The Elf from “Night of the Meek” Remembers Filming a Twilight Zone Fan Favorite

No two people celebrate Christmas quite the same, but if you’re a Twilight Zone fan, there’s a good chance you don’t let December 25^th pass without an annual viewing of “Night of the Meek.”

“The Changing of the Guard” and “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” are two other popular seasonal offerings from the fifth dimension. But there’s something special about seeing Art Carney play a sad man who by episode’s end (yes, spoiler alert!) gets promoted to his dream job: the real Santa Claus.

Someone on Twitter was talking with me about the episode recently, and said something about the girl who plays the elf being Maureen McCormick, the actress later cast as Marcia Brady on “The Brady Bunch.”

Except it wasn’t McCormick. It was a girl named Larrian Gillespie.

It’s an understandable error, though. I can see where someone looking at those grainy black-and-white images (“Night of the Meek” was one of six videotaped episodes) might mistake Gillespie for McCormick. And like a lot of child stars — at least ones who played small parts — she’s not listed in the credits.

Neither are the two kids at the beginning, even though they — like our young elf friend — have several lines. But TV credits weren’t very detailed back then. Even Kay Cousins, who plays the mother of Percival Smithers, is listed not as “Mrs. Smithers,” but as “Irate Mother.”

So let’s give Larrian some belated attention — and much deserved too, because she’s just as cute in the role as you’d expect Santa’s main elf to be. Here are some excerpts from an interview she did in 2018:

The Seven Times Serling Didn’t Say “In The Twilight Zone” at an Episode’s End

One of the joys of watching The Twilight Zone is hearing Rod Serling’s voice come on as the story wraps up, giving us a wry comment, a stern rebuke, or some other fitting remark. And you can count on him saying “the Twilight Zone,” often after a perfect little pause.

At least most of the time you can count on that. In fact, there are seven episodes that don’t use the phrase at all. That leaves 149 where he does say it, so these seven are clearly the exception to the rule.

That begs a logical question for uber-fans such as myself: Which ones are they?

Many fans know one off the top of their heads: Season 4’s “He’s Alive,” in which Dennis Hopper plays a neo-Nazi. But they can seldom name another. And although I was able to name some others myself without going down the list of episodes, I wasn’t sure I was getting all of them.

So I decided to check it out and make it official. (Spoilers ahead!) Here, in chronological order, are the episodes with no mention of “the Twilight Zone” at the end, along with the ending narration: