"The Twilight Zone" Living Doll (1963)

Director:

Richard C. Sarafian

Writers:

Charles Beaumont (written by)
Rod Serling (creator)
(more)

TV Series:

"The Twilight Zone" (1959)

Original Air Date:

1 November 1963 (Season 5, Episode 6)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

A frustrated father does battle with his stepdaughter's talking doll, whose vocabulary includes such phrases as "I hate you" and "I'm going to kill you". |

Plot Keywords:

Doll | Talking Doll | Broken Neck | Stepfather Stepdaughter Relationship | Winking

Cast

Telly Savalas	...	Erich Streator
Mary LaRoche	...	Annabelle Streator
Tracy Stratford	...	Christie Streator
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
June Foray	...	Talky Tina (voice) (uncredited)
Rod Serling	...	Narrator / Host (uncredited)

Directed by
Richard C. Sarafian

Writing credits
Charles Beaumont		written by and
Jerry Sohl		uncredited
Rod Serling		(creator)

Produced by
William Froug	....	producer

Original Music by
Bernard Herrmann

Cinematography by
Robert Pittack		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Richard V. Heermance		(as Richard Heermance)

Casting by
Patricia Mock		(as Patricia Rose)

Art Direction by
Malcolm Brown
George W. Davis

Set Decoration by
Robert R. Benton
Henry Grace

Production Management
Ralph W. Nelson	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Charles Bonniwell	....	assistant director (as Charles Bonniwell, Jr.)
Carl 'Major' Roup	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Joe Edmondson	....	sound
Franklin Milton	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
James V. King	....	camera operator (uncredited)

Music Department
Bernard Herrmann	....	conductor

Production Companies

• Cayuga Productions
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Distributors

• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1963) (USA) (TV) (original airing)

Other Companies

• Eagle Clothes  Mr. Serling's wardrobe

Runtime:

26 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Cayuga Productions

Trivia:

June Foray, the voice of the "Talky Tina" doll, was also the voice of Mattel's "Chatty Cathy" doll, upon which the doll in this episode was based.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Erich trips over Tina on the stairs and falls down them, she falls a few steps herself to be approximately three-fourths of the way down. but in the next shot of when she continues the fall down to join him at the bottom, she is starting to do so from the very middle of the stairs, some six steps up from where she should have been.

Quotes:

Talky Tina: My Name is Talky Tina and you'd better be nice to me.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Twilight Zone: Mr. Motivation (#1.19)" (2002)

Twilight Zone, Sci-fi and the Dark Side of Dolls

There was also another malevolent doll To-to from the X Minus 1 tale "Perigi's (sp?) Wonderful Dolls" in the mid '50's. This diminutive daemon had a much bigger agenda than our Little Miss Wonderful.

I believe that Bob Cummings also had a "Living Doll" that was nowhere near malevolent: Rhoda the Robot was an android trying to make it as a person in this sitcom from the middle 1960's

Along these lines was another "doll", an episode of Twilight Zone, the title of which I forget features a man who is sentenced to live a solitary life on some habitable planetoid. As an act of kindness, the fellow who brought him supplies brought him a kit to build a robot girl, with unsettling results...

So it seems that there were quite a few dolls before Chucky came to torment up. In fact, it seems that Chucky was a Johnny-Come-Lately.

As recently as 2007, I heard June Foray, being interviewed on WBZ 1030-AM being interviewed, do a but of Talky Tina

I also found interesting in the reference to the names Christie and Tina, the idea that the doll was acting out the little girl's thoughts, I thought I was the only one who got that notion

I wonder what became of the doll that was Talky Tina

For those of you wondering what became of Talky Tina: she turned up in the Thirtieth Century

HTTP://spacepatrol.us/wantedtina.html

where she is still cause persons a good deal of consternation.Or, maybe she came from then.

Enjoy