Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-23 (Saturday)

The Twilight Zone S4E15 'The Incredible World of Horace Ford' - DVR
A toy designer (Pat Hingle) visits his old neighborhood and finds it exactly as it was in his childhood.  (Comcast)
Toymaker Horace Ford is increasingly preoccupied with memories of his childhood, endangering his job and marriage - but a visit to his old neighborhood brings a haunting encounter, suggesting the time was not as idyllic as he remembers.  (IMDb)
Trivia: This was not an original screenplay for The Twilight Zone (1959). It's a remake of The Incredible World of Horace Ford (1955), which was a live TV version starring Art Carney and Jason Robards.
The blueprints of Harold's new robot toy are copies of the actual blueprints Bob Kinoshita made for the design of Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet.
The Twilight Zone S4E16 'On Thursday We Leave for Home' - DVR
The leader (James Whitmore) of a colony stranded on an asteroid resist rescue.  With James Broderick.  (Comcast)
The first human space colony is about to be rescued from the forsaken planet they've been on for three decades. But their leader's having a hard time accepting that change will happen when they get back to Earth.   (IMDb)
When the rescue ship from Earth arrives, several colonists ask about various places on Earth during a meeting between the ship's crew and the colonists. One of the questions is about the Finger Lake District of New York. This area had a special significance to script writer Rod Serling. It is located close to his home town of Binghamton, he and his family vacationed there frequently, and Serling named his company that produced "The Twilight Zone," Cayuga Productions, after one of the lakes. He later taught at Ithaca College for the last five years before his death.
The striking diorama backgrounds of the planet, the model and the large-scale prop of the rescue ship sent to bring the colonists home, and the uniforms of the rescue crew were all originally created for Forbidden Planet (1956). This was a recurring feature on "The Twilight Zone" which was frequently filmed at MGM Studios, and often prominently featured recycled props and set pieces from "Forbidden Planet". The previous episode, "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" featured copies of the original blueprints of designs for Robby the Robot, created by MGM production designer Robert Kinoshita.
The cave that the colonists use as their meeting hall was originally the underground lair of the Morlocks in The Time Machine (1960).
This episode takes place in 2021.
Sound effects inside the ship are the same as the ones on the bridge of the Enterprise from the original Star Trek (1966) series.
The colonists are told Los Angeles is now the biggest city in the world in 2021; in real life it was the 23rd largest.
The emblem the flight crew have on their caps is the same emblems the flight crew wore on their chest pockets in the earlier episode, Death Ship.
The crew of the Pilgrim I arrived on V9-Gamma in August 1991.
Colonel Sloane tells the V9-Gamma survivors that the Los Angeles Dodgers came in tenth in the 2020 World Series. This prediction proved inaccurate as the LA Dodgers won the 2020 World Series, having defeated the Tampa Bay Rays four games to two.
At the end, the camera was supposed to pull back in a wide-angle crane shot, showing the former colony with Benteen left there alone, emphasizing his isolation and the tragedy of his having been left behind. The night before the shot was to be executed, the director of photography mentioned this to director Buzz Kulik, and both men realized that the colony's shacks, which were metal sheds, did not have roofs (which was customarily done so that the interiors could be lit for filming). They had to tape canvas roofs to all of the shacks overnight so that the overhead shot would not reveal their true character.
This quote is from a scene that didn't appear in the broadcast I recorded!
     Col. Sloane: [Sloane shouts in the cavern] Captain? Benteen?
     [Long pause, no response]
     Col. Sloane: We know you can hear us. We know you're in here someplace. Come out. Please. Let us talk to you.
     [Long pause, no response]
     Col. Sloane: We're leaving now, Benteen. We have to take off in five minutes or we'll lose our orbital position. It'll be too late for us.
     [Long pause, no response]
     Col. Sloane: Benteen, it has to be now.
     Al: Captain, please.
     [Long pause, no response]
     Al: Please come out!
     Col. Sloane: Benteen, remember this: if we leave without you, there'll be no ships returning here. This is where you'll live from this moment on. And this is where you'll die.
     [Still no response]
     Col. Sloane: All right, Benteen. As you prefer. Come on, let's go, Baines.
     [Exits]
     Al: Good-bye... Captain Benteen.
     [Exits]
Personal comment.  Why did we think space ship crews would wear silver foil covered shoes?
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.