Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-11 (Monday)

The Twilight Zone S3E33 'The Dummy' - DVR
An average ventriloquist finds he has a not-so-average dummy.  With Cliff Robertson.  (Comcast)
Ventriloquist Jerry Etherson is convinced that his dummy, Willie, is alive and evil. He locks Willie in a trunk and makes plans for a new act with a new dummy. Too bad he didn't clear those plans with Willie first.   (IMDb)
[opening narration] Narrator: You're watching a ventriloquist named Jerry Etherson, a voice-thrower par excellence. His alter ego, sitting atop his lap, is a brash stick of kindling with the sobriquet 'Willy.' In a moment, Mr. Etherson and his knotty-pine partner will be booked in one of the out-of-the-way bistros, that small, dark, intimate place known as the Twilight Zone.
Trivia: The dummy "Willy" was created by American ventriloquist supplies maker Revillo Pettee, while the dummy seen at the end was created by English builder Len Insull. "Willy" is in the private collection of magician David Copperfield.
Makeup artist William Tuttle was given a full-screen listing in the end credits right after the cast listings, recognizing this contribution toward the powerful effect of the role reversal at the end of the story.
The Twilight Zone S3E34 'Young Man's Fancy' - DVR
Newlywed Alex Walker returns to his home and yearns for the days of his childhood.  (Comcast)
Newlywed Alex Walker finds himself being pulled back to his childhood and back to his widowed mother in the house where he grew up.  (IMDb)
Trivia: The opening shot showing the home is reused in the very next episode I Sing the Body Electric (1962).
One of 16 of the 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone that involved the appearance of a ghost.
Personal comment: Mama's Boy, Twilight Zone style.
The Twilight Zone S3E35 'I Sing the Body Electric' - DVR
A widower rents an android grandmother to take care of his three children.  (Comcast)
A recent widower, needing loving care for his three young children, orders a cybernetic "grandmother". While two of the children accept her, one of his daughters fiercely rejects her, with near tragic consequences.
Trivia: Ray Bradbury submitted several scripts to The Twilight Zone, but this was the only one produced.
In the opening shot of the house, it is the same shot of the house used in Young Man's Fancy (1962).
Ray Bradbury rewrote his teleplay as a prose story in 1969, and the prose version became the basis for The Electric Grandmother (1982).
In the scene where Veronica Cartwright is standing on the stairs in the family living room, behind her lining the stairway wall are several paintings of birds. She was filming Hitchcock's "The Birds (1963)" around this time.
What Did You Watch?
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I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.