TONIGHT on ME-TV @ 12:35am EST, one of the GREATEST episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: “THE DUMMY" (written by Rod Serling, based on an unpublished story by Lee Polk, directed by Abner Biberman, originally broadcast May 4, 1962) Dummies, doppelgangers, duplicates—The Twilight Zone was rife with them. The concept of characters coming alive is taken to an ironic, horrific extreme in Serling’s “The Dummy," unarguably the archetypal version of every ventriloquist’s nightmare, easily besting the films that bookend it, Dead of Night (1945) and Magic (1978), as well as television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ “The Glass Eye” (1957). Though great actor Cliff Robertson delivers a star turn as the ventriloquist Jerry Etherson, it is his giddy, grating voice—and cackling laugh—for the dummy, Willie, that perfectly rides that Twilight Zone line between comedy and horror. At the climax of the episode, when a defeated and bewildered Etherson pleads to Willie, "How can you be real when you're made of wood?," the dummy responds with this chilling soliloquy: "You made me real...you poured words into my head...you moved my mouth...you stuck out my tongue. You jerk! Don't you get it? You made me what I am today! Are you 'Satisfied,' from the song of the same name?" The creepy, lasting power of “The Dummy” reaches its apogee at its denouement, when Etherson and the dummy switch places—literally, one of the most surreal Twilight Zone juxtapositions that burns itself into your brain forever. arlenschumer.com/twilight-zone #rodserling #thetwilightzone #twilightzone #thedummy #cliffrobertson #tv #tvhistory #television #televisionhistory #arlenschumer #ventriloquist @dgareps @dbbushman @richardsyrettstrangeplanet @nyadventureclub @adamschumer https://www.instagram.com/p/CmowkOFr0_9/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
