***SPOILERS*** As John Sellick, David Naughton, was taking a shave one morning the mirror in his bathroom got loose and what John noticed behind it is a hidden camera. It soon became obvious to John that there's hidden cameras all over John and his wife's Leslie, Susan Roman,house! It's then with what seems like out of nowhere this electrician Archie,Keith Knight, shows up and, after John had disconnected them, reinstalls all the hidden cameras!
John soon finds out from a very reluctant Archie who's job, among other things, is to keep him uniformed to whats happening that he's been the star of the top rated TV show "The Sellicks" for the last five years! And worst of all he's been kept out of the loop or in the dark by his show's producers that he's the star in it! In fact all John has been doing the last five years was just living a normal life without the slightest knowledge that he or his wife Leslie are on TV at all; Much less having the highest rated TV sitcom in the nation!
With the cat now out of the bag John instead of being himself becomes very self conscious in that he's on TV 24 hours a day and watched by millions of fans. This starts to hurt the show's ratings and it's soon canceled because of a sudden drop in the ratings. In fact John who at first wanted nothing at all to do with his top rated, when he first found out about it, show now has seconds thoughts in all the fame money and beautiful women fans throwing themselves at him that went along with him being a top TV star!
***SPOILERS*** That's until the network's CEO Arthur Spence, Elias Zarou, comes up with a better idea in keeping the TV sitcom "The Sellicks" back on the small tube but without him telling a by now very depressed, in all the fame & fortune he's now missing out on, John about it! The New Twilight Zone episode "Special Services" predates by almost ten years the Jim Carrey 1998 blockbuster hit movie comedy "The Truman Show" which had the exact same plot. In Carrey's case his movie ended up making some 125 million dollars in ticket sales but the "New Twilight Zone" episode "Special Services" where the writers of the movie "The Truman Show" very obviously got the idea from is now almost completely forgotten.
John soon finds out from a very reluctant Archie who's job, among other things, is to keep him uniformed to whats happening that he's been the star of the top rated TV show "The Sellicks" for the last five years! And worst of all he's been kept out of the loop or in the dark by his show's producers that he's the star in it! In fact all John has been doing the last five years was just living a normal life without the slightest knowledge that he or his wife Leslie are on TV at all; Much less having the highest rated TV sitcom in the nation!
With the cat now out of the bag John instead of being himself becomes very self conscious in that he's on TV 24 hours a day and watched by millions of fans. This starts to hurt the show's ratings and it's soon canceled because of a sudden drop in the ratings. In fact John who at first wanted nothing at all to do with his top rated, when he first found out about it, show now has seconds thoughts in all the fame money and beautiful women fans throwing themselves at him that went along with him being a top TV star!
***SPOILERS*** That's until the network's CEO Arthur Spence, Elias Zarou, comes up with a better idea in keeping the TV sitcom "The Sellicks" back on the small tube but without him telling a by now very depressed, in all the fame & fortune he's now missing out on, John about it! The New Twilight Zone episode "Special Services" predates by almost ten years the Jim Carrey 1998 blockbuster hit movie comedy "The Truman Show" which had the exact same plot. In Carrey's case his movie ended up making some 125 million dollars in ticket sales but the "New Twilight Zone" episode "Special Services" where the writers of the movie "The Truman Show" very obviously got the idea from is now almost completely forgotten.
