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Twilight Zone Marathon

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Twilight Zone Marathon Empty Twilight Zone Marathon

Post  BoG Fri Jan 02, 2015 11:39 pm

The Syfy Channel (then the Sci-Fi Channel) began the now-famous TZ marathon during New Years in 1995;
it also has marathons on the July 4th holiday. These are long, about 40 hours.

Here's a reminisce by an IMDb member of older marathons, before SyFy started theirs:

tzveteran wrote:Haven't been on IMDB to post in years but watch most TZ marathons over the years on SyFy. Thought I would throw out some information in case you didnt know, partly in response to an earlier post asking how long the Marathon has been on SyFy (other poster answered).

The very first Twilight Zone Marathon was broadcast on KTLA channel 5 out of Los Angeles on Thanksgiving Day 1979. It ran from 9am to 4 or 5 pm that day. It all started at KTLA and ran every Thanksgiving until the early 90's, when the then 'SciFi channel' took over rights to the show. On July 4, 1982, KTLA also began airing a '4th of July' marathon every year, opposite it's Thanksgiving Marathon. All of that ended in the early 90's with SciFi.

I first started watching the show in the summer of 1978. I do not recall when KTLA started broadcasting reruns, it may have been years before 1978, but I was 11 years old that summer when I first saw it and Ill never forget it. KTLA would show episodes every day at noon and 12:30, back to back half hour episodes. Bonanza was always on at 11am before it. Then, Love American Style would come on after TZ. They would also show two episodes at midnight and 12:30 am. This is when I first saw it. The first episode I saw was "Where is Everybody" at midnight, and then believe it or not "The Bewitchin' Pool" at 12:30, the first and last of the series back to back. I was hooked from then on. I was pretty much obesessed with the series over the next decade plus. In the early 80's, Marc Scott Zicree published "The Twilight Zone Companion" which many or most of you may already know about, but it is the Bible of the show and a must-read for any fan, you will learn a lot about it.

On Thanksgiving 1983, KTLA broadcast the first hour-long episodes, not seen since originally broadcast (to my knowledge) and it was a big deal to those of us who were bent on seeing every episode (long before they were released on VHS and DVD). A year later (Thanksgiving 1984), KTLA broadcast "Miniature" with the dollhouse scenes colorized, along with "Sounds and Silences" and "A Short Drink...", all of which had been out of syndication due to legal reasons since original broadcast. In the late 80's/early 90's, KTLA finally broadcast "The Gift", "The Encounter" and "An Occurrance at Owl Creek Bridge", the last hold-outs and had not been broadcast in decades due to legal issues.

During the 90's, Sci-Fi owned the rights to the show and it was not seen on KTLA again until I believe Thanksgiving 2009 or 2010. Somehow, KTLA regained rights, enough to show a marathon on Thanksgiving again, which was great since it all started there. Other TV stations across the nation had copied KTLA over the years following 1979's premire marathon, but KTLA pioneered the concept.

In the past, on SyFy, the marathons were good as they are now, although heavily edited for commercials. As some of you may recall the annoying commercials they used to show during and between episodes were like nails on chalkboard. Unbearable.
BoG
BoG
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