Have long searched for this black an white tv program. It was an episode of a series something like Twilight Zone or Outer Limits but I don’t think it was either of them .
A man invents a machine that allows him to hear roses cry out when snipped by his neighbor. Then another neighbor is axeing a tree and the inventor hears its great groans thru the headphones of his machine. He runs around desperately trying to get people to stop injuring plants (I think there was a bit about cutting grass in there too) and of course they all think he is crazy. I don’t remember how it ends but I would love to have a tape of it. I would at least like to know from what series it came! Anyone else remember seeing this?
I’m almost certain you’re thinking of an episode of the Twilight Zone, but I can’t place which one… I’m surfing through the plot synopses right now.
Actually, it was a particularly intense episode of American Inventor. At the end, he commits suicide after losing in the finals to a guy who invented an improved pooper scooper.
Bingo. And it was not black and white.
Semi-related, there was a short-lived anthology series (and Twilight Zone knockoff) called Darkroom in 1981, narrated by James Coburn. The tenth episode, “Daisies”, is about a botanist (Lloyd Bochner) experimenting with a way to communicate with plants, while carrying on an affair with his mistress (Elizabeth Halliday) behind the back of his wife (Rue McClanahan).
The flowers spill their guts
Thats it!!! OMG you have no idea how long I have tried to ID that thing. How did you search for it? cause I thought I was pretty good at searching and I turned up nuttin.
Roald Dahl. I never thought of him bieng the source. He is delightfully werid. I remember the one about the witches who were bald and ate children. as well as many many other stories.
Thank you thank you thank you. You have my undying gratitude.
I saw it in black and white but it could have been the tv. Must be my fading memory. (this is only funny when it isn’t YOUR fading memory!)
Thanks for the info!
I too thought that but after infoing every one every time any were re-run on tv I decided it was only something similar to TZ or Outer Limits. Thank You for your efforts!
I’m pretty sure that story was also adapted in an issue of EC Comic’s Weird Science. When I read the description, I immediately remembered that story, and I never knew it was adapted for television.
Actually, now that I think about it, it could have been a *Tales From the Crypt * issue, but it sounds more like Weird Science.
This was also somewhat the premise in the “Love Hungry” episode of “Tales From the Darkside.” A woman could see and hear her food pleading with her not to eat them.
The screams of plucked flowers is also a trivial element in Ian Fleming’s novel Moonraker.
Man-in-the-moon marigolds?
And Seth Green recently created a comic book where there’s X-Men style mutants with terrible powers. One is a guy who hears plants. Sadly, he’s a vegetarian, and is pretty much starving to death.
I already knew it. We read Dahl’s book that had many of those stories at my school, and that story, along with the pigs in the slaughterhouse, and “lamb to the slaughter”, were the ones I remember most.