# Was Twilight Zone the first tv series to have NON-happy endings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 25, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616 "2019-07-25T15:27:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/1 "2019-07-25T15:27:19Z")
Been watching TZ lately while on breaks at work. It got me to thinking, considering the time this show came out, it seems rather dark. Lots of episodes have no resolution. (Just finished "wished it into the cornfield kid. Nobody ever had the guts to bash that kid in the head) So… were they pretty much ground breakers on that front? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/2 "2019-07-25T15:33:23Z")
**Alfred Hitchcock Presents.** First aired in 1955. Lotsa dead folks. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/3 "2019-07-25T16:27:05Z")
Hell, the Honeymooners didn’t even have happy endings all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/4 "2019-07-25T16:36:18Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Hell, the Honeymooners didn’t even have happy endings all the time. But did they ever end up with the earth drifting away from the sun, growing ever colder, until all life on earth was extinguished? Did the four of them find out that they were really toy dolls in a box? Did Ralph make a deal with the devil to live forever, and then get sentenced to life imprisonment? Were they all suddenly transported to a strange land where a small boy dictated their every move, and mere bad thought was enough to get you sent to the cornfield? Was Ed Norton really Santa Claus? Wait, that last one isn’t actually a downer. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/5 "2019-07-25T16:38:10Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > But did they ever end up with the earth drifting away from the sun, growing ever colder, until all life on earth was extinguished? Did the four of them find out that they were really toy dolls in a box? Was Ed Norton really Santa Claus? Wait, that last one isn’t actually a downer. Well no, but plenty of non-happy endings. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/6 "2019-07-25T16:39:03Z")
I haven’t actually seen the TV version, but some of the episodes of the radio version of _Gunsmoke_ had non-happy, somber endings; and I believe some of the radio episodes were adapted for TV. Speaking of radio, old-time radio had plenty of horror/dark fantasy series that were in much the same vein as _The Twilight Zone_, and “non-happy” endings were common there. ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/7 "2019-07-25T18:54:37Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **Alfred Hitchcock Presents.** First aired in 1955. Lotsa dead folks. But usually at the end of the show Mr. Hitchcock would inform us that the bad guys/girls got their comeuppance. I guess that’s not so much a “happy ending” as a “justice is served,” but he didn’t leave you with a story that someone got away with something. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/8 "2019-07-25T20:02:56Z")
> [@Lare](#): > > But usually at the end of the show Mr. Hitchcock would inform us that the bad guys/girls got their comeuppance. I guess that’s not so much a “happy ending” as a “justice is served,” but he didn’t leave you with a story that someone got away with something. I think that’s because of the censorship code of the time (which may have been relaxed by the time of The Twilight Zone), that forbade allowing criminals to get away with their actions. Hitchcock was well acquainted with that–it’s why he had to change a major plot point in _Rebecca_ from the novel so that Maxim de Winter hadn’t shot Rebecca dead in a moment of rage, but had been in a confrontation with her when he approached her threateningly, she backed up, slipped, hit her head and died instantly. I can understand why they changed it, but it leaves a pretty major plot hole–if she’d died accidentally of a fall instead of being shot, why would he have gone to all that trouble to cover it up instead of just saying, “I came to the boathouse and found her like this–she must have fallen while getting ready to go out for a sail.” Instead, he went to extremes to cover it up and made himself look guilty when he wasn’t! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/9 "2019-07-25T20:52:05Z")
There were quite a few early thriller or SF anthology shows that fit the bill. Take _[Lights Out](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041037/)_. Originally a radio series that was turned into a TV serial intermittently ran from 1946 to 1952. Sample [episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV2FBw4uido). _[One Step Beyond](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052442/)_ started the same time as TZ. Sample [episode](https://youtu.be/uROKhipxCgM?list=PLzR7zr3cWSICI-f-k4LD3Z2G5LicKhCNx). A short lived SF series was _[Out There](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_There_(1951_TV_series))_ starting in 1951. Adapted some stories from top notch writers. Happy endings? Pfft. A real odd duck: _[The Veil](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255763/)_ hosted by Boris Karloff. Episodes were taped starting in 1958 but they weren’t made available until the 90s. Not to be confused with his later series _Thriller_. I’m racking my brain trying to remember another series that MeTV or some such was playing a while back. