Jean G

Come Wander with Me - S5-E34

Trivia: Producer William Froug rejected an extremely nervous young singer/actress auditioning for the part of Mary Rachel, and recalls thinking that "I'll probably kick myself. She'll probably be a big star." He turned out to be right on both counts. The aspiring young singer's name was Liza Minnelli.

Jean G

Mr. Garrity and the Graves - S5-E32

Deliberate mistake: Garrity blackmails the town citizens into paying him not to resurrect their unlamented "loved ones." Amazingly, every man in the saloon just happens to have hundreds of dollars ($500 - $1200 each) in his pocket to pay up with. In 1890 money, that's roughly equivalent to a group of modern-day bar patrons all carrying ten to thirty thousand dollars around in their pockets. The scenario was apparently used in spite of its incredibility just to more quickly advance the plot.

Jean G

Caesar and Me - S5-E28

Trivia: This is the only episode of the entire Twilight Zone series scripted by a woman. Adele (credited as "A.T.") Strassfield was producer William Froug's secretary.

Jean G

What's in the Box - S5-E24

Continuity mistake: When Phyllis stumbles back toward the window, both its draperies are neatly in place. Next shot, just before she crashes through the glass, the drapes are suddenly half pulled down and a broken curtain rod that wasn't there seconds before hangs down over the window. (00:23:15)

Jean G

Spur of the Moment - S5-E21

Deliberate mistake: The first of two twists meant to come at the end of this episode was the revelation that the mysterious dark rider chasing Anne was herself - 25 years in the future. According to writer Richard Matheson, the director chose, for some bizarre reason, to deliberately spoil this "reveal" by inserting a close-up of the rider early on, showing the viewers who she was at the outset.

Jean G

Black Leather Jackets - S5-E18

Revealing mistake: The aliens cause a power fluctuation, and Mr. Tillman complains that all the lights in his house are flickering on and off. But the lamps in his living room are burning steadily. The "flickering" light is originating from what is obviously stage lighting above the set. (00:05:15)

Jean G

Probe 7 - Over and Out - S5-E9

Factual error: Cook draws his sun and planets in the sand, saying that it's "my galaxy." When Norda draws hers, he calls it another galaxy. Wrong. He's drawn a solar system, not a galaxy. (A galaxy is a collection of millions of solar systems.) The terms are in no way synonymous - there's a vast difference, and a trained astronaut would definitely know that. Their little ships can't possibly cross galactic voids (that would require tens of thousands of years, even at many times the speed of light), so Cook and Norda's planets are in different star systems in the same galaxy - this one. (00:16:30)

Jean G

You Drive - S5-E14

Continuity mistake: After Oliver hits the bicyclist, the bike's front wheel is turned upright, but is still intact, and the boy has been thrown across a lawn to the edge of a phone booth. In the next shot, however, the wheel is suddenly crumpled, and the unconscious boy has somehow moved to a completely different place on the grass, several feet away from the phone booth. (00:01:00)

Jean G

A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain - S5-E11

Continuity mistake: When Raymond arrives to check on Harmon, Flora is sitting at the breakfast bar opening the morning paper. She's holding it straight up in front of her, but when the shot reverses angles, the paper is suddenly lying flat on the bar. (00:16:15)

Jean G

Uncle Simon - S5-E8

Trivia: Uncle Simon's mechanical man is a thinly-disguised Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, with a different head and "face" under his glass dome. Robby guest-stars with his original head a few Twilight Zone episodes later, in "The Brain Center at Whipple's." (00:17:00)

Jean G

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - S5-E3

Trivia: Writer Richard Matheson says he was pleased with most of Twilight Zone's film version of his short story - except for the gremlin. He'd conceived it as a dark, creepy and nearly-invisible humanoid figure. "But this thing," he complains, "looked more like a panda bear."

Jean G

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - S5-E3

Trivia: Rod Serling set up a practical joke on writer Richard Matheson when the two were flying to San Francisco aboard a propeller-driven plane. Serling collaborated with the airline to tape a poster blow-up of the "Nightmare" gremlin's ugly face to the outside of the plane window. Just as Serling prompted Matheson to open the curtain, however, the plane's engines and props fired up, blowing away both the poster and Serling's intended gag.

Jean G

Living Doll - S5-E6

Continuity mistake: After Erich takes Talky Tina back out of the trash can and pulls her from the burlap bag, the doll's left arm is pointing straight up above its head. When the shot cuts to a different angle, the arm is suddenly down at Tina's side, even though Erich didn't move it. (00:20:30)

Jean G

On Thursday We Leave For Home - S4-E16

Factual error: The colonists' planet has twin suns and, we're told, no night. We see the suns, side-by-side in the sky. But twin suns would not create perpetual day. Night/day is caused by the rotation of the planet on its axis, regardless the number of suns. In a binary star system, the two stars orbit each other around a central point in space. The planets would orbit around that central point too. In order for there to be no night, the planet would have to pass between the two stars, a process it would not survive. The gravitational forces of two opposing suns would tear the planet apart. (00:18:35)

Jean G

Passage on the Lady Anne - S4-E17

Continuity mistake: During their conversation over tea, Mr. McKenzie tells the Ransomes about the other people aboard ship. One elderly couple, the Whiteaways, are sitting in the background in almost complete shadow - until McKenzie introduces them. Then we see them in sudden brilliant light, and they've shifted their seating positions relative to the table. When we cut back to the master shot, they're back in shadow and back in their original positions. (00:29:55)

Jean G

Jess-Belle - S4-E7

Trivia: Jess-Belle was supposed to turn into a tiger instead of a leopard, but director Buzz Kulik auditioned dozens of tigers and told writer Earl Hamner, "Not one of 'em can act; can we make it another animal?" The cat that got the job had problems too. After Kulik put his crew inside a cage to protect them from the "vicious" beast, the mildly-tranquilized trained leopard missed his walking and leaping cues and kept falling asleep. (00:33:30)

Jean G

Valley of the Shadow - S4-E3

Revealing mistake: We see Redfield's car strike the invisible barrier from a side angle. It jerks to a stop and the hood flies up, but there's no other front end damage - until the angle shifts to a forward view, a shot of an identical car that had been previously wrecked. Now there's suddenly considerable damage to the front end, and the hood is in a different, much more crumpled position. (00:11:10)

Jean G

In His Image - S4-E1

Revealing mistake: In the basement lab scene at the end, George Grizzard's double's face is visible in profile several times. (00:38:50)

Jean G

The Thirty-Fathom Grave - S4-E2

Factual error: On the bulkhead of the ship's sickbay is a standard 12-hour civilian clock. It shouldn't be there. All clocks aboard U.S. Navy vessels show 24-hour military time. (00:31:20)

Jean G

To Serve Man - S3-E24

Other mistake: Chambers asks what time it is on Earth, a strangely vague question to which the Kanamits grant an equally odd answer: on Earth, it is noon. It can't be noon everywhere on Earth at once. While it can be fancifully explained away ("They somehow knew to answer for the time zone he was taken from"), it still jars the viewer, because neither Chambers nor the aliens, both highly intelligent, should make this sort of imprecise mistake. Both director Richard Bare and Damon Knight, author of the original short story, confirmed this as a scriptwriting error that should have been caught before shooting began. (00:02:15)

Jean G