Which Twilight Zone episode made the biggest impression on you?

I don't even remember the name or the year of the one that impacted me the most.
It was about 2 American guys in space who discover a race of people, who are the size of ants to the
astronauts, and one guys refuses to leave the planet as he becomes drunk with power over the lilliputian people.
Until at the end of the episode, a giant pair of boots smacks down alongside of him, and he looks up and up and up........
( anyone remember that one? )

He tells them that nuclear destruction will occur at a certain time and they all have to spend the rest of their lives in his bunker as punishment for what they did to him earlier in his life - one by one they all leave until he is alone.

There was one about a guy and his wife who went to Las Vegas, and he became obsessed with this one slot machine, kept trying to win, and the machine takes his last coin and breaks. Then it starts following him, calling his name in this weird, rattly voice: "Fraaankliiin! Fraaaanklinnn!" I think the guy ends up jumping out a window. That weird machine voice gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Another one involved a girl whose wealthy, eccentric parents had servants who were lifelike robots, and she didn't like them. Then she discovers that she, too, is a robot.

I also liked the one where a couple wakes up after a party in a strange house in a strange town with no people in it. They make their way to a train station and get on the train, but the train keeps going in a circle. They finally discover that they are "pets" in some alien kid's model railroad setup.

I loved that show.

A man works at a bank and goes into the vault when a blasts occurs. Everything is destroyed, including the guy's nagging wife, but the books in the library are all there. He finally has the time and freedom to do nothing but read...but his glasses break.

DOH!

Maybe because I love to read, hate to work, and never have enough time with life in the way. The dilemma was heartbreaking.

I would love to be stuck in a library or bookstore for hours but as you say, there's that pesky thing called real life.

I'd be in that man's situation - I can't read SHIT without my glasses.

and nurse's faces were revealed, I ran from the room screaming. I was about 7 or 8 at the time. The Twilight Zone was my parents' favorite show. I was a night owl and they'd usually let me watch. Made a lasting impression.

Also, and I'm not 100% sure it was a TZ episode.
The one about a hideously disfigured boy who gets
a chance to start a new life on another planet, and
finds out he is "hot" there.

That one really made me THINK as a child and is one
of my favorite TZ/Outer Limits type episodes.

Henry Bemis played by Burgess Meredith, is a man who loves books, yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. He works in a bank and takes his lunch break in the bank's vault so that he can read in peace. One day, while he is reading on his lunch break in the vault, there is a huge explosion and as he investigates he realizes that his world has been destroyed by the "H-bomb" and only he remains alive. He is about to take his own life in despair when he spies the library and finds with great joy and delight that the books are all intact. As, with happy anticipation, he begins to sort the books that he has "all the time in the world" to read, he bends over and his thick glasses fall off his face and shatter.. he is for all intents and purposes blind... the story ends with pitiful Mr. Bemis saying over and over again "It isn't fair..."

As a die hard bookworm, I remember feeling so horrified at the ending.

Lovely ending to that one.

...where he'll win like a million dollars? So he gets a nerve cut so his vocal cords don't work anymore?



And the kicker is the guy that lost the bet was a rich poser and really broke?

constant talking, he made a million-dollar bet the chatterbox couldn't keep his mouth shut for "x" amount of time (a week?). The chatterbox apparently knew he wouldn't be able to do it, but wanted the million so badly he had his vocal chords severed. The man who made the bet didn't have the million.

The sun is getting closer to the earth and everything is getting hot. People are burning up; the oil on the canvas the main character paints melts. Then she wakes up....she was dreaming....in reality, the sun is moving further away and everyone's freezing.

I guess eternal fuel is necessary!

I was scared shitless of flying after William Shatner saw the Gremlin staring into the window next to his seat on the plane.
Or the one where the camera took pictures of things that hadn't happened yet.
Or the one with Billy Mumy.
Or "To Serve Man".
Or...

One? LOLOLOL you must be kidding.

..."Shadowplay" really unsettled me. It was about a man being sentenced to death and executed over and over again, all the while trying to convince people that they only existed in his mind and would be extinguished when he was executed.

