Second Chances

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Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey): You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god. How can he ever find out what he can really do? I don't want this to be the high point of his life. I've seen them, the real sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the glory days when they were 17 years old.

Coach Dale (Gene Hackman): You know, most people would kill to be treated like a god, just for a few moments.

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There were a few exceptions, but just about every kid I knew when I was growing up fantasized about being at bat in the bottom of the ninth of the seventh game of the World Series with the game on the line or diving into the end zone for the game–winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. I'm sure the scenario played out in every head when we played pickup games after school and on weekends.

"Hoosiers," which was in theaters on this day in 1986, appealed to that kind of fantasy — one that was equally improbable. It was about a small high school basketball team in Indiana rising from obscurity to win the state championship. But it was about more than that. It was about second chances.

I was once asked on a job application form to identify my favorite word and explain why it was my favorite. I immediately entered the word redemption. It has long been my favorite word. I couldn't say how long — since whenever I first realized that storybook lives in which people make steady uninterrupted climbs to the tops of their chosen professions are rare — but I can tell you why.

Life has a way of doing its thing and taking you along for the ride. Even if it is taking you in a totally different direction than the one you intended, your objection means nothing. As John Lennon wrote, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

That is where redemption comes in. Redemption is the assurance that, no matter what happens in your life, no matter how badly you may think you have screwed up, it need not be permanent, and just about everyone in "Hoosiers" seemed to be seeking redemption of one kind or another.

Redemption offers hope.

At first I thought it was kind of a "Rocky" sort of movie — you know, the underdog wins it all, defying all odds and naysayers — although I did not realize until recently that "Hoosiers" made its theatrical debut about a week before the 10th anniversary of the premiere of "Rocky."

But subsequent viewings have persuaded me that Hickory's climb to the top was really secondary. The story was about being given a second chance.

"I was a sportswriter once for a couple of years in downstate Illinois," Ebert wrote in his review of the movie. "I covered mostly high school sports, and if I were a sportswriter again, I'd want to cover them again. There is a passion to high school sports that transcends anything that comes afterward."

I had a similar experience. When I was fresh out of college, I too covered high school sports, mostly football (but not full time; I was a general assignment reporter so I wrote about a wide range of things, not just sports), and one of the schools I covered was probably as small as Hickory, the school that was featured in "Hoosiers," but I never had the experience of covering a high school team, large or small, that was on its way to a state title.

When I was in high school, though, the basketball team won the state championship, and that was very exciting but hardly unexpected. The out–of–the–blue quality of fictional Hickory's rise to the top was the kind of stuff dramatic movies are made of.

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But, oh, those second chances — when a character in a movie makes the most of a second chance and wins redemption, that is what truly brings a lump to one's throat. That's true, audience–engaging drama. The viewers, reminded of the shortcomings in their own lives, always respond to a character successfully seeking redemption. It is the classic underdog, with or without a sports backdrop. And doesn't everyone feel like an underdog at least part of the time?

"Hoosiers" was mostly about a second chance for a fellow named Norman Dale (played by Gene Hackman), a gifted but volatile coach. His temper got him into trouble in the past, and he became an untouchable in the coaching world. The Hickory job was clearly his opportunity — perhaps his last — to get back in the game of life.

He struggled at first, prompting the mother of one of Hackman's faculty colleagues to observe, "Sun don't shine on the same dog's ass every day, but you ain't seen a ray of light since you got here."

"Hoosiers" was also about a second chance of sorts for the town drunk (Dennis Hopper), whose son was on the team and embarrassed by his father's public antics when under the influence. Hackman made the basketball–savvy Hopper his assistant — on the condition that he remain sober — which was a second chance for the fractured father–son relationship. Hopper received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

And there was a talented basketball player who, for his own reasons, had decided not to play. Like just about every place in Indiana, Hickory was basketball crazy, and there was a widespread belief that the team could do great things if this young man would play.

But the faculty member whose mother made that remark to Hackman had encouraged the young man to pursue things that would help him get out of the small town; she did not believe basketball could do that. This faculty member (Barbara Hershey) had her own issues and was, in her own way, seeking redemption, too.

As I say, just about everyone in Hickory was seeking redemption of one kind or another. And they all coalesced around the basketball team.

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I have admired Hackman's work for a long time, and I will never understand why he wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his work in "Hoosiers."

But the movie received only two nominations — Hopper's for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Score.

Goin' to Graceland

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I know several people who think Paul Simon's "Graceland" album, which hit the music stores on this day in 1986, was his greatest musical achievement.

It's hard to argue with that. It had probably been more than a decade since Simon enjoyed real commercial and critical success (with 1975's "Still Crazy After All These Years"), and he had kind of disappeared from public view — "Graceland" was something of a comeback for him. And what a comeback it was. It won the Grammy for Album of the Year and sold more than 16 million copies.

And it had five singles that vied for public attention on the charts.

Probably "You Can Call Me Al" was the biggest hit on the album. With Chevy Chase lip syncing the lyrics, the song shot up the charts and earned significant airplay.

It was the first of five singles to be released, hitting the stores nearly two weeks after the album did. Sales were sluggish initially, but the song enjoyed a revival after the album's Grammy success and rose to #23 on the charts.

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The second single was the title song, "Graceland," and in my opinion it is one of Simon's most eloquent songs — at least in his solo career. It was an expression of his thoughts following the breakup of his marriage to Carrie Fisher.

"Graceland" wasn't the hit that "You Can Call Me Al" was — but it didn't have the same joyful feel to it, either. It did, however, have a whisper of redemption in it and cracked Billboard's Hot 100 but only reached #81.

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The third single from the album, "The Boy in the Bubble," was released as a single about seven months after the album was released. Unless you had the album, you might have assumed the song was part of a new one.

I was surprised to discover, years later, how well it did. I don't really remember hearing it on the radio, but it reached #15 on Billboard's Rock Tracks chart. Still, it only reached #86 on Billboard's Hot 100.

I always thought it was kind of a contradictory tune, with lyrics about such topics as terrorism (which was still, at that time, a subject that had not touched Americans directly) and hunger, infused with shots of humor and even cheer.

Still, compared to the rather dour "Hearts and Bones," which had been Simon's previous album, "Graceland" was positively giddy.

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The fourth single, "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," charted well in Canada, and I remember hearing it on the radio more than I heard "The Boy in the Bubble" — "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" was released as a single about a month later — but it doesn't seem to have made a ripple on Billboard's Hot 100.

The song featured South African backup singers, giving most Americans their first real exposure to South African music.

A few weeks after the song was released as a single, Simon and the South African singers performed the song on Saturday Night Live, giving it national exposure.

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Simon expanded on the African theme in the fifth and final single from the "Graceland" album, "Under African Skies."

"Under African Skies" was released as a single about a year after the album came out.

And it featured Linda Ronstadt with additional vocals. She got top billing with Simon on that single, too.

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Of course, she was Linda Rondstadt, perhaps the most successful female recording artist ever.

But he was Paul Simon, and he had been in the public eye longer than she had. They made a heavyweight combination.

Steve Winwood's Return to the High Life

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Sometime in June 1986, Steve Winwood released his "Back in the High Life" album — and for awhile there in the summer of 1986, the radio airwaves were a battleground between Winwood and the singles from Peter Gabriel's "So" album.

That was a battle that Winwood eventually won with his hit single "Higher Love" winning Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards. Chaka Khan, who was probably a decade or more removed from her signature hit, "Tell Me Something Good," provided background vocals.

It was a good song, probably representative of the kind of music one tended to hear on the radio in the '80s. I thought it was good — but not great.

