A 1953 short story by Jerome Bixby.
The story is set in the small town of Peaksville. The town used to be in Ohio, but it has since been completely cut off from the outside world (assuming the outside world still exists) by the first manifestation of Anthony Fremont's powers.
Anthony Fremont is literally
omnipotent. He's also only three years old, and he's had his powers from birth, and he's not completely human.
The plot of the story shows a day in the life of the town. It does about as well as you would expect under the thrall of a being with the power of God and the moral understanding of a three-year-old who's never been disciplined in his life: pretty crappy.
This story has been adapted several times by
The Twilight Zone. The original series did a very faithful adaptation, with Bill Mumy as Anthony and Cloris Leachman as his mother; the only major change being that the character of Anthony was aged from three to six. The 2002 revival series had a sequel episode, "It's Still a Good Life", featuring a grown-up Anthony (played again by Bill Mumy) and his daughter (played by Mumy's
real-life daughter Liliana), who also has powers.
Twilight Zone The Movie gave the story a
Setting Update to the 80's (with Anthony terrorizing a single mansion rather than an entire town) and the happiest ending that the premise would allow.
The TV series
Johnny Bravo and
The Simpsons both did episodes which are homages/parodies of this story.
Compare and contrast with
minus. Definitely not to be confused with
It's a Wonderful Life.
The original story provides examples of:
- Autocannibalism: The first scene of Anthony shows him making a rat eat its own body.
- The Bad Guy Wins: No, Anthony is the good guy! It's good that he wins!
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Don't ask Anthony for a favor, ever. Even when he's genuinely trying to help, the results can be horrific. One time he sensed that a widow in the town was mourning for her dead husband, so Anthony brought the husband back.
- Berserk Button: For Anthony, it's singing. Any kind of singing, whether a capella or with music, seems to make him extremely angry.
- Children Are Innocent: No, really, he is. Anthony has the mental outlook of a normal three-year-old child, which is what makes him all the more terrifying. Anthony doesn't understand why the people of Peaksville fear him. He likes to go out to a clearing and enter the minds of the animals, who aren't smart enough to fear him.
- Closed Circle / Small Secluded World / World Limited to the Plot: Outside of Peaksville is only a gray nothingness where the rest of the world used to be. The people of Peaksville aren't sure if Anthony destroyed the rest of the world or took Peaksville to some alternate dimension. What is for sure is that the town is suffering for being isolated; the people are barely eking out an existence by growing their own food, and they pass certain material items around to each other as "presents" because that's all they have left.
- Crapsack World: No, it's a good world!
- Creepy Child: Anthony.
- Downer Ending: No, it's a good ending!
- Goo Goo Godlike: Practically the Trope Codifier.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Because Anthony will lash out at anyone thinking negative thoughts.
- Karma Houdini: And it's good!
- Kids Are Cruel: The thing is, Anthony isn't any different from regular little children, as far as his mental and emotional states. The problem is that he has complete omnipotence over his environment and everyone in it, and that does not go well with the mood swings and lack of empathy common to every preschooler.
- Lost in the Maize: Where Anthony sends the bodies of his victims.
- Mind Rape: The opening states that in the beginning, Aunt Amy was the only person who could exercise any control over Anthony, until he noticed her singing and his mind "snapped" at her. She's left as a shell of her former self, smiling vacantly, and no longer watching how she acts or what she says around Anthony.
- Noodle Incident / Nothing Is Scarier: The fates of Anthony's victims are alluded to but rarely described in any detail. There are hints that Anthony himself does not look human; again, there's no details about what he does look like.
- He is described as having a "wet, purple gaze", he goes "smoothly" over a fence...he is weird-looking enough that when he was born the doctor screamed and tried to kill him.
- The Omnipotent: As noted above, there appears to be no limit to what Anthony can do.
- Psychic Static: The residents of Peaksville try very hard to fill their heads with nothing in particular whenever they're tempted to think a negative thought, because there's always a chance that Anthony will choose that moment to listen in.
- Purple Eyes: ...well, as noted, there's one detail about what he looks like.
- Reality Warper
- Stepford Smiler: The only way to keep Anthony happy is to think happy thoughts and act like everything's okay.
- Telepathy: Don't even think anything bad about Anthony. Really, don't.
- Villain Teleportation / Mobile Menace: Anthony is hard to avoid—not that he's any less dangerous when he's far away.
The various adaptations provide examples of:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In the 2002 Twilight Zone sequel, Anthony himself learns this lesson after he decides just to send 'everyone' to the cornfield, realizing how lonely it is with just him and his daughter as the last people on earth.
- Or maybe not. As he will do it again if someone makes him angry.
- Deranged Animation: Played for nightmare fuel in The Movie: Anthony is obsessed with cartoons, so instead of "the cornfield" he sends his victims to "cartoonland", depicted as a technicolor nightmare. And brought a Tazmanian Devil-like toon character into the real world.
- Hair-Raising Hare: A rabbit turns into a snarling hellbeast in The Movie.
- Nothing Is Scarier: "The cornfield". It's never explained exactly what is meant by Anthony wishing people or animals away to the cornfield, but one thing is certain, they don't come back. The Johnny Bravo parody "Johnny Real Good" depicts it as a literal cornfield that Johnny has to run back from whenever he pisses off Anthony. In the Bixby story it's also a literal cornfield but Anthony is wishing his victims into graves there.
- Psychic Static: Dan Hollis tries to invoke this by distracting Anthony, and he begs the others to kill Anthony while Anthony's attention is focused on his outburst. Unfortunately for Dan, everyone is still too afraid to raise a hand against Anthony.
- Scary Jack In The Box: In the original Twilight Zone episode, this is what Anthony transforms his one on-screen victim into.
It's good that we have a recap of this episode,
it's real good...
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