Static (10 Mar. 1961)
"The Twilight Zone" Static (original title)

An old radio is taking bitter bachelor Ed Lindsay back to a happier time before what he considers worthless tripe on television when he starts picking up radio programs from the 1930's and 1940's.

Director:

Buzz Kulik

Writers:

Oceo Ritch (story), Charles Beaumont,

Stars:

Dean Jagger, Carmen Mathews, Robert Emhardt

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Dean Jagger	...	Ed Lindsay
Carmen Mathews	...	Vinnie
Robert Emhardt	...	Professor Ackerman
Arch Johnson	...	Roscoe Bragg (as Arch W. Johnson)
Alice Pearce	...	Mrs. Nielson
Clegg Hoyt	...	Shopkeeper
Stephen Talbot	...	The Boy
Lillian O'Malley	...	Miss Meredith
Pat O'Malley	...	Mr. Llewellyn

Storyline

Ed Lindsay has been living in the same boarding house for over 20 years and he has become an embittered old man. He doesn't like how the world has changed around him and his crotchety behavior has made him certainly the most disliked man there. When he turns on his old radio however, he gets music from the 1940's on a station that, it turns out, has been off the air for 15 years. There's a reason he hears the music however, a reason a fellow boarder reminds him of.

---

Plot Keywords:

radio | television | cynicism | rejuvenation | youth restored

---

Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 March 1961 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cayuga Productions, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

25 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The fifth of six Twilight Zones to be videotaped.

---

Quotes

[closing narration]
Narrator: Around and around she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows. All Ed Lindsay knows is that he desperately wanted a second chance, and he finally got it - through a strange and wonderful time machine called a radio - in The Twilight Zone.

---

Connections

Referenced in The Pinball Arcade (2012)

---

Soundtracks

"Little Brown Jug"
(uncredited)
Written by Joseph Winner
Performed by Jerry Fuller

User Reviews

Tantalizing

'Static' is one of my favorite 'Twilight Zone' episodes because it's tantalizing, because it waltzes graciously with the sense that the body ages inexorably but the heart lives outside the bounds of time.

Dean Jagger's line that "radio has to be believed to be seen" is itself a minor gem. Perhaps Rod Serling devoted his television offerings to trying to put into "seen to be believed" video images what in earlier times of radio he'd "believed to be seen."

The IMDb site software informed me that the foregoing two paragraph review could not by itself be made to appear on the IMDb site, because it did not consist of the minimum number of ten lines of text. Be that as it may, I hope that if you happen to see 'Static,' you'll now appreciate that radio alone does not generate it.