Where Else Would It Be Christmas In July? The Twilight Zone! A Review of “Night of the Meek”

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By William Kozy

And what is your wish today? How about the answer to which episode came in 17th place in my survey asking, “What is your favorite Twilight Zone episode?” Well the softies amongst you really came to bat for this one, for, ’twas THE NIGHT OF THE MEEK, which gathered 124 votes from Facebook fans of “The Twilight Zone.”

The title is based upon the Biblical quote of Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5 also blesses the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, those who are pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for righteousness. In the episode, Mr. Corwin, is a department store Santa Claus who helps many people, including a group of homeless men, and Corwin himself is blessed because he has the opportunity to give to others. Though “Twilight Zone” had many guest writers throughout the years, Rod Serling wrote ‘The Night of the Meek.’

It originally aired on December 23, 1960 on CBS. This episode takes place on December 24, 1960.

It’s Christmas Eve and the camera eases down over a crowd of shoppers in a department store and in particular The North Pole, where Corwin’s Santa is conspicuously absent from his post. Where is he? Mr. Dundee, the store manager assures concerned parents that Santa will be back shortly. Where is he though? Cut to:

Henry Corwin, played by Art Carney, in one of the better lead actor portrayals of the series, is that department store’s Santa, and he’s stinking drunk in Jack’s Place, a neighborhood bar. He looks grimy, and his suit is baggy and worn-out. He has just spent the last of his money on a sandwich and six drinks at the bar. “You owe me $3.80 for six drinks and a sandwich” demands the bartender before giving him the heave Ho Ho Ho. (You couldn’t even get a dish of beer nuts nowadays for that amount.)

That name, Henry Corwin, by the way, is Rod serling’s homage to one of his idols, radio pioneer Norman Corwin who as a writer and producer of radio dramas was also noted for using “light entertainment” to tackle heavy issues.

Carney’s drunk slur is spot on as he asks, “Why do you suppose there isn’t really a Santa Claus?” Bruce the bartender is “filling in for Jack”, a detail that at first we’re not sure we needed to know or hear. But it’s a nicely added brushstroke in the writing because that little detail when we think on it, provides perhaps a clue as to why Bruce is so surly. Was he called in at the last second to fill in, disturbing whatever plans he had? It’s Christmas Eve after all, so of course we might assume he had a better place to be? Anyway, Bruce is not the friendly type of bartender Corwin can philosophize with over such questions. Bruce even misspells Merry as ‘Mery’ on the mirror behind his bar. It’s as though he has so little merriment in himself he can’t even spell it.

Bruce has told Corwin he owes the $3.80 and while Bruce is on the phone with his back to Corwin, he sees, just in time, Santa reaching for the bottle of holiday cheer. Bruce throws him out.

Stumbling outside, snow begins to drift down softly. Corwin pauses at a lamppost and is approached by two tenement kids pleading for toys, a Christmas dinner and “a job for my daddy”. He and the children weep, and the camera pans to Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and scarf:

OPENING NARRATION:

“This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of a department store Santa Claus in a road company version of ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ But in just a moment, Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole, which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found in…The Twilight Zone.”

Corwin arrives at the department store. He’s an hour late, and still obviously drunk. The manager, Dundee threatens him to get back to work. Corwin falls down drunk and one kid says, “Look Mom, Santa is loaded!”
Corwin has this comedic exchange with a privileged boy at the store:
Henry Corwin: What’s your name, little boy?
Kid: Percival Smithers.
Henry Corwin: What do you want for Christmas, Percival?
Kid: A new first name.

When customers complain, Dundee fires Corwin and orders him off to leave the premises. It is then that Art Carney unleashes an Emmy-worthy monologue, orating drunkenly as the children and mothers look on: “As to my drinking, this is indefensible and you have my abject apologies. I find of late that I have very little choice in the matter of expressing emotions.

