Line #22 Funny/TheTwilightZone1959


1	''The Twilight Zone'' is most known for its darker moments, but, as with any anthology series, [[GenreShift the tone could vary greatly]].
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3	'''As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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6	* Around the midway point of "Escape Clause", the newly-immortal Walter Bedeker jumps in front of an oncoming subway train. The next scene has him making an insurance settlement on the incident. As the insurance representative leaves, he runs into one of his ''own co-workers'', apparently there because Mr. Bedeker decided to jump in front of a bus on the ''very same day''. Not only is the moment funny in and of itself, but it's the perfect moment to cement just how much of an irredeemable {{Jerkass}} Bedeker is; he gains immortality via a DealWithTheDevil, and the very first thing he decides to do with it is to milk it for all it’s worth.
7	* The ending of "Night of the Meek" while heartwarming, also has Mr. Dundee and Officer Flaherty watching as Corwin, now Santa for real, flies away on his sleigh. Both had been sharing a bottle of brandy that Corwin had given Dundee earlier, and the pair agreed they [[INeedAFreakingDrink needed another swig or two]].
8	** Mr. Dundee in general, if only because it's hilarious to hear [[Franchise/WinnieThePooh Piglet]] be such an asshole.
9	** "Look, Mom, [[BlackComedy Santa's]] [[TheAlcoholic loaded!]]"
10	** Before that, the same kid who points it out is the first to sit on Corwin's lap. He gives his name (Percival Smithers). And when Corwin asks what the boy would like for Christmas, the boy frankly responds "A new front name".
11	* In "A Penny for Your Thoughts", the hero (played by Dick York, Darrin #1 on ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'') is testing out his newfound mindreading powers on the people he sees. He briefly pauses on a grinning pretty lady who is fondling a pile of money and giving off [[TheBrainlessBeauty absolute silence]]. Need we mention that the pretty lady happens to be [[DumbBlonde blonde]]?!
12	** The hero overhears a {{Jerkass}} co-worker thinking unsavory things about a secretary, who our guy happens to like. The hero responds to this by pouring some water on him.
13	* Creator/WilliamShakespeare punching out a {{Jerkass}} actor in "The Bard." May be even better when you realize the actor is a young Creator/BurtReynolds, doing his best impression of a young Creator/MarlonBrando.
14	* The show's attempts at TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture are sometimes unintentionally HilariousInHindsight.
15	* Jack Elam's character in "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?" steals the spotlight.
16	* The parrot in "Four O' Clock", who calls his owner, a {{Troll}} who harasses people he deems "evil", a nut.
17	* The last scene of "A World of His Own". Rod Serling, usually an invisible narrator, is monologuing the outro, describing the story as "ridiculous nonsense" that could never really happen, when the main character (who is able to create fictional characters by describing them into a tape recorder and destroy them by burning the tape) gets upset at Rod, and puts a tape labelled "Rod Serling" onto the fire. Serling says "Well, that's the way it goes," and fades away. (seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXuQJ3Z-T4E here]]) What makes this really funny is that this was the first time on the series that Serling ever appeared on-screen in the show.
18	** In a similar vein, on Youtube, someone edited "The Midnight Sun" in such a way that both main characters are surprised and startled when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li0u15qkQhw Rod Serling is doing his opening]]. The funniest part is that Rod is proceeding as usual without the women trying to say a word.
19	* At the end of "A Most Unusual Camera", the way the French bellhop screams as he falls out the window sounds like it belongs more to someone being shot out of a catapult in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''.
20	* "One For The Angels", where TheGrimReaper goes nuts buying ties and string from a pitch man.
21	** Prior to this, Death played TheCatCameBack to the pitch-man upon learning he'd been duped... until some severe MoodWhiplash occurs.