Which made the response from the music media somewhat baffling. Rolling Stone called it "the first undeniably superb record of an almost decade–long solo career." Seems to me that is a matter of opinion. Winwood did reasonably well with his previous solo albums, but it must have been hard to establish himself as a solo talent after a career playing with so many of the greats of popular music.

He did finally break through with "Back in the High Life."

Karyn Albano, in an online review, proclaimed "Back in the High Life" Album of the Year — although the Grammys reserved that designation for Paul Simon's "Graceland" album.

Albano wrote that Winwood had managed to combine songs that would "stand the test of time" with the commercial demands of the day. She must have had "The Finer Things," another single that cracked the Top 10, in mind when she wrote that.

Of course, it is hard to deny that Winwood found his musical niche with "Back in the High Life" and used his formula for success in his "Roll With It" album a few years later.

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It just had that feel to it, you know? I have my doubts whether it will stand the test of time, but I know people who will tell you, 30 years later, that "The Finer Things" is their favorite Winwood song of all time.

It was nearly the most successful single on "Back in the High Life," and it had that same pop/rhythm and blues appeal that served Winwood so well on "Roll With It."

The more–or–less title track from the album, "Back in the High Life Again," was the third–most successful single from the album, reaching #13 on the charts — and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts for awhile.

I always liked it, maybe the best of the Winwood singles that filled the airwaves that summer.

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I don't know why that is. Perhaps it appeals to that desire we all have to show those who wrote us off in the past.

Plus it had James Taylor singing background vocals, and that's pretty hard to beat.

The fourth most–successful single on the album, "Freedom Overspill," seems like it ought to be applicable to someone's political campaign. It seemed that way to me at the time, but no one, to my knowledge, has used it in the last 30 years.

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I always liked "Split Decision," too, which had Joe Walsh on slide guitar.

In general, "Back in the High Life" was kind of inspiration in the era of "Revenge of the Nerds," a series of movies about how a group of abused nerds got their revenge against the popular people on their college campus.

It was all in that "So how do you like me now?" frame of mind — a mindset to which most people can relate, I am sure.

Peter Gabriel's Breakthrough

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Peter Gabriel's "So," which hit the music stores 30 years ago today, was not his first solo album. I'm not even sure you could call it his best solo album — although many would.

But it was his true breakthrough album as a solo performer — and I have reasons to believe that other than the fact that, even 30 years later, "So" is his best–selling solo effort.

Gabriel, who was the original lead singer for Genesis, had other hits before "So" — which was, after all, his fifth solo album — but "So" had four hit singles. "Sledgehammer" was the biggest hit, climbing to No. 1. The others didn't make it that far, which was probably a good thing for them. "Sledgehammer" became something of a social phenomenon in the summer of 1986. It would have been difficult to live up to it.

Do you think I am kidding? I'm not. It set a record at the MTV Awards, winning nine. Its video was a big hit, too. It is still the most played music video in MTV history. "Sledgehammer" was every freaking where.

Anyway, I got kind of tired of it at the time. Enough time has passed that I can listen to it and enjoy it today, but I went through a period when I simply could not listen to it. I would change the radio station if it came on.

Not so with the album's other singles — "Big Time," "Red Rain" and "In Your Eyes." A fifth single, "Don't Give Up," was more popular in the U.K. than it was in the U.S.

I am tempted to dismiss that as being because Kate Bush was featured on the track. It was a good song, but it never really did anything for me.

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Of those, I guess "Big Time" was the most recognizable hit, and I could have gotten tired of it — had it not been for "Sledgehammer."

"Big Time" cracked Billboard's Top Ten but never quite got to No. 1.

I liked it better than "Sledgehammer" at the time.

I'm not really sure how I feel about them now, but I must say that I always found a certain amount of personal relevance in the lyrics "The place where I come from/Is a small town/They think so small/They use small words/But not me/I'm smarter than that/I worked it out/I'll be stretching my mouth/To let those big words come right out."

At that time, I thought it perfectly described my hometown — which is not such a small town anymore, at least according to my friends who still live there.

Yes, I preferred "Big Time" to "Sledgehammer" — but, of the singles from "So" that hit the airwaves, I guess my favorite was "Red Rain."

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It reached No. 3 on Billboard's Top Ten, but it never struck me as being as commercial as those other two songs, especially "Sledgehammer."

I've heard it described as an anthem — and perhaps that is what attracted me to it.

The Morning After the Night Before

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Jane Fonda has always been something of an enigma for me.

For example, she has been an often passionate advocate and defender of women yet she has not hesitated to lend her name (if not more) to projects like "Barbarella" that brazenly exploited women — when she wasn't exploiting, for personal profit, the desire that most of them have to be young and beautiful even after they have ceased to be either.

Most of the time, I guess, I just never thought she was terribly original — unlike her father. Even when she made what were said to be groundbreaking films, I always seemed to have the sensation that I had seen it done before — and better — by someone else.

When I first saw "The Morning After" — which premiered 25 years ago today — my first thought was that I must have walked into the wrong viewing room, that I was seeing some sort of parody of "The Godfather."

Do you remember the scene in "The Godfather" in which the movie director woke up in bed with the head of his beloved horse — and in a pool of the animal's blood? That's how "The Morning After" began — with Fonda (playing an alcoholic actress) waking up in bed with a man — and no memory of how she got there or what had happened when she did.

Then, when she withdrew one of her hands from beneath the sheets, she found it was covered in blood. She then discovered that her bedmate was dead with a knife sticking in his back.

She couldn't be sure whether she was responsible for the death or not, but she set about to thoroughly clean the apartment and rid it of any trace that she had been there — quite a task considering that she could not remember what she may have touched the night before.

(It occurred to me many years later that the story would require a drastic rewriting after the development of DNA evidence gathering and analysis. It was a nascent technology in the mid–1980s, but its forensic application changed things.)

In spite of her best (and rather frenzied) efforts, the evidence incriminating her began to pile up. But she was determined to prove that she was not guilty, and she enlisted the help of Jeff Bridges (a bigoted ex–cop).

As I observed when Lumet died earlier this year, he wasn't given to relying on splashy special effects — and "The Morning After" was a good example. His style was more psychological than that — reminiscent of Hitchcock in the way that the camera sort of nonchalantly nudged the viewer's attention in the direction of things that the characters in the film didn't see.

But eventually everything — like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle — came together for all to see, even the characters in the movie.

It was clear that the characters of both Fonda and Bridges were deeply flawed. At times, Fonda reminded me of Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight," uncertain of what was true and what was fantasy, not sure if she could trust her own memories and observations.

Bridges' character was harder for me to pin down. In spite of his bigotry, he had a clear sense of right and wrong — and he would stand on the side he had concluded was right, even if that meant standing alone.

He wasn't so different from other characters I had admired in Lumet's movies — Henry Fonda in "12 Angry Men," Dan O'Herlihy in "Fail–Safe," Bill Holden in "Network." All were flawed in their own ways.

Bridges' tenacity contributed to a somewhat surprising conclusion — and less surprising (as far as I was concerned) complications with Fonda's character. And, to be fair, the movie did generate more suspense than I expected.

In the realm of her suspense thriller flicks, I prefer Fonda's Oscar–winning turn in "Klute" — but "The Morning After" came close to matching that. Fonda was nominated for an Oscar, but she lost to Marlee Matlin.

The Toys of Caliban

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When I was off at college, my mother and younger brother developed a shared appreciation for Richard Mulligan as Bert Campbell in TV's Soap.

