Rod Serling only became the on-screen host of The Twilight Zone because the network executives told him they couldn't afford to hire a professional narrator.

A closer look

Rod Serling only became the on-screen host of The Twilight Zone because the network executives told him they couldn't afford to hire a professional narrator. The man who permanently scarred the psyche of mid-century America with his cigarette-smoking, stoic deliveries literally just stepped in to save a few bucks on the production budget. It's the ultimate creative flex to write mind-bending allegories about the inherent darkness of humanity, and then realize you have to physically stand in front of the camera yourself because CBS was too cheap to pay Orson Welles. Necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case, the mother of television's most iconic creepy voiceover