The Jungle (The Twilight Zone)

"The Jungle" is episode 77 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone that first aired in 1961.

Opening narration

The carcass of a goat, a dead finger, a few bits of broken glass and stone, and Mr. Alan Richards, a modern man of a modern age, hating with all his heart something in which he cannot believe and preparing - although he doesn't know it - to take the longest walk of his life, right down to the center - of The Twilight Zone.

Plot

Alan Richards and his wife Doris have recently returned from Africa, where Alan's company is constructing a dam. He discovers she has secretly kept several items given to her by a local shaman for protection. When he confronts her about them, she insists that they are nothing more to her than souvenirs. He decides to test her and burns them, which causes her to become upset and beg him to stop construction on the dam. He ignores her pleas and opens the door to leave for work. In the hallway of his apartment building, just outside his door, is the carcass of a dead goat.

Alan attends a board meeting, where they discuss the dam and the fact that, although the natives will benefit from it in the long run, they are upset that they will be displaced in order to build it. He warns that the local witch doctors have threatened to use "black magic" against anyone associated with the project. When the other board members scoff, he points out their own superstitions: One carries a rabbit's foot, another practices astrology- even the building does not have a 13th floor.

Later, he is in a bar having a drink with a friend before heading home, and shows him a lion-tooth charm his wife has given him. Supposedly the tooth will protect him against a lion attack. Both men laugh at the idea of a lion attack in the city.

Alan begins to head home but finds his car won't start. He attempts to return to the bar but it is locked and he has forgotten his lion-tooth inside. He can see it on the bar top through the window. He attempts to use a pay phone, but it's out of order. As Alan walks away, the phone begins to ring. He answers it and hears nothing but the sounds of the jungle.

He begins to head home on foot, still hearing the sounds of the jungle all around him (including tribal drums), becoming more and more nervous and jumpy. He then tries to take a taxi home, but the driver drops down dead while stopped at a traffic light. Alan meets a bum and asks him about the jungle noises, which the bum claims not to hear. He offers the bum money to escort him through the park but before the bum can accept the offer he disappears while Alan's back is turned.

Alan continues on, becoming even more frightened. He finally reaches the safety of his apartment. The noises suddenly stop, and, relieved, Alan enters and pours himself a drink. Suddenly, he hears a lion's roar from the bedroom. When he opens the bedroom door, he finds his wife's body on the bed along with a lion. The episode ends just as the lion leaps towards him for the kill.

Closing narration

Some superstitions, kept alive by the long night of ignorance, have their own special power. You'll hear of it through a jungle grapevine in a remote corner of the Twilight Zone.

Episode Notes

The original short story by Charles Beaumont appeared in If Magazine in 1954.^[1]
End titles screen features the image of the lion's tooth protective charm.

References

^ The Twilight Zone Companion. Bantam. 1982. p. 238. ISBN 0-7607-5634-1.

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
Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

[1] The Twilight Zone Companion. Bantam. 1982. p. 238. ISBN 0-7607-5634-1.

[1]

v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"