It always seemed to me that they were discovering Mulligan as if Soap was the first professional acting he had ever done — even though he had been around for a long time.

I had been familiar with Mulligan's work on the big screen for quite awhile at that time. For instance, I enjoyed his performance as George Armstrong Custer in "Little Big Man."

And I enjoyed the work he did in later years — his role as a mental patient posing as a substitute teacher in "Teachers" stands out in my memory.

But Mulligan probably is mostly remembered for the work he did on the small screen — and his finest may have been the work he did on the reincarnation of The Twilight Zone in the mid–1980s.

In the first season of the series, he provided a fresh spin on a part that became iconic in the hands of Art Carney a quarter of a century earlier. He starred as an alcoholic department store Santa Claus whose bag of toys began dispensing everyone's heart's desire.

And in the second season — in an episode that was shown for the first time 25 years ago tonight — Mulligan played more of a supporting role — as the father of an unusual little boy named Toby.

Well, Toby wasn't so little. He was played by David Greenlee, who was in his mid–20s, but mentally he gave every appearance of being severely impaired (the first time I saw the episode, I thought he might have Down syndrome).

And Toby had a special talent that wasn't so little, either.

He could summon things he saw in pictures by saying the word "Bring!" For example, he had a childlike fondness for doughnuts, and, early in the episode, he became sick from eating too many doughnuts that he had summoned.

That was the event that alerted people outside Toby's intimate family circle that he was not like other children. He wasn't like other retarded children, either. But all the outsiders knew was that he was different — and that he was treated differently by his parents.

What the outsiders didn't realize — couldn't have known — was that Toby's parents were motivated by a desire to protect both Toby and the other children from Toby himself.

Toby's talent had its drawbacks, the kind of drawbacks a retarded person could not fully comprehend. Once, when he was looking at a picture of a human heart, he accidentally caused the death of his mother (Anne Haney), attracting renewed scrutiny from child protective services.

Toby's father was determined to continue raising his son as he and his wife had done before, but he was forced to reveal the family secret to a nosy social worker who threatened to remove Toby from the home.

The social worker was finally persuaded to leave but insisted she would back.

Meanwhile, Toby, distraught by the confrontation between his father and the social worker, desired the reassuring presence of his mother and used a picture to bring her corpse back from the grave. It appeared in a chair — but as a decomposing corpse, not a living person.

Mulligan shielded his son from the horrifying vision, insisting that the corpse wasn't Toby's mother. He then went about burying the body in the backyard, after which he stood next to the grave and spoke to his wife's spirit, telling her that it was "time."

He then sat down with his son and showed him a picture of a blazing fire. "Bring!" he instructed Toby, and Toby brought the inferno to the house.

In the final scene, the social worker arrived at the house with police officers. No words were spoken; perhaps she hoped to save Toby, but the house was engulfed in flames.

Unlike most Twilight Zone episodes — either the ones from the 1960s or the ones from the 1980s — "The Toys of Caliban" had none of the series' trademark opening and closing narration.

I suppose, when the final scene is of the burning ruins of a rather modest home, there really isn't anything to say.

Experiencing Something Wild

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When I was working for the Arkansas Gazette, there were part–timers who worked in the office, doing clerical things like sorting and filing and stuff like that.

For a time in 1986, there was a young fellow who worked part time for the Gazette and part time for a video rental outlet.

He had something of a knack for identifying the kinds of movies that everyone on the staff would like. Occasionally, he would bring in video tapes for us to take home and view — free of charge.

I must admit, I liked the arrangement.

Anyway, one day he came into the office and handed me a video tape. It was of "Something Wild." I had never heard of it, and I told him so.

"Just watch it," he told me. "I watched it last night. I think you'll like it."

So I took it home and watched it — in spite of the fact that I didn't recognize a name in it.

That certainly wouldn't be the case today.

The movie was directed by Jonathan Demme, who had received some attention up to that time but really came into prominence five years later when he won an Oscar for directing "The Silence of the Lambs."

Jeff Daniels had been in only a handful of movies by 1986, but he appeared to be an up–and–comer — as, indeed, he was. I always felt one of his best performances was in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo," which actually came out the year before "Something Wild," but I've been impressed with many thing he has done since.

He wasn't merely one of the stars of "Dumb and Dumber."

"Something Wild" was almost the debut of supporting actor Ray Liotta. He became much more familiar to audiences a few years later through his roles in "Field of Dreams" and "Goodfellas."

I guess Melanie Griffith, daughter of Tippi Hedren, was the most veteran member of the bunch. Not yet 30, she had been in films since she was 14 — and, based on the stories that have been told about her and the kinds of movies in which she appeared, I'd say that "Something Wild" could have been the title of the story of her life up to that point.

As far as I know, it was not, in any way, autobiographical.

Griffith played a — for lack of a better term — wild child who spotted Daniels having lunch in a cafe. When he left without paying, she confronted him — and, ultimately, shanghaied him, taking him on a bizarre road trip.

A somewhat prim and proper sort, Daniels' character was attracted to Griffith's free persona, and, for a time, the film was kind of a fantasy tale of an improbable coupling that took the two of them on an adventure. But the story quickly became more menacing as Griffith's abusive husband, played by Liotta, tracked her down at her high school reunion.

Throwing caution to the wind, Daniels came to Griffith's defense, and the unlikely love story was complete.

It was something different. Definitely something unusual.

It was something wild.

The King and the Impersonator

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As I wrote several times last spring, I thought the inaugural season of the reincarnation of Twilight Zone in 1985–86 was impressive.

I wasn't too keen on the season finale, but I felt the series had some momentum going for it as the second season approached, and I had high hopes when that season began 25 years ago tonight.

I was not disappointed.

The opening segment was one of those "what–if" tales from history that Twilight Zone — both the original series and the reincarnation — did so well — and far too infrequently, as far as I was concerned.

Nearly seven months earlier, Twilight Zone ran a great episode that speculated about how the Kennedy assassination might have been altered by a visitor from the future.

It reminded me of episodes from the original series that dealt with historical events like Lincoln's assassination, Custer's last stand and Hitler and the Holocaust.

And in "The Once and Future King," viewers were encouraged to fantasize about the prospect that maybe — just maybe — Elvis Presley wasn't who we thought he was.

In the story, an Elvis impersonator is driving at night when he encounters another person driving erratically. The impersonator swerves to avoid hitting the other car and flips his own car in the process. When he regains consciousness, it is daylight — but it is the 1950s, not the 1980s.

He hitches a ride with the driver of an old pickup truck, who turns out to be Elvis Presley (in one of the delightful lines from the story, the real Elvis tells the Elvis impersonator "you look all shook up") — and it turns out to be just before his recording session that changed the course of American pop music history.

But the Elvis impersonator was disappointed in the real Elvis, who was planning to record a rather mundane song instead of "That's All Right," which was the first single Presley released. And the real Elvis dismisses the impersonator's selections and the provocative dance moves he suggests as the devil's work and concludes that the impersonator must be the devil himself.

A fight breaks out, and the real Elvis is killed. The Elvis impersonator then decides he must take the place of the real Elvis and live his life for him.

Most likely, you wouldn't recognize anyone in the cast. Jeff Yagher played both Elvis and the Elvis impersonator. He's done some film and TV work, but nothing that most people probably would remember.

Lisa Jane Persky, who played his agent, might be marginally more recognizable. When you see her face, you might think that you have seen it before. And, if you were watching this episode when it first aired 25 years ago tonight, you probably would be right. She did co–star with Robert Duvall in 1979's "The Great Santini."

