Rod Serling hosts THE LIAR'S CLUB

As a young man, Rod Serling enjoyed great success as the screenwriter for various hit TV dramas (Requiem for a Heavyweight, etc.) and the creator/host of The Twilight Zone. But his later years were a struggle. His  other anthology series The Night Gallery was kind of a disaster, and he spent much of the late 1960s and 1970s taking whatever work he could get. His scripts weren't selling much anymore but he was still a popular narrator, lending his voice to everything from The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau to trashy TV documentaries about paranormal phenomena like In Search of Ancient Astronauts.

He also tried hosting a few game shows. The clip above is from 1969's The Liar's Club, featuring Serling bantering with such game show fixtures of the era as Betty White and Bill Bixby. (I can't quite decide if Bixby's look here is the epitome of 1969 badass-cool or if it makes him look like Austrian thug #3 from one of those old movies where spies meet in abandoned factories to trade briefcases full of microfilm.) While Serling makes a decent host for the game, he just doesn't seem to belong here. You keep expecting him to turn to the camera and spark up a cigarette, as the studio suddenly goes dark and quiet, a lone spotlight shines down upon him, and he speaks to us in that clipped, sardonic voice...

Submitted for your approval: Two eager young contestants, four celebrity guests, and your humble host, gathered together for that popular American entertainment, the game show. But tonight's game is being played for very high stakes indeed, and the loser gets an all-expenses paid, one-way trip to... The Twilight Zone.