Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
| "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" | |||
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |||
 Jack Elam in "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" |
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| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 64 |
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| Directed by | Montgomery Pittman | ||
| Written by | Rod Serling | ||
| Production code | 173-3660 | ||
| Original air date | May 26, 1961 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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Barney Phillips: the Venusian |
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||
"Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
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[edit] Plot
During a snowstorm, two state troopers are investigating a crash after a woman telephoned them and are led to believe that it was a flying saucer. They follow footprints leading from the crash site to a diner, where a group of passengers from a bus to Boston are waiting for word that a bridge up ahead is safe to cross. Though the only patrons of the roadside eatery are bus passengers, there is one more person than there were people on the bus. Mr. Ross, a skeptical businessman played by John Hoyt, who says he has a meeting, says the driver must have been mistaken, but he swears there was 6. There is mutual suspicion among the stranded travelers, as the passengers each try to guess which among them is the alien. It is suggested the two married couples are paid off. An old man laughs at this, saying it is like science-fiction. During that time odd things are happening. The jukebox plays on its own, the lights flicker on and off and the sugar bowls explode. When they get permission to go across the bridge, however, they all leave.
Shortly Mr. Ross returns to the diner and tells the cook that the bridge collapsed, killing all the occupants of both the bus and the police car. As the cook wonders how the businessman survived, he also notes that his clothes are not even wet. Soon the businessman, who has no idea what "wet" means, unveils his third arm and stirs his coffee with his third hand. He says the music and telephone ringing were all an illusion. He tells the cook that he is a Martian, reveals that Mars plans to start a colony on Earth, and that there is little hope for the human race. Laughing, the cook tells him that he's too late, and taking off his paper hat, revealing his third eye, discloses that he is from Venus, which has already started a colony, and that the Martian invasion force has been intercepted. The shocked Martian stares nervously at the cook, and the episode ends.
[edit] Episode notes
The episode is unique as an actual Twilight Zone contributor is mentioned. In the diner, when the patrons realize an alien is amongst the group, Jack Elam's character comments on their situation saying "she's just like science fiction, that what she is. A regular Ray Bradbury." Some of Bradbury's stories became Twilight Zone episodes.
In one of the few times Serling accommodated his sponsor during an episode, "Ross" takes out a pack of cigarettes, and proceeds to light and smoke one using three hands. The cigarettes happened to be the brand that Liggett & Myers was advertising on the program at the time, "Oasis" menthol. During the 1950s and '60s, advertisers sometimes subtly "placed" their products into the TV shows they sponsored.
A Simpson's Comics Treehouse of Horror issue features a parody of this episode, which is also based on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. At the end one of the characters removes its peculiar goggles to reveal a third eye, à la the cook's character in this episode. However many other invasion plans are revealed in a blend of different fiction. At the end Sideshow Bob says they are all trapped inside a comic, and if it is closed they will cease to exist.
The name on the side of the bus is "Cayuga" which is the name of the production company for the Twilight Zone.
On the "2112 / Moving Pictures" episode of the television series Classic Albums, Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart commented on the writing of the song "The Twilight Zone," featured on 2112. The two verses refer to "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" and "Stopover in a Quiet Town."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- 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