One cast member you might have recognized was Red West, who played Elvis' boss. He had a memorable performance as Red in "Road House," but that wasn't his most impressive credential for this particular project.

In high school, West was a friend of Elvis' and later worked for him, first as a driver and then as a bodyguard. He was fired by Elvis' father the year before Elvis died for saying Elvis needed help with his dependence on prescription drugs.

Shortly before Elvis died, West co–wrote the first book that discussed the singer's drug addiction. Elvis reportedly read it and was upset by it; some people asserted that the book played a role in his death.

At this stage, I'm sure, that can only be speculation. It is almost certainly the kind of thing that cannot be proven.

Nor, for that matter, can it be proven whether Elvis really was Elvis — or an impersonator from the future.

If you're old enough to remember the 1950s or the 1960s — or just the 1970s — was that Elvis you saw in the movies and on TV?

Are you sure?

The Story of It

For some reason, my favorite authors tend to be rather wordy.

Most of my reading preferences were inherited from my parents, I suppose. From my father, I got my appreciation for the works of James Michener — and if you have ever picked up even one of his novels, you know that they were usually more than 1,000 pages long.

My mother leaned to somewhat shorter — although still lengthy by many people's standards — works by the likes of Mark Twain and Allen Drury.

Mom and I discovered the books by Stephen King at about the same time. For awhile, we would read King's books and exchange them when we had finished, getting double mileage from each paperback.

I forget which of us read which books first; I only know that we both read "The Shining," "The Stand" and "Carrie" — and others — over the course of the same summer. I still have those books on my bookshelf.

By 1986, I was living on my own, and I don't know if Mom ever read King's book that was published on this day that year, "It," but I did.

A friend of mine was a big fan of King's work and always got his books in hardback. I borrowed "It" from her a month or two after it came out. I enjoyed it, savored it, as I did every Stephen King book.

The book was typical Stephen King fare, I suppose, but with a unique plot — one that was probably a little better than most. It told the story of a group of seven friends who bonded as children to battle a malevolent creature known mostly as "It" who terrorized a small town in Maine.

It preyed mostly on children and seemed to go into hibernation for decades at a time, but, when not hibernating, It frequently appeared to people in the form of a seemingly benevolent clown named Pennywise. And Pennywise had razor–sharp teeth.

In spite of that, the seven faced down the creature and made a pledge to return to Maine if It was ever aroused again. They reunited as adults to intervene again when It awakened from its slumber so two stories were being told simultaneously.

Many people knew little about the book until four years later, when ABC aired a two–part adaptation that starred, among others, Tim Curry, John Ritter, Richard Thomas and Annette O'Toole. Curry, incidentally, played Pennywise.

I thought the adaptation was good, but it couldn't match the book, which was understandable for several reasons.

For one thing, you simply couldn't dramatize everything, even in a three–hour made–for–TV movie.

And that was for the same reason that most adaptations of King's works eventually fall short of his fans' expectations: so much of what takes place in a Stephen King novel is mental — often a person's perceptions of what might be real and what might not.

I learned long ago that Stephen King likes to play with your head — and it's probably for the best to allow him to do so because he's going to take you on an exciting ride, whether someone brings it to the screen or not.

And "It" was a pretty good ride, indeed.

Being Very Afraid

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Twenty–five years ago, Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis probably weren't very well known — at least, not as well known as they are now.

I had seen both of them in movies prior to that time but rarely in major roles.

Goldblum was one of those guys who had been around for years but, until very recently, most of his parts in movies had been brief. Davis, on the other hand, had only been in a handful of movies before she made "The Fly," but she had the good fortune to appear in 1982's "Tootsie" and to be featured somewhat prominently in 1985's "Fletch" and "Transylvania 6–5000."

I guess you could say that, for the most part, Davis made up in quality what she lacked in quantity. That doesn't mean Goldblum wasn't in some good movies. He just didn't have many high–profile roles.

As I understand it, it was partly because of Goldblum, who co–starred with her in "Transylvania 6–5000," that she landed the role in the remake of "The Fly" — which made its debut on this date in 1986, and, in truth, it was a remake mostly in name, but it was not exactly a complete "re–imagining" of the story like "Planet of the Apes" 15 years later — but I have no source for that.

Whatever the facts may be, both Goldblum and Davis went on to bigger and better projects in the years ahead. They even got married the next year, but they split up a few years after that.

They remain friends, though, and speak highly of each other's work.

They worked well together 25 years ago, well enough to be cast in another movie a couple of years later, "Earth Girls Are Easy."

"The Fly" was made nearly 30 years after the original, and the story was revised to make it more contemporary, but the basic idea was the same. A scientist, played by Goldblum, was experimenting with teleportation, the concept of breaking down the molecular structure of something to transport it from one location to another, where it would be re–assembled.

His work had been wildly successful with inanimate objects but dramatically unsuccessful with living creatures. Emboldened by an affair with a journalist (Davis), he decided to experiment on himself — and was successful — but, in the course of his experiments, his molecular structure merged with that of a fly.

The scientist began to become less human and more fly as the fly's genes overwhelmed his own, thus laying the foundation for some really messy special effects.

At one point, Goldblum (Seth Brundle in the movie) told Davis, "My teeth have begun to fall out. The medicine cabinet is now the Brundle Museum of Natural History."

Goldblum (who had had some noteworthy performances in "The Big Chill" and "The Right Stuff" a few years earlier) was praised for his portrayal of the scientist. Davis was praised, too, although not as extensively — and she did get to utter the line from the movie that achieved a certain iconic status, at least for awhile:

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"Be afraid — be very afraid."

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You can even see it in the attached movie trailer — trust me, though, it is more effective in the context of the story.

It is a great cautionary line that is sure to surface when Halloween is just around the bend — or whenever one wishes to focus on a dire fact or forecast.

There are lesser known but equally important words and lines in the movie.

• "Brundlefly."
  
  That was the result of the merging of Goldblum's genes with the fly's.


• "I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it," Goldblum says. "But now the dream is over ... and the insect is awake."
  
  Nice euphemistic language, don't you think?


• When asked if he is a bodybuilder, Goldblum replies, "Yeah, I build bodies. I take them apart and put them back together again," a nice allusion to his teleportation experiments.

If you're looking for a chill for this Halloween, you could do worse than the remake of "The Fly."

The Rich Pageant of Life

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Maria (Elke Sommer): You should get out of these clothes immediately. You'll catch your death of pneumonia, you will.

Clouseau (Peter Sellers): Yes, I probably will. But it's all part of life's rich pageant, you know?

A Shot in the Dark (1964)

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Like most people, I first became aware of R.E.M. when the band released its first single in the early 1980s.

But it would be many years before I actually purchased an R.E.M. album.

It wasn't that I had any objection to R.E.M.'s music. Far from it. I found the band pleasant enough to listen to when I was driving somewhere or when, usually for lack of anything better to do, I switched on the radio in my apartment.

And I went to see them in concert once with some friends of mine.

I just never bought any of their albums — at least, in the days when recordings were still being issued in vinyl.

I bought a few R.E.M. CDs when that became the format of choice.

And I remember borrowing from a friend — and almost wearing out — an R.E.M. album that was released 25 years ago — "Lifes Rich Pageant."

At that time, R.E.M. was still regarded by most people as underground or alternative rock — not the sort of thing one heard frequently on mainstream radio.

I guess things really began to change for R.E.M. around 1987 or 1988 — when "The One I Love" was released and R.E.M., with the mainstream acceptance that single brought, became visible proponents of political causes.

