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Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 21, 2015 15:36:10 GMT -5
So very close to the final episode of the original run of the Twilight Zone. We're up to May 1964
The Encounter-Neville Brand, George Takei
A Japanese-American gardener goes up to the attic of an WW11 vet to see if he need his gardening services. They share a beer and talk for the length of the show. The vet reveals his dring problem, his broken marriage, his being fired from his job, his distaste of foreigners and his experience in the battle of Iwo Jima. The gardener takes offense at some of the racist comments and also reveals his father aided the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. They get locked in and can't escape the attic and eventually begin to fight.
This is the first time I've watched this episode since it raised protests from Japanese-American groups and was not included in the syndication package. The crux of their protests was that no Japanese-American was ever found to be a traitor during WW11 as George Takei's father was supposed to be in the story. Still, I think this was a courageous show to be broadcast on network TV back in 1964. Neville Brand was not some one-dimensional racist but a self-conscious flawed man with a death wish. George Takei was given a great opportunity to exhibit his acting abilities. A talky episode and a disappointing ending but well worth watching. Available to view on IMDB and Hulu
Stopover In A Quiet Town-Barry Nelson, Nancy Malone
Bob and Millie Frazier got very drunk at a party and were driving home to their NYC apartment when a shadow enveloped their car. They awake in their clothes in an empty suburban house. No one else at home, the telephone has no wires, the food in the refrigerator is fake. No one on the street, a squirrel is fake, the trees and grass is fake, a car has no engine. All the while they hear a little girl laughing. They come upon a train and board it. The train takes off but within a few minutes its back at the same station. A giant hand reaches out and scoops them up. Its the laughing girl and her mother tells her to be careful with the alien pets daddy just brought back home from Earth
An early admonition of the dangers of drinking and driving
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Post by badwolf on Feb 22, 2015 17:10:12 GMT -5
Journey to Nowhere- Eli Wallach,Margaret Dumont Bill Stallings awakens on a ferry boat with no memory of his past life. Its steamy and foggy and the sound of splashing is ever-present along with occasional squeals of a child's laughter. Bill searches the ship and runs across various folks who are unmoving and waxen. He's seen them before and slowly he remembers past incidents with them-his school teacher, his first love and his old boss. off in the distance, the childlike laughter gets louder and louder and the ship begins to rock as the ocean begins to churn. Then Bill is unable to move and his complexion turns pale. The child's laughter is loud and huge bubbles surround the ship as the boat is about to overturn. The camera pans back and up and we see a child in his bathtub having a bubble bath and playing with his toy boat. This must take place in the same universe as "Five Characters in Search of an Exit." |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 22, 2015 18:46:25 GMT -5
Journey to Nowhere- Eli Wallach,Margaret Dumont Bill Stallings awakens on a ferry boat with no memory of his past life. Its steamy and foggy and the sound of splashing is ever-present along with occasional squeals of a child's laughter. Bill searches the ship and runs across various folks who are unmoving and waxen. He's seen them before and slowly he remembers past incidents with them-his school teacher, his first love and his old boss. off in the distance, the childlike laughter gets louder and louder and the ship begins to rock as the ocean begins to churn. Then Bill is unable to move and his complexion turns pale. The child's laughter is loud and huge bubbles surround the ship as the boat is about to overturn. The camera pans back and up and we see a child in his bathtub having a bubble bath and playing with his toy boat. This must take place in the same universe as "Five Characters in Search of an Exit." Well, Badwolf, its 'fessup time. This episode is something I just concocted myself on the spur-of-the-moment just to see if anyone is reading or would notice. And imagine my surprise a few days later and I'm watching the TZ episode Stopover In A Quiet Time which is essentially the same idea. I must have subconsiously remembered that show-not that I was trying hard to be original in the first place. But my listing Margaret Dumont starring in my make-believe show-the heavy set woman Groucho Marx always made fun of in those Marx Bros films, I thought would be a dead giveaway |
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Post by badwolf on Feb 23, 2015 9:35:00 GMT -5
This must take place in the same universe as "Five Characters in Search of an Exit." Well, Badwolf, its 'fessup time. This episode is something I just concocted myself on the spur-of-the-moment just to see if anyone is reading or would notice. And imagine my surprise a few days later and I'm watching the TZ episode Stopover In A Quiet Time which is essentially the same idea. I must have subconsiously remembered that show-not that I was trying hard to be original in the first place. But my listing Margaret Dumont starring in my make-believe show-the heavy set woman Groucho Marx always made fun of in those Marx Bros films, I thought would be a dead giveaway Ha! When I read it I thought it's hard to believe they actually did an episode like that. But then "Caesar and Me" was kind of a rehash of an earlier ventriloquist dummy story, so I thought, maybe... |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Feb 23, 2015 10:32:15 GMT -5
An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge
Seemingly every season TZ had budget issues especially as they got to the last few shows. With most of the season budget spent they tried to come up with episodes that can be done severely cheap. An example would be a prior season show with the 5 characters trapped in an empty bare room and no memory. (5 Characters In Search Of An Exit). To save money Rod Serling negotiated the rights to broadcast this French short film that won the Cannes Film Festival recently. It certainly fit the mood of a TZ episode. Plus it had practically no dialogue so it would be easily understood by Americans. The arrangement for this show to be broadcast on the Twilight Zone was limited. It would only be shown a few times. It was not part of the syndication deal for reruns.