22	** The sales pitch is pretty funny, too, with the pitch-man throwing in all kinds of crazy promises, like offering to be the personal slave of anyone who buys his wares, and describing how the thread he's selling has to be carried by specially-trained birds across the Pacific Ocean, 832 crossings to add up to a single spool of thread. [[BlatantLies Which he's selling for a paltry 25-cents a spool]].
23	* The MoodWhiplash in "The After Hours". In a seemingly short timespan, the mannequins go from scaring the crap out of Marsha, to making her realize that everything she thought about herself was a lie, to [[RefugeInAudacity bidding fond and cheery farewells to the saleswoman mannequin as she goes to live among the humans for one month]].
24	* Many, many examples of the closing narration. Take "What's in the Box":
25	-->The next time your TV set is on the blink, when you're in the need of a first-rate repairman, may we suggest our own specialist? Factory-trained, prompt, honest, twenty-four-hour service. You won't find him in the phone book, but his office is conveniently located — in the Twilight Zone.
26	* "The Whole Truth". [[HonestJohnsDealership A stock dishonest car salesman]] is sold a car that makes him physically incapable of lying. Hilarity ensues, as does the end of the Cold War when he manages, by way of selective omission, to sell the Model A to Nikita Khrushchev.
27	* "Once Upon a Time" is set in 1890 and 1962. And the 1890 segments are done as silent films.
28	** And Woodrow Mulligan (Buster Keaton) spends most of the episode without pants.
29	*** At one point, he tries to get some pants, only for a tailor to ask for $5. After trying to grab his wallet, Keaton looks up in realization... [[KnowWhenToFoldEm hangs the pants back up, and quietly walks away]].
30	*** And then later, when he just up and takes the pants, the tailor catches up to him and the professor, and merely holds out his hand.
31	** Interestingly, the 1962 scenes showcase the same kind of physical acting and pacing of the 1890 scenes... just without the vaudeville piano. The lack of music during this (such as when Buster Keaton keeps setting off vacuum cleaners) manages to make these scenes all the more funny, if only for [[CringeComedy the cringe factor]].
32	** Special mention goes to the ending: Mulligan tries to do his janitor job as the professor bemoans living in 1890. Fed up ("This guy sounds worse than my mother-in-law."), Mulligan places the time helmet onto his head and sends him back to 1962, and then resumes his sweeping.
33	* Many of the written statements made by Agnes, the ClingyJealousGirl {{Troll}} FemmeFatale computer in "From Agnes, With Love". The whole episode is funny because the computer is trying to sabotage the main character's love life by suggesting he do things such as "be the dominant male", and the narrator at the end suggests that any future scientists should try to understand women before perfecting AI.
34	* The ending of "The Fugitive" where the look on the faces of two aliens sent to retrieve their monarch when they see he has shapeshifted into a identical twin of the little girl who was his best friend on earth. The plaintive 'now that's not fair' one lets out just sells the whole thing.
35	** During the opening, when Ben is playing "Martian" with Jenny and the boys, there's something adorably ridiculous about how the boys imitate the sound of laser guns with "[[SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud Boin! Boin! Boin!]]"
36	* The clown in "Five Characters In Search Of An Exit". [[MoodWhiplash Some]][[MoodSwinger times]].
37	* In general, many of the show's moments of cruel irony can also function as BlackComedy.
38	** One example is the [[CrossesTheLineTwice rather harsh]] "broken eyeglasses" scene at the end of "Time Enough at Last".
39	** "Time Enough at Last" also has an amusing moment where the meek Bemis' manager recalls a story when Bemis, so desperate for reading material, had taken to reading the campaign buttons on customers' lapels. Evidently, one young lady took considerable exception to this and tried to hit him with her umbrella.
40	** In the case of "The Rip Van Winkle Caper," the white-haired man at the end carelessly tosses aside a gold brick that a group of bumbling criminals has been fighting over since they emerged from a century of hibernation. [[DidntThinkThisThrough None of them considered that their stolen loot might be worthless in the future.]]
