Talk:To Serve Man (short story)

It's in the details
Most story details are wrong: the Kanamits do not give "To Serve Man" as a present, in fact they keep it out of human hands (the humans assume the book is sort of a handbook on kanamit-human relations, because every kanamit on the diplomatic delegation has his own copy). One of the narrator's friends gets hold of a copy, and, through very hard work, is able to decipher a few lines (it's written in a difficult ideographic script). Lektu 09:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

This synopsis seems to be based on the Twilight Zone episode. In Damon Knight's story, the narrator debates with a friend about the supposed altruism of the Kanamits, the last line is "It's a cookbook," and if I remember right there's nothing suggesting that the debate takes place as the narrator is about to board the alien ship.

Need to source this
The episode served as the inspiration for the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 to consume the bodies of their dead comrades until they were eventually rescued.
 * This claim is pretty far out there, and I can't find anything backing it up. I'm going ahead and removing it.  --128.163.161.42 14:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I actually met one of the survivors (Roberto Canessa) and he said that the reason for eating people was because they were already dead and it was good fat and meat going to waste. The Twilight zone didn't have anything to do with it, and the removed part is indeed incorrect. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.118.218.33 (talk) 02:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Can't edit the main page but another parallel plot thingy is Quatermass - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_(TV_serial)

203.167.202.230 (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge Discussion

 * Weak Keep, both media of the story are independently famous of one another. Also, the Twilight Zone episode is part of the comprehensive and uniformly produced series of episode unique articles.  to merge would ruin this continuity.  --Cjs56 18:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, for the same reason Cjs56 states, particularly the fact that each TZ episode has its own page. See also, for example, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (The Twilight Zone). Travisl 22:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Major Overhaul
Of the long list of cultural refernces, only a couple appeared to be to the Knight short story; the rest (Simpsons, Naked Gun etc.) were almost certainly to the later Twilight Zone version. I have moved the latter to To Serve Man (The Twilight Zone); removed the inappropriate link to IMDB; and made a number of other changes and improvements, including correcting some mis-statements in the Synopsis. LyleHoward (talk) 00:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Referenced in the space episode of newsradio

Proper placement of plot spoiler re meaning of title
Some years ago there was an extended discussion regarding the use of "spoiler warnings" in articles where there are plot spoilers, which were widely used in Wikipedia at the time. The relevant guideline on this issue is laid out at WP:SPOILER, whereas it's not even mentioned at WP:CENSOR.

Here is the pertinent paragraph:
 * "3.Sections that frequently contain spoiler warnings—such as plot summaries, episode lists, character descriptions, etc.—were already clearly named to indicate that they contain plot details. Therefore, further disclaimers would be redundant and unnecessary."

In other words, plot spoilers belong in appropriate sections, where they might be expected - but NOT IN THE INTRO. Hope that helps! Regards, Anomalous+0 (talk) 06:14, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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New content?
I know of a song from a somewhat established goth-rock group Creature Feature with this name and the same idea, but there is no page for Creature Feature and I have only found Spotify and the group's social pages as sources Elijah Page (talk) 22:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)