(Ironically, Jason Ferguson of Paste Magazine asserts that "Lifes Rich Pageant" was the "last 'real' R.E.M. record" in an article about the 25th anniversary re–release.

(It is true that most of the band's commercial success was yet to come, but that didn't mean that R.E.M. sold out to achieve it. The music was merely packaged in ways that were more palatable for mainstream consumers.)

Mainstream acceptance was still in the future in 1986. So, too, was the occasion when I borrowed that album from my friend.

For that matter, it has been awhile since I have listened to "Lifes Rich Pageant."

But it's a funny thing. I've noticed that every time I do listen to it, I can remember precisely what I was doing, even what I was thinking, when I borrowed it all those years ago. It may sound like a cliche, but it really does seem as if it happened only yesterday when I hear that album.

My life had entered what I regard as my soap opera period at that time. I was working as a copy editor for a morning newspaper, which meant I had to work odd hours — and that fact had already been a major factor in the failure of otherwise promising relationships.

I loved my job, but there were other things I wanted to love, too, if you get my drift. It was the cause of considerable tension in my life.

Anyway, I remember a weekend in late 1986 or early 1987 when an especially attractive woman moved in next door to my apartment. I met her briefly the day she moved in — as I was leaving for work and she was bringing in her belongings.

She was accompanied by a handsome young man. I assumed he was her boyfriend. (I later confirmed that he was, in fact, her boyfriend — but not for long.)

To be honest, I didn't think much of that. I mean, beautiful people have always been attracted to other beautiful people, haven't they? Occasionally, you do see a beautiful person with an average — or, rarely, a homely — person, but that is the exception to the rule.

I thought she was very beautiful, and I also thought I wasn't in her league. Not even close. There was no reason why I should have given her another thought.

Nevertheless, I developed a kind of infatuation with her. With our schedules, we might as well have lived in different hemispheres, but, in one of life's cruel ironies, we lived right next door to each other.

This woman worked regular daytime hours — her vehicle was always gone whenever I got up, and it never returned to the apartment building before I had to leave for work, but it was usually there when I got home around 1 in the morning.

Her apartment always seemed dark when I got home during the week. Sometimes the lights would still be on when I got home on Fridays and Saturdays. And sometimes another vehicle, which I concluded must belong to her boyfriend, was parked next to hers when I got home — and I could tell, thanks to the rather thin walls in my building, that some bedroom gymnastics were taking place next door.

To drown out the sound, for a time I listened to "Lifes Rich Pageant," and my song of choice was "I Am Superman" — which, in hindsight, wasn't a great song, either musically or lyrically. But I think I was drawn to the line "I am Superman, and I know what's happening."

It was sort of my way of dealing with the pain of knowing that a woman I desired so much was giving herself so completely to someone else — just a few feet away.

My friend didn't have any trouble telling which song I favored on that album after I returned it to him — but he never knew why I preferred it over other songs that were better (and still doesn't, unless he reads this blog entry).

I listened to "I Am Superman" so many times that track was scratchy from the wear. And if I live to be 100 and that song is playing as I draw my last breath, it will still remind me of that time in my life, of the woman next door when I was in my 20s.

I've heard it said that popular music is the soundtrack of our lives. I don't know if the songs on "Lifes Rich Pageant" achieved that level of popularity, but, for awhile there, it was the soundtrack of my life.

The rich pageant of my life.

School Daze

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In the 1980s, I was working on a sports copy desk for a metropolitan morning newspaper.

Most nights, it was a busy place — and our paper served the entire state, not a single city or county, so we had three deadlines each night to make sure the newspaper distribution flow was not interrupted.

Nevertheless, there were evenings when things were slow. On those occasions, those of us in the newsroom — the copy editors who were assigned to work the desk and the reporters who were in the office — often got into conversations.

As you might expect, the topic of conversation frequently was sports, whichever sport happened to be in season. But, on evenings when little of note was happening, the conversation could turn to all sorts of things, and, I recall one evening, about 25 years ago, when the subject was Rodney Dangerfield and his "Back to School" movie that was showing at the theaters.

That wasn't too surprising, I guess. Some of the guys with whom I worked were about Dangerfield's age. They had been aware of him for a long time — perhaps going back to the night in the late 1950s when Dangerfield got his first real break as a last–minute substitute on The Ed Sullivan Show or in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was a regular on The Tonight Show.

But he had rarely been seen in movies up to that time.

In hindsight, perhaps some of my co–workers related to Dangerfield's catchphrase, "I don't get no respect." From a professional perspective, I would find that one a little hard to believe. I was working for the Arkansas Gazette in those days, and I can assure you that it was respected throughout the state and region — even by its crosstown rival.

Whatever the reason, though, Dangerfield was an office favorite, and "Back to School" prompted many conversations as, one by one, my colleagues went to see it in the summer of 1986. Whenever one came into the office after seeing it, you could expect an evening of re–telling now familiar jokes from the film.

If memory serves, "Back to School" was actually a bit of a surprise hit.

It was a surprise for a few reasons, one of which was that, at that point, Dangerfield was not what one would call a "bankable" star in the movies — not that he ever was a major movie star, anyway. He was always more suited for night club acts, recordings and television.

Besides, his best movies — "Caddyshack" and "Easy Money" — were behind him at that time. He did have a few high points after "Back to School," but, mostly, his movie career was over.

The appeal of the film may well have been a generational thing. I wasn't overly impressed with it, to be honest. I thought the plot was held together loosely by a string of Dangerfield one–liners — funny in a monologue but a bit too predictable (for me, anyway) in a movie.

Whatever the reason may have been, my friends sure enjoyed it, and I guess that is the ultimate objective of a movie — to entertain.

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And there were many entertaining moments in the story about a middle–aged man who goes back to college — like when Dangerfield, playing a successful but uneducated man who is assigned a paper about writer Kurt Vonnegut's work, hires Vonnegut himself to write the paper, then criticizes him for it after Dangerfield receives a low grade.

Talk about no respect.

There were several familiar faces in the film besides Dangerfield — Sally Kellerman, Robert Downey Jr., Sam Kinison, Burt Young (known mostly for his appearances in the "Rocky" films) — but Dangerfield was the main attraction.

And, as it turned out, "Back to School" was probably his last truly noteworthy movie role.

Oh, he did make some other movies before he died — including a part in Quentin Tarantino's "Natural Born Killers" — but "Back to School" was his high water mark.

And, from an entertainment perspective, it wasn't a bad legacy.

Return to Mayberry

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Some reunions should never happen.

I came to that conclusion when my high school class held its first reunion — five years after graduation.

I thought it was too soon for a reunion. Those of us who had gone to college were just barely out of school at that point.

On this day 25 years ago, most of the surviving members of the cast of The Andy Griffith Show appeared in a much–anticipated reunion movie on a Sunday night in mid–April of 1986 — and proved, beyond any doubt, that some reunions should never take place — no matter how much time has gone by.

In reality, the show had been off the air for about 18 years. In the late 1960s, when Griffith decided he had had enough, the show continued for a few years as Mayberry R.F.D., but it wasn't really the same.

And the passage of time, of course, changes everything. By 1986, some of the cast members were deceased, which is an inevitable development that comes to some casts sooner than others. Thus, regulars like Floyd and Clara and Emmett the Fix–It Guy weren't around. I'm not sure if they were even mentioned in the reunion movie.

Some of the cast members were still living — but chose, for one reason or another, not to participate. Frances Bavier, the actress who played Aunt Bee, was ailing (and, in fact, passed away a few years later). Reportedly, she did consider doing a kind of voiceover in a scene in which Andy visited Aunt Bee's grave, but my understanding is that another actress delivered the lines.

The actress who played Ellie Walker and the actor who played Warren, the deputy who replaced Barney Fife, chose not to participate in the film. In hindsight, it might have been hard to work them in to the story gracefully.

But, as it was, it was hard to work in some of the other characters gracefully — or, at least, consistently with the viewers' memories.

Gomer Pyle, for example, had starred in his own TV series in the late 1960s — and his character had a steady girlfriend, LuAnn, most of the time that program was on the air. But in the Mayberry reunion, Gomer was back in Mayberry — and still a bachelor. No mention was made of LuAnn that I can recall.

Speaking of relationships, Barney and his long–term girlfriend, Thelma Lou, got back together in the reunion movie, even though devotees of the series had known for 20 years that Thelma Lou had married someone else and left Mayberry after Barney left the series. Consequently, when Barney and Thelma Lou tied the knot in the reunion movie, Andy had to mention that Thelma Lou's first marriage failed — supposedly for continuity's sake but it was really for propriety's.

Perhaps the most egregious change from the TV series to the reunion movie occurred with Otis the town drunk. In the final years of The Andy Griffith Show, the sponsors apparently grew more and more nervous about what appeared to be jokes about alcoholism, and Otis was not a character in any of the plots in the last 1½ years the program was on the air.

But Otis was back for the reunion — and drinking was no longer an issue. Otis, now a reformed drinker, may have been a pioneer in shifting public attention to childhood obesity in that movie. He was gainfully employed — as Mayberry's ice cream man.

It may have been a good excuse to get the gang together one more time — and many of the cast members have passed away in the quarter century since the film aired — but that's about all it was. There wasn't anything particularly memorable about the plot.

In fact, for a TV movie that reunited the cast of a show with a whole bunch of memorable catchphrases, the dialogue was rather bland.

Without a drunk Otis to silence, for example, Barney couldn't admonish him: "Pipe down, Otis. Will you just pipe down?"

I guess they did the best they could with the convoluted plot.

And, as implausible as the story was, I must admit that it was nice to see the gang together one more time.

A Day in Beaumont

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Since I have written here, from time to time, of my admiration for the quality of the reincarnation of the Twilight Zone series in the mid–1980s, it seems only right and fair that I should mention the 1985–1986 season finale, which aired on this night 25 years ago.

Call it equal time.

Two episodes aired during that hour that night. Neither was particularly good — and, frankly, I was disappointed. The quality of the episodes, as I have mentioned frequently in the past year (which is the 25th anniversary of the first season of the series remake), was often equal to the original — in my opinion, anyway — and I was really expecting something special from the season finale.

But the episodes that were shown 25 years ago tonight definitely were not worthy of the original.

Picking apart either one would be sufficient to prove the point, I think, so let's focus on the first episode that was aired on April 11, 1986.

To be candid, it started in a very Twilight Zone–esque fashion. A young couple had stopped along a lonely desert road outside a fictional town called Beaumont on "Wednesday 1955" (honest, that's all the audience was told) to fix a flat when they saw a flying saucer making its way across the sky. It disappeared behind a small hill.

The couple investigated and found a spaceship on the other side of the hill — with alien beings coming and going. Frightened by what they had witnessed, the couple made a mad dash for their car and barely escaped the aliens.

The two decided to find the local sheriff and tell him what they had seen, but the sheriff was skeptical. He told them there had been reports of a legitimate crash in that area, and he offered to go back with them to see it. When they arrived, Air Force personnel were on the scene, and wreckage could be seen strewn along the hillside.

A major who appeared to be well acquainted with the sheriff greeted them and explained what had happened. After he walked off with the sheriff, an officer offered to show the couple something, but they begged off and made their way back to the car. Behind them, the officer asked the major if he should radio ahead, but the major replied that the couple weren't going anywhere.

Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

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Well, if the story sounds good up to this point — and, I'll confess, I was still intrigued when the show took its first commercial break of the evening — but it rapidly went downhill from there, and I'm sure it would be even worse for today's audiences.

For openers, after coming back from the commercial, the episode picked up with the couple stopping along that lonely road in the desert to use a pay phone that just happened to be out there in the middle of nowhere. Very convenient.

(Remember, cell phones were still part of the distant future in 1986 — let alone 1955.)

After that, the story began to resemble something like "The Stepford Wives" (name your preferred version) or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (again, pick your version). The couple split, with the man seeking help from the newspaper's editor and the woman trying to radio for outside help at her uncle's place.

But neither got what they were looking for. The man saw abnormalities in people's hands (to be honest, I never saw what he supposedly saw), and the woman insisted that her uncle wasn't her uncle, anymore. "He's one of them!"

(Maybe I am, too ...)

They jumped in their car and tried to make their getaway, but a spaceship began following them and fired lethal rays at them — strangely enough, though, while the spaceship could travel however many millions or billions of miles through space it had come, it could not hit a 1955 station wagon with a death ray from what would have to be considered close range.

Then, just as implausibly, the ship sucked the car up through the air, and the couple found themselves inside the ship — which they disovered was being piloted by three of the skeptics they had encountered in Beaumont. Turned out everyone in town was an alien — even the young woman.

If you've seen any one of several visitors–from–outer–space flicks that were made in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, you're sure to experience a sense of deja vu if you watch this episode today.

And that, I thought, made it kind of anticlimactic.

You might recognize the actor who played the young man. He is Victor Garber, who has had roles in a few popular movies (i.e., "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Titanic"), but, mostly, he's been a guest star on several TV shows.

He received a couple of awards for his work in the series Alias.

And a few of the other cast members might look familiar, but none would be terribly noteworthy.

The original Twilight Zone dabbled in some science fiction stories as well. The town in the story that aired 25 years ago tonight took its name from a fellow named Charles Beaumont, who wrote several episodes for the original series, including some that, in hindsight, might have inspired this episode — at least, in some ways.

Tragically, Beaumont died long before the second Twilight Zone series came along.

His stories were often quite good, I thought. A few are even regarded as classics today. And, to be candid, some were not so good.

But even the worst was better than "A Day in Beaumont."

The Song of Life

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(Warning to readers: This is another installment in my ongoing defense of the reincarnation of the Twilight Zone in the mid–1980s.)

The episode that aired 25 years ago tonight, "Grace Note," made my point, I think.

It was about an aspiring (but struggling) opera singer who received a special gift from her dying sister (named Mary) — a glimpse into her own future.

Mary said she wanted to be remembered, and her sibling assured her she would be. "Until my dying day, you will always be in my heart," she said. But Mary had her doubts and, later, made the proverbial wish on a shooting star — for her sister the singer.

Still later, on her deathbed, Mary encouraged her sister to "follow the music" that only the two of them seemed to hear — but urged her to return.

And the older sister followed the music ... to what was the then–modern day of 1986, where she saw herself starring in La Traviata.

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She returned to Mary's bedside in 1966, where Mary gave her a pendant with her picture in it.

It was the same pendant that the older sister had seen herself looking at in her dressing room in her glimpse into the future.

Satisfied that her wish for her sister would be fulfilled, Mary died.

You probably wouldn't recognize anyone in the cast — unless you happen to be a devotee of opera. The star of the episode was Julia Migenes, a Grammy–winning opera singer but hardly a household name, either now or in 1986.

Her life has been devoted to music. She has rarely been on the screen — and sometimes only to sing (although "only," in this usage, refers strictly to the number, not quality, of the tasks she performed, because she is not a bad actress).

