To Serve Man (The Twilight Zone)

This article is about the Twilight Zone episode. For the short story by Damon Knight, see To Serve Man.

"To Serve Man"
The Twilight Zone episode
Susan Cummings and Richard Kiel in "To Serve Man".
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 89
Directed by	Richard L. Bare
Written by	Rod Serling (Based on the story To Serve Man by Damon Knight. First published in the November 1950 issue of Galaxy.)
Featured music	Stock - taken almost exclusively from Jerry Goldsmith's TZ episode scores for "Back There" and "The Invaders"
Production code	4807
Original air date	March 2, 1962
Guest stars
Lloyd Bochner: Chambers Richard Kiel: Kanamit Susan Cummings: Patty Joseph Ruskin: Kanamit Voice (uncredited)
Episode chronology
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List of Twilight Zone episodes

"To Serve Man" is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.

The story is based on the short story "To Serve Man," written by Damon Knight. The title is a play on the verb serve, which has a dual meaning of "to assist" and "to provide as a meal." The episode is one of the few instances in the series wherein the actor breaks the fourth wall and addresses the viewing audience at the episode's end.

Plot

As the episode opens, Michael Chambers is seen lying uncomfortably on a cot in a spartan interior. A voice implores him to eat. He refuses. He asks what time it is on Earth, and begins to tell the story of how he came to be here (aboard a spaceship) in flashback:

The Kanamits, a race of nine-foot-tall aliens, land on Earth. One of them addresses the United Nations, vowing that his race's motive in coming to Earth is solely to be helpful to humanity. Initially wary of the intentions of an alien race who came "quite uninvited," even skeptical international leaders begin to be persuaded of the aliens' benevolence when the Kanamits share their advanced technology, quickly putting an end to many of Earth's greatest woes, including hunger; energy becomes very cheap; nuclear weapons are rendered harmless. The aliens even morph deserts into big, blooming fields. Trust in the Kanamits seems to be justified when Patty, one of a staff of US government cryptographers led by Mr. Chambers, cracks the title of a Kanamit book the spokesman left behind at the UN. Its title, she reveals, is To Serve Man.

Soon, humans are volunteering for trips to the Kanamits' home planet, which is portrayed as a paradise. With the Cold War ended, the code-breaking staff has no real work to do, but Patty is still trying to work out the meaning of the text of To Serve Man.

The day arrives for Mr. Chambers's excursion to the Kanamits' planet. Just as he mounts the spaceship's boarding stairs, his staffer Patty appears. He waves, smiling, but she runs toward him in great agitation—and is held back by a Kanamit guard. "Mr. Chambers," Patty cries, "don't get on that ship! The rest of the book To Serve Man, it's... it's a cookbook!" Chambers tries to run back down the spaceship's stairs, but a Kanamit wrestles him into the ship, and it immediately takes off for the aliens' home planet.

Mr. Chambers is once again seen aboard the Kanamit spaceship, now saying to the audience, "How about you? You still on Earth, or on the ship with me? Really doesn't make very much difference, because sooner or later, we'll all be on the menu...all of us." The episode closes as he gives in and breaks his hunger strike; as Chambers tears at his food, Rod Serling provides a darkly humorous coda in voice-over, noting man's devolution from "dust to dessert" and from ruler of a planet to "an ingredient in someone's soup."

Production

The full-size lower portion of the Kanamits' transport spaceship is the adapted version, with retractable stairway, of the saucer-shaped United Planets Cruiser C-57D, seen in MGM's 1956 film Forbidden Planet. The ship used for the episode is also seen on the episode "Third from the Sun," and shots of the ship and/or stairway also appear in the episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby","The Invaders" and "Death Ship."

Stock footage from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still was also used in the episode for the shots of the Kanamit spaceship arriving in New York City.

Critical response

Marc Scott Zicree in The Twilight Zone Companion:

In the show ... a staff of cryptographers led by Lloyd Bochner attempts to decipher the alien language as though it were some secret code, which is utterly ludicrous. Without some sort of interplanetary Rosetta stone, deciphering an unknown language would be impossible.

Zicree also points out that the chances of the word "serve" having the same dual meaning in both English and another language, especially an alien one, are almost nil (though it is entirely possible that, as in the original story, the word's dual meaning in the English language was merely coincidental, and the word did not have the same dual meaning in the Kanamit language).

Zicree's comments have been seconded by many others, including Damon Knight, though an explanation as to how the cryptographers managed to translate the Kanamit language may be found in an early draft of Serling's teleplay, which included this scene:

(Close shot: Chambers as seen over her shoulder. His eyes narrow.)

Chambers: What's the matter, Pat? What's going on?

(Reverse angle looking toward her. Her lips tremble.)

Pat: I...I finally deciphered their language. All of it. I read their book.

(Close shot: a suspended speaker overhead. A Kanamit's metallic voice rings out.)

Kanamit's voice: Please move ahead. You're holding up our departure. Kindly move ahead.

(Cut to: Two-shot Chambers and Pat)

Chambers: Well?

Pat: Mr. Chambers...Mr. Chambers, the first page is just a collection of English words with their own translation. But the rest of the book...the rest of the book—It's a cookbook!

In 1997 TV Guide ranked the episode number 11 on its 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time list.

In popular culture

The episode has been referenced many times in popular culture; in such movies as Madagascar, The Lion King 1½, and The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear; in television shows: Angel, Futurama, Millennium, and NewsRadio; in music: Cattle Decapitation's "To Serve Man" and El-P's "How to Serve Man"; and in video games: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Warcraft III, and Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?. The Simpsons devoted an entire episode segment to it in "Treehouse of Horror" (1990), with the spoof "Hungry are the Damned."

An unofficial badge of the 509th Bomb Wing based in Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, shows a space alien with huge eyes holding a stealth bomber near its mouth. The text reads, "To Serve Man," and the caption below reads, "Gustatus Similis Pullus"—dog Latin for "Tastes Like Chicken".

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

• "To Serve Man" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com episode page