# Button, Button the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 16, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996 "2009-10-16T04:54:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/1 "2009-10-16T04:54:26Z")
As most of you already know the Twilight Zone had a second incarnation in the 80’s. One of the episodes was [Button, Button](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29) Tonight I see a commercial for [The Box](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o6PVOoTrCk) A movie based on a Twilight Zone episode :dubious: Oh well, it’s not like it’s the [first](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Service_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29) [time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/2 "2009-10-16T05:33:35Z")
Whether a person would wish another person dead on the other side of the world for the sake of monetary gain is a question proposed in, I believe, The Count of Monte Cristo (published in 1844). I suspect that the idea is older than that. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/3 "2009-10-16T06:56:03Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > A movie based on a Twilight Zone episode :dubious: Actually, it’s a movie based on a [Richard Matheson](http://us.macmillan.com/author/richardmatheson) [story](http://us.macmillan.com/buttonbutton). ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/4 "2009-10-16T07:02:23Z")
Funny, I read something on another site which at first I thought was the opposite of what you said (I thought it said that the book was inspired from the Twilight Zone episode) but I looked again and saw that I was the one who read it backwards. My mistake. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/5 "2009-10-16T12:52:08Z")
Actually, it doesn’t seem based on either. The Twilight Zone episode is one of the many great ones of the 80s version. It’s almost the platonic ideal of the TZ story – weird situation with a great twist at the end. But the twist is handled so brilliantly that you never saw it coming. Matheson’s version (he hated the TZ one and took his name off the credits) was an attempt to be deeper and more philosophical, but the philosophy is extremely trite. TZ was smart to adapt it. But to turn it into a movie (and the previews indicate it’s following the path of the TZ version) takes a great piece of short fiction and turns it into a cookie-cutter thriller. It lacks both the twist (or rather, starts with the twist) or the philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![3waygeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e95f7d/32.png) [@3waygeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3waygeek)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/6 "2009-10-16T16:11:48Z")
_Button, Button_, as well as several other stories from the 80s incarnation of TZ, were all published in a single smallish paperback anthology I read as part of my 9th grade English class back in 1977 or 78. I suspect the producers of the show had a copy, as every episode I remember seeing back then had at least one story from the anthology. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/7 "2009-10-16T16:41:13Z")
Matheson actually wrote a great many of the original Twilight Zone episodes (Serling wrote a lot, too, of course, but people seem to think Serling did them all. Charles Beaumont wrote quite a few, too) I’m not surprised that the later incarnation leaned heavily on Matheson. (By then, both Serling and Beaumont had died) ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/8 "2009-10-16T18:31:12Z")
> [@3waygeek](#): > > _Button, Button_, as well as several other stories from the 80s incarnation of TZ, were all published in a single smallish paperback anthology I read as part of my 9th grade English class back in 1977 or 78. I suspect the producers of the show had a copy, as every episode I remember seeing back then had at least one story from the anthology. You read a collection of stories from the '80s Twilight Zone in the late '70s? There’s a Twilight Zone twist right there. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/9 "2009-10-16T19:48:08Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > You read a collection of stories from the '80s Twilight Zone in the late '70s? There’s a Twilight Zone twist right there. He means stories written in the 70s and earlier that were used in the 80s Twilight Zone. Matheson hasn’t really published much since the late 70s. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/button-button-the-movie/513996/10 "2009-10-21T18:12:05Z")
If you prefer, here’s the [two-minute version](http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/44b3d8f432/the-button?rel=player#). 😃