Long Distance Call

"Long Distance Call" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Opening narration

In the dining room, Billy Bayles is seen from the back, as he speaks on the toy telephone, while Chris Bayles and his dying mother slowly walk upstairs. A cutaway to another part of the dining room reveals Rod Serling walking into view:

As must be obvious, this is a house hovered over by Mr. Death, that omnipresent player to the third and final act of every life. And it's been said, and probably rightfully so, that what follows this life is one of the unfathomable mysteries; an area of darkness which we the living reserve for the dead, or so it is said. For in a moment, a child will try to cross that bridge which separates light and shadow- and, of course, he must take the only known route, that indistinct highway through the region we call the Twilight Zone.

Synopsis

A boy communicates with his father's European-immigrant mother, who had recently died, using a toy telephone that she gave him before her passing. The boy, Billy, runs out in front of a car. The driver, who barely managed to swerve out of the way, reports that Billy said someone told him to try to kill himself. Later, his mother grabs the phone out of his hands and "hears" the grandmother on the other end; she is convinced that she is hearing the dead grandmother. His father, of course, thinks Billy is just pretending. Billy attempts to drown himself. One of the paramedics says he doesn't believe Billy's chances are very good. His father goes into Billy's room, picks up the toy phone, and begs the grandmother to give Billy a chance to experience life. Suddenly, the paramedics are able to revive Billy.

Closing narration

A toy telephone, an act of faith, a set of improbable circumstances, all combine to probe a mystery, to fathom a depth, to send a facet of light into a dark after-region—to be believed or disbelieved depending on your frame of reference. A fact or a fantasy, a substance or a shadow, but all of it very much a part of the Twilight Zone.

Preview for next week's story

Announcer: "And now, Mr. Serling."

Next week, you'll ride up-front in this wagon on a trek west. Your itinerary is across the Great Plains, over the Rockies to a point in New Mexico. And you'll ride alongside Mr. Cliff Robertson in a strange tale of a handful of American pioneers who made a detour in time and found themselves one afternoon on the fringe of the future. Our story is called "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim." And, believe me, it's quite a view. I hope we'll see you then.

Episode notes

Five weeks into The Twilight Zone's second season, the show's budget was showing a deficit. The total number of new episodes was projected at twenty-nine, more than half of which (sixteen) had already been filmed by November 1960. CBS strongly suggested that in order to trim the production's $65,000-per-episode budget, six episodes should be produced and telecast in the cheaper videotape format, eventually transferred to 16-millimeter film for future syndicated rebroadcasts. The studios of the network's Television City, normally used for the production of variety shows and live drama, would serve as the venue. There would be fewer camera movements and no exteriors, making the episodes more akin to soap operas (and the network's Playhouse 90 anthology), with the videotaped image effectively narrowing and flattening perspective. Even with these artistic sacrifices, the eventual total savings amounted to only $30,000, far less than the cost of a single episode. The experiment was thus deemed a failure and never attempted again.

Even though the six shows were taped in a row, through November and into mid-December, their broadcast dates were out of order and varied widely, with this, the final one, shown on March 31, 1961 as episode 22. The first, "The Lateness of the Hour", was seen on December 2, 1960 as episode 8; the second, "Static", appeared on March 10, 1961 as episode 20; the third, "The Whole Truth" was broadcast on January 20, 1961 as episode 14; the fourth was the Christmas entry, "Night of the Meek", shown as the 11th episode on December 23, 1960 and the fifth, "Twenty-Two" was seen on February 10, 1961 as episode 17.

This was also the final episode sponsored by General Foods (Sanka, S.O.S. soap pads), who ended their two year primary sponsorship of the series. Beginning with the March 14th episode, the series' new alternate sponsor was Liggett & Myers, for Oasis cigarettes.

In The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disneyland, there is a toy telephone from the episode "Long Distance Call" with a card saying "Perfect for the children's room and those late night calls from Grandma."

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links