Button Button The Twilight Zone

20th episode of the 1st flavor of The Twilight Zone

"Button, Button"

The Twilight Zone episode

Scene from "Button, Button"

Episode no.

Season 1
Episode 20b

Directed by

Peter Medak

Written by

Logan Swanson

Based on

the curt story
by Richard Matheson

Original air date

March seven, 1986 (1986-03-07)

Guest appearances

Basil Hoffman: Steward
Brad Davis: Arthur Lewis
Mare Winningham: Norma Lewis

Episode chronology

←Previous
"Profile in Silver"

Adjacent →
"Need to Know"

List of episodes

"Button, Button" is the second segment of the 20th episode from the kickoff season (1985–86) of the television receiver series The Twilight Zone. The segment is based on the 1970 curt story of the same proper name by Richard Matheson; the same short story forms the footing of the 2009 moving picture The Box. It poses the question of whether an ordinary person would be willing to cause a total stranger to dice in exchange for $200,000 by simply pushing a push button. In a documentary on the making of the movie The Box, Matheson states the inspiration for the story came from his wife, whose higher professor had asked a similar question as a mode of promoting a form give-and-take.

Matheson, who was one of the most prolific contributors to the original The Twilight Zone, wrote the teleplay for the segment himself under a pseudonym, making "Button, Button" ane of just two segments in the series written by one of the original Twilight Zone writers (the other being "The Elevator").

Plot [edit]

Arthur and Norma Lewis live in a low-rent apartment and are descending into abject poverty. One day, a box with a push button on top of it is delivered to their apartment. That evening, a man who introduces himself as Mr. Steward visits. He gives Norma the key to the box and explains that if she presses the button, someone she does non know volition dice, and she will receive $200,000.

Arthur and Norma wonder whether Steward'due south proposal is genuine, and contend whether to press the button. They open the box and discover it is empty, with no mechanism that the button could actuate, so Arthur throws it in the trash, angrily remarking that Stewart "can find his two hundred grand in the city dump!". Yet, after Arthur goes to bed, Norma retrieves the box from the dumpster. The adjacent mean solar day, Arthur sees Norma sitting at the kitchen table transfixed by the button. He encourages her to push it just so she tin get it off her mind. Finally, she pushes the button.

The next 24-hour interval, Mr. Steward returns to retrieve the box and deliver the $200,000. Steward says that the button volition exist "reprogrammed" and offered to someone else with the same terms and weather condition, and emphasizes to Norma that "it will exist offered to someone who you don't know", implying that each time the button is pressed, the victim is the previous user of the button.

Short story [edit]

"Push button, Button" was first published in Playboy, June 1970. The story was republished as part of a collection of Matheson'southward short stories.

In the original brusk story, the plot is resolved differently. Norma presses the button, and receives the money—afterward her married man dies in a train incident, where he is pushed onto the tracks. The money is the no-fault insurance settlement, which is $50,000 instead of the $200,000 in the Twilight Zone episode. A despondent Norma asks the stranger why her married man was the one who was killed. The stranger replies, "Do you lot actually think yous knew your married man?"

Matheson strongly disapproved of the Twilight Zone version, especially the new ending, and used his pseudonym Logan Swanson for the teleplay.^[1]

Film [edit]

The Box, a characteristic picture based on this story, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, was released in 2009. Basil Hoffman, the player who played Steward in the Twilight Zone episode, appears in the moving-picture show in a different role.^[2]

Radio [edit]

A radio-play version of the story is written by Henry Slesar, who as well produced the radio program. Every bit the CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents 15th episode entitled "The Chinaman Button", it was first circulate Jan. 20, 1974. It was repeated at least twice on March xv, 1974, and again October 7, 1978.

In this version of the story, a man who is desperate for coin is offered the chance to make a fortune. All he has to practise is commit an anonymous murder, where he will non even accept to see the victim. Actors for this radio play were Bricklayer Adams, Paul Hecht, Evie Juster, Ralph Bell, and Will Hare.

Run across besides [edit]

"The Monkey'due south Paw"
Unintended consequence

References [edit]

^ Matheson 2005, p. 199
^ Myers, Eugene (November 6, 2009). "Review: The Box". Tor.com . Retrieved 1 Apr 2021.

Cited [edit]

Matheson, Richard (2005). Stanley Wiater (ed.). Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. three. Gauntlet Press.

External links [edit]

"Button, Push button" at IMDb
Postcards from the Zone episode 1.50 Button, Push