The Twilight Zone: Only fiction show of the 1950s and 1960s to mention the current year?

The Twilight Zone: Only fiction show of the 1950s and 1960s to mention the current year? - Anonymous male in hat demonstrating red new years 2021 glasses while standing on street with blurred signboards on modern buildings at night time

I am extremely familiar with the television of the 1950s and 1960s. For shows that were set in the present, unlike science fiction shows where they used the year (sometime laughably close, like less than 20 years hence) to establish that it was indeed set in the future, I am pretty sure that, for example, I Love Lucy never mentioned what year it was. They did have real-life movie stars in some episodes, playing themselves and I think even mentioning films they were working on which helped establish when the show was made but not only was the year never mentioned, the current president was not either. Same thing for Andy Griffith and Leave it to Beaver, etc.

My understanding is that this was to allow reruns to be show although I had thought that reruns, at least showing them in the distant future, was not planned -- they never anticipated that more than half a century later, many of the shows from the 1950 and 60s would continue to capture audiences whose parents might not have been alive when the shows originally aired.

The single exception that I know of is The Twilight Zone. Not every episode, maybe even infrequently but definitely sometimes, the actual year was mentioned. I can even recall an episode where LBJ is mentioned and this is while he was still VP -- I suspect this was the first time that LBJ was mentioned in a work of fiction. (I believe the episode was Hocus Pocus and Frisbee.)



Best Answer

Modern era answer

No. There are literally hundreds of shows that mention the then-current year or then-current events, and reruns are not a reason to not do so. A show episode set in 2013, even if 2013 was its original airing year, is still set in 2013 when you watch it in the year 2020. People are smart enough to know that a show set in modern times does not necessarily have to be set in the current year.

Many shows, in order to directly tackle real world events, HAVE to mention the then-current year in some form, like many shows at the time (1999-2000) did for new millennium celebrations, soap operas do for new years episodes and shows like South Park and The Simpsons do on a regular basis.

1950-1960

There was indeed a much more defined seperation between fictional and reality programming at the time, and this was a seperation that was expected by audiences at the time and for decades to come. This barrier was infamously broken in the 1992 British horror mockumentary, Ghostwatch, where many people were convinced that the events taking place in the film were real and one teenager even committed suicide as a result. This was primarily because the show was broadcast on TV by the BBC, took the form of a news broadcast format and primarily featured famous real-life BBC broadcasters, and at no point called itself a 'drama' or anything like that.

The closest I can think of is A Hard Days Night, a film (not a TV series) starring the Beatles as themselves in a mockumentary style film made in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania. Their popularity and how they clashed with common British culture at the time does date this film to around about this time, if not to an exact year.




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Was The Twilight Zone in the 60s?

The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964.

What is the most controversial Twilight Zone episode?

"The Encounter" is episode 151 of the American television series The Twilight Zone. First broadcast on May 1, 1964, its racial overtones caused it to be withheld from syndication in the U.S. until 2004.

Why did Twilight Zone end in 1964?

Although the half-hour format returned in the fifth season, it was met with moderate ratings, according to SyFy. This, along with Serling spending less and less time on the show's artistic direction, made Aubrey ultimately decide to cancel the series for good.

When did The Twilight Zone end?

The original The Twilight Zone anthology series began on October 2, 1959, and ended on June 19, 1964, with five seasons and 156 episodes.



4+ hrs -Twilight Zone Radio Drama compilation 15 - Old Time Radio Science Fiction




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