There was a new series of TZ episodes in the late 80s or early 90s and there was an episode about a guy who wakes up one day and notices that the English language was gradually being rearranged so that each word meant something different from what it originally meant. By the end of the episode everyone around him was talking gibberish and he had to get a child's picture/vocabulary book to learn the "new" language. The last shot is of him opening the book and seeing that the word for "dog" was now "Wednesday".

and almost as bad as current language re-framing by the Republicans, doesn't it?

Acquitted himself as an actor rather well. For some reason, I recall seeing that episode twice.

but there was one where an earthling was a creature in a zoo on another planet; the one where a guy goes back in time and sees himself when he was younger and visits his parents who don't recognize him; and the one about the silent film star -- oh and the one about mannequins in a department store.

"Wish it into the cornfield! Please,son. Please!"

yup

:scared:

who seem to want their own personal cornfield.

:evilgrin:

:rofl:

Just watched it this evening, in fact. It featured a somewhat spaced-out looking Richard Kiel.

Judged how you judge.

Yea seen that episode a few times.

And I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.


Or there is always a bigger fish in the pond.

Or if you want to live in a world of 'might makes right', you better be the strongest thing in existence.



That episode is pretty good.

" Never think you know what is best for the other person
he might decide he knows what's best for you".

Who keeps coming back over and over, only the characters play different roles every time he comes back.

one kept insisting there had originally been THREE OF THEM when they went into space - the other astronaut thought his buddy was nuts - until his buddy disappears :o

It's almost Shakespearian in its tragedy.

As in, absolutely no one. He is in a new world altogether with no warning. That was actually the episode of The Twilight Zone that convinced me I should stop watching it because it was just too scary for me. TTZ has the distinction of being the only tv show I have not been able to get through because of how frightening it was, and that includes "Millennium" and "Law & Order: SUV."

I also like the one where the rich assholes put pig masks on their faces and then can't get them off. At least, I think that was the plot. "The Eye of the Beholder," is the ep title.

on horseback.

that I read several times as a kid

One of em, guy stops his car at the roadside, climbs up over the small ridge there, finds himself in the middle of a battle between Indians and US cavalry, cavalry losing, Indians running at him, grabs a gun from a dead soldier, not much chance to defend himself, runs full trot back whence he came over the small ridge, finds himself face to face with highway patrol who want to know what's up, he pants something about Indians, "No Indians around here, Mister," then they all stare at the very old weather-beaten disintegrating bit of rifle he's still clutching

But I like the more eloquent ones as an adult (though Billy Mumy's Anthony is hard to top).


I like A Town Called Willoughby a lot, for its blend of nostalgia and creepiness.

Seriously scarred by that damn doll.

But William Shatner's flight terror, and the one where the astronaut "Adam" is the only one to survive a crash and his home planet is destroyed by war and he meets "Eve", have stayed with me.

standing by the road every few miles or so, beckoning to her... finally she becomes unnerved and stops to call home and perhaps sleep as she is surely hallucinating. Her mother can't come to the phone as she is under sedation because her daughter (Inger) was killed in a car wreck on her way to California.. as she hangs up the phone she sees the man again and now she understands who he is.....DEATH

Love that one

Oh man, I had not thought of her in decades.
Sad death.

:-(

many others...

:(

and a Huck Finn-type boy pops out of the water and takes them to a place where an old woman named Aunt Tee runs kind of a children's paradise. They return home, but jump back into the pool when they learn that their parents are divorcing, yelling "Take us, Aunt Tee!" before they disappear under the water. Their father jumps into the pool, thinking that they're drowning, but they are no longer in the pool...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunt_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29


A World of Difference is also one of my favorites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_of_Difference

that I can't think of a single current show that people will remember specific episodes of 50 years from now. Quality storytelling is sorely lacking today.

Still love that episode every time I watch it.

"Room for one more, dearie."

Loved it when they had TZ marathons on the holidays.

I think they did a near perfect job of convincing you that the dream and everything was from her breakdown and not a premonition.

When she goes to board the plane and the flight attendant is the morgue nurse from her dream-goosebumps.

When it was on sale at Amazon. We go through periods when we'll watch several at once.

It might have been one of the new episodes, but this dude shows up at the house of a young married couple. He gives them a box with a button on it and tells them that if they press the button, they'll get $90,000 and someone they don't know will die.

