David Bianculli

Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper.

Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer.

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

Rod Serling's most famous anthology series premiered in 1959 and was canceled in 1964.

But even those born too late to watch it on CBS during its original five-season run were very familiar with it decades later.

Local stations showed reruns in syndication, and kids would rush to their TV sets to watch it in the afternoons or sneak to watch it late at night.

Eventually, cable TV entered the mix, with networks like the Sci-Fi Channel presenting New Year's marathons of old Twilight Zone episodes, introducing Rod and his captivating ideas to an even newer generation of viewers.

But today, the TV universe is fragmented.

You still can watch every episode of the classic Twilight Zone on Paramount+.

But how many people, even those who subscribe to that streaming service, know it's there?

And Serling was anything but a one-hit, one-show wonder.

By the time he began hosting the Twilight Zone, he already had won three Emmys in a row for writing the live Golden Age dramas Patterns, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and The Comedian.

And after The Twilight Zone, he wrote the screenplays for Seven Days in May and Planet of the Apes.

He also wrote a TV movie called Carol for Another Christmas for ABC in 1964, the same year The Twilight Zone ended.

That show was so bold and chilling, yet has been so largely forgotten, that many of you may never have heard of it, much less heard the excerpt I'll soon play.

Rod Serling was born on Christmas Day in 1924 and died at age 50 in 1975.

The Ohio historical marker at Antioch is one way of remembering Rod and his creative output.

Another way happened last month when the non-profit Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, with involvement from members of his surviving family, mounted its annual Serling Fest in Rod's hometown of Binghamton, New York.

The town's recreation park has long featured a carousel refurbished with images of Rod and from the Twilight Zone, tied to his nostalgic Zone episodes inspired by Binghamton.

Last year, the Memorial Foundation erected a statue there in Rod's honor as part of Serling Fest.