Here it is via YouTube. As the now-cliche goes, a very special episode of The Twilight Zone.
LOVE this film, though the music is laughably terrible. Wish someone would create an alternate soundtrack for it, as the director uses sound amazingly well, and thus watching with the sound muted is simply unacceptable. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 5, 2015 16:54:46 GMT -5
Will I ever reach the end of this Twilight Zone marathon? After breezing thru all the previous seasons, I certainly have gotten bogged down with Season 5 due to both other commitments and a sadness to say goodbye to Mr. Serling once again. However, onward
Mr. Garrity and the Graves-John Denher
In the early 1890s, Mr. Garrity and his wagon pulls into the small town of Happiness, Arizona. Getting a drink at the bar, Mr Garrity is asked by some of the denizens what his occupation is. "I return the dead to the living" he says. Sure enough, a little doggie gets run over by a wagon outside the bar. Mr. Garrity rushes out, says some mumbo jumbo and the dog gets up and runs off. Mr Garrity then announces that the citizens of Happiness can expect their former loved ones to return to them in several hours. Soon enough a shambling figure starts approaching the town from where the local cemetery lies. Its the bar keepers' deceased brother, someone the bar keeper is hoping would remain dead. In fact he pays Mr. Garrity several hundred dollars to ensure the dead brother goes back to his grave. The shambling figure disappears and many of the other town folk pay Garrity cold, hard cash to keep former husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, dead and buried. Mr Garrity leaves town a very rich man, and picks up his partner and dog on the outskirts of town. His partner will investigate the next town on the list and disguise himself as a shambling figure if necessary. The dog, trained to play dead, gets a doggie treat. But as they travel down the road, passing by the local cemetery, dozens of graves erupt with their denizens getting back on their feet and ready to return to Happiness, Arizona
Good plot and even though it was filmed in the studio, the final scene was a bit creepy
The Brain Center At Whipple's-Richard Deacon
Wallace Whipple's manufacturing plants employ 250,000 people. But Mr. Whipple is intent on automating his plants to save money and improve efficiency. Soon, 25% of his employees are out of work, replaced by machines. More and more automatons are bought by Mr. Whipple, as the cafeteria becomes a ghost town and the parking lots become silent. Mr. Whipple twirls his pocket watch, satisfied with himself that just about every human has been replaced by a hunk of metal within a year. Finally, the board-of-directors vote Mr. Whipple out of his job because he's too obsessed with machines and can be easily replaced as well. Robbie The Robot is hired as the new Mr. Whipple and Robbie can twirl his pocket watch as well as Whipple ever did.
