You’ve probably seen The Twilight Zone before. It started airing in the late 50’s through mid 60’s, and repeats of those classic episodes have been airing on miscellaneous TV stations throughout the decades. It was brought back with new episodes in the 80’s, and again at the turn of the century. Basically, if you’re not familiar with The Twilight Zone, then you’ve probably been living under a rock for the past 50 years.

In 2002, a new team of producers got together to revive The Twilight Zone for radio. Dozens of creator Rod Serling’s old TV scripts were rewritten for radio and recorded with many of today’s celebrities in starring roles. Actors like Jim Caviezel, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jason Alexander, Jane Seymour, Hal Sparks, and Adam West lend their voices throughout the episodes, with Stacy Keach taking the role of narrator.

You might even recognize some of the episodes in the radio series. Tim Kazurinsky (Sweetchuck from Police Academy 3 & 4) stars as the main character in “Time Enough At Last” (you know, the one where his glasses break now that there’s time to read after the apocalypse), and they even cover that creepy cornfield kid episode “It’s A Good Life.” Obviously, wholly visual episodes like “Eye of the Beholder” (the one where it turns out everyone but the leading woman is ugly) are left out. The rewrites to the episodes are sometimes subtle, such as when they expand a scene or two by adding in another few lines of dialogue. This is understandable, since most classic Twilight Zone episodes were only 30 minutes long, while the radio adaptations are expanded to roughly 40 episodes (which will probably get you an hour with commercials). Some rewrites, however, add entirely new and ridiculous scenes, such as adding a conversation about someone’s cellphone losing its signal purely for padding. For the most part, however, Rod Serlings scripts remain in tact.

I’ve listened to a few episodes of The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, and it makes me wonder why my generation (and quite frankly, the generations immediately prior to mine) grew up without radio shows. They’re engaging, entertaining, and they make for better listening material in the car than that Lady Gaga album you’ve been listening to since November. You can get a 10-episode CD set for $40, although they’re buy one/get one free, so you can technically get 20 episodes for $40. You also have the option of downloading individual episodes for $2 a piece, making this by far the cheapest modern radio series I’ve seen (not that there are too many out there).