On this night 25 years ago, she was permitted to stretch her wings and do both.

"To live life fully, one should hear the melody the world makes," said the narrator at the end of the episode. "Pity those who stumble through their years without ever hearing the song. The greatest gift we can bestow on those we love is to help them hear it. One life ends, another begins. But the song of life fills the universe, even into the last highest darkened balcony row ... in the Twilight Zone."

Words worth remembering ... and an episode worth seeing.

The Write Stuff

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I have written here before of episodes from the Twilight Zone series remake in the mid–1980s.

And I have written of how I felt that some of my friends reached unfair conclusions about the series.

Some told me that the series didn't live up to the standards of the original.

I disagreed, and the episode that aired 25 years ago tonight supports my position admirably.

It is called "The Library," and it is the story of an aspiring writer who goes to work for a private library.

(I remember the night I saw it. I was working Wednesday through Sunday nights on the sports staff of a metropolitan newspaper in those days.

(Twilight Zone was on Friday nights. I would set my VCR to tape the show, which was an hour in length and usually had two — or even three — episodes in that hour, and then I would watch the tape when I got home from work, usually around 1 or 1:30 in the morning.

("The Library" was actually the third segment that particular evening, and the first two segments really weren't anything special. When the second one ended, I was seriously considering switching off the TV and going to bed, but something told me to continue watching. I did — and I was glad I did.)

After beginning work there, the woman is told never to look at the books; then, after inadvertently doing so, she discovers that the library is actually a collection of books on every person in the world. She gets the head librarian to admit that the books are constantly updated, telling the story of every living person as it happens — their hopes, their dreams, their experiences, their accomplishments, their failures. The most intimate details and the most trivial moments. Everything.

When someone died, that person's "book" was removed from the shelf.

The woman, as I say, is an aspiring writer, and, in her off time, she is trying to write a book, but, when she is distracted by a noisy neighbor, she decides to take advantage of her position and do some — shall we say? — creative writing in her neighbor's "book."

Oh, what a naughty girl!

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Well, she didn't intend to be. She only wanted to make her environment quiet so she could write. That's reasonable, isn't it? And the change she wrote wasn't terribly radical — just guaranteed to make her life more peaceful.

Or so she thought.

She immediately discovered that you can't change one person's reality without changing everyone's. Whenever she changed something to benefit one person, even modestly, it adversely affected someone else.

No man is an island.

You probably won't recognize the actress who played the young woman, but you might recognize the one who played her sister — Lori Petty. She was one of the stars of "A League of Their Own" several years later.

There are other folks whose faces you might know but not their names. And people with longer memories may recognize German–born American actress Uta Hagen, who played the head librarian.

For the episode, Hagen, most of whose work was done on the American stage, resurrected the faux German accent she had used in her most noteworthy films — in reality, though, Hagen was brought up in Wisconsin.

And her accent wasn't terribly thick in this episode. In fact, there was just enough of it for the casual viewer to suspect that her life didn't begin in this country.

I guess you could learn the details if you located the book with Hagen's name on it.

But the episode clearly indicated to viewers that the "library" relocated rather suddenly, and nobody told them where it went.

Of course, they didn't know where the library was originally, either ...

Back to Dealey Plaza

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I've been visiting TV.com for several years.

One of the things I always enjoy doing at that site is checking to see how the viewers rate their favorite episodes of their favorite series. I often agree with the visitors' assessments, too.

But I cannot figure out why the Twilight Zone episode that aired 25 years ago tonight, "Profile in Silver," isn't more popular than it is.

Oh, it's on the list of the most popular episodes, all right, with a rating of 8.2 out of 10 (the last time I checked) — which is not bad. I just think it should be higher.

It was a story that combined some of the things that I always loved about the Twilight Zone — real history and the concept of time travel.

"Back to the Future" was a big hit around that time, and audiences were sensitive to the idea that past and present should never collide — because, if they did, it could lead to dire consequences — like a rip in the fabric of time.

But, of course, they did collide, creating the tension that made the original series, its successor, the episode — and the Michael J. Fox movie, for that matter — great in my eyes.

"Profile in Silver" was about a history professor from the 22nd century who has been doing field research in 1963. He is actually a descendant of John F. Kennedy, and he is preparing to go to Dallas and witness JFK's assassination as part of his research.

He has no intention of interfering in the event — but, at the moment of truth, he cannot stand by and allow his ancestor to be murdered. Thus, he foils the assassination attempt.

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In gratitude, President Kennedy invites him to come back to the White House for dinner, and the professor happily accepts.

At first, he is blissfully unaware that his act has done anything other than prevent his ancestor from being killed — but then it becomes clear to him that, because Kennedy did not die in Dallas as he was supposed to, compensatory events are happening elsewhere.

And he makes the mistake of taking a coin with JFK's image on it — a family keepsake — from his pocket and idly tossing it. He drops it, and it rolls next to the feet of a Secret Service agent, who picks it up, looks at it and recognizes the image.

He also knows that it is against policy to put the image of any living American on currency, and he quickly concludes the truth.

Meanwhile, the professor, after consulting his wrist computer (a Dick Tracyesque touch, to be sure) and going over the possible outcomes of the new reality, learns that the only way to restore equilibrium is for the Kennedy presidency to end the way history intended.

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You probably wouldn't recognize most of the folks in the cast, but you might recognize Lane Smith. He played the history professor. A few years later, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in the TV production of "The Final Days."

A few years after that, he had what I think may have been his most memorable movie role — as the prosecutor in "My Cousin Vinny."

Well, actually, you might also recognize the actor who played President Kennedy — Andrew Robinson. He was in his mid–40s when the episode first aired. He had been involved in several film and TV projects in the years prior to the Twilight Zone episode, and he's probably best known for other things, but he did appear in another episode of the series in the following season.

There is some additional trivia about this episode that most people don't know.

• Barbara Baxley, who played Smith's colleague from the future, had an unusual role in the history of the series. She actually appeared in an episode in the original series in the early 1960s — "Mute," in which she played a woman who, along with her husband, took in a young mute girl who had lost her parents in a fire.
  
  That episode aired nearly 10 months before the Kennedy assassination.


• In the context of the assassination itself, there's a nice little touch in this episode that contributes to the alternate reality.
  
  If you watch closely, you may hear the Twilight Zone theme from 1963 coming from a television in the White House, followed by dialogue from a Twilight Zone episode.
  
  As I understand it, that episode was the one that was originally scheduled to be shown the night of Kennedy's assassination, but it was delayed until the following February.
  
  That, of course, would not be necessary ... if the assassination plot did not succeed.

But it did succeed, of course, as Smith's character realized — and that was the point, I guess, that the stories of this nation and this planet are already written, and they cannot be altered. Those who try are likely to be slapped down by far greater forces.

I'm not sure if I believe that — but this is all fantasy, anyway, right? I mean, time travel doesn't exist. It may never exist. Therefore, such issues are irrelevant to the way things are now and may be irrelevant to the way things will be in the foreseeable future.

But it sure is an intriguing notion, isn't it? Kind of a cosmic do–over. Go back in time, change one thing you did many years ago, perhaps even change one thing you did when you were a child — and the future will be changed in ways you cannot imagine.

The original Twilight Zone always was good at making viewers think about alternatives, and its reincarnation was, too.

Return With Us Now ...

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When I was a child, I remember seeing an episode from the original Twilight Zone series — in which a man whose company has been building a dam on a tribe's ancestral land in Africa has returned to America.

