"To Serve Man" is a science fiction short story written by Damon Knight, later adapted for use as an episode of the 1960s television series The Twilight Zone. In 2001, the story was awarded a Retro Hugo Award for the Best Short Story of 1951. This article is in need of attention. ... Damon Knight (September 19, 1922 – April 15, 2002) was a science fiction author, editor, and critic. ... Actors Richard Kiel and Lloyd Bochner in the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man “To Serve Man” is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone. ... The Twilight Zone is a television series created by Rod Serling. ... The 2005 Hugo Award with base designed by Deb Kosiba. ...

Synopsis

The story involves helpful alien emissaries, the telepathic Kanamits, giving mankind all the necessary tools to survive and to end wars and famine. As a further token of friendship they even freely transport humans to their paradise-like planet.

The aliens accidentally leave behind a book. A United Nations official (Mr. Chambers) and his staff take their time in deciphering the book by means of a rudimentary Kanamit-English dictionary. Eventually they are able to translate the title as "To Serve Man". Mr. Chambers signs up for a flight to the alien home world, but as he climbs on board the ship for the trip, his assistant yells to him not to get on: "It's a cookbook!" The irony of the story is that instead of 'serving man' by providing for his needs, the aliens were literally 'serving man' as a meal on their home planet.

Appearance in other media

• The story was parodied in an episode of The Simpsons during the first "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween episode, Hungry are the Damned.
• In Futurama, the phrase is printed on an apron worn by Bender in the episode My Three Suns.
• It is also mentioned in Spooky Castle as a cookbook in the cooking section of the level "The Library".
• The television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer also referenced the story, with Buffy's sister Dawn saying "I know! You never know what's coming, the stake is not the power, To Serve Man is a cookbook, I love you! Go away!".
• In Warcraft III if you click various times on a Troll Witch Doctor he screams "It's a cookbook! A COOKBOOK!"
• On Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, when a nuclear bomb is about to explode, the during a Presidential Party. Everyone runs around screaming, and a man grabs a woman and says "it's a cook book, it's a cook book!" while holding a book that says: 'To Serve Man'. That man is Lloyd Bochner, who was the main star in the Twilight Zone episode.
• In World of Warcraft, ogre and troll enemies sometimes drop an item called "An Exotic Cookbook". If you read the cookbook, the title is "To Serve Man".
• The story itself was later collected in "Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens".
• In the series Millennium it is referenced in the episode Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense. While discussing a case, Frank Black mentions that a clue is left in a novel titled "To Serve Man" to which Peter Watts replies, "I hope you're not going to tell me it's a cookbook".
• In the NewsRadio third season finale, a cookbook titled 'How To Serve Man' is given to the people of the station by Jimmy James.
• In Madagascar, inside the plane where King Julian is holding a meeting. He says "Foosa!" and the meeting explodes into chaos. One lemur is shown holding a book called 'To Serve Lemur', shouting "It's a cook book, it's a cook book!"
• In 2007, listener-supported radio station WFMU published a collection of recipes by the station's staff as a fund-raiser premium. The title of the book is "To Serve Man: A Musical Cookbook".
• In the CD "Song Poem Hits of 2007, Vol. 2" by The David Dubowski One Man Band, track 8 is "To Serve Man".
• In the television show Married...With Children episode "Sofa So Good" Al can be heard over the phone in Wanker County yelling, "Peg, To Serve Man, it's a cookbook!"
• The American deathgrind band Cattle Decapitation released an album in 2002 titled "To Serve Man."
• In John Ringo's first book, A Hymn Before Battle,"To Serve Man" is mentioned as a classic example of aliens seeming to be benevolent, while in fact using humans for their own purposes.
• This scene was also parodied in one episode of Cartoon Network's "What a cartoon" series. During the alien attack one of the running men screams the phrase while holding the book entitled "To serve man".
• George Scithers, with the permission of (and due acknowledgment to) Damon Knight, has published a book-length work titled 'To Serve Man' which consists almost entirely of straightforward recipes for meat dishes, ostensibly intended to require "long pig" (human flesh) as their main ingredient. On legal advice, Scithers published the book under a pseudonym ("Karl Würf"), but he has made no secret of his authorship.
• There is a book entitled To Serve Man: a Cookbook for People, by Karl Würf (author) and Jack Bozzi (illustrator). Published by Wildside Press in December 1979. ISBN 978-1880448823.
• On the Cartoon Network show World Premiere Toons in a cartoon called Gramps, when the title character (voice by Rob Paulsen) tells his grandchildren a story about how he saved the world from invading aliens in his youth, a man (voiced by Charlie Adler) shows him the book saying To Serve Man and tells him that it is a cookbook, Gramps knocks him away saying "It's been done"!