1.24 --- The Uncle Devil Show
 Directed by : David SteinbergWritten by : Donald Todd Starring : Gregory Mier, Murphy Dunne First aired : 29th of November, 1985. Little Joey (Gregory Mier) is a tremendous fan of Tim Ferrit cartoons, which are seemingly all the rage within his age group. What Joey's parent's don't know is that during intermissions, their child is subjected to "The Uncle Devil Show", which teaches children to various magic tricks. Thanks to show host Uncle Devil (Murphy Dunne, Blues Brothers), Joey completes several rather bizzare little feats : he gives his poodle an extra pair of eyes, makes giant roaches come out of a vase, morphs his parents into animals and finally, transform his toy dino into a proper stomping godzilla. But the moment Uncle Devil goes off the air and Tim Ferrit cartoon continues, everything is reverted back to normal...or is it ? *** A terminally weird six-minute vignette directed by David Steinberg, there's nothing more to this one than I explain above. Whether you'll love it or hate it, it depends on your tolerance factor...and I guess you could pull a moral from this story, but it's more fun if observed as sheer little idiocy. Amusing, but not exactly a Twilight Zone standard. |
posted by Mairosu at 7:19 PM
Comments on "1.24 --- The Uncle Devil Show"
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Jeff Baker said ... (3:06 AM) :
post a commentAnybody who has children and has worried about what they see on TV would appreciate this episode. Even though it is somewhat bizarre, it is one of the funnier stories in all of Twilight Zone.
It takes typical parental anxiety to an extreme. I didn't get the joke when I was a kid.
On revisiting the 1985 run of TZ, I found that this was actually one of my favorite episodes ever. It's short, snappy, and doesn't belabor its point (apart from the repeated lines about "parental supervision"). It comes out as a sort of surreal mix of Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt" and the Simpson's "Itchy and Scratchy Show."
This is one comedic episode that tickles the funny bone and is a humorous take on how television could be a bad influence of children and parents not giving a care.
It also funny on the irony of the parents taking about how some bad parents are when not realizing the mayhem their son is causing.
I watched much of the original 1985-1987 run of TZ live on CBS as a teenager, but must have missed this episode entirely -- looks like it aired around Thanksgiving in the US. So I'm seeing it now for the first time on the DVD re-release.
Man. That's trippy.
Also, watching these straight through, that's the Devil showing up in 3 of 6 segments (going back to Burning Man/Dealer's Choice, which aired back to back).
I now have a kid a little older than Little Joey, and, yeah. This is definitely a parent's-worst-nightmare in comedy format.
Not at the all-time-great level of "Dealer's Choice", but it's so over-the-top that you can't help but laugh at the end.
A solid silver with some interesting things to say in a funny way, could be better esp updated as a scathing critique of today's clueless parents.
Eeeehhhh. So-so. I'll give it a nod for the cool title!