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Button, Button (The Twilight Zone)
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"Button, Button"
The Twilight Zone episode
Scene from Button, Button
Episode no.
Season 1
Episode 20b
Directed by
Peter Medak
Written by
Richard Matheson (as Logan Swanson)
Original air date
March 7, 1986
Guest appearance(s)
Basil Hoffman: Steward
Brad Davis: Arthur Lewis
Mare Winningham: Norma Lewis
Episode chronology
← Previous
"Profile in Silver" Next →
"Need to Know"
List of The Twilight Zone (1985 TV series) episodes
"Button, Button" is the second segment of the twentieth episode from the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. The episode is based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson; the same short story forms the basis of the 2009 film The Box. In a documentary on the making of the movie The Box, Matheson states the inspiration of the story came from his wife, whose college professor had asked a similar question as a way of promoting a class discussion.
Contents
[hide]
1 Plot
2 Short story
3 Film
4 Radio
5 See also
6 References
7 Cited
8 External links
Plot[edit]
Arthur and Norma Lewis live in a low-rent tenement and are slowly descending into abject poverty. One day they receive a mysterious locked box with a button atop it and a note that says Mr. Steward will come visit. Then, just as the note said, a smartly dressed stranger who introduces himself as Mr. Steward comes to their door while Arthur is away. He gives Norma the key to the box and explains that if they press the button then two things will happen: they will receive $200,000 but in consequence someone "whom [they] don't know" will die.
After the stranger leaves, Arthur and Norma wonder whether Steward's proposal is genuine, and they debate on whether to press the button. Norma rationalizes that they could make good use of the money and that the one who dies might be an old Chinese peasant or a person with cancer. Arthur hypothesizes that pressing the button could cause the death of an innocent baby. They open the box and discover it to be empty, with no mechanism that the button could for whatever purpose activate.
Arthur angrily throws the box in the trash and tells Norma to forget the whole scheme. He remarks that Mr. Steward can find his $200,000 in the city dump; however, after Arthur goes to bed Norma retrieves the box from the tenement's dumpster. The next day, as Arthur leaves for work he sees Norma sitting at the kitchen table transfixed by the button. Finally, she decides to push the button much to her husband's disgust.
The next day, Mr. Steward returns and takes back the box, giving the shocked couple a briefcase with the $200,000. Norma asks what is to be done with the money, to which Steward remarks that they should spend it. Norma also asks what will happen to the box and Steward ominously replies that the button will be "reprogrammed" and offered to someone else with the same terms and conditions. Steward focuses on Norma and states "I can assure you it will be offered to someone whom you don't know".
Short story[edit]
"Button, Button" was first published in Playboy, June 1970, a short story written by Richard Matheson. The story was republished as part of a collection of Matheson's short stories.
In the original short story, the plot is resolved differently. Norma presses the button, and receives the money—after her husband dies in a train incident where he is pushed onto the tracks (the money was 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 husband was the one who was killed. The stranger replies, "Do you really think you knew your husband?"
Matheson strongly disapproved of the Twilight Zone version, especially the new ending, and used his pseudonym Logan Swanson for the teleplay.[1]
Film[edit]
Main article: The Box (2009 film)
The Box, a feature film based on this story, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden was released in 2009. The Twilight Zone episode is played out within the first hour, followed by further events within the context of the film's additional plot. Basil Hoffman, the actor who plays Steward in the Twilight Zone episode, also appears in the film, but as character Don Poates.[2]
Radio[edit]
A radio play version of the story is written by Henry Slesar who also produced the radio program. As the CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents 15th episode entitled "The Chinaman Button" it was first broadcast Jan. 20, 1974. It was repeated at least twice on March 15, 1974, and again October 7, 1978.
In this version of the story, a man who is desperate for money is offered the chance to make a fortune. All he has to do is commit an anonymous murder where he will not even have to see the victim. Actors for this radio play were Mason Adams, Paul Hecht, Evie Juster, Ralph Bell, and Will Hare.
