Talk:A Town Has Turned to Dust (Playhouse 90)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 19:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that sponsors refused to back the lynching story A Town Has Turned to Dust until writer Rod Serling moved the setting out of the South and changed the victim from black to Mexican? Source: Anne Serling (2013). As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling. Citadel Press. pp. 96–97. ISBN 9780806536156 (lengthy passage in which recounts the various story changes he was forced to make in order to overcome objections from sponsors concerned with offending consumers in the South). Same facts also covered in the second source: Nicholas Parisi (2018). Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 149–150.
  • ALT1:... that William Shatner starred as the leader of the lynch mob in Rod Serling's A Town Has Turned to Dust? Source: here ("Rod Steiger is the sheriff, William Shatner the lynch mob leader ...")

• Reviewed: Wilson Cary Swann

Created by Cbl62 (talk). Self-nominated at 03:46, 26 September 2020 (UTC).

• Interesting article. New enough, long enough, no neutrality concerns in the writing. Sources are offline; AGF on verifiability and copyright. There's some unsourced material; much of the infobox, the second sentence of "production", and the sentence about Syfy. Also, the "sponsors" in the hook is a bit woolly; why was CBS dependent on sponsors in the first place, and who were these people? If the information doesn't exist, we can go with what we have, but some clarification might be nice. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:11, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Sourcing issues fixed; the production opened with the narrator stating the production was "live from Television City in Hollywood". See here.

The sponsors were Camel, the American Gas Association, and Allstate, which is also confirmed in the kinescope. While the two cited book sources are quite clear that the changes resulted from sponsor concerns, the sources do not disclose precisely which sponsors raised the concerns. The reality was that, in the early days of television, sponsors had tremendous control over the productions they sponsored. (In another case, the gas company sponsor required CBS to delete reference to "gas chambers" in a production on Nazi war crimes!) In this case, the sponsors were concerned that criticism of racist practices would cause backlash (and hurt sales) in Southern states. Cbl62 (talk) 20:52, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Cbl62: In that case, I think you should use what material you have to describe who the sponsors were at some point in the article (to be honest, I had thought they were wealthy individuals, not corporations; which just goes to show the information is necessary). Vanamonde (Talk) 22:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: I'm reluctant to call out Camel, the Gas Association, and Allstate by name, as we don't have sourcing showing which made the objections. However, in order to avoid the confusion you described, I changed the language to refer to "commercial sponsors". Cbl62 (talk) 22:18, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, that should be enough. I do have one further question, though; the source for all that is a biography of Serling written by his daughter, it would seem; which may be a solid source, but its independence is a little questionable. Do other sources back up the substance of the story about censorship? Vanamonde (Talk) 22:51, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Yes, there is the Parisi book. And the biography by his daughter relies on Serling's own words concerning his experience on A Town Has Turned To Dust. And thanks for your review and input. Cbl62 (talk) 02:47, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• , though I would recommend duplicating the Parisi citation wherever possible; secondary sources are always preferable, and while Serling's words may have been relayed accurately, Serling himself is not a neutral observer here. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:04, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: It turns out that the copyright on this production was not renewed, so the image for this article is public domain. If it's possible to consider using a photo with this hook, I'm offering it up here. I think it shows fairly well at 100x100px. Thanks for considering. Cbl62 (talk) 00:27, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Cbl62: I'd consider it, but I'm by no means an expert on image licensing, so I'm erring on the side of caution; can you tell me why the database in question is sufficient to determine that copyright wasn't renewed? Also, the image would need to be worked into the hook somehow; neither Shatner nor Paul is currently mentioned in the hook, and doing so in the current one seems tricky. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

OK. Just run it without the image. Cbl62 (talk) 04:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Confirming GTG, per previous review. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)