A Return to Radio
In his first book, Patterns, Rod Serling describes the day in 1951 when he quit his unfulfilling job as a staff writer at WLW, trading the security of a steady paycheck for the uncertain potential of freelance writing: “For lush or lean, good or bad, Sardi’s or malnutrition, I’d launched a career.”1 In Serling lore, this decision has become a romanticized touchstone, cited as the moment that the artist listened to his muse and risked everything to pursue his true calling. This characterization may be appropriate, but it overlooks the rarely mentioned fact that Serling returned to work for WLW (Crosley Broadcasting Corporation) two years later. He didn’t run back with his tail between his legs—he had planted his foot firmly inside the doorway of network television by that point, with twenty-three nationally produced scripts to his credit—but he did seek a measure of security. On September 14, 1953, against the advice of his agent, Blanche Gaines, he signed a thirty-week contract to work at WLW as editor of dramatic scripts. During this period, he also wrote and produced a series of radio dramas, It Happens to You.
It Happens to You was a series of thirty-minute episodes that were bookended by introductions and closings written in the second person, a gimmicky attempt to place the listener directly in the story (“Your name is Dan Shevlin. This is your story. It happens to you!”). Recordings of two episodes of the series are known to exist: “You Be the Bad Guy” (under the title “The Human Comedy”) and “The Gallant Breed of Men.”
Serling’s contract with WLW ended on April 12, 1954. It Happens to You, however, was then picked up by the NBC network, which aired thirteen episodes of the series that summer. Most noteworthy about It Happens to You is that on August 10, 1954, the series aired “The Time Element,” which had previously been produced on The Storm. This means that the 1958 production of this story on Desilu Playhouse is actually the third version of what has since been acknowledged as The Twilight Zone’s unofficial pilot.
The thirteen episodes of It Happens to You broadcast on WNBC are “You Be the Bad Guy” (July 6), “And Then Came Jones” (July 13), “The Inn of Eagles” (July 20), “The Gallant Breed of Men” (July 27), “The Gab” (August 3), “The Time Element” (August 10), “Welcome Home, Lefty” (August 17), “Keeper of the Chair” (August 24), “Aftermath” (August 31), “A Machine to Answer the Question” (September 7), “Like Father Not Son” (September 14), “Train West” (September 21), and “The Sands of Tom” (September 28). Most of these scripts had previously been produced on television, either nationally or on The Storm. Several, however, were produced only on radio.
“And Then Came Jones” is a broad comedy about a man who temporarily turns New York City upside down by claiming legal ownership to the entire area within six and a half square miles of Times Square. He presents documentation showing that the area in question was ceded to one of his direct ancestors and that he is the legal inheritor of the property. His claim is verified, but he ultimately relinquishes his ownership rights for the love of a woman who would rather marry a “regular guy” than the “king of the city.”
“The Gab” is the story of a used car salesman and aspiring writer, Davey Fletcher, whose lack of ethics makes him a perfect salesman. Shortly after he cons an old man into buying a lemon, he gets a taste of his own mistreatment. A telegram arrives from a Hollywood agent who offers him five hundred dollars for the right to shop one of his stories as a motion picture, with an additional forty-five hundred dollars if it sells. Fletcher agrees and spends his savings to fly to Hollywood to meet the agent. Once he arrives, the agent says that he shopped the story but it didn’t sell. He treats Fletcher to a barrage of doubletalk and reneges on the initial payment, daring Fletcher to sue. Humiliated by this sobering look in a mirror, he returns home vowing to change his ways.
Serling based this story on an actual incident. After “Next of Kin” aired on Kraft Theatre on April 8, 1953, a Hollywood agent contacted him and Gaines with an offer exactly like the one Fletcher receives. Serling accepted, but the agent reneged on the deal.
“The Gallant Breed of Men” follows one of Serling’s most familiar story arcs, beginning with a soldier (Captain Bruce, formerly of the merchant marine) who is haunted by guilt over a wartime incident. Bruce’s ship had been part of a convoy when the ship in front of his was torpedoed and one hundred members of its crew were forced to abandon ship. Bruce was under orders to continue on course and not break formation with the convoy, leaving the sailors to drown. Like several other Serling characters, Bruce drowns his guilt in alcohol. He ultimately regains his self-respect by accepting that he has no reason to feel shame over what he did—only regret. His distinction: While “shame can eat away at a man’s conscience, regret is simply what all men must carry and contend with.”
“Like Father Not Son” is a football-themed story about a man’s attempt to live vicariously through his all-American son. The story had previously been considered but rejected by Lux Video Theatre.
The fact that the series aired until September 28, 1954, makes It Happens to You an odd footnote on Serling’s career path: just a few months before his breakthrough with “Patterns,” Serling was still working in radio. Not until two decades later did he return to the medium, hosting a syndicated series, The Zero Hour.