Richard Deacon will always be Lumpy Rutherford's dad from Leave It To Beaver to me
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Post by Phil Maurice on Mar 5, 2015 18:58:29 GMT -5
Richard Deacon will always be Lumpy Rutherford's dad from Leave It To Beaver to me Hah! Forgot about that. Of course, he'll always be Mel Cooley from The Dick Van Dyke Show to me. This was the second episode of TTZ that I ever saw (watching in syndication in the mid-70s). I recognized the robot, but was again underwhelmed by the show. My parents encouraged me to watch what they considered one of the greatest shows ever on television, but at this point I was beginning to doubt their sanity. Happily, I stuck with it. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 5, 2015 19:10:44 GMT -5
Richard Deacon will always be Lumpy Rutherford's dad from Leave It To Beaver to me Hah! Forgot about that. Of course, he'll always be Mel Cooley from The Dick Van Dyke Show to me. This was the second episode of TTZ that I ever saw (watching in syndication in the mid-70s). I recognized the robot, but was again underwhelmed by the show. My parents encouraged me to watch what they considered one of the greatest shows ever on television, but at this point I was beginning to doubt their sanity. Happily, I stuck with it. You're right, how could I forget Mel Cooley? Thats embarrassing TZ's last few episodes definitely seemed to be a limping attempy to the finish line. There's 3 episodes to go and I don't believe they will be particularly stellar The Whipple episode could have been Robbie The Robot's immediate precedant to his biggest role-Lost In Space. Of course Forbidden Planet was a great debut. Of all the TZ shows, nuclear armageddon was by far the biggest fear. Deals with the devil might have been in 2nd place. The Whipple show was an example of TZ's 3rd biggest fear-Automization and human obsolecence. At least thats how I see it |
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 5, 2015 19:14:22 GMT -5
I remember Richard Deacon best as the guy who replaced Roger C. Carmel in The Mothers-in-Law.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 9, 2015 12:47:54 GMT -5
3 more episodes to go and this one is one of the worst
Come Wander With Me-Gary Crosby
Rockabilly star Floyd Burney arrives at some back-woods hick area in search of an authentic folk song for his next hit record. (Did anyone ever do such a thing in real life?). He hears a sweet female voice singing in the woods and comes upon a lovely young lass singing an original song. He promises her to take her to the big city as his new girlfriend as he tape records her tune . She tells him that's what he always says. Suddenly her old hillbilly boyfriend shows up. Floyd and the hillbilly fights and Floyd clobbers him with a rock on the head, killing Lil' Abner. The sounds of hound dogs and Abner's brothers are off in the distance and Floyd tells the girl its time to scram. She says that Floyd gets caught every time he tries to escape. Screw that, he thinks, I already got the song on tape and I am outta here. As he runs he passes by a headstone that has his name on it. He asks an old farmer to help hide him. The farmer says its futile to run, so Floyd bashes him with a guitar and kills his 2nd hillbilly. Floyd gets caught and screams and its time for the fade out
Yeesh. I can't blame Bing Crosby for smacking around his son for acting in this turkey. The slang is straight from the Bob Haney school of rock n' roll. The studio set of the back woods is very cheap looking and they even saved money by not hiring any dogs, just using the sound of their barking. The song the young lady sings is nice, though.
And then there were 2 episodes left
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 9, 2015 15:34:53 GMT -5
Rockabilly star Floyd Burney arrives at some back-woods hick area in search of an authentic folk song for his next hit record. (Did anyone ever do such a thing in real life?). Yes, but it wasn't the performers looking for songs, it was the record companies looking for talent. In the 1920s, Vernon Dalhart had enormous success with records featuring rural themes and Southern-accented singing, but Dalhart was a conservatory-trained singer who did operettas for a living. Audiences wanted more authentic country singers, so the record companies went to the Appalachians and found Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, among others. There were also the folk-song collectors like Alan Lomax doing field recordings of backwoods people singing. This TZ story seems to have been inspired by a combination of these elements. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Dalharten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Lomax |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 10, 2015 17:28:01 GMT -5
Picture yourself on your living room sofa. Its late May 1964, you just finished reading a few Marvel comics on this Friday evening but your mind still craves some more imaginative entertainment. Suddenly your TV turns itself on at precisely 9:30 PM. It's channel dial inexplicably twirls automatically to channel 2. There's a Jolly Green Giant commercial on the air but up ahead will be....THE NEXT TO LAST TWILIGHT ZONE SHOW
The Fear-Peter Mark Richman, Hazel Court
