I remember this episode’s script being printed in an English textbook of mine back in high school. The only difference was the deletion of the last line of the post-episode narrative, since it was the script’s only reference to “The Twilight Zone.”
I’m in Canada and some of our networks fiddle with the imported shows.
Eg/ Is it CSI and ER that you guys have in the same time slot competing with each other? I get those back to back on the same channel. (Or is it some other show? In Cafe threads I’ve noticed some popular show conflicts with ER, but I don’t have that problem.)
I used to watch all three shows back to back. I think it went in the order of Amazing Stories, Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock. Or was it Amazing Stories, Alfred Hitchcock then Twilight Zone? Made for a really cool night of television!
(Not good for a seventh-grader who needed to sleep though. Keep me up with the heebie-jeebies.)
[QUOTE=Sir Prize
The newer TZ series had a sequel to this with the same kid (played by the same actor) all grown up.[/QUOTE]
OOOOOoooooOOOOoooooh. That sounds great. Can you tell me what happened in that episode?
IIRC, while someone can probably offer more detail, I believe the overarching thrust of the story has to do with Billy Mumy’s character finding a little girl who has powers similar to his, and sort of being forced to “grow up” and be the mentor to her that he never had.
She’s his daughter.
Oh yeah – that one ruled!
I loved the scene at the end where they’re all getting back on the bus, and Ethel McConnel (the shapely “professional dancer”) climbs the steps, and the driver and the cop bend their heads to watch her rear end sashay up. Viewing that as a grade schooler helped me feel OK about that funny feeling I got when I looked at girls.
Also great about that episode was the presence of the amazing character actor Barney Phillips (the diner owner).
That guy could play anything and make you believe it. He once played a tough-as-nails POW (USAF General Barton) on Hogan’s Heroes. It was years before I realized that the humble cook on “Will the Real Martian…” (and the genial TV repairman on “A Thing About Machines”) were all played by the same actor.
“A Thing About Machines” – OMG, another great TZ episode.
That show is heroin minus the needles and painful death.
Just did a search and learned that General Barton was not played by Barney Phillips, but Frank Gerstle (there is a resemblance).
Going through withdrawal…
I didn’t get watch many episodes, I can never find them on the channels that I have, but of the few I watched, I distinctly remember the one where a woman was sent back in time to kill baby adolf hitler. After she jumped into the water with the baby she stole from his home, the nanny of baby hilter was so scared she’d get in trouble by her employer that she bought a baby off a Gypsy (?) on the streets. It portrays the wonderful message of, you can’t change the past.
“The Midnight Sun” was mentioned before but it’s the one I most clearly remember. It tells the tale of earth hurtling towards the sun from the point of view of a woman trapped in her apartment because she’s avoiding people who are begging for water in a futile attempt to stave off death. The coda is that, in reality, she is dying of a fever caused by the fact that earth has been thrown off its orbit and is hurtling into outer space.
I remember a lot of these episodes from my childhood, but for some reason* this one strikes me the hardest.
*Minnesota chick familiar with both numbing cold and stifling heat?
One of my favorites has Robert Redford playing “Death,” and an old woman who is terrified of death, and won’t let him in. He tricks her into opening the door, and shows her that death can be peaceful, and calms her.
I love the fact that so many actors got their earliest roles on Twilight Zone. The young Jack Klugman, Robert Redford, etc. They look so, uh, young! 
One episode a guy was walking to work in the morning, flips a nickle to the paperboys cigar/change box, and the coin lands on its side. Not flat.
The guy then has extrodinary abilities all day long until he leaves work. He buys a evening paper from the same kid, flips another coin into the paperboys cigarbox and knocks down the orig coin still on it’s side. " It stayed like that all day" the paperboy told him.
The guy then looses his extrodinary abilities.
I was 11 years old when I saw that episode, haven’t seen it since.
I did a school book report that year. I think it was called “Curtain Call for Catherine.” or close to that, it’s been a while.
No kid was listening when I got up in front of class, untill I explained it was the Twilite Zone guy who wrote the story.
The writer, Rod Serling.
All the kids though it was soooo cool.
Ye gads, they revived the series a second time?
…yeah, it was the ending that suckered me in.
Choosing to comfort the woman at the end-that scene made the episode for me. There was that second of hesitation, where we, the audience thought that he had learned his lesson and would be a productive member of society, but then found out that he had learned a more important lesson, on the basic principles of humanity, fantastic.
[QUOTE=Trailer Park Casanova]
One episode a guy was walking to work in the morning, flips a nickle to the paperboys cigar/change box, and the coin lands on its side. Not flat.
The guy then has extrodinary abilities all day long until he leaves work. He buys a evening paper from the same kid, flips another coin into the paperboys cigarbox and knocks down the orig coin still on it’s side. " It stayed like that all day" the paperboy told him.
The guy then looses his extrodinary abilities.
I was 11 years old when I saw that episode, haven’t seen it since.
<snip>
[QUOTE]
That one starred Dick York (Darren Stevens of Bewitched) - he could “hear” people’s thoughts. One of my favorites, too. And does anyone remember the one with Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery? It was set in an “after the BIG war” town. She never spoke a word. They were enemy soldiers. Great one.
This was the first remake. They did a few remakes of original stories, but there were some good new stories.
[QUOTE=Dolores Reborn]
Yeah, that was one of the thousands of “yeah, yeah, we get it, they’re Adam and Eve” sci-fi TV episodes and movies that have been made since Adam and Eve . . .
Their used to be a show with Art Linkletters son called “On The Go”.
They once went to Rod Serlings home and check out the study where he wrote his stuff, and they interviewed him live.
The thing I remember most was him saying the sponsors put the most money into the opening episode each season and that those episodes weren’t necessarly the most popular.
BTW - Was the “invisible man” in the newer version palyed by Rufus Sewell? Once in awhile, I’ll think back to an old movie or TV episode and realize “hey, that was so-and-so”. Kinda like reverse recognition – I don’t recognize them in the newer stuff, but when I htink back to the show I saw as a kid…
E.g./ I was reminiscing about the movie Dragonslayer from my childhood and suddenly realized, “Wait, that was The Biscuit from Ally McBeal!”
Uh, the “Invisible Man” episode from the New TZ you’re talking about is when the guy gets a mark on his forehead as some kind of punishment, right?
No. It was Cotter Smith
Yes. He tried to put a hat on to cover it, but it burned through. The “crime” was “emotional coldness”. He learns his lesson all too well as witnessed by the ending.
Setting up one of the biggest laughs I ever got from Third Rock From the Sun.
Dick Solomon (Lithgow) meets The Big Giant Head (Shatner) at the airport:
How was your flight?
Horrible! There was some sort of …creature… on the wing of the plane.
The same thing happened to me!!!