To Serve Man (The Twilight Zone)

"To Serve Man" is episode 89 of the anthology series The Twilight Zone.^[1]^[2]^[3] It originally aired on March 2, 1962 on CBS.

The story is based on the 1950 short story "To Serve Man", written by Damon Knight.^[4] 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 an actor breaks the fourth wall and addresses the viewing audience at the episode's end. The episode, along with the line, "It's a cookbook!," have become elements in pop culture.

Plot summary

As the episode opens, Michael Chambers is seen lying uncomfortably on a cot in a spartan interior. A voice instructs 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 9-foot (2.7 m)-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, and nuclear weapons are rendered harmless. The aliens even change 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 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 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. While being held back by a Kanamit guard, Patty cries: "Mr. Chambers, 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 blocks him, the stairs retract, and the ship immediately lifts off.

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".

Cast

Lloyd Bochner as Michael Chambers
Richard Kiel as The Kanamits
Susan Cummings as Patty
Joseph Ruskin as Kanamit voice (uncredited)
Hardie Albright as Secretary General
Theodore Marcuse as Citizen Gregori
Bartlett Robinson as Colonel #1
Carleton Young as Colonel #2 (as Carlton Young)
Nelson Olmsted as Scientist
Robert Tafur as Señor Valdes
Lomax Study as Leveque
Jerry Fujikawa as Japanese Delegate (as J.H. Fujikawa)

Quotations

Opening narration

Respectfully submitted for your perusal – a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.

Closing narration

The recollections of one Michael Chambers with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of man. The cycle of going from dust to dessert. The metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone's soup. It's tonight's bill of fare from The Twilight Zone.

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 the MGM film Forbidden Planet (1956). The ship used for the episode is also seen on the episode "Third from the Sun", and shots of the ship or stairway also appear in the episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby", "The Invaders", and "Death Ship".^{[citation needed]}

Stock footage from the film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) was also used in the episode for the shots of the Kanamit spaceship arriving in New York City (although landmarks of Washington, DC, are seen).^{[citation needed]}

Critical response

Marc Scott Zicree, writing in The Twilight Zone Companion, has criticized the weakness of a cardinal plot point in the script of "To Serve Man":

"In the show ... a staff of cryptographers led by [Michael Chambers] 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 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 the following scene:^{[citation needed]}

(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 at No. 11 on its "100 Greatest Episodes of All Time" list^[5] and in 2013 ranked the ending as the "Greatest Twist of All Time."^[6] In 2009, Time listed the episode among the "Top 10 Twilight Zone Episodes."^[7]

Cultural influence

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".^[8]

The plot device of the alien cookbook is parodied in the segment "Hungry Are the Damned" on The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror" (1990).

During the climactic scenes of The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991), Lloyd Bochner spoofs his own performance in the Twilight Zone episode, repeating his "It's a cookbook!" line while holding a book entitled To Serve Man.

During the lemurs discussion in the downed airplane in Madagascar (2005), Julien, king of the lemurs mentions for as long as anyone could remember, they have been living in fear from the dreaded foosa. At the word foosa, the lemurs go berserk, thinking they are under attack, during which a lemur raises a book with the title, "To Serve Lemur" shouting desperately "It's a cookbook, it's a cookbook!" ^[9]

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
^ Belasco, Warren James (2006). Meals to come: a history of the future of food. University of California Press. p. 358. ISBN 0-520-24151-7.
^ TV Guide Guide to TV. Barnes & Noble. 2004. p. 667. ISBN 0-7607-5634-1.
^ Roush, Matt (November 4–10, 2013). "Eyes on Surprise! The 60 Most Startling Twists of All Time". TV Guide Magazine. 61 (3187). TV Guide: 22–23. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
^ Cruz, Gilbert (2 October 2009). "Top 10 Twilight Zone Episodes". Time Inc. Retrieved March 6, 2013.
^ "Inside the black budget". The New York Times. 1 April 2008.
^ Madagascar (2005 film)

External links

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

[2] DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0

[3] Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

[4] Belasco, Warren James (2006). Meals to come: a history of the future of food. University of California Press. p. 358. ISBN 0-520-24151-7.

[5] TV Guide Guide to TV. Barnes & Noble. 2004. p. 667. ISBN 0-7607-5634-1.

[6] Roush, Matt (November 4–10, 2013). "Eyes on Surprise! The 60 Most Startling Twists of All Time". TV Guide Magazine. 61 (3187). TV Guide: 22–23. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

[7] Cruz, Gilbert (2 October 2009). "Top 10 Twilight Zone Episodes". Time Inc. Retrieved March 6, 2013.

[8] "Inside the black budget". The New York Times. 1 April 2008.

[9] Madagascar (2005 film)

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v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"