How One Classic Twilight Zone Episode Gave a TV Writing Legend His Big Break
A flash of an idea, and a little help from his friends, made one Twilight Zone writer's career.
Nowadays, The Twilight Zone (regularly airing on SYFY) is remembered as a series masterminded by writer and creator Rod Serling, but devotees of the series know that he wasn't the only major contributor. Other writing legends, including Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, were also key forces in shaping the tone of the series, and both contributed classic episodes to the series.
But Beaumont and Matheson weren't just contributing great ideas of their own. In one key instance, they helped get a classic Twilight Zone episode made, and in the process gave a friend of theirs, who went on to be a TV writing legend, his big break.
How The Twilight Zone episode "Long Distance Call" gave Bill Idelson his big break
Airing in the show's second season, "Long Distance Call" is one of the creepiest stories in the entire Twilight Zone original series. It follows a boy (Bill Mumy) who receives a toy telephone from his beloved, often controlling grandmother (Lili Darvas). When the grandmother dies, the boy is able to talk to her through the toy phone, but his family soon discovers that Grandma isn't just talking to the boy. She's demanding he join her on the other side.
The episode was the brainchild of William "Bill" Idelson, a sometime child actor, who'd been trying to get his break as a TV writer, and was working a day job selling real estate at the time. According to Marc Scott Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion, Idelson got the idea for the story when his own mother gave his son, her grandson, a toy telephone for his birthday. Nothing sinister happened, but according to Idelson, the story arrived like a "flash" in his mind.
Fortunately for Idelson, he was friends with Matheson, who read his script and submitted it to The Twilight Zone's production company, Cayuga. Producers rejected the script, but after Beaumont -- another friend of Idelson's -- got wind of it and liked the idea, he came back with a pitch: Would Cayuga buy the script if he agreed to cowrite it with Idelson? Cayuga agreed, and "Long Distance Call" became Idelson's first major sale as a TV writer, because Matheson and Beaumont were willing to support and vouch for him.
Idelson recalled having a major hand in crafting the episode, including rewriting one of the final speeches "on the spot" at Serling's request, and when "Long Distance Call" made it to air, he got a kind of watch party thrown for him by his writer friends.
"When the show went on the air, they all came over to my house -- Chuck [Beaumont], Dick Matheson, [fellow sci-fi writer] Bill Nolan -- and they were all very complimentary. It was a tremendous thrill for me."
Idelson never wrote for The Twilight Zone again, but the sale of "Long Distance Call" got his foot in the door, and he quickly pursued scripting jobs in the world of TV comedy. Over the next 25 years he would be a major force in the world of comedy television, contributing scripts for shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, The Flintstones, Get Smart, and That Girl. He would also be a major creative force in the world of The Andy Griffith Show, writing 19 episodes of the series, and 23 episodes of its spinoff Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. As a writer and producer he was also active on The Bob Newhart Show and Love, American Style.
The Twilight Zone airs regularly on SYFY. Check the Schedule for listings.