A Kind of a Stopwatch

"**A Kind of a Stopwatch**"
"A Kind of a Stopwatch"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 5; Episode 4
Directed by	John Rich
Story by	Michael D. Rosenthal
Teleplay by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Van Cleave
Production code	2609
Original air date	October 18, 1963
Guest appearances
	Richard Erdman ; Herbie Faye ; Leon Belasco ; Doris Singleton ; Roy Roberts ; Richard Wessel ; Ray Kellog ; Ken Drake
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"	Next →; "The Last Night of a Jockey"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 5)
	List of episodes

Last updated April 06, 2024

"A Kind of a Stopwatch"^[1] is a 1963 episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone . In this episode, a man acquires a stopwatch which can stop time.

Opening narration

Submitted for your approval or at least your analysis: one Patrick Thomas McNulty, who, at age forty-one, is the biggest bore on Earth. He holds a ten-year record for the most meaningless words spewed out during a coffee break. And it's very likely that, as of this moment, he would have gone through life in precisely this manner, a dull, argumentative bigmouth who sets back the art of conversation a thousand years. I say he very likely would have except for something that will soon happen to him, something that will considerably alter his existence—and ours. Now you think about that now, because this is The Twilight Zone.

Plot

Patrick McNulty is a self-important, annoying man in his 40s. One day, he is summoned by his boss, Mr. Cooper. McNulty is delighted, believing that his frequent contributions to the suggestion box have earned him recognition. Cooper, however, says that all of McNulty's suggestions deal with fields of enterprise in which the company is not involved and fires McNulty for wasting his time.

McNulty goes to Joe Palucci's bar, where he drives away the other patrons with his opinions about a sporting event. Palucci requests that McNulty patronize another establishment, but McNulty ignores him and buys a drink for the sole remaining patron, Potts, a drunk who spews various phrases from times long past. In return, Potts gives McNulty his stopwatch. Thinking it an odd gift, McNulty quickly discovers that it pauses time for everyone and everything except for the watch holder.

McNulty tries to show Cooper the stopwatch's power in the hopes of improving their company, but Cooper does not understand McNulty and dismisses him. Returning to the bar, McNulty tries to demonstrate the watch's power to the customers, but does it in such a way that they do not understand again.

McNulty steps into a bank with the intention of robbing it, but drops the watch, which breaks and permanently freezes time. With no way to repair it, McNulty frantically begs for help from the frozen people around him.

Closing narration

Mr. Patrick Thomas McNulty, who had a gift of time. He used it and he misused it, and now he's just been handed the bill. Tonight's tale of motion and McNulty - in the Twilight Zone.

Cast

Richard Erdman as Patrick Thomas McNulty
Herbie Faye as Joe Palucci, the bartender
Leon Belasco as Potts, the drunk who gives McNulty the stopwatch
Doris Singleton as Secretary to McNulty's boss Mr. Cooper
Roy Roberts as Mr. Cooper, McNulty's annoyed boss
Richard Wessel as Charlie, drinker in Palucci's bar
Ray Kellog as Fred, who delivers coffee to McNulty's office
Ken Drake as Daniel, last patron in Palucci's bar who tells McNulty, "Come on fella, we're trying to watch."
Uncredited:
Sam Balter: sports announcer on TV in Polucci's bar
Al Silvani: one of the drinkers in Polucci's bar

One cast member, last-billed Ken Drake, had a credited bit part in an earlier episode of the original series, "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" (April 1961).

Adaptation

The television episode was later adapted as an episode of The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas series under the title "A Kind of Stopwatch", featuring Lou Diamond Phillips in the lead role.^[2]

Related works

Ideas from this episode were used in "A Little Peace and Quiet", an episode in the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone.^{[ citation needed ]}

The Adam Sandler 2006 movie Click, uses a similar premise, only the stopwatch is a "universal remote" that pauses, fast-forwards, and reverses time.

The episode has been parodied by a number of animated series, including in the Johnny Bravo episode "The Day the Earth Didn't Move Around Very Much"; the Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XIV"; The Garfield Show episode "Time Master"; and "Meanwhile", the Season 7 finale of Futurama .

Related Research Articles

The Twilight Zone is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone". The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, supernatural drama, black comedy, and psychological thriller, frequently concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist, and usually with a moral. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to common science fiction and fantasy tropes. The first series, shot entirely in black-and-white, ran on CBS for five seasons from 1959 to 1964.

<i>Night Gallery</i> American anthology TV series (1970–1973)

Night Gallery is an American anthology television series that aired on NBC from December 16, 1970, to May 27, 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although he did not have the same control of content and tone as he had on The Twilight Zone. Serling viewed Night Gallery as a logical extension of The Twilight Zone, but while both series shared an interest in thought-provoking dark fantasy, more of Zone's offerings were science fiction while Night Gallery focused on horrors of the supernatural.

