★★★★ February 16, 1962, 1962 Season 3 Episode 22
If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.
A Piano in the House is not a well known episode but one of my favorites. It flies under the Twilight Zone radar. The episode highlights two things rather well…cruelty and justice. Fitzgerald Fortune played by Barry Morse is a despicable and sadistic theater critic who thinks he is above everyone. He buys a magic player piano that has the ability to reveal peoples inner selves and uses it to humiliate his wife (Joan Hackett) and many of her friends.
This one does show the artificial nature of everyday human interactions. The ways we will go to hide things about ourselves when with other people. I could relate to this one. Working in IT in the early days…I knew people like Fitzgerald Fortune who thought all the end users were idiots.
This show was written by Earl Hamner Jr. and Rod Serling
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Mr. Fitzgerald Fortune, theater critic and cynic at large, on his way to a birthday party. If he knew what is in store for him he probably wouldn’t go, because before this evening is over that cranky old piano is going to play “Those Piano Roll Blues” with some effects that could happen only in the Twilight Zone.
Summary
Theater critic Fitzgerald Fortune is looking to buy a different sort of gift for his wife’s birthday. In a curio shop, he buys an old player-piano. It’s delivered to his home, and when he starts it up, it has a strange effect on his manservant, a normally dour man who breaks into mirthful laughter. When he plays another song, this time for a guest, the man breaks down and admits he’s in love with Fortune’s wife Esther. He decides to have fun with his party guests that evening but Esther decides to turn the tables on him.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Mr. Fitzgerald Fortune, a man who went searching for concealed persons and found himself in the Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling… Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Barry Morse…Fitzgerald “Jerry” Fortune
Joan Hackett…Esther Fortune
Don Durant…Gregory “Greg” Walker
Muriel Landers…Marge Moore
Philip Coolidge…Throckmorton
Cyril Delevanti…Marvin (the Butler)
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
I remember this one. Joan Hackett was great as was Barry Morse. Morse also played the one armed man in the television series “The Fugitive” RS was a genius.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I want to see the Fugitive…that is one show I’ve never seen. I knew I recognized Hackett and figured it out… she was in Taxi right before she passed away.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The Fugitive was a huge televison show in the late 60s. David Jansen played the falsely accused Dr., always searching for the one armed man that he knew murdered his wife. The final episode was so big that it broke all ratings records for that time. Cool series if you can find it. The movie with Harrison Ford was a good remake.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I saw the movie but always wanted to see the series…I’ll dig it up somewhere.
LikeLike
That was a great one– the first time saw it I didn’t anticipate the ending…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was a satisfying ending.
LikeLiked by 1 person
this one sounds intriguing
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sounds fun Max – although I can’t watch anything scary (true). Gosh when I was young every second house had a pianola and a collection of rolls.
LikeLike
There was something chilling about this episode from the very beginning, when he walked into the shop looking for the gift. The butler was probably the most chilling of all! Some of the best horror is couched in the ordinary. Earl Hamner is a an excellent purveyor of the range of human nature.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The contrast that I liked…when he walked into the junk shop was that the salesman was awful to him…he held his comments around him but turned out to be worse.
Yes when the Butler smiled it was frightening…not in a make fun of him way…but something that just wasn’t right.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I didn’t think of how he held his tongue in the store, which made how he acted at home so shocking. Yes exactly on the Butler. Driven mad by this sadistic bully. Imagining he had a sick wife at home and really needed the job and had to put up with that to keep his wife alive.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love Joan Hackett.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do also…ever since I saw her in Taxi…and never knew she died that early
LikeLike
She was a scream in Support Your Local Sheriff and had been married to Richard Mulligan (think Soap & his abduction from aliens…he was a scream, too).
Ovarian cancer. Her epitaph is even funny.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh yea….what does it say?
LikeLike
“Go Away – I’m Asleep”
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is good.
I saw one that said…”I told you I was sick”
LikeLike
LOL! What would you like for your tombstone to say? “No, I can’t fix your email system, today.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL….yea that would probably be a fitting one.
LikeLike
The other one I came up with was “Martha! No!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
YEP! No exageration…. every single time I’m either pulling up carpet…she is on the part that I’m pulling up…or I’m about to lay floor…she gets in THAT spot
LikeLike
LOL! Sounds like Ollie. “But, but, but…I wanna be with YOU. Whatcha doin’? Whatcha doin’?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes that is it…driving me crazy. I found her last night sleeping on a two foot pile of carpet
LikeLike
😂 Ollie likes to sleep on our clean clothes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep…I found her this morning in our guest bed lol.
LikeLike
😆 Furbabies… What are we to do?
LikeLiked by 1 person
She done it today also really bad
LikeLike
The activities could be disturbing her…🤔
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do believe it is
LikeLiked by 1 person