The episode unfolds exactly as you'd expect. :D

The story ends differently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29


"It's a cookbook!"

With Burgess Meredith and Fritz Weaver, set during the reign of a totalitarian regime. This episode and its message will never get old or be obsolete (sorry, couldn't resist!)

:D

I can't fly without thinking about that one.

That the one I remember most.

Now I'm slowly watching The Twilight Zone on DVD. So, they're all good.

and is confronted by the ghosts of the inmates. At the end you see him swinging from the tree and you're not sure whether he committed suicide or the ghosts were real and killed him.

That show were weird.

I wonder how many nighmares we had back then because of the Twilight Zone.

Also, I remember one where a young woman meets a little girl named "Markie." It turns out that Markie is her childhood self. The woman can't remember her own childhood, because of her mother's murder, which she witnessed. The imaginary Markie brings everything back when the man returns, and she can now identify him.

I also liked one called, "A Stop at Willoughby." A man riding a train wants to get off at Willoughby, a seemingly idyllic village. It has a bizarre ending (of course).

Was the Twilight Zone a show for kids to watch?

Another show that was scary was called One Step Beyound.

But my mother let me watch it. My best friend watched it too. We were fifth and sixth graders.

Sometimes, I think my mother let me watch it with her because it creeped her out too much to watch it alone. We would get goosebumps together.

I don't think it hurt me.

We all seem to remember the show and the moral of the stories.

We were not harmed.

...what's his name... Jack? Jack Klugman, I think.



Anyway, he hangs around day and night in a pool hall, wishing he had a chance to take on some big-time pool player that had died some years ago. The spirit of the dead player is summoned by his wish and appeared on Earth to play Jack for the title of world's best player.


Jack eventually squeaks out a win, and the spirit returns to Heaven, heaving Jack as the best pool player in the world.



Later on, Jack dies as well, and goes to Heaven.... where he waits to be called down to Earth to play pool with living people that think they're better than the late Jack.




Just kinda stuck in my head for some reason.

And you are right, it was Jack Klugman who was the young aspiring pool player.

based on story by Richard Matheson. As a kid it made me realize, that my actions may effect people I will never know. Not the original but all of the best episodes have been mentioned.

Push the button, become rich, and someone you don't know will die. Wonder how many people would make the same choice Mare Winningham finally makes? I bet a lot.

and the broken glasses, but not because he broke his glasses, I was so frustrated because all he had to do was find the librarians desk, they always had a big magnifying glass in the top drawer. always.

I hope I remember before he sends me to the cornfield.:scared:

Could turn you into a jack-in-the-box.

Lived overseas for much of my early life. And I tried to Google, but didn't come up with much. Didn't the "Twilight Zone" have something in it's intro credits - something about a breaking window?? I seem to remember that, just cause it freaked the heck out of me as a kid, and I'd always run upstairs and hide when I anticipated it. I remember liking the show, generally - I've always been drawn to off-beat stuff and enjoy a good thrill - but that breaking window always got to me.

It may be a different series I'm thinking of, I don't know. I thought it was TZ, I dunno.

And for most episodes, there is a Wikipedia page with plot synopsis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Twilight_Zone_episodes

The shopkeeper finds the magic lamp and gets three wishes from the genie. Be careful what you wish for.

The one where one family has the fallout shelter and there's a false nuclear alert. Goes to the essence of human behavior.

Adam and Eve, where the astronaut is marooned on another planet and the earth is destroyed in a nuclear war.

There were so many that had an impression on me. One of the few TV shows I ever HAD to watch.

One sticks out in my mind is the Art Carney Christmas show, "The Night of the Meek."
I guess because it was so much different than any Christmas show I had ever seen. Just a nice story

recently. I've also done some research. Rod Sterling was very liberal and his shows almost always had a message.

He's starving and eats and eats and eats, but is never satisfied. The last fortune cookie says "you're dead". That's the only one I specifically remember.

For the other one: there was a newer show (was it TZ?) where a woman could stop time with a watch by saying "Shut Up" and she could still keep moving and moved some people from her doorstep to laying down on her lawn. The end was her saying shut up just before a nuclear missile hit her town. The missile was suspended in the air.

That was freaky to me back in the 80's.

Edit: the second one was the new TZ "A Little Peace and Quiet"