| “The Bard” | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Twilight Zone episode | |||||||
| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 120 | ||||||
| Written by | Rod Serling | ||||||
| Directed by | David Butler | ||||||
| Guest stars | Jack Weston : Julius Moomer John Williams : William Shakespeare Burt Reynolds : Rocky Rhodes Henry Lascoe : Gerald Hugo | ||||||
| Production no. | 4852 | ||||||
| Original airdate | May 23, 1963 | ||||||
| |||||||
| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||||||
"The Bard"is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Contents |
Synopsis
A bumbling screenwriter, Julius Moomer, is in desperate need of brilliant scripts, so he conjures up the spirit of William Shakespeare by use of black magic. Shakespeare produces a riveting screenplay for the writer, but is horrified at all the revisions laid on by the sponsor, the sponsor’s wife and the leading man. Eventually, the poet becomes so cross that he punches the leading man and then storms out for good. Moomer's next assignment, a TV special on American history, seems doomed to failure until he remembers his book on black magic and uses it to conjure up a new writing staff.
Trivia
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- An excerpt from Hal Erikson’s article “Censorship: Another Dimension Behind the Twilight Zone”, published in the October 1985 edition of The Twilight Zone Magazine:
| “ | When Serling wrote the 1963 opus “The Bard,” he did so with the express purpose of ribbing those overcautious ad executives who’d disallowed photographs of the Chrysler Building in programs sponsored by American Motors, or who’d removed the words “American” and “Lucky” from programs sponsored by the Liggett and Meyers tobacco company. In “The Bard,” William Shakespeare is reborn and enters the twentieth century TV-writers’ market, only to find that sponsorial demands have taken all the guts (or insides) out of his best works. Producer Herbert Hirschmann applauded Serling’s script, but suggested ever so discreetly that the character of Shakespeare’s sponsor (played by John McGiver) not be shown smoking a big black cigar, as Serling’s stage directions had required. “We might have a cigarette sponsor,” explained Hirschmann. | ” |
- In the book The Twilight Zone Companion Serling is quoted as saying that things were so bad with the overcautious ad executives that "one could not ford a river if Chevy was the sponsor."
- Moomer's later staff mainly comprises a who's who of celebrities rather than writers.
- A scene from this episode was featured on the series finale of the HBO original series The Sopranos.
See also
References
- Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