41	* When "The Masks" come off after midnight. The heirs are shocked to find that they no longer have their original faces. Especially mortified by the transformation is Paula, who never met a mirror she didn't instantly fall in love with.
42	** At least the heirs in "The Masks" saw an end to their initial suffering. "Uncle Simon" made sure his heir's suffering would be eternal. He set up the will precisely to use her {{greed}} against her. At the end of the episode, she's going into the kitchen to make some hot chocolate (his favorite drink) for his robot, just like she did with him at the start of the episode. She'll do anything to get her hands on his money -- except that she's too headstrong to realize that (because the robot proves to need zero sleep and {{feel no pain}}) ''it's never happening!''
43	** The FloweryInsults the uncle and niece hurl at each other throughout the episode are also hilarious. Especially when the robot starts using them.
44	* "Scott" the undercover alien's attempts acting like a biker in "Black Leather Jackets" can't help but get a laugh do to how ''utterly'' naive and awkward he is.
45	-->'''Scott:''' Well, I understand a great deal about the constellations. That is the nature of galactic structures but... ({{Beat}}) [[BlatantLies I mean, I dig stars]].
46	* "The Chaser" gives us a part early in the episode where ''many'' people are waiting in line for the phone booth Roger is hogging in order to phone Leila. At one point, a man who is desperate to make a phone call decides he'll have to buy his way up front. He pays each waiting patron $10, one in particular being a woman who giddily takes the money. When he tries to buy off the old woman second in line, she says in a deadpan "Why should 3rd place be the same as the 1st? Twenty dollars."
47	* "Miniature" has Charley happily watch the doll inside the museum dollhouse live out a lovely little life. ...Until he imagines her a boyfriend, which serves to make Charley so jealous, he presses his nose against the glass.
48	* "Cavender is Coming":
49	** Carol Burnett's character is pretty funny and pretty clumsy.
50	-->'''Agnes:''' What's the signal for "I'm sorry"?
51	** At the end of the episode, Cavender and his boss are watching her bowl. The boss asks if you're supposed to keep your fingers in the ball while it's rolling toward the pins.
52	* "Sounds and Silences" is chalk-full of such moments, mostly having to do with Roswell hearing even the tiniest sounds as huge, cacophonous noises!
53	** The first scene has his co-workers get some good digs at him:
54	-->"You'd think with all the kamikazes they threw at us in World War II just one of them would hit him."
55	* "Mr. Dingle, The Strong" is one of the series' few outright comedy episodes, with the the tone set by the opening scene featuring a man being bullied suddenly being interrupted by the arrival of a purposefully-campy-looking two-headed alien (as Serling intones: "[[CaptainObvious And these two unseen gentlemen are visitors from outer space.]]"). One of their first exchanges of dialogue upon arriving:
56	-->'''Alien 1:''' You sure we're invisible?\
57	'''Alien 2:''' Beyond any doubt.\
58	'''Alien 1:''' [[DeadpanSnarker I wish they were]].
59	* "The Mind & the Matter": After reading a book, main character Archibald Beechcroft concentrates hard enough to render himself the only person in New York City. After being thoroughly bored by being the only person in town, he then mentally changes the world to that it would be filled with people exactly like him, personality and all. Because he's a perpetual grouch, everyone he meets in his office building acts exactly like him. This scene is made even funnier since they're all played by the same actor, even a woman in the office elevator.
60	* "Come Wander With Me", when Floyd kills Billy Rayford. A new verse is added onto the tape recorder of "You killed Billy Rayford". It's being sang the exact same heartwarming and seducing-type way. It becomes unintentionally funny, but what sells it is when Floyd hurls the tape recorder offscreen to make it stop.
61	* A lot of the ReversePsychology in "Mr. Garrity and the Graves", where the eponymous ConMan is putting people in the right mood to pay him to ''not'' resurrect everyone in the town's graveyard.
