Remembering When Twilight Zone's Rod Serling Lent His Voice To a PSA Against Drunk Driving

Despite featuring its fair share of alcoholic characters—Al Denton, Jerry Etherson, and Henry Corwin all come to mind—The Twilight Zone never contained a moral lesson in why one should not get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle while drunk.

Perhaps that's why series creator and host Rod Serling agreed to lend his voice to a 1962 campaign against drunk driving around the holidays spearheaded by New York's Department of Motor Vehicles.

While now a deeply-ingrained taboo in public society all over the world, the act of operating heavy machinery under the influence of alcohol was—crazy as it may seem—both a regular and tolerated occurrence in the '60s.

At the time, "drunk driving was considered a 'folk crime' and almost a rite of passage for young men," according to the Russman & Phinney Law blog. "Although the laws had harsh penalties, they were rarely applied. Upon arraignment, the defendant would ask for a jury trial, where they were almost always acquitted."

It wasn't until 1972 that formal DUI laws were enacted across the United States. Instead of placing the onus on law enforcement to prove beyond a doubt that someone's abilities were impaired by a mind-altering substance, a person could now be formally arrested and convicted if they were found (via breathalyzer) to be driving with an alcohol content above the legal limit.

That time Rod Serling lent his voice to a PSA against drunk driving

The end goal of the above-mentioned campaign was to dissuade sloshed individuals from endangering others by getting on the road, but the rationale behind it wasn't particularly strict. In fact, it comes off as more of a casual recommendation than a serious plea to avoid vehicular manslaughter at all costs.

"The fellow who is high must learn to recognize—while in his state of intoxication—that his judgement and reflexes are impaired no matter how good he feels," wrote Robert Shelford of the New York public information office (via Martin Grams Jr.'s 2008 book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic). "He must recognize that if he is going to drive, despite his impairment, he must compensate for that impairment by being extra cautious, rather than yielding to reckless feelings of joy."

Yikes.

To get the message across, Shelford approached Serling (already a household presence after three seasons of The Twilight Zone) with the idea of the "Two Drink Twilight Zone," which presumably meant that driving after two or more drinks was a risky proposition. Since Serling wasn't able to fly to New York to film the spot in person, he sent along a 16-second tape of the following message:

"This is Rod Serling. The Twilight Zone is a world of fantasy—occasionally a pleasant world. But for drivers, the alcohol Twilight Zone is a world of danger. Don't kid yourself. You're not a better driver with a couple of drinks—you're a menace. The Two Drink Twilight Zone is a danger zone—keep out."

Strangely, the spot does not seem to exist anywhere online. With that said, there are two other videos of Rod Serling PSAs—one from 1962 talks about the danger of accidentally starting wildfires with lit cigarettes and another from 1974 decrying the scourge of alcoholism.

Classic episodes of The Twilight Zone air regularly on SYFY. Click here for complete scheduling info!