![]() ![]() Pretty soon the Twonky’s laser beam is doing West’s chores and loading his dishwasher. The walking effect has a bizarre quality which is always preceded by a creepy clunking sound. Then the Twonky begins to follow West around his house, shadowing his every move. The Twonky begins to manifest itself by shooting a laser beam out of its screen and lighting West’s cigarettes. This bizarre television set is given its name by West’s football coach friend, Coach Trout (played by Billy Lynn) who says, “A Twonky is something you do not know what it is.” He has no clue that this set is much more than your average television and very strange things are in store. During a lonely weekend, with his wife out of town, West discovers her new purchase, a brand new television set. That radio show inspired a very funny stand-up comedy routine by Bill Cosby which you can listen to here.īefore The Twonky, Oboler directed the first 3D color movie, “Bwana Devil.” So the guy definitely had some genre cred.īased on a short story by novelist Henry Kuttner, “The Twonky” tells the story of Cary West (a rather subdued Hans Conried) as a married, college professor whose life is invaded by an out-of-control television set with a personality of its own. The director and screenwriter, Arch Oboler, was a celebrated writer for radio and was notorious for his hit horror radio show in the 30’s called “Lights Out.” Oboler’s most memorable script for that radio show was a science fiction horror piece called “Chicken Heart”, about a tiny piece of a chicken’s heart, kept alive by scientists in a petri dish which begins growing and growing until it consumes the world. What a trip! Not exactly as I remembered…and the effects aren’t scary from a modern adult point of view… but wow, “The Twonky” is one downright weirdass movie! So now, thanks to Quint, and a bootlegger on ebay, I must sit in a dark room, face my fears and revisit The Twonky as an adult. As far as I could tell it never had been released on VHS or DVD. Made in 1953 and directed by Arch Oboler. Well, ImdB informed me that it was, indeed, a real movie. Imagine a relentless, walking, talking TV set out to get you. The Twonky took over this poor sap’s life. ![]() My dim recollection is that it might have even been an alien in the form of a television set. The thing was, this Twonky had a mind of its own… it talked, it even walked on these spindly wooden legs. The television set even had a name… “The Twonky.” At first it appeared to be just a regular TV set. My memory is that the movie was about this college professor who finds strange things going on with his television set. For years I thought I might have completely imagined the movie myself, that it wasn’t real. I was expecting an average kid-level comedy, with a familiar star, but what I got instead was weird and strange and scary.Īll these decades later I have never seen this movie again…anywhere. He was all over TV playing comic characters every day in shows from “Gilligan’s Island” to “I Love Lucy.” That’s what lulled me into watching this movie. The star, Hans Conried, was the familiar host of a show of silent comedy shorts called “Fractured Flickers’. I tuned in late so I didn’t even know the name of the movie and that made the experience even more creepy. ![]() The movie he chose was THE TWONKY, a film not readily available on (legal) DVD about a killer… well, you’ll see. I personally think it’s a fascinating angle for a review, looking back past nostalgia and viewing a film through adult eyes, without the forgiving fog of memory. He is reviewing a film he has already seen, but hasn’t seen since childhood. He enthusiastically responded to contributing an entry into this special run of AMADs. He’s famous for his PHANTASM films as well as the ‘80s gem BEASTMASTER and, more recently, the great indie horror comedy BUBBA HO-TEP. Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s Special Tribute A Movie A Day entry, the fifth of six total, this time from Don Coscarelli, who not only one of my favorite filmmakers, but one of my favorite people. ![]()
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