Description: Season 1, Episode 2
Air Date: October 9, 1959
Plot Summary: A pitchman makes a bargain with death that has unexpected consequences.
Review: The way I typically classify TZ episodes is into three categories. There are the ones you've seen a million times, the ones that should be classics, and then the ones nobody remembers. Unfortunately, this episode falls into that latter category. The story is focused on an old pitchman who serves more as a street vendor than anything you might imagine. Maybe in '59 the old man would have appeared harmless, but to me he comes off humorously creepy and child molester-ish. I don't know why this makes me laugh so hard, but I have mentioned in the past my twisted sense of humor. I mean, come on...his only friends are little kids, he throws them candy without a glance, gives them toys, and invites them over to his apartment. Okay, I can set this aspect aside for a moment and focus on the real reason why this episode is on the lamer side.
The old man is going to die that night according to death, in physical form, who has come to collect. The old man acts like a baby even though this is probably the most pleasant demise a person could ask for; I think now we know why his only friends are kids. Somehow the old man convinces death to let him live long enough to make one final big pitch--one for the angels as he claims. After the bargain is struck, like a fucking idiot, the old man blabs that he will never do the pitch and will live forever. Not taking too kindly to such an idiotic move, death claims he will take someone else instead. The person death decides to kill is the old man's favorite little girl who is run over by a car yet is cheaply unscathed and lying like a perfect angel on the road. I'm not saying she needs to be splattered all over the sidewalk, but at least be contorted or have a scratch or bruise! Magically, the girl is clinging to life just as the old man learns conveniently that if death doesn't finish the girl off at exactly midnight, it will screw everything up. The old man then sets up shop and starts to pitch all the junk he's selling. Moronically, death, this abstract, supernatural being, starts to sweat and is convinced to buy the shit the old man is selling. Come the fuck on. Needless to say, the old man distracts death long enough to ruin his plan. But, since the pitch, one worthy of the angels, was made, the deal is broken and the old man will die as originally intended. The episode simply ends with the old man and death walking off.
I get what they were going for, but there is simply too much cheese even for the time period. I tend not to like the more upbeat episodes as it is, but this went into a whole different realm of lameness. Maybe if the little girl was his granddaughter or something it would have made the events feel more dire. Oh well, there's 156 episodes and they aren't all going to be gold.
I don't think that this was as bad as "The fugitive", but back in those days, people weren't as taboo as they are today about grownups and kids, in same room together, hanging out, etc. But of course, you can thank all the sick freaks in the world in recent decades for that.
ReplyDeleteThis episode was just to me, sort of inept. You are right that Mr. Bookman was a moron for saying out loud how he wasn't going to abide by the wish that he had just been granted about not having to be taken that night due to him needing to make that "big special" pitch. What the hell was a big amazing pitch supposed to be anyway compared to what he was doing already such as in the first scene? Like when he was selling his cheap bits, thrift store shirts, ties, little wind up toys, etc. before "Death" appeared in his apartment. Mr.Bookman didn't even seem that surprised about a strange man just suddenly appearing in his little apartment, and his first words were "something I can sell you?" Come on now. At least in "Escape clause", when the Devil showed up in his room there, he asked the first obvious questions "how'd you get in here!? What are you doing in here!?" Those would always naturally be the first thing you'd say to a complete stranger suddenly showing up in your apartment. Mr. Bookman here wasn't all too bright.
Then, when Death was explaining the extenuating circumstances, didn't #2 and #3 sound like almost the exact same thing? If I recall, #1 was a relative how couldn't get by in the absence of your care, #2 was being short on completing a big job, experiments, on the verge of a scientific discovery, and #3 was unfinished business of a major nature. I don't know, #2 and #3 seemed kind of the same to me.
Then Mr. Bookman starts saying how he's never flown in a helicopter, or been to South Africa (or one of those Zulu countries as Mr. Bookman calls it) to see a Zulu dance. I guess he had a desire to see those shirtless African tribal women dancing around, lol. Then his idiotic move of boasting aloud about defying Death extenuating his situation, and the best little re appearances of Death showing up every few feet down the stairs as he was trying to get away. Then his decision to "take" the 8 year old girl by making her be hit by a car. At least then, Mr. Bookman was decent enough to say "Don't take her! Take me now!" instead of continuing to cowardly run away letting Death take the kid and him only being glad he was spared. That would've been messed up. The kid turns out OK of course, television back then would've never shown an innocent child dying.
Then, Death, a powerful, supernatural being being suckered by Mr. Bookman's "amazing" pitch and overeagerly saying "I'll buy, I'll buy em!" I agree with you on that one, "come on!"
I don't think that this was as bad as "The fugitive", but back in those days, people weren't as taboo as they are today about grownups and kids, in same room together, hanging out, etc. But of course, you can thank all the sick freaks in the world in recent decades for that.
ReplyDeleteThis episode was just to me, sort of inept. You are right that Mr. Bookman was a moron for saying out loud how he wasn't going to abide by the wish that he had just been granted about not having to be taken that night due to him needing to make that "big special" pitch. What the hell was a big amazing pitch supposed to be anyway compared to what he was doing already such as in the first scene? Like when he was selling his cheap bits, thrift store shirts, ties, little wind up toys, etc. before "Death" appeared in his apartment. Mr.Bookman didn't even seem that surprised about a strange man just suddenly appearing in his little apartment, and his first words were "something I can sell you?" Come on now. At least in "Escape clause", when the Devil showed up in his room there, he asked the first obvious questions "how'd you get in here!? What are you doing in here!?" Those would always naturally be the first thing you'd say to a complete stranger suddenly showing up in your apartment. Mr. Bookman here wasn't all too bright.
Then, when Death was explaining the extenuating circumstances, didn't #2 and #3 sound like almost the exact same thing? If I recall, #1 was a relative how couldn't get by in the absence of your care, #2 was being short on completing a big job, experiments, on the verge of a scientific discovery, and #3 was unfinished business of a major nature. I don't know, #2 and #3 seemed kind of the same to me.
Then Mr. Bookman starts saying how he's never flown in a helicopter, or been to South Africa (or one of those Zulu countries as Mr. Bookman calls it) to see a Zulu dance. I guess he had a desire to see those shirtless African tribal women dancing around, lol. Then his idiotic move of boasting aloud about defying Death extenuating his situation, and the best little re appearances of Death showing up every few feet down the stairs as he was trying to get away. Then his decision to "take" the 8 year old girl by making her be hit by a car. At least then, Mr. Bookman was decent enough to say "Don't take her! Take me now!" instead of continuing to cowardly run away letting Death take the kid and him only being glad he was spared. That would've been messed up. The kid turns out OK of course, television back then would've never shown an innocent child dying.
Then, Death, a powerful, supernatural being being suckered by Mr. Bookman's "amazing" pitch and overeagerly saying "I'll buy, I'll buy em!" I agree with you on that one, "come on!"
This episode is just cheesy as hell. The very core premise of a guy trying to weasel out of death is okay, however, the details to this story are what make it so stupid. The little kids, the moronic pitches, and death acting like an idiot just synches the cheesiness. It's hard to imagine why they made this the second episode rather than shifting it further into the middle of the first season.
DeleteThis is the kind of episode that if I never see it again I won't care one bit.