He continues, “I can either drink, or I can weep, and drinking is so much more subtle. But as for my insubordination, I was not rude to that woman. Someone should remind her that Christmas is more than barging up and down department store aisles and pushing people out of the way. Someone has to tell her that Christmas is another thing finer than that. Richer, finer, truer, and it should come with patience and love, charity, compassion. That’s what I would have told her if you’d given me the chance. I don’t know how to tell you, Mr. Dundee. I don’t know at all. All I know is that I’m an aging, purposeless, relic of another time, and I live in a dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people, where the only thing that comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve is more poverty. Do you know another reason why I drink, Mr. Dundee? So that when I walk down the tenements, I can really think it’s the North Pole, and the children are elves, and that I’m really Santa Claus bringing a bag of wondrous gifts for all of them. I just wish, Mr. Dundee, on one Christmas, only one, that I could see some of the hopeless ones and the dreamless ones. Just on one Christmas, I’d like to see the meek inherit the Earth. And that’s why I drink, Mr. Dundee, and that’s why I weep.”

Still in his Santa outfit, Corwin returns to the bar but is refused re-entry by Bruce, as revelers inside either giggle or lie with their heads down on the bar, drunk asleep.

Stumbling into an alley, he hears sleigh bells. A cat knocks down a large burlap bag full of empty cans, but when Corwin hears the bells again he looks back down at the bag, and this time it is filled with gift-wrapped packages. He starts running around with the sack, distributing the spoils to passing children and a derelict as he exhorts gleefully “Hey Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas Everybody!” He arrives at the Delancey Street Mission House where Sister Florence is playing the organ for the down-on-their-luck denizens as they sing carols. He starts giving presents away, realizing that every present he pulls out of the sack is something that is needed very much by the person he is giving it to. Whatever the person asks for, magically it is what Corwin pulls out, whether a coat or a walking cane. Corwin hands out a gift to one old fellow in particular, saying “Here ya go Burt” as he gives him a pipe and smoking jacket. The actor playing that part was actually named Burt–old time character actor Burt Mustin who played one of the residents in the old age home in the “Kick the Can” episode from the third season.

The nun gets flustered by the attention Corwin is receiving and so she runs out to summon a police officer. In then comes Officer Flaherty, and he arrests Corwin for possessing stolen property from the department store where he worked. Down at the police station, Mr. Dundee comes in, alerted by the police, and Dundee actually seems delighted that he will be able to send Corwin, that “moth-eaten Robin Hood”, to prison. Dundee reaches into the bag fully expecting to retrieve some department store merchandise (“wholesale theft of thousands of dollars worth of goods”) but instead all he pulls out are empty cans and an actual alley cat. The magic bag knows when it’s best to hold back in order to help Corwin! Or as Corwin puts it, “This bag doesn’t know whether to give out gifts or garbage”. Like the creep he is, Dundee starts calling Flaherty an incompetent, but the policeman has taken kindly to Corwin saying, “like Corwin says, we’re dealing with the supernatural here”.

Corwin tries telling Dundee that it’s a miracle of a bag, but Dundee will have none of it. In fact Dundee challenges Corwin to produce something very specific that he asks for and he tells Corwin “Oh, I suppose a bottle of cherry brandy. Vintage 1902.” Corwin says “That’s a good year” (he would know after all), and he pulls out that exact libation. Dundee is astonished, and Corwin is set free.

Corwin continues giving out gifts throughout the evening, until the clock strikes midnight. The bag is empty. Corwin’s binge-giving has come to an end and he’s exhausted but pleasingly so, as he comes to a rest on the steps of the Mission House. Burt Mustin comes and sits beside him. Though he’s listed in the credits as “Old Man”, the character is referred to as Burt twice in the show! Anyway, Burt observes that Corwin hadn’t received a gift for himself, “nothing for yourself, not a thing”. Corwin responds that “I think I’d wish I could do this every year”.

They part ways, and Corwin walks along, returning to the alley where he first encountered the bag. Suddenly a sleigh and four reindeer appear, almost as though waiting for him. And then a very perky little elf (played by an adolescent girl) pops out from behind the garbage cans and tells Corwin that they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them. Realizing that his wish has come true and he is now the real Santa Claus, Corwin sits in the sleigh overjoyed at his newfound role in life and the sleigh takes off into the air, into the night.

