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The Twilight Zone Marathon
12/31/15 | self

Posted on 12/31/2015 5:44:01 PM PST by keat

I'm watching the TZ marathon on SyFy. The current episode, "A Most Unusual Camera" is from 1960 and looks like it was shot on videotape. Did they do that back then? Looks like a cheesy soap opera.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: television; twilightzone; whentvwasgood
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

And the Professor from Gilligan’s Island.


161 posted on 01/01/2016 8:49:30 AM PST by keat
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To: nopardons; SamAdams76

Give a wave to the old Larchmont station next time you pass through. My old stop of many years ago.


162 posted on 01/01/2016 8:56:04 AM PST by keat
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To: keat
Drunk Santa, lol.

Art Carney (Norton from the Honeymooners) played Santa in that episode. He was actually a great guy, despite his drinking, which he gives up in the end after experiencing that 'miracle from above' which made him the real Santa, at least for one night.

163 posted on 01/01/2016 10:31:55 AM PST by ETL (Ted Cruz 2016!! -- For a better, safer America)
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To: keat
Twilight Zone Night of the Meek 2
_________________________________

"The Night of the Meek" is the December 23, 1960 episode, and 47th overall, of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Introductory scene:

As snow begins to fall, a drunk and dejected Henry Corwin, wearing his Santa Claus suit, stumbles and half-falls at a curbside lamppost. He is approached by two tenement children pleading for toys, a Christmas dinner and "a job for my daddy". As Corwin begins to sob helplessly, the camera slowly pans to the right, revealing Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and scarf, with snowflakes settling on his hair and shoulders:

"This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of the department-store Santa Claus in a road-company version of 'The Night Before Christmas'. But in just a moment Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found... in the Twilight Zone."

Plot:

It is Christmas Eve. Henry Corwin, a down-and-out ne'er-do-well, dressed in a baggy, worn-out Santa Claus suit, has just spent his last few dollars on a sandwich and six drinks at Jack's Place, the neighborhood bar. Bruce, the brusque bartender, throws him out after spotting Corwin, whose pockets now contain only a few meager coins, reaching for the bottle.

Arriving an hour late for his seasonal job as a department store Santa, the visibly drunk Corwin is soon fired by Mr. Dundee, the mean-spirited manager, acting on a complaint from the overbearing customer who had, moments earlier, pushed her reluctant son, "Percival", to sit on Santa's lap. As Dundee orders him to leave the premises, Corwin pours out his heartache over living in a "dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people" for whom he is incapable of fulfilling his desired role as Santa. He declares that if he had just "one wish" granted him on Christmas Eve, he'd "like to see the meek inherit the earth".

Still in his outfit, he returns to Jack's Place but is refused re-entry by Bruce, who explains to the inebriated patrons that "Santa's a lush".

Stumbling aimlessly into an alley, he hears sleigh bells and trips over a large burlap bag, overfilled with packages, which seems to have the ability to produce any item that's asked of it.

Overjoyed at his sudden, inexplicable ability to fulfill a lifelong dream, Corwin proceeds to hand out gift-wrapped presents to passersby and then, upon entering Sister Florence's "Delancey Street Mission House", to derelict men attending Christmas Eve service.

Irritated by the disruption and outraged by Corwin's offer to gift her with a new dress, Sister Florence hurries outside to fetch Officer Flaherty, who proceeds to arrest Corwin for apparently stealing merchandise from his former place of employment.

Flaherty then contacts Mr. Dundee, who arrives at the police station exclaiming, "Ah-ha, here he is, and here we are, and there that is!".

Calling Corwin a "moth-eaten Robin Hood", Dundee reaches into the garbage bag to display some of the purported "wholesale theft of thousands of dollars worth of goods" but, as he pulls out a couple of empty cans, and a cat emitting a meow emerges from the bag onto the precinct counter, Corwin interjects, "this bag doesn't know whether to give out gifts or garbage".

Observing what just happened, Flaherty tells Corwin to "clean up this mess and get out of here", as Dundee, angry at having his time wasted, throws accusations of incompetence at Flaherty, who responds that "like Corwin says, we're dealing with the supernatural here".

