"To Serve Man", Poll and discussion thread

Visiting extraterrestrials promise to serve humanity. With Lloyd Bochner, Richard Kiel.
Originally aired March 2, 1962.

Full video of the episode on CBS.com

This is the preferred thread for any and all of your "To Serve Man" posts--facts, opinions, questions, speculations, and whatever else you can think of.* You can also give your opinion of the episode on a 1 to 10 scale, in the poll shown above.

Let the discussion begin!

*More specific instructions and suggestions about posting questions/comments related to this episode are located here.

Hank wrote: "Although I love the opening narration and end of 'To Serve Man,' the romantic in me wants Chambers to escape and end up with Pat. Oh well...."

Take heart, Hank. Remember what Chambers says at the end about "all of us." Undoubtedly there are romantic dinner plans for two in the works for him and Patty de Foie Gras. (I'll bet you never knew her full name before!)

One of my favorites - I wasn't expecting the ending...

A good episode, very entertaining, but overrated in my opinion. Not a great episode for me, just a good episode with a great ending. I haven't settled on a number, but I'll probably be giving it a 7.

To be fair, I really don't like the main actor's voice in narration - Rod Serling should have opened the show, too.

loved this story. just goes to show that if it's too good to be true, it probably is.
when you say TZ to alot, they will probably mention this episode.

AHEAD OF HIS TIME with this episode. How many stories, movies, and TV shows have been made with similar storylines or adaptations from this episode. Do we TRUST these creatures from outerspace just because they're nice to us right now?

I still get a kick out of the Simpson's spoof on this one where they have the book and it says "How to cook Humans" and they blow off some 'space dust' and it says "how to cook for humans"...but no, wait! still MORE space dust... "how to cook forty humans" STILL NOT DONE YET... "how to cook FOR forty humans"... Just when you think they're done, they keep it going and still make you laugh.

Not over-rated, just too short. I would have liked this one to be an hour with a little more behind the scenes drama leading up to the final scene.

A great episode. I saw it in middle school (we had to read the story first), didn't realize it was a Zone episode back then, just thought it was a cool story, with a doozy of an ending. I still love it.

My only complaint is that in the UN scene, the Kanamit looks stoned or something.

Maybe he had a rough flight!

Maybe he had a rough flight!

Maybe he had to eat Kanamit airline food. He said, "I'd like to eat a little Italian." So he was brought a small plate of warmed-over spaghetti, when in reality he was thinking of Danny DeVito.

I think this is one of the best twist endings of the Zone.

Because of this it definitely loses its punch with subsequent viewings, but it's Classic Zone ya can't mess with that. "8"

Leen

IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!

TSM is a cool episode, the kanamit's are great looking aliens. The twist ending is one of TZ's most famous. I do not remember this episode being discussed that much,however.

9 zones

This is an inside joke, but....

NO COMMENT!

This is an excellent episode that I just don't care for for some reason. Does have one of the best TZ endings. Am still bothered by the fact that the Kanamit leaves a cookbook at the UN meeting - a little warped Kanamit humor, perhaps?
Love the Soviet leader - so stereotypical of our view of the Russians at that time.

http://www.daviddarling.info/images/ToServeMan2.jpg

I think I can break my silence now.... .....I like it more than I dislike it, but have often thought that it's been overhyped and overrated.

Well, that makes the cheese a bit more binding.

This isn't just some Kentucky windage... I give this episode a 10. Just a classic, classic Zone.

Also, any episode that makes its way onto the Simpsons should get "bonus points" just for doing that. There's this one, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Little Girl Lost, It's a Good Life aaaaaand...anybody know of any others????

"The Odyssey Of Flight 33" is my favorite Kentucky windage episode.

"Living Doll" (Krusty doll instead of Talky Tina) and "A Kind of a Stopwatch" (Bart and Milhouse instead of McNulty) have also had the "Treehouse of Horror" treatment. It has also been argued that "The Genesis Tub," in which a civilization of microscopic humans evolves from Lisa's dislodged baby tooth, is a parody of "The Little People." It's not that obvious a connection, though. Frankly, I don't feel "To Serve Man" is the clear inspiration for the Simpsons segment "Hungry Are the Damned" either.