We rejoin Flaherty and Dundee as they emerge from the precinct, having apparently dispelled any ill will, thanks in part to the brandy. The two drunk men look upward suddenly prompted by the sound of Santa Corwin’s sleigh bells. Flaherty sees Corwin “big as life, in a sleigh with reindeer, sittin’ next to an elf”, flying away through the sky.
Dundee invites Flaherty to his home where he says they will have some hot coffee with brandy, “…and we’ll thank God for miracles, Flaherty…”

CLOSING NARRATION:

“A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There’s a wondrous magic to Christmas, and there’s a special power reserved for little people. In short, there’s nothing mightier than the meek, and a merry Christmas to each and all.”

Rod Serling’s original closing narration, as heard on December 23, 1960, ended with the words, “…and a Merry Christmas to each and all.” The phrase was later excised in the 1980s from reruns and home VHS videos and the 5-DVD set The Twilight Zone: The Definitive Edition. It was put back in for the Blu-ray release, and also the streaming version on Netflix.

TRIVIA:

“Once in a while, Rod would have an enthusiasm”, Twilight Zone producer Buck Houghton recalls. “He’d say to himself or to me or to Carol or whomever, that he particularly liked somebody. There was a Christmas show that we did just because he wanted to see Art Carney play Santa Claus.”
This apparently set off a slew of Art Carney as Santa Claus performances: He played Santa Claus in the TV film The Night They Saved Christmas (1984); Art Carney portrayed Santa Claus twice in December 1970: in CBS’ hour-long Muppet special and in “The Great Santa Claus Switch” also on CBS, and in ABC’s December 1984 television film, “The Night They Saved Christmas.”

By November 1960, the second season of The Twilight Zone had already broadcast five episodes and finished filming sixteen. However, the episodes cost about $65,000 each, going over budget. Because of these cost overruns, six consecutive episodes were videotaped and kinescoped to 16-millimeter film for TV broadcast and future syndicated rebroadcasts. “The Night of the Meek” was the 2nd of those six episodes. The show saved a total on editing and cinematography costs of only $30,000 for all six episodes which was not enough to justify the loss of visual quality, resulting in the look of stagey live TV drama broadcasts or soap operas of that time.

The experiment was deemed a failure, and they never tried it again. Even though the six episodes were recorded consecutively, from November through mid-December, their broadcast dates were not consecutive as shot. The first one that was shot, “The Lateness of the Hour”, was also the first one seen– on December 2, 1960 as episode 8; the second one shot, “Static”, was the 5th one to air–shown on March 10, 1961 as episode 20; the third one shot, “The Whole Truth”, was also the third to be broadcast appearing on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; “Night of the Meek” as mentioned was the fourth shot and 2nd shown; the fifth, “Twenty Two”, the 5th one shot was aired also 5th–on February 10, 1961 as episode 17; and the last one shot, “Long Distance Call”, was transmitted lastly on March 31, 1961 as episode 22.

A stage musical based on this episode was written by lyricist/librettist Patrick Cook and composer Frederick Freyer; it has not been produced because of rights issues. The two creators presented work from this stage musical adaptation back in 2002, at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York as part of a larger showcase of new stage works. That showcase also included work from the upcoming musical Avenue Q by Bobby Lopez, which of course became a big Broadway hit, starring my cousin’s husband’s niece Stephanie D’Abruzzo!

Taped just three weeks before Christmas, “Night of the Meek” made a special impression on the cast and crew, as production assistant Lillian Gallo, today a producer, recalls, “There were more children performing on that show as extras than on the other tape shows, and I remember excitement and their joy. Sometimes, it was difficult for them to contain themselves during the times that you have to be quiet during the show. There was a different atmosphere throughout that shooting schedule. This isn’t to say that “Night of the Meek” pleased everybody. One viewer was so enraged at the blasphemy of presenting a drunk as Santa Claus that he sent outraged letters to Serling, the network, and several newspapers.”

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m going to rate this one a 6.8, maybe a 7 if I’m feeling the Christmas Spirit.

And now for this episode’s anagram. Since Mr. Corwin makes a choice between drunkenness and the Christmas spirit…”Serling’s Night of the Meek” becomes the anagram: “Keg High or Elf Sentiments”

Or if you prefer:

“Serling’s The Night of the Meek” = “Keg Hero Felt High Sentiments”, or “Forge the Knightliness Theme”

Watch “NIGHT OF THE MEEK” here for FREE.

 

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