This New Year's the Sci-Fi Channel ran a Twilight Zone marathon, and I
watched Rod Serling's little gem called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple
Street" for the umpteenth time, and am compelled once more to marvel
publicly at the genius of this man. He could pack so many levels of
meaning into a brief 30 minute screenplay, and without a single special
effect in sight.

My age hadn't quite hit the double digits when TZ first aired, so I
guess I wouldn't have realized it then, but he did quite a lot of
pieces that referred in some way to the Blacklist and the McCarthy era.
And I noticed that Art Carney's character in the Santa Claus teleplay
was named "Corwin". Did he know Norman Corwin? Serling himself was
never blacklisted, was he? But clearly the issue affected him deeply.

Everyone who came up as a writer during that time was in danger
of being blacklisted or greylisted, or at minimum knew other writers
and actors who had been listed and had their careers killed. Some
actors, like Jeff Corey, didn't work again for almost 20 years. So
certainly it had a profound effect on Serling and others.

As for Corwin...yes, Rod was a big fan of Norman's work, and
cited him as a kind of writer's writer. He began trying to do
Corwin-like stuff, as did Bradbury and many other writers. Norman is
one of those writers whose work may not be known to the public as well
as it should, but writers, any writer interested in genuine quality of
language and vision...we know his work. People like Bradbury and Stan
Freberg and Charles Kuralt and others have all described themselves as
"Norman's kids" for the inspiration he has provided.

jms