Key Episode in Rod Serling Series Is <i> Really</i> Good TV Show : Fantasy: ‘It’s a Good Life’ is one morsel of the artist’s genius that most people remember vividly, even if it’s been decades since they’ve seen it.

“The Twilight Zone” wasn’t any mere TV series. It was Rod Serling’s bizarre, poetic, horrific, magical, sublime little amusement park where the price of admission was affordable by anyone with just a farthing of imagination.

I would place the show high on a list of my all-time favorite series because, although Serling and his cadre of writers often took viewers to distant reaches of the solar system, “The Twilight Zone” really was always just around the corner.

And it still is--as the programmers at KTLA Channel 5 have learned so well over the past several years from the popularity of their semiannual “Twilight Zone” marathons, like the one that will fill up most of the channel’s Fourth of July schedule.

Archival surprises are no longer likely to pop up. That material was pretty much exhausted a few years ago when a batch of little-seen, one-hour episodes from the 1963 season were dusted off and shown anew.

The only morsels left are three or four episodes that never were included in the syndication package for reasons, ranging from an old plagiarism lawsuit to the allegedly unsympathetic portrayal of a Japanese character, that still are cited today.

What is left--for those of us who have seen most of the episodes several times, or for those who have never seen them--is the richness of the writing, the wealth of ideas and the range of topics and emotions this remarkable show covered.

I sometimes think that the problem with “The New Twilight Zone” and other latter-day attempts to clone the original was that the signature mixture of reality, fantasy and science fiction was handled so well the first-time around. What’s left? (Serling had the same complaint about some later “Twilight Zone” episodes and with most of the subsequent “Night Gallery” series that he hosted, but in which he played a far less active role creatively.)

There’s a prime example in Wednesday’s Marathon lineup, an episode that illustrates how the show could both be so fantastically (in the literal sense) elsewhere, and so unnervingly close by. The segment--”It’s a Good Life,” to air at 7 p.m.--is one that most people remember vividly, even if it’s been decades since they’ve seen it.

It opens with Serling describing a rural Midwestern town that apparently has disappeared from the U.S. map, and winds up off in its own little universe somewhere. Serling introduces us to each of the farm community’s wholesome-looking residents, while alluding to a monster that keeps them all in a constant state of terror.

Serling ends the suspense early by introducing us to this unholy horror: The camera cuts quickly and we see a guileless-looking, freckle-faced boy named Anthony (played by Billy Mumy, later of “Lost in Space” fame). He is swinging nonchalantly on a fence near the barn as Serling’s voice-over continues; suddenly, he seems to be aware of the audience looking in at him. His cherubic expression disappears, his eyes widen and he glares menacingly into the camera.

What transpires in the next 30 minutes is an object lesson in taut writing, a palpably believable scenario, and powerful but unobtrusive acting that is as pertinent in 1990 as it was in 1961.

The premise is that this cute, all-American-looking lad, through some unexplained quirk, has been born with the ability to mentally translate his wishes into reality. Anything or anyone who angers him, or even thinks bad thoughts about him, is “wished away into the cornfield” never to be seen again. It’s a fantasy most everyone has entertained at one time or another.

We are told that Anthony doesn’t like singing, so no one dares even hum a tune lest he or she be wished away--or wished into some grotesque subhuman form. Anthony, in fact, has wished away all contact with the outside world, except for his own crude form of television, conjured up infrequently as a gesture of his generosity.

As a birthday present, a neighbor gets one of the rare record albums still in existence. But he can’t listen to it because the adults fear that a syllable of a vocal might slip out and upset little Anthony.

Animals get no better treatment from this boy who embodies innocence gone awry: A dog is heard, off camera, barking at Anthony, whose eyes swell up--the dog is heard to whine, then is silent. Anthony gets bored with a gopher--and wishes three heads on it, before commanding: “Be dead. You be dead!”

All the while, to maintain a pretense of cheeriness that vanished long ago, the boy’s parents and neighbors constantly reassure him--and themselves--that no matter what horrors Anthony wreaks upon them, “it’s a good thing you did--it’s a real good thing.”

The premise was a brilliant, provocative one: What if a child really did have the power to control the world? A frightening prospect to anyone who has witnessed the tantrums of a mind untempered by mature thought processes.

The flip side of the idea wasn’t quite so obvious--a subtle testimony that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” that monstrous power invested in any individual’s hands, even the most angelic, is not to be courted.

The story also could be seen as a critique of any zealot who would remake the world in his or her own image. No matter what we think is the “right” way to live, institutionalizing it is to wish all conflicting choices into the cornfield of intolerance. “It’s a Good Life” carries the not-so-veiled message that anyone wanting to do so is no more than a bratty little tyke at heart.

We needn’t look hard to find examples of people doing their best to wish away those factions in society that irritate them--just look at Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and all that “offensive” art and artists, or Florida anti-obscenity crusader Jack Thompson and rap group 2 Live Crew. Right here in Orange County, city officials glower at theater groups that take a public stand on a controversial issue, and at rock music clubs that merely try to exist.

KTLA has, probably unconsciously, made the episode all the more appropriate by airing it on Independence Day. It’s a good message--a real good message.

The “Twilight Zone Marathon” runs Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on KTLA Channel 5.