Mousey misfit Charley Parkes finds the world unfolding before him in a museum doll house to be more real than his boring job and overbearing mother.Mousey misfit Charley Parkes finds the world unfolding before him in a museum doll house to be more real than his boring job and overbearing mother.Mousey misfit Charley Parkes finds the world unfolding before him in a museum doll house to be more real than his boring job and overbearing mother.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBecause of a lawsuit, this episode was not included in the syndication package for The Twilight Zone. It was finally re-aired in 1984 as "The Miniature" (see Alternate Versions).
- GoofsThe miniaturized piano would only be able to produce very high notes because of the short length of its strings. (The mass and tension of the string also affect the pitch produced, but the strings could not be made massive and loose enough to compensate for the short length.)
- Quotes
Narrator: [Opening Narration] To the average person, a museum is a place of knowledge, a place of beauty and truth and wonder. Some people come to study, others to contemplate, others to look for the sheer joy of looking. Charley Parkes has his own reasons. He comes to the museum to get away from the world. It isn't really the sixty-cent cafeteria meal that has drawn him here every day, it's the fact that here in these strange, cool halls, he can be alone for a little while, really and truly alone. Anyway, that's how it was before he got lost and wandered into - The Twilight Zone.
- Alternate versionsA syndicated version from 1984 has some of the doll scenes in color in one of the first public demonstrations of colorized black and white films. The Definitive Season Four DVD collection contains theses scenes as part of the "extras". Unfortunately, the scenes are extracted from the show and are put together, out of context, but at least you do get to see the portions of the doll house and the characters who were all colorized. Interestingly, the colorization actually gets better as the piece progresses, with the higher quality color segments nearer the end of the program.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Twilight-Tober-Zone: Miniature (2023)
Charley is an extremely introvert 30-something grey mouse with autistic tendencies (although it's never outspoken like that), who still lives with his overbearing mother and never talked to a girl before. When he gets fired from his desk job - for no valid reason - he seeks distraction in a museum and becomes infatuated with a wooden doll house. Charley fantasizes the lady doll to be alive and talks to her, much to the concern of his family, doctors, and the museum's watchman.
Not the greatest episode of the bunch, but more than worthwhile, if only for the powerhouse performance by Duvall and the unfathomable climax.
- Coventry
- Jan 26, 2022
Details
- Runtime51 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1