Acting Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

"There's a monster on the wing!   It's a gremlin!"

"What's that, sir?   What's the problem?" 

"There a gremlin on the wing of this aircraft!  We'll have to go to warp speed to destroy it!"

"Wait a minute, Shatner.  True, this episode of  Twilight Zone is about a gremlin, but that line's not in the script."

"Spock .... Bones!  We ... must... stop .... the .... gremlin ... or ... face .... imminent .... doom!"

"Scenery chewing again, Shatner?  Maybe the director can calm you down.

Calling Mr. Roger Kahn!"

"KHAAAAN!!!"

"That's it, Shatner!  Time for you to boldly go...."

" …where no man has ever gone before?"

"NO,  jerk!  To the Unemployment Line!"

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There's the Blog Post up ahead!  

Submitted for your approval is  Nightmare at 20, 000 Feet,  a classic episode of Twilight Zone starring a young, jittery William Shatner frantically trying to convince a plane's passengers and crew there is a deadly gremlin on the wing, and also the source for my Friday Fictioneers entree today.

Apparently Mr. Shatner's outsized ego and overemoting were well known even back in those days. You won't find an outsized ego in the bunch here among the other Fictioneers, however,  you can Takei it from me!

Live long and prosper, dudes.  

Where Is Everybody?

Is anybody here?  I'll settle for a Republican!

There is something peculiar about this day. 

I've felt it since the moment I first awakened.  Something more peculiar than just my pajama drawstring having gotten caught and knotted around you-know-what which had me talking like the late Truman Capote until I got to the john. 

I think to take a look outside. 

Odd.  There is  no one anywhere.  No men. No women.  No children.  (I think that about covers it.)

Where is Everybody?  

I leave my home and walk for blocks.  Stores shuttered  .... restaurants closed ... no one to be seen. Everywhere I look is like a convention of viewers of the Oprah Winfrey Network. 

Where is Everybody? 

I call out now in rising fear.  "Hey, I've got Regis Philbin here,  come out and meet him and get a selfie!"

But Regis doesn't draw like he used to.  How soon they forget, even Regis.

Now I run frantically from building to building like a giant pinball but without the dings, lights, or any half-way decent total of points!

Where is Everybody?! 

Has the Zombie Apocalypse taken place while I slept? Where are the mindless creatures bent on eating our brains and making us soulless and inhumane just like they are? And aside from Republicans, where are the Zombies? 

Or maybe I've awakened in a world where everyone is invisible. 

If everyone is invisible, that would make going to a movie hardly worth 12 bucks unless it stars Morgan Freeman's voice. 

Where is Everybody?!!  

Oh dear God, a lot of people owe me money!!

Am I going mad?! Perhaps I've been abducted by a giant alien who has brought me to his home planet to serve as a play toy for his young daughter!  No, that's unlikely since in space they only have A batteries and I run on re-chargable D's. 

Where is Everybody?!!!  

Despair!  Terror!  Indigestion! 

I feel alone, solitary, totally isolated from the whole of humanity! I've never had this feeling before other than when I'm having sex with my usual partner. 

"Where is Everybody?!!!! 

Anybody ... anybody ...   I'll settle for Nicholas Cage!!!  Oh, to hear a song by ABBA or stand-up by Tracy Morgan!!!"

Suddenly emerging from the shadows is a figure of a man.  A big fat man.  A big fat sweaty bald man in plaid shorts with a T-shirt that says "Kiss Me, I'm  the Cook!"

"Thank God!  Hello, hello, my friend, oh thank God!!!"  

"Yeah, dude?" 

"You and I are the last people on Earth!!!" 

"Idiot! It's the Fourth of July and everybody's at the shore, pool, or backyard barbecues."

"Oh, yeah,  I forgot.  Well, then why are you here?"

"Ran outta ice." 

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If you liked this post, you might also like The Trouble with Mr. Serling, The Eye of the Be-Voter, and And What Are You Doing for the Holiday, Perry?

If you hated this post, I hope you wind up in The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man smothered in onions on a nine foot tall bald alien's table in the same plate as Paula Deen!

I'd rather eat her than listen to her!

The Eye of the Be-Voter

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination. There's the signpost up ahead --- Emergency Pull-Off, which has always struck me as kind of funny unless you're 16 years old and you're feeling ... 

No, no, wait!   I mean, there's the signpost up ahead, your next stop:

The Twilight Zone

Submitted for your approval, one candidate for the highly elusive office known as President of the United States.  A man who has everything the job seems to require --- a nimble mind, a grasp of the affairs of humankind, and a record of political contribution in one of the great states of the Union.  But this man also has a flaw, a dark forbidding flaw that casts doubt over all he's hoped and striven for.  This man has all the charisma of a room temperature bowl of Cream of Wheat!

One man, one tragic flaw, about to enter The Twilight Zone.

"What a tragedy, doctor!  All that ability, political service in the state of Massachusetts, burning desire for the job and yet ... all the personality of a casaba melon!"

