Movies - TV
Rod Serling Accidentally Plagiarized The Twilight Zone’s First Episode
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
After getting inspired by sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, Rod Sterling wrote the pilot episode of "The Twilight Zone," which happened to look exactly like one of Bradbury’s tales.
It became clear to Bradbury that Sterling may have unwittingly plagiarized him when he was invited to watch the pilot "Where Is Everybody" and found it a take on his own story.
Bradbury said, “The first program of ‘The Twilight Zone’ is based on a story from ‘The Martian Chronicles.’ [...] Rod called me on the phone and said, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’”
According to Bradbury, Serling’s wife Carol showed the similarities to Serling. Then, Serling told Bradbury, “My God, I realized that inadvertently I’d stolen part of your idea.’”
Thankfully, Serling wanted to do the honorable thing and give credit where credit was due. It seems that Serling didn’t want to rip off any ideas or claim credit for himself.
Serling offered to purchase the rights to Bradbury’s story. However, Bradbury refused, decided that the acknowledgement was enough, and offered Serling vindication instead.