Harlan Ellison's tv history.

[Svengoolie 3]

Someone needs to do a true life movie about Harlan Ellison. This guy was amazing.

One incident from his life reflects how things go in tv Land.

Ellison wrote a lot for tv shows. He wrote two of the best episodes for "the outer limits",  namely "demon with a glass hand" and "soldier". He wrote the legendary star trek episode "city on the edge of forever".

Well, there was some shows he rote for and didn't write for.

He wrote an ep for "voyage tom the bottom of the sea" called "the price of doom". Unfortunately the network censor for VttBotS was a man named Adrian Samish.  Samish was a man that people rarely said anything good to say  about. He was a holy terror on "the outer limits" and made things very hard on the show. He was known as being arrogant, pompous and snide.

During an intense argument with ellison over alterations to "the price of doom" over not allowing a beautiful woman to be killed by a monster, samish demanded she be a man in disguise. Ellison refused. Then samish demanded she actually be an "ugly woman" wearing a disguise that  gets turn off before she was killed. Ellison launched a very hot  and explicit invective  soaked tirade against him for devaluing the lives of unattractive people.

Samaish reportedly verbally pushed Ellison too far and Ellison,  in his own words,  attacked Samish,  landing a solid blow to his "bread basket" which knocked him back onto a couch over which a large,  heavy model of the Seaview submarine was mounted. The model fell on samish and broke his pelvis.

Ellison was immediately fired by Allen and never allowed to work on his shows again.  Ellison accepted this and bore Allen no Ill will.


The official story to cover things up was ellison rushed at samish after extreme provocation,  slipped on papers and accidently knocked samish onto the couch. An actual criminal case with investigations and testimony would disrupt production,  affect profits,  etc. So the studio covered it up. Ellison has repeatedly said he hit samish and knocked him onto the couch hard enough to dislodge the seaview model.

So ellison never got to write for lost in space, time tunnel or Land of the giants. Too bad,  I think he could have done some good EPs for each.

Later it was announced  that ABC was doing the new batman series and Adrian samish was retiring. Ellison was happy as he wanted to write for batman and samish had vowed never to approve a script of his again.

Ellison wrote a story called "the two way crimes of two face" that would have added two face to the batman series.

Unfortunately samish didn't retire fast enough. He retired a day after reviewing the batman scripts .  At the announcement for the episodes ellison's was dismissed,  unread,  with the announcement that "Mr. Ellison does not write for ABC. "

Years later ellison's script for the lost episode was done as an issue of the batman 66 comic and a gimmick he created for it was used in an animated batman movie.

I wish the SFC would do a miniseries about ellison's life and career. Itcs be a hell of story and the need to do it while people who knew him are still here to interview.

[RCMerchant]

Ellison wrote 'the City On the Edge of Tomorrow' episode for STAR TREK.

http://youtu.be/7uKWpWkcpdM

[RCMerchant]

He was on the Mike Douglas Show in 1962.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4118700/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_30

[Svengoolie 3]

No I'm  sorry RC, he wrote "city on the edge of forever". I know  this. I am a lifelong trekker.

[RCMerchant]

No I'm  sorry RC, he wrote "city on the edge of forever". I know  this. I am a lifelong trekker.

I believe ya! 

[Svengoolie 3]

Some people donct buy the story that ellison really punched this censor and ended up causing him a broken pelvis.  They say he'd have been charged or at least sued.

Guys, do you have any idea how many crimes Hollywood covered up back then and still does? How many assaults, harassments,  drug deals, abuses and flat out rapes,  of all tyoes, Hollywood has covered up? Hollywood has money and money can buy off victims.

Samish was offered a payoff, raise, whatever. Police were  kept out,  no messy investigation or headlines.

BTW ellison won out in the end. The episode aired with a beautiful female villain who was in the end eaten by the monster without being revealed as a man or as ugly.

And his  episode of batman samish rejected so curlty?  Here:

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Batman-66-The-Lost-Episode

[ER]

No I'm  sorry RC, he wrote "city on the edge of forever". I know  this. I am a lifelong trekker.

You can tell because you didn't say "Trekkie."

[Svengoolie 3]

Another thing that would be neat in the ellison movie would be the scene where Roger Elwood,  a fundamentalist who worked on wrestling magazines for 3 years before he quit in indignation because he realized wrestling was fake and who turned out anthologies like McDonalds turns out todaburgers asked ellison to write a story for an anthology. He asked ellison to write an "anti-homosexual" story. Reportedly ellison called him and his response had phone lines smoking from new York to California.

Elwood mockingly  replied "Gosh, Harlan,  I didn't know you we're "that way".

This lead to the science fiction fandom's use of the term in humor. Like when one fan says he likes "lost in space" and another says "I didn't know  you  were  "that way". "


I'd like to see a good biopic of Ellison and hope one gets dines.

[Sitting Duck]

Personally, I think City on the Edge of Forever is overrated. Then again, I never liked how the Trek franchise handled time travel.