State trooper Robert Franklin stops by a cabin in the woods currently used by city dweller Charlotte Scott on vacation. She reported strange lights in the sky. Sure enough the bright light returns with a large whining sound. Officer Franklin goes back outside to investigate and finds his patrol car upturned with giant fingerprints on it. After a nervous few hours holed up in the cabin, hearing strange sounds, dawn arrives and the couple find a giant footprint on the grounds that must belong to something 500 feet high. Charlotte freaks out and runs with the cop following. Then they find a giant before them in an astronauts uniform and a single giant eyeball instead of a face. Officer Scott fires his pistol and the giant deflates like a Thanksgiving Day parade float. The couple then espy a teeny tiny flying saucer nearby on the ground. They can overhear the saucer's inhabitants who are radioing their home planet. "We failed to make these giant Earthlings afraid with our tricks and giant balloon. We need to leave before they attack us and find a different world to conquer." The flying saucer takes off
I swear I did not make up this episode. If I've seen it before I must have blocked its memory all these years. Truly cheaply made and stupid. They used the same woodsy set from the prior show Come Wandering With Me. The 2 actors got paid minimum wage I suppose. The giant comes to life by holding the camera up from ground level. The plot is cobbled together from several other TZ shows. The unseen aliens sound like munchkins on helium. Truly this is a sucky TZ. And actually written by Mr. Serling himself. Now that's shocking!! |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 17, 2015 18:31:58 GMT -5
And now for the final episode of the original Twilight Zone. Please forgiver me if I have been rather harsh with my criticism on some previous episodes but I can't avoid looking at them from a perspective of 50 + years later and numerous viewings. Rest assured , but even the worst of TZ was a breathe of fresh air versus its competition on TV all those years ago. And of course, the concepts seemed much more fresh back then too
The Bewitching Pool-Starring a bunch of people I never heard of in my life
Gil Sharewood and his wife Gloria are well-to-do Southerners who hate each other but have stayed together for the sake of their children only. But that's it, They are getting a divorce now and want the kids to decide who they will stay with. The children think it could all be their fault that the parents fight and dive into the family pool to get away from the bickering. When they come up for air, they are in a creek somewhere in the country and follow a little boy to a farmhouse where dozens of other children are playing with each other. Old Aunt T is in the farmhouse cooking cake and reveals that many unloved children arrive here to live.
But the Sharewood kids want to give their parents one more chance and dive back into the creek and emerge from the family pool. The parents were frantic about the missing children . Once united, old habits return and the bickering resumes. The kids go back to the pool, come up for air back at Aunt T's house and will never return to their parents even though they can faintly hear their Mom calling for them
TZ dies with a whimper, not a bang as these last few episodes were rather weak. This show had sub-standard dialogue, plenty of dubbing because the children had trouble speaking their lines and came up a few minutes short. So they took a few minutes of the middle of the show and repeated it at the beginning as a prologue. If there was any money in the TZ budget by this point (and there never was at the end of a season) they could have had Auntie T's house look like a big shoe. Alas.
And that's it. Finito
Except the Image Entertainment box set of the complete Twilight Zone has one more mystery bonus disk. I have not popped it in the player and have no clue what it might contain. I'll solve that soon
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Post by BigPapaJoe on Oct 6, 2015 4:39:39 GMT -5
I've been watching these again recently. Mostly season 1. I still haven't seen all of the original series, but over half of it I'm sure. And most of the notable episodes. I was thinking about two season 1 episodes today. The first being "Mirror Image". This is the one where a woman is waiting for a bus at the bust station during the late hours. She starts to come to the conclusion that there is a double of her somewhere prowling around the station. The small confrontation she has with this double is only from a distance and she shes a sinister smile on it's face. I was wondering what I would do in this situation. If you see a double of yourself somewhere in a bus stop or restaurant and you catch them smiling at you before they run away. You then realize this person isn't there to help you figure out why this is possible. They're there to attack you in some manner or ruin your life.
The other episode was "And When the Sky was Opened". This is the one about three astronauts that head to space for a flight mission. There is a strange issue during the trip which results in them disappearing from Earth's radar from a bit, reappearing, and forced to make a crash landing. Afterward the three men are hospitalized. They recover, but then something strange begins to happen with one of them disappearing and only one of the remaining two remembering he ever existed in the first place. Not sure what I would also do here. I think I would have rather died in the crash instead of coming back and ceasing to have ever existed in the first place.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Oct 6, 2015 17:49:02 GMT -5
Thanks for the thread bump Papa. Reminds me that I never revealed the mystery disc from Image Videos Twilight Zone-The Complete Original Series Box Set. Its a 90 minute bio of Rod Serling. I think it came from A&E's Biography series. Lots and lots of kinescopes of early TV plays Serling wrote before The Twilight Zone . Covers his post TZ career as well with Night Gallery and various game shows he hosted. Also guest appearances on other people's shows like Jack Benny and TV commercials he did. Almost every time he was filmed he had a cigarette in his hand.
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