Well, maybe he’d have more if he didn’t squander all his money on that slot machine he allowed to be installed in the diner? But Ace thinks Kitty deserves a man with more money than he has. His cook and best friend, Jimbo (played by Buddy Ebsen), wonders why he doesn’t propose to the pretty waitress Kitty, who obviously likes him. The main character is Ace, who runs a diner in a rural area. Here’s an episode with a silly plot that still manages to get a lot of mileage out of its charismatic actors and the general good nature of the characters. The Twist–A perfect, and really grotesque, twist. Tone–Really captures the isolation of Peaksville and the nightmarish anxiety of the town’s populace in catering to Anthony. But what if a kid really could make things just the way he wanted, no matter who else it hurt? Great idea, great script, perfectly plotted and perfectly played by the actors, including the very creepy child actor Billy Mumy. It takes years to break that juvenile psychological attitude. I remember being a little kid and getting so frustrated because things couldn’t be just the way I wanted them. But what happens when one of the men in town gets the idea that he might be able to kill Anthony and end their nightmare?Ĭoncept/Plot/Characters-A really fascinating concept that gets at something primal. And since he can read thoughts, the people who are left go around smiling all the time, saying what a good thing it is that whatever Anthony just wished for has happened, no matter how terrible it actually is. If a dog barks at him, he closes his eyes and wishes it away into “the cornfield,” where he’s apparently also wished away many of the town’s inhabitants who displeased him one way or another. When he wants to watch TV, everybody watches, and it’s always shows about dinosaurs fighting each other. Everybody and everything in the town revolves around Anthony’s whims. A great deal for Anthony, but not so great for his family and the people in the small town of Peaksville, which has been cut off from the rest of the universe, presumably due to Anthony. It’s a Good Life is about Anthony, a six-year old boy who can wish for anything, and it happens. One of the best known episodes, and for good reason. The episodes this time were from Volume 9 of the DVD collection. The episodes are graded in three categories: Concept/Plot/Characters (4 points), Tone (1 point), and The Twist (2 points). We watch and run them through a rubric to give them a score from 0 to 7. I’m engaged in a noble project with my twelve-year old daughter: watching every single Twilight Zone episode and ranking them.

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