Rod Serling

I've been getting too much attention for reviving O'Toole From Moscow, Rod Serling's "lost" 1955 baseball comedy about the Cincinnati Reds for WVXU-FM.

The stars of the show are, well, the stars of the show: Eight very talented University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music students. The manager of our Team O'Toole is director Richard Hess, who teaches acting and directing at CCM. Our recording guru is WVXU engineer Josh Elstro.

The Reds haven't been to the playoffs lately, but the team consistently leads Major League Baseball with the hippest ballpark organist.

You might not know John Schutte's name, but millions of people have enjoyed his music at Great American Ball Park since 2010 – or playing keyboard for the Rusty Griswolds 1980's cover band.

Rod Serling's 1955 comedy involving the Cincinnati Reds – broadcast only once on NBC Television – will premiere as a radio play on WVXU-FM 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 25.

Written during the Cold War, Serling's O'Toole From Moscow is about confusion between Russians and the Reds in which a Soviet Union embassy staffer ends up playing outfield for the Cincinnati Reds. 

Rod Serling's 1955 comedy involving the Cincinnati Reds – broadcast only once on NBC Television – will come to life in a Cincinnati Public Radio studio this weekend.

Turns out  Rod Serling was right: There is a dimension as timeless as infinity called The Twilight Zone.

Since Serling's iconic drama anthology premiered on CBS 60 years ago today – on Oct. 2, 1959 – the show has never gone off the air.

Anne Serling, daughter of Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, will be the studio announcer for WVXU's production of her father's 1955 baseball comedy, O'Toole From Moscow.

WVXU-FM will produce Rod Serling's O'Toole From Moscow, a 1955 TV comedy about confusion between the Soviet Union and the Cincinnati Reds, as a radio drama.

Author Nick Parisi will discuss the Cincinnati roots and influences of The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling here Feb. 17-19 to promote his book, Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination.

Parisi, a Long Island resident and Rod Serling Memorial Foundation board member, devoted a chapter in the book to Serling's first TV dramas on The Storm, WKRC-TV's live weekly series in 1951-52, eight years before CBS debuted his iconic Twilight Zone.

The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting will celebrate the 75th anniversary of West Chester Township's Bethany Station with yearlong programs highlighted by a presentation by VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman on March 6.

Events include a talk by Rod Serling biographer Nicholas Parisi; a program on sound effects from the golden age of radio; a "Hamvention" by the West Chester Amateur Radio Association; and a free four-part series of programs called "The Voice of Truth in America: Celebrating 75 Years of the VOA Bethany Station" with the MidPointe Library System.

Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone ran for five seasons from 1959 to 1964, but the show goes on in perpetuity in syndication -- and in our minds.

Author Nick Parisi calls it "a storm in Cincinnati."  His new comprehensive look at Rod Serling's TV scripts includes the most detailed examination I've ever seen on Serling's drama scripts for The Storm on Cincinnati's WKRC-TV in 1951-52, eight years before CBS debuted his iconic The Twilight Zone.

Commercial television in Cincinnati turns 70 on Friday, Feb. 9, when WLWT-TV started commercial operation in 1948 – Cincinnati's first television.

Crosley Broadcasting had been experimenting with television for nearly a year with W8XCT. WLWT-TV was the city's only TV station for 14 months, until Taft Broadcasting's WKRC-TV signed on in April 1949. WCPO-TV followed in July 1949.

Even more fun! Bob "The Producer" Berry says he's attending the "Remembering Radio’s Rock Rivalries" program Sunday along with Eddie Fingers, Jay Gilbert, Mike McConnell, Pat Barry and Kevin "Doc" Wolfe. Berry worked for WKRQ-FM/WKRC-AM before joining Fingers on the WEBN-FM "Dawn Patrol."

The program is 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, at the main public library downtown.

Everything he needed to know he learned from "The Twilight Zone " created by Rod Serling…. And most everything that Serling needed to know, he learned as a young writer in Southwestern Ohio.

Happy birthday to WKRC-TV, which began broadcasting on April 4, 1949 from the Taft family's old Cincinnati Times-Star building built at 800 Broadway (now a Hamilton County courts building).

Local 12 – or Tall 12 as it was called in the 1960s – actually started on Channel 11.  It moved to Channel 12 on Oct. 20, 1952, after the federal government re-allocated the nation's TV stations.