"This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you're on a through-route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable... Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination…"

Next stop The DATEBOOK Zone.

OK, all kidding aside, but "submitted for your approval" as Rod Serling used to say, this is the COMPOSERS DATEBOOK for September 30th. I'm John Zech.

On today's date in 1960, the opening installment of the second season of "The Twilight Zone," — the legendary sci-fi/fantasy TV series created by Mr. Serling — aired on CBS. For their second season, the producers added a new signature theme, the now-familiar one with bongo drums. It was written by Marius Constant, a Romanian-born French composer and conductor. In Paris, Constant had studied composition with Olivier Messiaen, Arthur Honegger, and Nadia Boulanger. Constant had a very respectable career as a composer and teacher, but today he's best known for his brief but iconic "Twilight Zone" theme.

During its five-season run, that show also employed the talents of some other famous composers, including Jerry Goldsmith, Leonard Rosenman, Fred Steiner, and Franz Waxman.

And just in case you're wondering who wrote the theme for the FIRST season of "The Twilight Zone" when the show debuted in 1959, well, that was another famous Hollywood composer by the name of Bernard Herrmann.