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/10 "2019-07-25T21:17:11Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Speaking of radio, old-time radio had plenty of horror/dark fantasy series that were in much the same vein as _The Twilight Zone_, and “non-happy” endings were common there. One of the last two Old-Time Radio (OTR) shows was [_Suspense_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspense_(radio_drama)), which focused on suspense thrillers. The show ran more than twenty years, from June 17, 1942 to September 30, 1962. It was revived with new scripts for Sirius XM Radio for a while, but it never had a TV spinoff. Side note: The _other_ last OTR show was [_Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yours_Truly,_Johnny_Dollar), which was “the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account – America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator.” It also ran for over a decade, from February 18, 1949 to September 30, 1962, and it also never had a TV spinoff. And, yes, September 30, 1962, at 7:00 PM Eastern, when the last episode of _Suspense_ ended, is the end of the Golden Age of Radio or Old-Time Radio. There were OTR shows made after that, like [_CBS Radio Mystery Theater_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_Radio_Mystery_Theater), but they were nostalgia efforts done over a decade after the fact (1974-1982, in this case) and not part of the cohesive OTR era which stretched unbroken from the 1920s to 1962. _A Prairie Home Companion_ was created as a nostalgia piece in that mold, and is by far the most successful unless one of the podcasts, like _[Welcome to Night Vale](http://www.welcometonightvale.com/)_, has an exceptionally long and well-regarded life. [Download _Suspense_ episodes](https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Suspense_Singles) [Download _Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar_ episodes](https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Certified_Yours_Truly_Johnny_Dollar) [Download _CBS Radio Mystery Theater_ episodes](https://archive.org/details/cbs_radio_mystery_theater) ---
**Author:** ![Egnu\_Cledge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@Egnu\_Cledge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egnu_Cledge)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/11 "2019-07-25T22:21:26Z")
In 1950, years before he shot to fame on _Star Trek_, Deforest Kelley stuck his head in an oven and turned on the gas. On a TV show. In what shockingly turned out to be its only episode, _[Suicide Theatre](https://youtu.be/2E9I7VqNrH4)_ (the European spelling lets you know it’s art) followed our young hero through a day the Biblical Job would have called “pretty shitty”. At the end of the episode Kelley attempts suicide in the aforementioned oven, but fails even at that, having been too poor to pay his gas bill. I’m unsure if further episodes would have featured new suicidal characters each week, or just Deforest Kelley trying and failing to kill himself in increasingly elaborate ways. Depending on your point of view, this was either super depressing or a _very_ dark comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/12 "2019-07-26T01:10:04Z")
> [@Egnu\_Cledge](#): > > In 1950, years before he shot to fame on _Star Trek_, Deforest Kelley stuck his head in an oven and turned on the gas. On a TV show. In what shockingly turned out to be its only episode, _[Suicide Theatre](https://youtu.be/2E9I7VqNrH4)_ (the European spelling lets you know it’s art) followed our young hero through a day the Biblical Job would have called “pretty shitty”. At the end of the episode Kelley attempts suicide in the aforementioned oven, but fails even at that, having been too poor to pay his gas bill. I’m unsure if further episodes would have featured new suicidal characters each week, or just Deforest Kelley trying and failing to kill himself in increasingly elaborate ways. > > Depending on your point of view, this was either super depressing or a _very_ dark comedy. Say it with me, everyone: _I’m dead, Jim!_ (sorry) Anyway, television and radio simply followed the tradition of folk tales with sad endings, which had perennial appeal for audiences. > [@](#): > > The earliest known printed version[24] was known as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge and may have had its origins in 17th-century French folklore. … > > The story had as its subject an “attractive, well-bred young lady”, a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to find her grandmother’s house successfully and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for the Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood ends up being asked to climb into the bed before being eaten by the wolf, where the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending. > **[Little Red Riding Hood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood#Charles_Perrault)** > > Little Red Riding Hood is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th-century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. > The story has varied considerably in different versions over the centuries, translations, and as the subject of numerous modern adaptations. Other names for the story are "Little Red Cap" or simply "Red Riding Hood". It is number 333 in the Aarne–Tho... ---
**Author:** ![Lare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Lare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lare)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/13 "2019-07-26T15:34:27Z")
There is for the wolf! ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/14 "2019-07-27T00:10:24Z")
> [@Lare](#): > > There is for the wolf! Good point! But in the telling of the tale described on that site, there’s no happy ending for the character that is the protagonist. (Of course it’s perfectly possible to write a story from the viewpoint of the carnivore that consumes the other characters, and no doubt this has been done many times.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-twilight-zone-the-first-tv-series-to-have-non-happy-endings/837616/15 "2019-07-27T00:59:52Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > I think that’s because of the censorship code of the time (which may have been relaxed by the time of The Twilight Zone), that forbade allowing criminals to get away with their actions. The very first one was like that. When they remade it for the revival, they removed the moral ending.