Things I Learned Watching a Twilight Zone Marathon

If we ever receive a visitor from another planet, we’re screwed.

All dolls, puppets, ventriloquist dummies, mannequins, etc. are evil.

Get one of those dorky neck chains to secure your spectacles.

In the early 1960s, you could apparently bring a gun on an airplane and no one noticed or seemed to care.

Communities should pool their resources and build nuclear fallout shelters big enough to house all the residents (just trust me on this).

Evil people are subjected to ironic punishment in the afterlife.

Trains, sciency helmets, and horse wagons will travel you back and forth through time.

Talking slot and fortune telling machines are harbingers of doom.

Cameras and TV screens are portals to your final destination.

You can ride on the wing of an airplane without getting blown off.

Highly trained astronauts can’t tell the difference between the surface of the Earth and that of another planet.

You can be immortal and not look old.

All Creation myths were inspired by extraterrestrials.

Old people are really creepy.

Airplanes that fly into the past can stay aloft indefinitely.

It takes a long time to notice the Earth’s changing its orbit.

Two survivors of a holocaust are enough to repopulate the planet.

A time portal will magically open up if there’s an urgent need to do or get something.

The Devil can actually be contained in a jail cell.

So are kids. If you’re in the middle of a multi-generation household you’d better put your affairs in order.

The slightest thing will set people at each others’ throats.

There are just as many Monsters on Main Street now as then. Perhaps more so.

Kids can spend hours at the bottom of a swimming pool without drowning.

Defenestration is a common cause of death, particularly when time-bending cameras are involved.

A good writer can really bring a character to life!

Oh come on, you’re forgetting a key one.

Never, never, never bet about anything, with anyone. Ever.

Getting everything you’ve ever wanted really can be Hell.

Denizens of the Underworld can look, dress, and talk like Sebastian Cabot, Julie Newmar, or Burgess Meredith.

Don’t piss off a kid - or their doll.

Giant or tiny aliens are likely to be humans and you are not.

Any random object you find in a cornfield was probably put there by some bratty little kid.

How dare you, sir. How dare you. I happen to have learned that, sometimes, if you’re just trying to make the best of a bad situation — be it as a hobo or a clown or a bagpiper or a ballet dancer or a military officer — your circumstances may well turn out to involve being, y’know, a doll.

The guys who fries your hamburgers all have Three Eyes.
That’s why they wear the hats.

A good time machine has a ladder you have to climb to get to the controls.

Playing pool is a fine hobby but a lousy afterlife.

Don’t be sad about your career - one of your students may have died young due to careless medical experiments; that’s got to cheer you up.

I actually would welcome Death if a young calm Robert Redford rapped on my door and offered to escort me out of my shabby apartment…More likely I’m dodging Death right now - he’s that evil grinning bastard I spot hitchhiking or at a gas station. Playing games while I’m driving across the country! And then he pops up in my back seat! Ah-hahahahahahahaaaaaa!

Dictatorial societies are pretty accommodating when you have some rather specific conditions in mind for your execution.