You're joking, right Dan? "How to Cook Humans"?

I admit this is a compelling argument. My point is that I don't see "To Serve Man" as a clear inspiration, only a possible one that's not as obvious as some of those that followed, especially the parody on "It's a Good Life." To put it another way, when I saw "Hungry Are the Damned," I didn't make the TZ connection. Maybe that's just my problem, and I respect the opinion of anyone who thinks the connection is there.

On the other hand, when I first saw the original V miniseries, I immediately thought of "To Serve Man" to the extent that V might be argued as plagiarism.

SPOILER

OBVIOUSLY one of my favorites, despite the usual lapses in logic.
Beside those mentioned here and in Zicree's book:

Technically, the kanamit tells the truth when he is polygraph-tested:
"I hope that the people of Earth will understand and believe,
when I tell you that our mission upon this planet is simply this ..."

He could follow that with just about anything and still not be lying.
He really does hope that. Everything else is meaningless.

Are there any more questions? Or is that looking a gift horse in the mouth?
And how could we know how to apply a lie detector to an alien physiology?

Cartoon commandeers kanamit's cranium! Click:

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=18548

Absolute favorite TZ ever. Never saw the ending coming, unlike TEAL. Plus, gotta love that Kannamit's goatee.

10/10

Can't say enough good things about this one, Great story, fine acting & one of if not the best twist ending of the series. Theres also one very interesting coincidence regarding this episode. It's original airdate was 3-02-62 & it starred Richard Kiel who was the tallest actor to ever appear on TZ. On that same night Philadelphia Warriors player Wilt Chamberlain who was the tallest NBA player at the time scored 100 points in a single game against the New York Knicks in Hershey PA.

Fascinating, Major! You have a wonderful knack for finding correlation among trivia that would be interesting even as individual items.

Just to clarify, though, there was no ABA at the time. It operated from 1967 to 1976. One of its original teams was the New Jersey Americans, who played in the Teaneck Armory, which is across the street from my hometown of Bergenfield. I spent the first 18 months of my life living in a Bergenfield apartment across the street from the Armory. I attended five Americans games and might have gone to more had I not spent most of that season away at Cornell.

After one season, the Americans moved to Long Island and became the New York Nets. When the ABA folded in 1976, the Nets and three other teams joined the NBA, and a year later the Nets were back in New Jersey.

Tying all of this together, Wilt Chamberlain played with the Harlem Globetrotters for a year before joining the NBA because of pro eligibility problems. My parents took me to see him and the Globetrotters when they appeared at the Teaneck Armory.

Dan, Thank you for the correction. I was thinking that the ABA was around at that time but I was no doubt incorrect.

You're welcome. It helped that I had a personal interest in the ABA. Actually, I have vague recollections that another rival league was trying to make inroads in the early 1960s but folded quickly. You might be thinking of that. If I come across anything relevant, I'll post it.

Speaking of Wilt...I remember reading his auto-biography as a kid and loved it. He was always one of my favorite athletes. He was a very interesting guy, with some very interesting and offbeat opinions. And always very engaging and charismatic in interviews.

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0111064/wilt.jpg

Well, he's on a spaceship now, along with the rest of us...

I'm not sure what I'll remember more about Wilt: his 100-point game, or his claim to have bedded 20,000 women.

What I remember most about Wilt is that he was a Philly native; he went to Overbrook HS in the city.

He used to say "Nobody roots for Goliath" about people who didn't like him.

When he died, I saw a tribute cartoon where, instead of walking through the pearly gates, he was stepping over them.

For Kan winning my caption game. His favorite scene.

http://img95.echo.cx/img95/2312/kan3gt.jpg

Thanx, Leen! Framed and everything! Such an honest face!

Hey no problem. Besides, I like tall men

Maybe that's my problem, I'm only 5'7"

Those eyes^^. Looks like food poisoning to me.

Maybe TOE-maine poisoning?