Feast of the Mind
This definitive history presents a portrait of the beloved Rod Serling and his television program, recounting the major changes the show underwent in format and story selection including censorship battles, production details and exclusive memories from cast and crew.
This book is huge and heavy. The episode guide doesn't just document every episode produced... it also documents episodes never produced but purchased by Cayuga Productions. And the detail!! What detail!!
Every episode is complete with dates of rehearsal, dates of filming, script numbers, revised pages and dates for revised pages of the script, production cost and breakdown, even the music scores are broken down by arranger, composer, title and length of music cue.
Best part of this book is the trivia under each episode which is a feast of the mind, at once intellectually provocative and certainly literary. For "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" we get a glimpse of the flight schedule for the Lone Pine Location filming. For "Long Live Walter Jameson" we get to learn about the blooper that televiewers caught when it was initially run. In-jokes are revealed which I would never have caught without being told. How the special effects were accomplished. Origin of the stock footage used. Paintings on the walls that were reused for other episodes.
The memories from the cast are remarkable. Children were restricted to the number of hours they could be used for filming per day. Insert shots filmed by other directors. Fan letters addressed to Rod Serling are reprinted. Richard Matheson sent a letter to Buck Houghton, the producer, voicing a negative opinion about the productions for his scripts. It's all here.
