Mark Silverman has been the voice of Rod Serling inside the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios since the attraction opened in 1994, and a recent trip to Walt Disney Imagineering had fans questioning whether new narration was coming.
Now he’s explained the visit, and he says he was just buying a T-shirt.
“Sorry to give such a boring story, but I was at Imagineering buying a T-shirt in the Imagineering store,” Silverman wrote in a comment on BlogMickey‘s Instagram post about the visit. Disney hasn’t announced any show changes for the attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
What Started the Guessing
The guessing started after Silverman shared a photo from outside Imagineering on Instagram. When a follower asked, “Are we getting to hear something new from you at Disney?!” he answered, “well… could be.” He didn’t name a project, a park, or a timeline.
Still, his best-known role sits at the end of Sunset Boulevard. Serling hosts the experience from start to finish, welcoming guests from the library television in the preshow and speaking again inside the elevator before the doors open onto the fifth dimension. New recordings could have meant updated dialogue for one of those moments, or even new scenes, according to BlogMickey.
Silverman has voiced Serling outside the parks too, including on the 2019 revival of The Twilight Zone, so fans knew a project somewhere else was just as possible.
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Something is definitely happening outside the building. Scaffolding went up on the southeast side of the hotel this summer and spread to the front of the tower below the Hollywood Tower Hotel sign by August. Earlier this month, scenic painters were re-aging the pink stucco, teal shutters, and rust streaks by hand. Scaffolding still wraps the upper levels, and the ride has stayed open throughout the work.
Disney Has Been Restoring Old Details
The facade work follows a string of smaller fixes. Around the attraction’s 30th anniversary in July 2024, lightning scorch marks returned to the lobby elevators, a detail longtime Cast Members said had been painted over some 20 years earlier. Mood lighting came back to the lobby and the hallway past the library too.
So far, all of this year’s visible work has been on the outside of the building. Fresh purple paint now streaks across the upper facade too, restoring the lightning strike scarring the tower had on opening day. Disney hasn’t shared a completion date for the exterior work.
How Silverman Became Serling
Rod Serling passed away in 1975, almost two decades before the ride opened on July 22, 1994. Imagineers paired archival footage of the Twilight Zone creator with new narration, and Silverman landed the role with the approval of Serling’s widow, Carol Serling.
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He later recorded additional lines for the Disney California Adventure version of the attraction, and his voice has been part of the Florida version of the Tower of Terror for more than three decades.
Would you want new Rod Serling narration in the ride someday, or should Disney leave the original alone? Sound off and let us know!
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