Rodman Edward Serling was an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen, and helped form television industry standards. He was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood, clashing with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues, including censorship, racism, and war.

"Where Is Everybody?" is the first episode of the American anthology television series The Twilight Zone and was originally broadcast on 2 October 1959, on CBS. It is one of the most realistic Twilight Zone episodes, as it features no supernatural elements and is based on fairly straightforward extrapolation of science.

"Walking Distance" is episode five of the American television series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 30, 1959. The episode was listed as the ninth best episode in the history of The Twilight Zone by Time magazine.

"Time Enough at Last" is the eighth episode of the American anthology series The Twilight Zone, first airing on November 20, 1959. The episode was adapted from a short story by Lynn Venable, which appeared in the January 1953 edition of If: Worlds of Science Fiction.

"I Shot an Arrow into the Air" is the fifteenth episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

"A Stop at Willoughby" is episode 30 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling cited this as his favorite story from the first season of the series.

"A World of His Own" is episode thirty-six of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It was the last episode of the show's first season and essentially comedic in tone. It originally aired on July 1, 1960, on CBS.

"Eye of the Beholder" is episode 42 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on November 11, 1960, on CBS.

"The Night of the Meek" is episode 47 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on December 23, 1960, on CBS. It was one of the six episodes of the second season which were shot on videotape in a short-lived experiment aimed to cut costs.

"It's a Good Life" is the eighth episode of the third season of the American television series The Twilight Zone, and the 73rd overall. It was written by series creator/showrunner Rod Serling, based on the 1953 short story "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby. The episode was directed by James Sheldon, and is considered by some, such as Time and TV Guide, to be one of the best episodes of the series. It originally aired on November 3, 1961. The episode was one of four from the original 1959 series which formed the basis of the 1983 film Twilight Zone: The Movie.

"The Midnight Sun" is episode 75 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, first shown in November, 1961.

"He's Alive" is episode four of the fourth season of The Twilight Zone. It tells of an American neo-Nazi who is visited by the ghost of Adolf Hitler. Writer Rod Serling scripted a longer version of the teleplay to be made into a feature-length film, but it was never produced. This episode is notable for Dennis Hopper's breakout performance as Peter Vollmer.

"The Bard" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It was the final episode of The Twilight Zone to be one hour long. A direct satire of the American television industry, the episode features a parody of Marlon Brando by Burt Reynolds, and concerns an inept screenwriter, who through the use of black magic, employs William Shakespeare as his ghostwriter.

"In Praise of Pip" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. In this episode, after learning that his soldier son has suffered a mortal wound in an early phase of the Vietnam War, a crooked bookie encounters a childhood version of his son.

The Twilight Zone is a nationally syndicated radio drama series featuring radio play adaptations of the classic 1959–1964 television series The Twilight Zone. The series was produced for the British digital radio station BBC Radio 4 Extra airing for 176 episodes between October 2002 and 2012. In the United States, it aired on nearly 200 radio stations including WCCO, KSL, KOA, WIND, XM Satellite Radio channel 163 and Sirius XM Book Radio. Most of the stations aired two episodes each week, usually on the weekends and many times back to back.

The Twilight Zone is an American fantasy science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. Each episode presents a standalone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone", often with a surprise ending and a moral. Although often considered predominantly science-fiction, the show's paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show much closer to fantasy and horror. The phrase "twilight zone", inspired by the series, is used to describe surreal experiences.

"I Sing the Body Electric" is episode 100 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The 1962 script was written by Ray Bradbury, and became the basis for his 1969 short story of the same name, itself named after an 1855 Walt Whitman poem. Although Bradbury contributed several scripts to The Twilight Zone, this was the only one produced.

"Mr. Garrity and the Graves" is an episode of the American anthology television series The Twilight Zone.

References

↑ "A Kind of Stopwatch" is the title on the script, two versions of which were published in As Timeless as Infinity: The Complete Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling, Volume 3, edited by Tony Albarella (Gauntlet Press, 2007). The original scripts (both versions) are part of The Rod Serling Archives Archived 2021-02-27 at the Wayback Machine at Ithaca College.
↑ "The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas: A Kind of Stopwatch". Twilightzoneradio.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-17. Retrieved 2013-07-02.

External links

The Rod Serling Archives at Ithaca College, The Twilight Zone, Season 5, Script 124, "A Kind of Stopwatch"
"A Kind of a Stopwatch" at IMDb

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "A Kind of Stopwatch" is the title on the script, two versions of which were published in As Timeless as Infinity: The Complete Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling, Volume 3, edited by Tony Albarella (Gauntlet Press, 2007). The original scripts (both versions) are part of The Rod Serling Archives Archived 2021-02-27 at the Wayback Machine at Ithaca College.

[2] "The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas: A Kind of Stopwatch". Twilightzoneradio.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-17. Retrieved 2013-07-02.

[1]

[2]

v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"