Apparently, the tribe's witch doctor put a curse on everyone associated with the project. Once back in the United States, the man started hearing the noises of the jungle — but no one ever saw any living, breathing creatures from the jungle until the very last minute — when the man encountered a lion in his apartment.

In the second incarnation of the Twilight Zone, an episode was shown that may have been inspired by that one. I don't know if it was, but many of the episodes from the original series inspired episodes on the new one, and it would make sense if that happened to be the case with this episode.

Anyway, the episode that may have been inspired by the earlier one aired 25 years ago tomorrow night.

Called "Cold Reading," it was set in the golden age of radio, the 1930s. A radio actor has been asked to fill in on a weekly show about an African explorer that was created by a writer who frequently makes impromptu changes while on the set with the cast.

On this particular occasion, he wishes the special effects were more realistic — and gets his wish when everything the actors say comes true in the studio — then he has to do some rapid rewriting to prevent some really terrible things from happening — but he forgets to write out the promo at the end for his latest series.

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You might recognize the actor who played the writer. His name was Dick Shawn, and he was a pretty well known actor and comedian.

When I think of him, I always think of his performance in the original "The Producers," Mel Brooks' first film (which, by the way, you can see on Turner Classic Movies this Friday at 4 p.m. Central).

In that movie, Shawn played a hippie named Lorenzo St. Dubois ("L.S.D.") who was chosen to portray Hitler in a musical that was (supposedly) guaranteed to flop. It was really an over–the–top performance.

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Shawn was in many other things, too — mostly movies, but there were some TV appearances as well — in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was so hard–working, in fact, that he died of a heart attack on stage on April 17, 1987. He was performing a sketch about surviving a nuclear attack and, at one point, stated, "I will not lay down on the job."

Shortly after that, he suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed face down. Because of what he had said earlier, many members of the audience thought it was part of the act. The audience continued to be unsure of what it had seen, making catcalls when nothing happened for several minutes.

The audience remained confused even when someone rushed to the stage, tried to revive Shawn and asked if there was a doctor in the audience. Even when people were asked to leave, they stayed, many still under the impression that what they had witnessed was part of the show.

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It was apparently quite similar to the on–stage death of British comedian Tommy Cooper. He collapsed in a televised performance on the London stage.

Cooper had a history of infidelity and drinking, and his acts had a reputation for things going wrong so, when he collapsed after an encounter with a beautiful assistant, it was assumed to be part of the act.

Ironically, their deaths nearly occurred on the same day — separated by three years. Cooper died on April 15, 1984.

Through the Eyes of an Outcast

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It's funny, the things you remember.

For example, I remember the fall of 1985 pretty well. I was living in Little Rock, and several of my friends were excited about the new incarnation of the Twilight Zone TV series. I was excited about it, too.

We were all fans of the original series — but we were toddlers when it went off the air. We only experienced it in reruns. This was our opportunity to experience it first hand.

But I knew some people who seemed to specialize in being — to use a 21st century slang term — "buzzkills."

I knew one girl who dismissed the concept the minute she heard about it. The series would never be able to live up to the original, she told me.

I didn't go along with that. Agreed, the show didn't have Rod Serling (except for a fleeting stock footage clip in the opening credits), but he had been dead for a decade by that time. It's hard to see how he could have played a prominent role in the series' resurrection.

But I often thought the writing matched the original, especially in the second half of that 1985–86 season. And today is the 25th anniversary of the broadcast of what was perhaps the best example of that — an episode called "To See the Invisible Man."

Ironically, it was based on a short story that was written while the original Twilight Zone was still on the air. I don't think Rod Serling ever turned it into an episode of his series, but I definitely think he would have gotten around to it if the original series had run longer than it did.

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In the traditional opening narrative, viewers were told that the story was about "a world much like our own, yet much unlike it." It was about a fellow named Mitchell Chaplin, an uncaring sort who is sentenced to a year of social isolation.

He is branded on his forehead so those he encounters will know that they risk the same punishment if they interact with him.

To someone like Mitchell Chaplin, it seems like a priceless opportunity to get some real privacy, but instead of hunkering down with a load of canned goods and some good books, which is what I would do under such circumstance, he insists on wandering out into the world, where he is made aware of the drawbacks of his situation — the worst of which may be when he is injured and refused medical attention.

I suppose, though, that, if he did hunker down with some canned goods and good books, the episode wouldn't be able to make some intriguing observations about society.

For there are other low moments, too — like when Mitchell strikes up a conversation with a blind man, only to have it abruptly terminated when a young woman whispers to the blind man "Invisible," and his whole demeanor changes or when Mitchell tries to communicate with other "invisible" people.

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The story truly had some valuable lessons about crime and punishment — and some questions about whether the point of punishment is rehabilitation or retribution.

Like all the best Twilight Zone episodes, it left the answers to such questions dangling.

Deja Vu TV

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In the fall of 1985, the second incarnation of Twilight Zone sparked some spirited debates among some of my friends.

Some did not think it lived up to the original. Others did. I guess I fell somewhere in the middle. I liked the series, thought it was often as good as the original (which, to be fair, I have only seen in syndication), but sometimes I thought the episodes were disappointing.

That wasn't a fatal flaw in my opinion. I was sometimes disappointed in original episodes, too.

But I always felt that an episode that aired 25 years ago last night — "The Misfortune Cookie" — lived up to the standards of the original.

In more ways than one.

The story was clearly a Twilight Zone tale. A food critic who takes great delight in writing mean reviews that lead to the (sometimes premature, sometimes unwarranted) closing of restaurants becomes aware of an out–of–the–way Chinese restaurant and begins writing an extremely negative review without having eaten the food.

Perhaps so he can plausibly claim to have been to the restaurant, he stops by for dinner but doesn't eat the food and immediately asks for his check. The owner gives him a fortune cookie which he says is "special."

The critic's fortune cookie predicts that a "grand reward" is just around the corner. The critic leaves the restaurant and literally collides with a jewel thief and recovers all the stolen gems. The jeweler insists on giving him a $1,000 (a "grand") reward.

The critic is hooked and returns to the restaurant for lunch the next day. His negative review has already been printed, and people have been canceling their reservations all morning. Now contrite, the critic promises to smooth everything over with the readers, but first he wants a Chinese lunch and another special fortune cookie.

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This one strikes the food critic as ludicrous. It says, "April arrives bringing romance," but he knows it is really September, and he storms out of the restaurant.

Yet only minutes later, he meets a woman who has just arrived in the city and seems lost. They hit it off and agree to have dinner together. The woman says her name is April.

After that, though, things begin to turn against the food critic in true Twilight Zone fashion.

The critic, of course, takes April to the Chinese restaurant for dinner, but the fortune cookies are not to his liking. April's cautions her that a mistake in judgment will soon be made clear to her. The critic's cookie tells him he is going to die, and he explodes, ranting at the owner of the restaurant.

A chastened April leaves and, shortly thereafter, so does the critic, who proceeds to an appropriate demise.

Frankly, I thought the ending of the episode was a little weak — but I felt the same way about some original episodes.

Like some of the original episodes, this one featured a well–known actor (Elliott Gould), who played the role of the food critic.

Another tradition that began in the original Twilight Zone series was the emergence of some talented actors, previously unknown but not fated to remain that way.

I don't think any of Gould's castmates fit that description. I mean, if any has gone on to do much beyond this Twilight Zone episode, I'm not aware of it.

I seldom see Twilight Zone episodes from the mid–1980s so your only opportunity to see it may be through YouTube.

But, if you're a Twilight Zone fan, watch it and ask yourself if it doesn't belong next to any episode from the original series.