—the Hanna-Barbera classic as you never have before! ZOOM MEETING: https://bit.ly/2WgQzU9 MEETING ID: 863 2319 4628 PASSCODE: 392306 •••Can’t make it LIVE? Don’t worry–you’ll be able to watch a recording of it later on my YOUTUBE or VIMEO channels! #flintstones #theflintstones #fredflintstone #barneyrubble #arlenschumer #tv #television #tvhistory #televisionhistory #cartoons #cartoonhistory #animation #animationhistory @dgareps @adamschumer @richard_syrett @tommyzotos https://www.instagram.com/p/CUVI4wFLD11/?utm_medium=tumblr

FROM THE LOWER EAST SIDE TO THE UPPER EAST SIDE: I'm proud to announce I'll be presenting my VisuaLecture on THE CENTENNIAL OF THE KING OF COMICS, JACK KIRBY, at THE premier think tank in New York City, the 92 Street Y! Tuesday, Oct 10th @ 7:00 pm Tickets: https://www.92y.org/event/the-centennial-of-the-king-of-comics.aspx #jackkirby #kirby #arlenschumer #92stY #92streetY #the92streetY #thesilverageofcomicbookart #superheroes #Marvelcomics #DCcomics #comics #comicart #comicbooks #comicbookart #comicshistory #comicarthistory #comicbookhistory #comicbookarthistory

TONIGHT on ME-TV @ 11:35am EST, one of the GREAT episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: “THE INVADERS” (Written by Richard Matheson, directed by Douglas Heyes, originally broadcast January 27, 1961) Agnes Moorehead’s dialogueless, mimetic performance as a farmwoman terrorized by “The Invaders,” small, mysterious aliens from a saucer-shaped spaceship that lands on the roof of her old house, is a tour de force; according to director Douglas Heyes, she had actually studied with the legendary mime Marcel Marceau years earlier. Without any dialogue, the excellent original score by famed composer Jerry Goldsmith takes center stage, carrying the narrative along, weaving in and out of the action, dropping out so we can hear the buzzing sounds of the aliens’ miniature ray guns, or Moorehead’s many grunts and groans, whimpers and moans, as she tirelessly battles the outer space intruders to the death. The lighting designs by Twilight Zone’s Director of Photography George T. Clemens also shine, as he utilizes the entire black and white palette—high contrasts, edge lighting, chiaroscuro—to bathe the episode in a sea of darkness. I keep referring to the tiny terrorizers as “aliens,” because that’s what Matheson expects us to believe they are—until, of course, we get to one of the great Twilight Zone perspective-shifting surprise endings, up on the roof where an axe-wielding Moorehead is delivering repeated blows to the spaceship, killing its alien occupants, but not before they make one last audible transmission back to their planet, warning them...in English? “...incredible race of giants here...too much for us...too powerful... no counter-attack...stay away...” The camera pans to a close-up of the spaceship’s decimated hull, labeled with the designation, “U.S. Air Force Space Probe No. 1.” The episode’s haunting, final image, of a (smashed) futuristic flying saucer perched atop an old farmhouse roof, is as surreal a juxtaposition of past and future as the penultimate scene in Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the spheric space pod sitting incongruently in the neoclassical living room. arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone #arlenschumer @dgareps https://www.instagram.com/p/CqqJp1ULdjg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=