Also, fun fact for the other Trekkies on here: the main character in this episode was William Shatner.
He starred in several Twilight Zone episodes, all of which were absolute “bangers,” to use the modern parlance.
Including arguably the most famous episode!
I’m pretty sure that scene has been parodied or referenced in almost every American comedic show with more than 4-5 seasons.
For sure. I bet there’s a substantial number of people who only know of it from the references and haven’t seen the show.
Absolutely. It’s like people watching Psycho for the first time and recognizing it before the scene happens.
Although I have to say that my favorite missed reference, is the Akira ending. Something similar happens in a bunch of animated shows(South Park as an entire episode about it, which most fans don’t realize is a direct reference). And so many people have a huge “Oh shit” moment when they see the movie and realize.
Are you talking about the trapper keeper episode? I never made that correlation until you just mentioned it! And I’ve seen Akira many more times before and after that episode originally aired many years ago.
Ok, I’ll put Akira on my list…
Isn’t that a type of sausage?
No, that would be a relative banger.
Roll tide!
No, that would be a uncle daddy.
Slang for kinda generic sausages in the UK. Usually not high quality.
One thing that has always troubled me about that episode, ever since I went on a watch through several years ago, was he said the phrase “the buffalo is off the nickel”, and in context, I’m assuming that it meant something along the lines of believing something that isn’t true, but since we don’t use buffalo nickels anymore, that phrase has exited common parlance, and it threw me for a loop to hear old slang.
Could it mean “this changes everything!”?
As in, a fancy way of saying we’ve truly entered a new age? I’m trying to think of a modern equivalent but am drawing a blank.
I think it’s like saying “there’s no guard rails now” because you are not in safe and regulated society where all the wild animals you see are on your coins, but you are now outside of that safe comfortable world and the wild animals are actually wild animals.
It reminds me of the saying “when you hear hooves, expect horses, not zebras” because you’d really be somewhere exotic if the sounds turned out to be a zebra. Well you’d really be somewhere outside of your regular comfort zone if the buffalos were sitting in the grass instead of sitting on your nickle.
reminds me of the saying “when you hear hooves, expect horses, not zebras” because you’d really be somewhere exotic if the sounds turned out to be a zebra
I was surprised to find there a zebra ranch in my area and the only reason I know this is because I happened to see all the zebras in the pens when driving through the country for work. I live in California.
Trying to find the origin and meaning of that. This talks about a bull, not a buffalo, and oddly references a twilight zone episode, though I think this is a different episode than what we are talking about.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The+bull+is+off+the+nickel
This mentions a buffalo, but it’s a different expression.
https://barrypopik.com/blog/he_squeezes_a_nickel_so_tight_the_indian_cries
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Except the devil machine in real life is terrible for the environment, enriches greedy billionaires, and is wrong a lot.
Needed ChatGPT’s help to reply here.
Huh. The AI is roasting itself unprompted. Well… okay then.
Twilight zone has so many amazing stories, it’s just annoying that so many end with “and then insert bad twist happened”.
So many
Are there any that don’t end that way? The twist endings were what made them so memorable.
There were 150 episodes or so and I haven’t watched all yet, but I seem to remember hearing about some that just ended.
As in: A bad thing happened to a bad person without a twist and the story just stopped.
I thought the One for the Angels episode was pretty okay for an ending. :)
I don’t remember that one off the top of my head, but I wasn’t implying that it was a bad thing that not every episode ended with a twist. Just saying that there were different types of endings.
Yes, I understand! I was just throwing out the one I do slightly remember! Sorry for the confusion! :)
See also: The Whispering Earring
It was an alright short story. A little too much of Scott’s pretentiousness and ego though.
Yep. Good catch. Saw that too.
