There is a lot of talk about zones these days: rolling zones; full-team zones; frontal zones. But few give credit where it's due – and that is to American writer and TV Producer Rod Serling. Serling created the seminal TV series The Twilight Zone years before zones of any sort (even erogenous ones) became fashionable. The first episode ran in October 1959, exactly one week after Melbourne defeated Essendon in the grand final. The Demons winning the flag? Now there's a story with a sting in the tail.
2. Peter Lorre
Lorre, the exact height and weight of Swans champion Bobby Skilton, would have been a mean footballer if not for the fact that he was born in what today is Slovakia. Robbed of Australian football as a child, Lorre turned to acting and went on to appear in – among other things – Serling's Twilight Zone. But the man who made his screen debut in the same year the Pies won their third of four straight flags is probably best remembered for his scene-stealing cameo in Casablanca, when he asks Humphrey Bogart's character: "Why do you despise me, Rick?" Substitute 'Rick' for 'Mick' and the question becomes one asked by many footy journalists to a certain head coach of a certain Melbourne team ... called Collingwood.
3. Vincent Price
Famed for his creepy performances in countless horror films, Price read the eulogy at his great friend Lorre's funeral . Many believe Price’s career was determined on the day he was born; the same day Essendon butchered University in the Great Bloodbath of 1911. Uni dropped out of the competition three years later on the very day the infant Price was first heard to say: Mwaah-hah-hah-hah!
4. Michael Jackson
Footy caller extraordinaire Peter Landy was unavailable when Jacko needed a voice-over artist to put a spooky finishing touch on Thriller, so the king of pop turned to Price instead. The result was a hit so big it made Bomber ruckman Simon Madden look like a forward pocket. Jackson's monster album stayed on the charts for longer than Geelong's unbeaten run of home and away games. It contained the hit Billie Jean – a song that was remixed 91 times before release, the same number of goals Bulldog Kelvin Templeton kicked in 1979.
5. Mark 'Jacko' Jackson
Go back far enough and Wacko and Jacko actually share a common ancestor, a man famed for his inelegant handstands and close relationships with chimpanzees. He must have passed on a musical gene too, because Australia’s Jacko was a recording star in his own right – who could forget the smash hit My Brain Hurts? The inda-bloody-vidual could also play a bit of footy, kicking 152 goals over his league career including a haul of 10 for St Kilda against the Swans. Oi!
6. Steele Sidebottom
Like Jacko, Sidebottom's personal-best goal tally also stands at 10. Not only that, but judging from his early AFL appearances, like a product Jacko used to be associated with, he keeps goin' and goin' and goin'. So how could two players so unalike be so inexorably linked? Surely the answer is found in the Twilight Zone.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
