If any of you grew up down in Southern California in the '80s you'll remember KTLA Channel 5 used to show Twilight Zone episodes between noon and 1pm on weekdays and then a big ol' Marathon on the 4th of July.
My whole family were big fans of the ol' TZ and every year, we'd watch Twilight Zone during the day and then go out and light off a huge box of fireworks at night that we bought from one of those stands setup in the supermarket parking lots like Freedom, Red Devil, or Gorilla. One year, I convinced my dad to get a box so big that before we were even halfway through the box, we started getting bored and chucking lit ground bloom flowers as fast as we could light them or just setting whole boxes of "magic snakes" on fire and watching the medusa-like tentacles emerging from the flaming box. Those were great childhood memories. Decades later, I still associate the 4th of July with the TZ marathons and "Safe & Sane" fireworks.
Unfortunately, I believe KTLA's rights to show Twilight Zone expired at some point and "Safe & Sane" fireworks were considered to be neither "Safe" nor "Sane" by your local city. For me, that's like not being able to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" at Christmas and then finding out that Christmas trees were outlawed to boot.
As if outlawing personal fireworks displays wasn't enough, now cities all around are canceling their community displays too. WTF?!?! Is this an intentional attempt at turning the 4th of July into one of the most boring holidays of the year?? What a freakin' joke.
Luckily, at least half of the tradition can be saved. BIG kudos to the SCIFI channel for continuing the 4th of July Twilight Zone Marathon tradition!!
http://www.scifi.com/twilightzone/poll/index.html
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