I’m surprised no one has mentioned “It’s a Good Life.” That is my favorite episode of all time. I also love “Living Doll” which has been mentioned, and “Little Girl Lost.” All three have been parodied by The Simpsons, as well.
“He shouldn’t have thought those bad thoughts. That’s why I made him go on fire!”–Anthony Freemont, It’s a Good Life
“There’s a man going over the goalposts! That is strange, and you know what we say whenever something strange happens. It’s good that Bart did that, it’s very good!” --The Bart Zone.
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“I’m Talky Tina and I’m going to kill you!”–Talky Tina, Living Doll.
“I’m Krusty the Klown and I’m going to kill you.”
“Heh, that’s cute. I didn’t even pull it’s string.”
“YOU! You, Homer Simpson!”–Krusty and Homer.
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Homer: Help! I’m lost and I don’t know where I am!
Marge: Do you see towels? If you see towels, you’re in the linen closet!
Homer’s Voice: Hold on, I’ll check. [pause] No. I’m in a place I’ve never been before.
Selma: Heh, the shower.
The Midnight Sun episode is one of my favs, but I really liked the episode that was NOT even a Twilight Zone epsiode - “An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge”.
Side note - Rod Serling lived for awhile in Ithaca, NY [Cayuga Productions] and if you watch enough episodes, there are mentions of Ithaca, [Midnight Sun - waterfalls] and Cortland, Syracuse and Buffalo [the bus station episode with Martin Milner], but evdently he had a strong dislike of Rochester (the bus skips Rochester!).
For those who have been to the “Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” at MGM Studios, next time take a good look at the some of the props and scenery.
In the Library -
Fortune Telling machine - ‘Nick of Time’.
Pool Cue - ‘A Game of Pool’.
Broken Glasses - ‘Time Enough at Last’.
Trumpet - Aaah, the one with Jack Klugman as the trumpet player (‘Gideon’s Trumpet’?).
I’m sure there’re more, but it’s dark in there.
The exit ramp wall had a chalk ‘door’ outline from ‘Little Girl Lost’, but some kid probabrly erased it.
I love “To Serve Man” solely for the line “It’s a cookbook!” When I was an undergrad, someone ran for student government and used that as their campaign slogan. (They were one of the people who run for student government as an excuse to act weird and get attention.) It really cracked me up.
One of my favorite episodes was “Button, Button”. (I think that’s the title of the episode.) Couple gets a button. If they push it, someone they don’t know dies, and they get $10,000. They finally do, and get the money, along with the advice to spend it quickly, before the next person pushes the button. Classic!
I can’t believe I haven’t seen one of my favorites listed. I can’t remember the name of it, but it starts out with this couple waking up in a house where everything’s fake. Fake cabinets, telelphone,… They get outside, the tree’s are fake, they see people from a distance, they turn out to be mannequins, they discover a wall around the entire city, but no one else but the two of them. At the end, the camera shows that they are pets, wandering around a giant play city for a young, giant alien girl.
Her Pilgrim Soul – a woman helps her husband from a former life. She had died in childbirth, and her husband never recovered and died a bitter old man.
She appears (in a hologram, I think) to a man who doesn’t want children and whose marriage is suffering because of it.
The reason he doesn’t want children is that he was her husband in that prior life, and his spirit remembers the loss. (Happy ending to this one.)
I’m very sentimental so “One For The Angels” is my favorite, if not the best.
Someone tell me the name of the episode where a used car dealer is sold a car, the possesion of which renders the owner able to tell only the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is shown that such a “handicap” is bad for a used car dealer. My dad, who has dealt only honestly in cars, resented that one. Eventually he sells the car to a mysterious Russian, and it is implied that it is Nikita Kruschev(sp?)
To Serve Man is one of earliest TV memories. I think it’ll always hold a special place in my heart
and the one in the new series where one day everyone bar one person just started using different words and he struggled to understand people and had to relearn the language…
I can’t believe none of you have mentioned “Shadow Play” with Dennis Weaver. (Guy dreams that he’s murdered someone and is on death row. He has the same dream night after night, though the characters keep changing.)
Really thought provoking episode–the best of the dream related ones, in my opinion.
I also liked “A Game of Pool” and “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”
Didn’t hate “To Serve Man”, but got very sick of it after a while–they showed it on EVERY marathon, and it wasn’t THAT GOOD!
Baker’s episode is called “The Whole Truth”.
The one that Dolores Claiborne didn’t like was called “Jess Belle”
Zev, I think “In Praise of Pip” is the one in which Jack Klugman plays a guy whose son is dying in Vietnam-- as in, if I remember correctly, actually in the process of dying, either of illness or after being wounded. Haven’t seen it in a while, but the episode revolves around Jack and a little boy who is somehow his son but younger running around an amusement park. I can’t remember, though, if it ends with Jack giving up his life for Pip’s, or if the time-bending visit was just a way for Pip to say goodbye. Either way, it’s a tearjerker.
How about the one that takes place in during a false nuclear alert and everyone is trying to get into the fallout shelter? Title?
That and “Maple Street” are probably my favorites. But reading this thread, it’s amazing how many brief plot descriptions can bring vivid images to my mind. I can remember detailed scenes, faces, even some dialog, all just from a single line summary.
This is the only episode of the New Twilight Zone that was any good. I remember Mare Winningham played the wife. When
they pushed the button, they got $1,000,000 and someone they didn’t know dies.
When the guy comes to give them the money and take the box, they ask him “What happens to the box?” He replies “Oh, we use it again. We give it to someone that you don’t know.”
In a very chilling voice, the implication being…
Digital–I also like the one with the camera that takes photos one minute in the future, mainly because of that wonderful braying actress who played the cheap doxie.
Gosh, they had some great molls and broads on that show, with their bubble hairdos, too-tight dresses and whiney Brooklyn accents! If she wasn’t played by Iris Adrian, she was the next-best thing.
Slight hijack: remember how terrific Joan Crawford was on the pilot for “Night Gallery?”