The Bard (The Twilight Zone)

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The Bard
The Twilight Zone episode

Scene from "The Bard"
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
Featured music Fred Steiner
Production no. 4852
Original airdate May 23, 1963
Episode chronology
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"Passage on the Lady Anne" "In Praise of Pip"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

"The Bard"is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Contents

[edit] Opening narration

You've just witnessed opportunity, if not knocking, at least scratching plaintively on a closed door. Mr. Julius Moomer, a would-be writer who, if talent came twenty-five cents a pound, would be worth less than car fare. But, in a moment, Mr. Moomer, through the offices of some black magic, is about to embark on a brand-new career. And although he may never get a writing credit on the Twilight Zone, he's to become an integral character in it.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Closing narration

Mr. Julius Moomer, a streetcar conductor with delusions of authorship. And if the tale just told seems a little tall, remember a thing called poetic license--and another thing called the Twilight Zone.

[edit] Trivia

  • 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

[edit] External links

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