62	-->'''Mr. Garrity:''' He'll be followed by all the others.\
63	'''Mr. Gooberman:''' All the others?\
64	'''Mr. Garrity:''' Including your beloved wife. Your lonely hours are over. Your Zelda will soon be back with you to bring back your peace of mind.\
65	'''Mr. Gooberman:''' No disrespect, uh... What I mean is that Zelda was the flower of all womanhood, but on six different occasions she broke my left arm, and this poor thing was in a cast so many times that I developed a list.\
66	'''Mr. Garrity:''' Your point, Mr. Gooberman?\
67	'''Mr. Gooberman:''' Oh, I would hate to disturb Zelda's rest, so how much would it cost to put her back?\
68	'''Mr. Garrity:''' Oh, that's a difficult assignment, Mr. Gooberman. Uh... $500.\
69	'''Mr. Jensen:''' For me it was $750!\
70	'''Sheriff:''' I'm ashamed. I'm truly ashamed. Your own dear brother. And you, Gooberman, your dear wife. As a public official of this town, I apologize for these men. I am humiliated. Nothing less than humiliated!\
71	'''Mr. Garrity:''' I don't blame you a bit, sheriff. And I could perceive immediately that you're made of sterner stuff. I didn't see you quake in your boots just because Lightning Peterson will be one of the departed returning this night.\
72	'''Sheriff:''' [[OhCrap Lightning Peterson]]!\
73	'''Mr. Garrity:''' You killed him yourself, didn't you, sheriff? He was the fastest gun in the territory. Balderdash. I say balderdash! "Lightning" Peterson. You killed him once, sheriff, in an honest showdown, and if his incarceration hasn't taught him anything, well, you can do it again. Something, sheriff?\
74	'''Sheriff:''' You're going to resurrect that gunman?\
75	'''Mr. Garrity:''' Well, it was a mass operation. As a matter of fact, sheriff, it will give you a marvelous opportunity to dispel those ugly rumors I heard that [[DirtyCoward you actually shot Peterson in the back... Late at night... When he was alone and unarmed, and you had six deputies alongside of you]].\
76	'''Sheriff:''' ''(absently)'' Seven.\
77	'''Mr. Garrity:''' Now I know that you faced up to him in broad daylight, but this will give you an opportunity to shoot him down, if need be, face-to-face.\
78	'''Sheriff:''' Well, now, the fact is, Mr. Garrity, I don't think that Peterson should be resurrected. Actually... He's a menace to society.\
79	'''Mr. Garrity:''' The fact is, sheriff... He's already on his way down.\
80	'''Sheriff:''' I don't mind facing up to him but why go to all that trouble? Uh... Would, uh, you think $500 would keep him back up there?\
81	'''Mr. Garrity:''' Lightning Peterson? You do him an injustice, sheriff. He was quite a lad with the gun, and mighty active at that. No, no, no, this will be a $1,200 job.\
82	'''Sheriff:''' Sold.
83	* "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S3E3TheShelter The Shelter]]" has one neighbor suggesting that they go to Phil Klein (who lives on another street) to get some heavy pipe to use as a battering ram to get into the shelter. Another neighbor shots down the idea by saying that they then have to tell him about the shelter, and who cares about saving him. One of the wives then says that if the people on the other street learns about the shelter, [[HypocriticalHumor they would also want to get into the shelter and they would have a mob on their hands to contend with.]]
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85	[[AC:Meta]]
86	* In this Website/YouTube rendition of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ILwuayqM4 Of late I think of Cliffordville]]", Feathersmith tries to sell modern ideas to the folks of Cliffordville, but it's an inverse of FishOutOfWater, and HilarityEnsues.
87	** Namely, [[https://youtu.be/R0ILwuayqM4 this one time]] he tries to suggest the invention of [[AccidentalPervert pantyhose to a woman]]. Naturally, she thinks he has a dirty mouth and shoos him out.

Context Funny / TheTwilightZone1959