New Year's Day 2015, the SyFy channel had an all-day Twilight Zone marathon. I was able to view it because we spent the day at our faux-condo in the city, where we have access to many channels. On this New Year Day I watched a couple of episodes of Twilight Zone.
I hadn't watched TZ in years because a couple of spooky episodes managed to stick in my brain and on occasion these scary shows return to haunt my mind,
like Talking Tina in the "Living Doll" episode, or the peculiar perpetually-returning guy in "The Hitchhiker" which gave me nightmares as a child, or the one (title escapes me) where someone gets trapped overnight in the store with mannequins. I have goosebumps right now as I type in this paragraph.
But, what I'd forgotten and now recalled, as I watched a couple of episodes that evening, is how often Rod Serling, the narrator, and often writer, of the program would work in parables with moral lessons on subjects such as war, greed, prejudice, conformity, paranoia and fear.
Rod Serling seemed able to broach and then air topics to which American television broadcasters, or more importantly corporate sponsors, might otherwise take offense and thereby censor. He was able to bypass censure by having the taboo topic occur on a different planet or an eerily other-wordly dimension in time or space, (or as he put it on his weekly introduction "...another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.")- no need to worry or become alarmed, as it happens somewhere else.
Rod's shows often featured surprise endings or strange twists with which he drove home his point. Mr. Serling wrote at least half of the 150+ episodes of the show during its five-season run.
Rod's shows often featured surprise endings or strange twists with which he drove home his point. Mr. Serling wrote at least half of the 150+ episodes of the show during its five-season run.
A couple of my favorite parables (if you want examples of Rod's television preaching style) are "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," and "The Shelter."
This day I saw an episode I didn't remember from my childhood. The title, "I Sing the Body Electric," caught my eye. I knew this to be the title of the lyrical poem by Walt Whitman. A poem that celebrates the beauty of the human body, a body that a soul uses to traverse to (and from?) the physical world.
This "I Sing the Body Electric" was a Twilight Zone episode written by Ray Bradbury. It begins with Aunt Nedra cautioning her brother (or maybe brother-in-law), who finds himself suddenly a single parent of three young children, that "Babysitters and nurses are not the same as family care." And that his children are currently, "like flotsam and jetsam …without guidance."
"How do you buy guidance for your children?" the father asks himself, later reflecting on Aunt Nedra's advice. "Do I put out an ad on Craigslist? (Okay, actually it was just called a classified ad back then ;) ) 'Wanted: some kind gentle soul,' " his voice drifts off, then softly he utters, "to care…"
His son later shows him a Modern Science magazine advertisement from a company called Facsimile, Ltd. whose motto is "I Sing the Body Electric." 'If you are concerned with the moral and social development of your children, the article indicates, just buy one of our electronic data process systems in shape of an elderly woman. A woman built with precision and able to give loving supervision to your family.'
In other words? A mechanical grandmother, "a robot, if you will," explains Dad.
In other words? A mechanical grandmother, "a robot, if you will," explains Dad.
"I don't know," cautions the older daughter, "this doesn't sound right."
At this point the show pauses and Rod Serling interjects,
"They make a fairly convincing pitch here. It doesn't seem possible,
though, to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good,
except,
of course,
in the Twilight Zone."
though, to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good,
except,
of course,
in the Twilight Zone."
"Come in we've been expecting you," says a voice at the door of Facsimile, Ltd. Inside they are met by a somewhat-creepy store salesman (substitute the image of a somewhat-creepy used car salesman here), who gives a quick run down on how the process works. Somewhat-creepy salesman tells the man and his three children that they will be able to pick out all of the specific appendages of the android, thus she will look just the way they want. All they need do is select the body part of choice and drop it down a chute. -And here is one of many funny parts -the younger two kids don't bat an eyelash at this instruction.
"I want her to have soft brown eyes like my agate marbles," says the boy.
"I want long hair, like Mom had," says the younger sister.
"I don't want her. She's not real! She's just a machine, just old junk," shouts the older sister, as she runs out of the building. Her father chases after her. The other two children shrug and carry on with the business of picking out their grandmother.
"I want thin fingers," says the boy. The younger sister then runs over to choose ears, complete with earrings already in the lobes! (I got a hoot out of this scene!)
"Do you want slender or sturdy arms?" asks Somewhat-Creepy Salesman, encouraging the two to keep choosing, "Do you wish short or tall stature?"
Finally the two get to the choice of a voice. Here they push a set of buttons ranging from high to low, each button emits a corresponding female voice recording, which utters a line from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric." Together, the younger siblings choose a medium voice.
The scene fades out and back in, when a few days or maybe weeks later, here comes Electric Grandma bopping down their block, swinging her handbag, just as carefree as can be.
The boy recognizes her first, "Her eyes! Just like my brown aggies!"
Grandma knows each of their names.
"What should we call you?" one of them asks Electric Grandma.