With sarcastic disbelief, Dundee then challenges Corwin to produce a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903 and, as he turns to Flaherty and continues to berate him ("...how dare you drag me here at the busiest time of the year..."), Corwin comments "oh, that's a good year" and reaches into the bag to hand Dundee his exact request.

Leaving the precinct, he continues to distribute gifts for the remainder of the evening until the bag is empty.

As he exits from one of the tenement building, elderly Burt, whose desired pipe and smoking jacket had come from Corwin's bag at Sister Florence's service, points out that there is "nothing for you this Christmas, nothing for yourself, not a thing" and Corwin replies, "you know, I can't think of anything I want", but if he had his choice of any gift at all, "I think I'd wish I could do this every year".

Returning to the alley where the gift-laden garbage bag had presented itself, he encounters an elf (in the persona of an adolescent girl), sitting in a large sleigh hitched to four reindeer waiting to take him to his destiny as the eternal Santa Claus.

Emerging from the precinct, Flaherty and Dundee, now slightly tipsy from sampling Corwin's brandy, look upward upon hearing the tinkle of bells and confirm to each other that they have, indeed, in Flaherty's words, just seen Henry Corwin, "big as life, in a sleigh with reindeer, sittin' next to an elf", ascending into the night sky on Christmas Eve. Dundee invites Flaherty to accompany him home and share some hot coffee, with brandy poured in it, adding, "...and we’ll thank God for miracles, Flaherty..."
Closing narration (Rod Serling):
"A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There's a wondrous magic to Christmas and there's a special power reserved for little people. In short, there’s nothing mightier than the meek."

The original narration, on December 23, 1960, ended with the words, "and a Merry Christmas, to each and all", but that phrase was deleted in the 1980s and is now excluded from reruns..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_the_Meek

164 posted on 01/01/2016 10:50:06 AM PST by ETL (Ted Cruz 2016!! -- For a better, safer America)
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To: raccoonradio

Thanks...was just about to get the TZ book out to look it all up, but you’ve posted it all first. :-)


165 posted on 01/01/2016 2:21:54 PM PST by nopardons
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To: bgill
Which is why I don't watch any network shows and not that many cable ones.

To show my age....when T.V. was young, there were commercials Before and after each show ( so there was an overlapping ) and maybe once during a program; sometimes twice, if the show was an hour long. Some shows, like Milton Berle's, had skits IN THE SHOW, that were the commercial.

Now, oh the History channels and SyFy, commercials take up more time than the shows do.

166 posted on 01/01/2016 2:29:15 PM PST by nopardons
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To: elcid1970
The eyebrows are makeup and her eyes don't really slant either...that too is mostly makeup and lots of it.

OTOH, she might have been EurAsian.

167 posted on 01/01/2016 2:32:34 PM PST by nopardons
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To: keat

Shall do, but I’ll wave at the Larchmont sign, when we drive into the city too, for you . :-)


168 posted on 01/01/2016 2:42:10 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons

Barbara Eden had those uptilted eyes, too.

I was deployed to Uzbekistan & the local gals had those eyes, round and very non-east Asian. When I saw this episode after I got back, that actress now looked Central Asian to me.

That episode was one of the early videotapes, which added to the spookiness of the hospital corridor scene. Years ago I was in the basement floor of an Army hospital & suddenly saw a sign that read “MORTUARY”. Thought of that night nurse & headed up the stairs.


169 posted on 01/01/2016 3:14:33 PM PST by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam.")
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To: elcid1970
I'm of Hungarian descent. I have somewhat slanted eyes ( must be a leftover from Attila's invasion and takeover ), which are more prominently so that this actress'. My progeny didn't get this feature, but my grandchild did. And this eye slant isn't gender specific, since both males and females in my family has the slight slant.

What's throwing most "off", here is the actress' slanted eyebrows. Look at the picture of her with more normal shaped eyebrows and suddenly....her eyes don't look slanted.

Re Barbara Eden...it's eye makeup/eyeliner !

170 posted on 01/01/2016 3:23:19 PM PST by nopardons
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To: elcid1970

LOL....re your experience of seeing the “MORTUARY” sign !


171 posted on 01/01/2016 3:24:05 PM PST by nopardons
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