Twilight Zone – Hocus-Pocus And Frisby

★★★★  April 13, 1962 Season 3 Episode 30

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

What happens when a man that tells the tallest tales meets aliens that believe every word? I won’t tell you but I wll tell you that it’s a fun episode. Nothing phases this guy.

Andy Devine plays Somerset Frisby…it’s hard not to like Devine. He is a character actor that I have really enjoyed seeing in other shows and movies. He usually brightens up any scene his is in. Frisby is a good natured guy that loves telling tall tales that are fun but obviously not true. This episode is a re-telling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf but you root for Mr. Frisby. The episode is worth watching just for Devine.

Howard McNear is in this one and he plays Mitchell…McNear played Floyd Lawson (Floyd the Barber) on the Andy Griffith Show.  Dabs Greer plays Scanlan and he played Mr. Jonas on Gunsmoke and  Reverend Robert Alden on Little House on the Prairie.

Clem Bevans who played Pete is the earliest born actor of any Twilight Zone Episode…he was born 10-16-1879.

He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. Rod Serling

This show was written by Rod Serling and Frederick Louis Fox

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

The reluctant gentleman with the sizable mouth is Mr. Frisby. He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you’ve no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn’t know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture. The place is Pitchville Flats, the time is the present. But Mr. Frisby’s on the first leg of a rather fanciful journey into the place we call the Twilight Zone.

Summary

Somerset Frisby runs a country store and gas station and loves to tell tall tales to his friends. To listen to him he’s graduated from several universities and his advice to Henry Ford created the auto industry. His friends always have a good laugh but two patrons seem to take a interest in Somerset and his stories. They’re aliens who think they’ve found the perfect human specimen to take back to their home planet. Somerset wants nothing to do with and to his great surprising has the weapon he needs to make his escape in his pocket. It all should give him a good tale for his pals.

Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:

Mr. Somerset Frisby, who might have profited by reading an Aesop fable about a boy who cried wolf. Tonight’s tall tale from the timberlands of the Twilight Zone.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
Andy Devine … Somerset Frisby
Milton Selzer … Alien
Howard McNear … Mitchell
Dabbs Greer … Scanlan
Clem Bevans … Pete
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Albright … Alien (uncredited)
Larry Breitman … Alien (uncredited)
Peter Brocco … Alien (uncredited)
Bartlett Robinson … Alien passenger in convertible (uncredited)

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player. View all posts by Badfinger (Max)