It's a Good Life (The Twilight Zone)

"It's a Good Life"
The Twilight Zone episode
Anthony Fremont (Bill Mumy) punishes Dan Hollis for thinking bad thoughts.
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 8
Directed by	James Sheldon
Written by	Rod Serling from the story "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby. First published in the 1953 collection Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2.
Featured music	Stock plus "Moonglow" and "Stardust"
Production code	4801
Original air date	November 3, 1961
Guest stars
John Larch: Mr. Fremont Cloris Leachman: Mrs. Fremont Don Keefer: Dan Hollis Bill Mumy: Anthony Fremont Alice Frost: Aunt Amy Max Showalter: Pat Riley Jeanne Bates: Ethel Hollis Lenore Kingston: Thelma Dunn Tom Hatcher: Bill Soames
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List of Twilight Zone episodes

"It's a Good Life" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It is based on a 1953 short story of the same name by Jerome Bixby and is considered by many to be one of the best episodes of the series.

Plot

Six-year-old Anthony Fremont looks like any other little boy, but looks can be deceiving: he is a monster, a mutant with godlike mental powers. Early on, he isolated the small town of Peaksville, Ohio. In fact, the handful of inhabitants do not even know if he destroyed the rest of the world or if it still exists. Anthony has also eliminated electricity, automobiles, and television signals. He controls the weather and what supplies can be found in the grocery store. Anthony creates and destroys as he pleases, and controls when the residents can watch the TV and what they can watch on it.

The adults tiptoe nervously around him, constantly telling him how everything he does is "good", since displeasing him can get them wished away into a mystical cornfield, from which there is no return. At one point, a dog is heard barking angrily. Anthony thinks the dog is "bad" and "doesn't like [him] at all", and wishes it into the cornfield. His father and mother are horrified, but they dare not show it.

Finally, at Dan Hollis' birthday party, Dan, slightly drunk, can no longer stand the strain and confronts the boy, calling him a monster and a murderer; while Anthony's anger grows, Dan yells for someone to kill Anthony from behind, and end his reign of terror. Aunt Amy tentatively reaches for a poker, but no one has the courage to act. Anthony points to Dan and cries out, "You're a very bad man! And you keep thinking bad thoughts about me!" Dan is killed, shown indirectly by his shadow, transformed into a jack-in-the-box with his human head, causing his widow to break down. The adults are horrified at what Anthony had done to Dan and beg him to wish it to the cornfield, which he does.

Because of Amy's earlier complaints about the heat, Anthony causes snow to begin falling outside. His father observes that the snow will kill off at least half the crops. But as the adults look on, worried smiles on their faces, his father smiles and tells Anthony in a horror-tinged voice, "...but it's a real good thing you did. A real good thing. And tomorrow....tomorrow's gonna be a... real good day!"

Legacy

Time Magazine named this the third-best Twilight Zone episode, behind "Time Enough At Last".

In 1997 TV Guide ranked the episode number 31 on it's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time list.

Remake

An updated remake of this episode with a lighter ending written by Richard Matheson and directed by Joe Dante, was featured as the third segment of 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Sequel

In the 2002 revival series, a sequel to this episode was broadcast, entitled It's Still a Good Life. In the episode, Anthony is a middle-aged man who now has a daughter Audrey who has inherited his powers. Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman reprised their roles from the original episode. Anthony Fremont's daughter, Audrey, is played by actor Bill Mumy's real life daughter Liliana Mumy.

References in other media

• Audio samples from the episode and referencing lyrics were used in the song "Cemetery Girls" from the 1980 album Voobaha by the novelty rock group Barnes & Barnes. Mumy, using the stage name Art Barnes, is one of the members of Barnes & Barnes (although this was not generally known when the album was released).
• "It's a Good Life" was parodied on the season three Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror II", in the 1991 segment, "Bart's Nightmare." In the parody, Bart plays the "monster" character who turns Homer into a jack-in-the-box when Homer goes to kill Bart after Bart sends Homer flying into a goal post during a football game. The segment ends on a more upbeat (though ultimately sarcastic) note, where Marvin Monroe advises Homer to spend more time with Bart (whose omnipotence is diagnosed as a cry for fatherly attention) and, after a day of bonding, Bart turns Homer back to a human and the two share a hug (which is interrupted when Bart wakes up screaming from the dream).
• This episode was also parodied in the 1997 Johnny Bravo episode "Johnny Real Good", in which Johnny, in order to make money for a new car, babysits a young boy with godlike powers, and is tormented when he doesn't speak to the boy nicely, including being sent to a literal cornfield outside the boy's house whenever he tries to discipline him.
• The opening narration features as the introduction to Michael Jackson's "Threatened," from his 2001 album, Invincible.
• The first sentence and a half of the opening narration from this episode is used in the pre-boarding video for Disney's The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attractions. Impersonator Mark Silverman dubs the voice of host Rod Serling and the shot of Serling (masked out of its original environment and placed onto a background showing one of the ride's elevators) is cut short. Serling's original dialogue was "Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States..." For the attraction video, the Serling footage is used up to the point that Serling forms the sounds "This as you may recognize, is a ma..." then cuts away from Serling to just a shot of the elevator as Silverman instead goes on to say "is a maintenance service elevator, still in operation, waiting for you."
• In the 2007 novel Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, "Peaksville" and The Twilight Zone are mentioned in comparison with Trujillo's reign of the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961.
• The 1990 EP "Escape From Pain" by the Nashville, TN based thrash metal band Intruder contains a song entitled "It's A Good Life" which is based on the episode.
• The comic book PS238 describes the chronically terrified parents of a child with telepathic powers as suffering from "Wish You Into the Cornfield" Syndrome.
• The on-line virtual world Second Life has a "region of mythological status where once naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done" called "The Cornfield" .
• Legends, a two-part episode of Justice League, features homages to "It's a Good Life" and The Prisoner, in which the survivors of an alternate universe's nuclear war are forced to act out normal lives in a simulated world created by psychic mutant Ray Thompson. 4 dimension-lost members of the Justice League help the recreated Justice Guild of America defeat Ray and free the people.

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
• Michael Jackson's Threatened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ydpNBwF
• Diaz, Junot. Penguin Books New York (2007) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao p.g 224

External links

• "It's a Good Life" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com episode page