"Any name you wish, Sylvia, Melvina-
"Grandma!" the two younger children shout in unison.
"Is that a kite?" asks Grandma. "Yes," says the boy, suddenly pouting, "but we have no string."
Electric Grandma magically produces kite string, right out of thin air. The younger two are elated.
Meanwhile, the older child refuses to accept the android woman and so it goes, younger two delighted, older sister abhorred at the whole matter. At some point the father apologizes to Electric Grandma for his older daughter's behavior. Softly, EG (Electric Grandma) answers, "Don't worry, there is no rush. She'll accept me in her own time, and in her own way," or something to that effect. She finishes gently, "A child's heart is very deep within and thus difficult to reach."
One day in a fit of pique, over some minor incident, the older girl runs out the front door. Electric Grandma goes after her. She catches the child and begins a talk with the girl about accepting the death of her departed mother.
"She left me!" shouts the girl.
"You mean she died," softly, but emphatically, counters EG.
Until this point the child had always claimed that her mother deserted her/them. So, now the viewer knows that the mother did not abandon them, but rather died. The girl isn't ready to confront the truth just yet. She turns and runs into the street, directly in front of speeding van. EG, with her lightning reflexes, pushes the girl forward to safety, but in the process EG takes the full hit by the van.
The father has finally caught up to the pair and, logically, bypasses EG to pick up and comfort his daughter. The driver exits the van and looks on in fretful horror at little old Grandma lying motionless on the street. A few seconds later you see a close-up of EG's right pinkie finger moving, then her ring finger, then her whole hand and the EG magically pops right up, none the worse for wear.
The child, of course, now realizes the error of her ways and hugs Electric Grandma. "You're alive! You won't go away, like Mom, right? You won't die? Promise?"
"She left me!" shouts the girl.
"You mean she died," softly, but emphatically, counters EG.
Until this point the child had always claimed that her mother deserted her/them. So, now the viewer knows that the mother did not abandon them, but rather died. The girl isn't ready to confront the truth just yet. She turns and runs into the street, directly in front of speeding van. EG, with her lightning reflexes, pushes the girl forward to safety, but in the process EG takes the full hit by the van.
The father has finally caught up to the pair and, logically, bypasses EG to pick up and comfort his daughter. The driver exits the van and looks on in fretful horror at little old Grandma lying motionless on the street. A few seconds later you see a close-up of EG's right pinkie finger moving, then her ring finger, then her whole hand and the EG magically pops right up, none the worse for wear.
The child, of course, now realizes the error of her ways and hugs Electric Grandma. "You're alive! You won't go away, like Mom, right? You won't die? Promise?"
"No, my child, nothing can hurt me. I cannot die. My job is to live forever."
The story flashes ahead to when the children are young adults heading off to college and saying their good-byes to EG.
The conversation goes something like this:
Pleadingly, "Oh, please don't go, Grandma. We love you and still need you!"
Pleadingly, "Oh, please don't go, Grandma. We love you and still need you!"
"I must go children. You are grown now, ready for college and the world. And besides another family may need me."
"But, what will become of you?"
"Oh, I'll go back to Facsimile, Ltd. I'll either be sent out again or perhaps my parts will be redistributed. My soul will go to a room full of the voices of other grandmothers in storage. We will share the knowledge of what we've learned. I will tell them all that I learned from you three."
"From us?! But, we learned from you, Grandma. You taught us. You couldn't have learned anything from us, Grandma!"
"Yes, yes! You have taught me much," insists Grandma and "I will share that knowledge with others. And someday, oh I don't know, maybe after 300 years, I will gather enough wisdom to become alive." (I think old Electric Grandma maybe crossed her fingers or something here, as she looked hopefully up at the heavens.)
So, it had this Pinocchio twist ending. "I love it," I thought, as I laughed out loud. Then Rod Serling broke in to say in his serious voice,
"A fable? Most assuredly.
But who's to say at some distant moment there might be an assembly line producing a gentle product in the form of a grandmother, whose stock-in-trade is love.
Fable, sure
-but who's to say?"
***
Who's to say that I am not an Electric Grandmother trying to earn her way to a real human body by being "brave, truthful and unselfish?"
do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-ding*
(*At this point I tried to put a link to the Twilight Zone intro music I successfully downloaded, but the instructions lost me at step two. I just bet that Electric Grandma could have done it in a blink of her android soft brown "aggie" eyes.)
(*At this point I tried to put a link to the Twilight Zone intro music I successfully downloaded, but the instructions lost me at step two. I just bet that Electric Grandma could have done it in a blink of her android soft brown "aggie" eyes.)
Welcome to the Twilight Zone!
Sensibly Frugal Husband assures me I have put in my 300 years and earned my right to be a real person.
***
Check out Rod Serling's Twilight Zone if you have access to Amazon Prime or any such of those instant video companies.
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