"Even less, I'm afraid, nurse. Our cardiac surgeons have been asking him to give campaign speeches to their pre-operative patients in lieu of an anesthetic.  Seems to be working fine, with way fewer side effects than anything else!"

"Has our treatment worked, doctor?"

"It's too soon to tell.  Charisma transplants have been tried before but none have succeeded.  The last one I attempted was on a stultifyingly boring preppy woman named Martha something or other.  It failed dismally, but I heard she was able to find work on daytime television."

"Nurse!  Nurse, I need you!"

"Yes, sir, I'm here." 

"Nurse, I'm feeling a little stronger now.  I'd like to work on my inauguration speech.  I must know if the charisma transplant has worked!"

"Please, sir, don't try it yet!"

"Nurse, you just don't know what my life has been like! My earliest memory is of people yawning whenever I came near.  In school whenever I was speaking in class, teachers used to put a mirror up to my nose to see if I was breathing!" 

"Even now when I'm making love to my wife, she doodles on my back!  It's been a nightmare, do you understand, nurse?!   A nightmare!!  Nurse?!  Nurse?!!

"Zzzzzzz."

Commercial Message. 

"Now, sir, it's come time to remove the bandages and find out whether the procedure has succeeded. When the last bandage is removed, please begin reciting your proposed inauguration speech."

Round and round the bandages are unraveled. The first rays of light begin to appear to the patient's eyes through the continued unraveling of the layers of bandage, breaking through at last into his private world of darkness.

"Now, sir, begin!"

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!"

"NO CHANGE!  NO CHANGE!  He's still boring as hell!"

"Doctor, he'll never be President now!" 

Submitted for your approval, one political candidate from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  Now the question may be asked "where is this time and place where somebody like Mitt Romney might be considered a cool guy?" The answer is "it doesn't really matter." 

For charisma truly is in the eye of the be-voter. 

Lesson to be learned in this thankfully non-Presidential election year of 2013 or any other, both on Earth and in  ... 

The Twilight Zone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And you didn't think I was capable of a true Twilight Zone ending!

(And thank you to Rod Serling for The Eye of the Beholder, the great Twilight Zone episode on which this humble parody is based.)

The Trouble with Mr. Serling

Rod Serling is rightly regarded as one of the true giants of television, a genius who conceived, innovated, and earned respect for a whole new type and genre of American entertainment.

There are few people today who don't cherish the classic television show he created and the legacy he left behind.  But in the early days, it seems, not everyone had the same positive view of the somewhat enigmatic Mr. Sterling.

Vance:  Oh no, Zane!  We're just trying to sit in peace here in the CBS Commissary and grab a late afternoon snack and look who's coming!

Zane:   Oddball Serling?  Well, what can you do? 

Rod:   One Zane Bernstein.  His close associate Mr. Vance Koslow.   Submitted for your approval: May I sit with you guys?

Vance:  Umm ... sure, Rod.  What've you been up to?

Rod:  A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination.    Cleveland.   For the weekend.  With the missus. 

Vance:  Sounds ... uh ... really fun.  Okay, let's order, guys.   Gail, we're ready!

Gail:  What'll you fellas have?

Rod:  You're here To Serve Man?

Gail:  And women too sometimes, Mr. Serling.  

Vance:  I really like the food here. Wonder where they get their recipes from?

Rod: It's a cookbook!

Gail: And we always use ample seasoning in all our food.

Rod: Yes. Thyme Enough at Last.

Zane:  Rod, see those two women hobnobbing and stopping at every table?  You know them, right?  Now they're coming over here!

Rod:  Next stop?  Willow, Bea?

Bea:  Nice to see you, Rod.  Love to talk, but Willow and I have to go.  Later!

Zane:  I think one of your friends was checking me out, Rod.  The one who I believe keeps bees?

Rod:  Yes, you caught The Eye of the Bee-holder.

Vance:  Think I'm gonna run to the Men's Room before we eat.  Either of you guys see where ....

Rod: There's the signpost up ahead!  

Vance:  Thanks, Rod.

Zane:  So, "Mr. Professor," I hear you're working on some kind of science fiction show. School us about it.

Rod: Lesson to be Learned:  the show is.... oops just realized I've got to be home by nightfall!*

Zane: What's your rush?  At least tell us the name of the show.

Rod:  It's already Twilight, Zane!

Vance:  He's gone! Boy, that is one weird dude!  He's never gonna make it in show business.

Zane:  Damn straight!  The day he makes it, Vance, I'll believe in time travel, gremlins wrecking airplanes, and that William Shatner guy ever amounting to anything!  

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* This phrase is heard at the end of The Eye of the Beholder and several other episodes. 

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If you liked this post, you'll like my book Perry Block - Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute.  If you hated this post, then you don't deserve the Twilight Zone!  But you probably still deserve me, so you should still buy my book!