Oliver's Evil Laugh unnerves Mrs. Lucas.
Rod Serling: That's Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He's rather arbitrarily chosen four o'clock as his personal Götterdämmerung and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it's four o'clock — and wherever you are, it happens to be the Twilight Zone.
Air date: April 6, 1962
Oliver Crangle (Theodore Bikel) is a maniacal and demented fanatic who spends every day maintaining records of people whom he deems "evil", anonymously calling and writing their employers to alert them of their supposed evil acts, demanding their immediate firing, and threatening to involve higher authorities if they don't comply. Unsatisfied with the results of his anonymous threats, Oliver searches for a more effective way to eliminate evil from the world. After Mrs. Lucas (Phyllis Love), the wife of one of his victims,note futilely pleads with him to leave her husband alone, Oliver is inspired by a chance remark he makes about those who are evil being "little bugs" and "bacteria". To this end, he settles on the idea of shrinking every "evil" person in the world to two feet tall at 4:00 pm that day. He cackles at the idea, prompting Mrs. Lucas to realize she can't reason with him and leave.
Oliver calls various government agencies to inform them of his grand design, prompting Agent Hall (Linden Chiles) of the FBI to investigate. Oliver tells the agent that he has finally formulated his plan to shrink every "evil" person to two feet tall by sheer force of will that afternon. Hall dismisses Oliver as a nutjob and recommends that he seek psychiatric help. Angered, Oliver warns Hall that he'll be among those who are shrunk to two feet tall, but Hall ignores him and leaves. When four o'clock rolls around, Oliver's plan apparently works. However, he's in no mood to celebrate, because he himself has been shrunk to two feet tall. Oliver's parrot, Pete, calls him a "nut" for his delusions.
Trope O'Clock:
- Adaptation Expansion: Rod Serling's original script is based on a short story
by Price Day. It's a very short story indeed, basically a vignette where Oliver (who originally had no first name) explains to his plan to his parrot (originally a female named "Pet"), then suffers the Karmic Twist Ending. Serling added three new characters for the episode (Mrs. Lucas, Agent Hall, and Oliver's landlady Mrs. Williams) just so Oliver could have other humans to interact with. - An Aesop: As they say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
- Ambiguous Situation: Did Oliver truly turn 2 feet tall in the end? Or did his mind finally break and he experienced some kind of hallucination?
- Ambiguously Human: Throughout the episode, Oliver seems to be nothing more than a madman Conspiracy Theorist with no power at all, yet he somehow is able to turn himself two feet tall in the end. Unless he's hallucinating after losing what little sanity he had left.
- Backing Away Slowly: Mrs. Lucas reacts to Oliver's epiphany this way.
- Be Careful What You Wish For/Hoist by His Own Petard: Oliver doesn't expect in the slightest that his whole "two foot tall" plot will backfire on him.
- Berserk Button: Oliver is already very notably mentally unstable, but he totally loses it when Mrs. Lucas calls him a "crank". Communists, or "Reds" as he calls them, are another big one for him, as he spends his days anonymously phoning random people, companies, and government agencies to preach that Commies are in their midst.
- Break the Haughty: Throughout the episode, Oliver looks down on all people whom he deems lowly and evil, judging them, harrasing them, and then plotting to shrink them in an effort to get rid of them. In the end, he shrinks to two feet tall, and he utterly loses it after that.
- Brick Joke: Oliver's parrot Pete repeatedly calls out to be fed with the word "nut." At the end, he repeats this to Oliver, who is likely hallucinating himself to be two feet tall, to berate him as insane.
- Canon Foreigner: Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Lucas, and Agent Hall do not appear in the short story.
- Casting Gag: The Commie-hunting Oliver is played by Theodore Bikel, a liberal activist in Real Life.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Oliver is a very unfriendly variation. He confides in his parrot as though it's a person, holds absurd grudges against various people, and believes that every evil person on Earth will shrink to two feet tall, just because he wills it so. He's right about the last one, from his perspective anyway.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Oliver routinely calls random people, including those in government, to alert them that all the evil people are going to shrink.Oliver: ...although that call probably won't even go through. It's my understanding that the Reds are in complete control in Washington now. They've probably taken over the switchboard too.... It's a complete conspiracy, you know.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Oliver turns out to have been right all along in his beliefs, as one evil person did shrink at 4:00: himself.
- Deadpan Snarker: Agent Hall's response to Oliver's statement that "evil" people don't like to be woken up at night is to wonder "Who does?"
- Death by Adaptation: At the end of the radio adaptation, the shrunken Oliver (played by Stan Freberg) is killed and eaten by Pete, who has mistaken him for a nut.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Oliver's view of people is allegedly based on the Red Scare and McCarthyism.
- Establishing Character Moment: Oliver's personality is demonstrated in the first scene. He anonymously calls various businesses, accusing the people in their employ of being immoral, calling them Communists and other evil things. When asked who he is and how he knows this, he shrugs it off and demands that they be discharged.
- "Eureka!" Moment: An evil variation, as Oliver suddenly comes up with the shrinking idea.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The most important living being in Oliver's life is his pet parrot Pete. When he's not trying to "destroy evil", he dotes on the bird like he were his son. It does little to balance out his overall unpleasant personality, however.
- Evil Laugh: Oliver lets one out when he finally comes up with the shrinking idea.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The episode takes place over the course of, at most, one afternoon.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The maniacal Oliver wears a pair of Opaque Nerd Glasses on and off throughout the episode.
- Gender Flip: In the short story, Oliver's parrot Pet is female. In the television adaptation, the parrot is male and named Pete.
- Harassing Phone Call: Oliver anonymously calls several companies and agencies to accuse them of committing various crimes, and their employees of being Communists. Agent Hall, once he learns of this, is quick to point out that no one likes being called by some stranger who accuses them of things they might or might not have done.
- Hated by All: Aside from his parrot, no one likes Oliver due to his instability and Holier Than Thou attitude.
- Hate Sink: Despite his beliefs, Oliver is not a good person in the slightest, being an insane fanatic who feels he has the sacred responsibility to punish the wicked.
- He Who Fights Monsters: The Aesop of the story. Oliver is so obsessed with ridding the world of evil people, he doesn't recognize himself as evil until it's too late.
- Hypocrite: Oliver scolds Mrs. Williams in the beginning for being invasive and not minding her own business, completely unaware of the irony that he spends his life invading the lives of others and judging them as evil.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Oliver tells everyone he meets how he claims it to be his duty to punish "evil" people, despite clearly having neither the authority nor the mental stability to pass judgement on others.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Oliver wants to inflict his shrinking punishment on all the evil people in the world. The only one who falls victim to it is Oliver himself.
- Insane Troll Logic: Oliver's delusions have convinced him that he is completely in the right to judge others, deeming them to be thieves, Communists, harlots, and other deplorable types with no evidence of their sins, or very flimsy evidence at best. To him, they are evil solely because he deems them evil.
- Irony: Oliver wants to shrink all the evil people in the world. In the end, he himself is the only one who shrinks.
- It's All About Me: While Oliver claims that his actions are to punish all the evil people in the world, it's obvious that he's doing it because he's egotistical and insane, thus feeling the need to be morally superior.
- Jerkass: In addition to devoting himself to ruining people's lives, Oliver is generally unpleasant, abrasive, and condescending, as seen by his interaction with Mrs. Williams.
- Karmic Twist Ending: Oliver wants all the evil people on Earth to shrink to two feet tall. In the end, the only one who shrinks is Oliver himself (as far as we know).
- Loners Are Freaks: Oliver, who lives alone in a small apartment with only a parrot for companionship, is undeniably crazy, dedicating himself to ruining the lives of those he deems "evil."
- Meaningful Name: Oliver's last name is a few syllables removed from "crank", a fanatical believer in crazy ideas.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Oliver loathes most normal people, comparing them to parasites and bacteria while seeing himself as morally superior.
- Named by the Adaptation: The television adaptation gives our protagonist the first name Oliver.
- Narcissist: Oliver shows definite signs of being one. He has an absurdly inflated view of himself and an extremely low view of everyone else, he's self-absorbed and thinks he has the absolute authority to determine who is evil and deserving of punishment, he has no tolerance for criticism and refuses to see any shades of grey, calls an FBI agent "evil" for not getting on board with his plans, and has an incredible appetite for power, believing he has a right to determine who is evil and punish them as he sees fit.
- Obliviously Evil: Oliver is so certain of his moral superiority that he never once considers that he's in the wrong about anything. This comes back to bite him hard.
- Original Position Fallacy: Oliver resolves to shrink all the evil people in the world to two feet tall. He never considers that he might be considered an evil person and thus shrunk himself.
- The Paranoiac: Oliver, to an extreme degree. He sees evil all around him, has an extremely cynical and misanthropic view of everyone but himself, zealously holds grudges and insists on punishing anyone who he believes has broken his moral code, has a massively inflated ego and sense of his own morality and importance, and is generally rude and unpleasant to everyone he meets.
- Troll: Oliver devotes himself to ruining his victims' lives, boasting to Agent Hall that he calls them in the middle of the night to read charges against them. It comes back to bite him hard.
- Villainous Breakdown: The episode ends with the now-tiny Oliver on his knees, doing a Skyward Scream at his plan backfiring.
- Villain Protagonist: Oliver, the insane paranoiac.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Downplayed, as Mrs. Lucas doesn't attack Oliver physically, but she does rightfully call him out for harrassing her husband and slandering his name.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: How Oliver sees himself, seeing that he wants to eradicate evil. He's actually a Knight Templar at best.
- World Limited to the Plot: The only locations are Oliver's apartment and the hallway and stairwell leading to it.
- You Are What You Hate: Oliver longs to punish all the evil people in the world, but he's also shown to be an insane, corrupt, narrowminded Jerkass who ruins other people's lives on a regular basis. As a result, he is shrunken to two feet tall.
Rod Serling: At four o'clock, an evil man made his bed and lay in it, a pot called a kettle black, a stone-thrower broke the windows of his glass house. You look for this one under 'F' for fanatic and 'J' for justice in the Twilight Zone.