See also[edit]
"The Monkey's Paw"
Unintended consequence
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Matheson 2005, p. 199
Jump up ^ The Box cast and crew list at the Internet Movie Database
Cited[edit]
Matheson, Richard (2005). Stanley Wiater, ed. Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. 3. Gauntlet Press.
External links[edit]
"Button, Button" on IMDb
"Button, Button" at TV.com
Postcards from the Zone episode 1.50 Button, Button
show
v
t
e
The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes
Season 1
"Shatterday"
"A Little Peace and Quiet"
"Wordplay"
"Dreams for Sale"
"Chameleon"
"Healer"
"Children's Zoo"
"Kentucky Rye"
"Little Boy Lost"
"Wish Bank"
"Nightcrawlers"
"If She Dies"
"Ye Gods"
"Examination Day"
"A Message from Charity"
"Teacher's Aide"
"Paladin of the Lost Hour"
"Act Break"
"The Burning Man"
"Dealer's Choice"
"Dead Woman's Shoes"
"Wong's Lost and Found Emporium"
"The Shadow Man"
"The Uncle Devil Show"
"Opening Day"
"The Beacon"
"One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty"
"Her Pilgrim Soul"
"I of Newton"
"Night of the Meek"
"But Can She Type?"
"The Star"
"Still Life"
"The Little People of Killany Woods"
"The Misfortune Cookie"
"Monsters!"
"A Small Talent for War"
"A Matter of Minutes"
"The Elevator"
"To See the Invisible Man"
"Tooth and Consequences"
"Welcome to Winfield"
"Quarantine"
"Gramma"
"Personal Demons"
"Cold Reading"
"The Leprechaun-Artist"
"Dead Run"
"Profile in Silver"
"Button, Button"
"Need to Know"
"Red Snow"
"Take My Life...Please!"
"Devil's Alphabet"
"The Library"
"Shadow Play"
"Grace Note"
"A Day in Beaumont"
"The Last Defender of Camelot"
Season 2
"The Once and Future King"
"A Saucer of Loneliness"
"What Are Friends For?"
"Aqua Vita"
"The Storyteller"
"Nightsong"
"The After Hours"
"Lost and Found"
"The World Next Door"
"The Toys of Caliban"
"The Convict's Piano"
"The Road Less Traveled"
"The Card"
"The Junction"
"Joy Ride"
"Shelter Skelter"
"Private Channel"
"Time and Teresa Golowitz"
"Voices in the Earth"
"Song of the Younger World"
"The Girl I Married"
Season 3
"The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon"
"Extra Innings"
"The Crossing"
"The Hunters"
"Dream Me a Life"
"Memories"
"The Hellgramite Method"
"Our Selena Is Dying"
"The Call"
"The Trance"
"Acts of Terror"
"20/20 Vision"
"There Was an Old Woman"
"The Trunk"
"Appointment on Route 17"
"The Cold Equations"
"Stranger in Possum Meadows"
"Street of Shadows"
"Something in the Walls"
"A Game of Pool"
"Room 2426"
"The Mind of Simon Foster"
"The Wall"
"Cat and Mouse"
"Rendezvous in a Dark Place"
"Many, Many Monkeys"
"Love Is Blind"
"Crazy as a Soup Sandwich"
"Special Service"
"Father and Son Game"
show
v
t
e
Richard Matheson
Novels
I Am Legend (1954)
The Shrinking Man (1956)
A Stir of Echoes (1958)
The Beardless Warriors (1960)
Hell House (1971)
Bid Time Return (1975)
What Dreams May Come (1978)
Earthbound (1982)
Short stories
"Born of Man and Woman" (1950)
"Button, Button" (1970)
Screenplays
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
House of Usher (1960)
"The Last Flight" (1960)
"Nick of Time" (1960)
"A World of Difference" (1960)
"A World of His Own" (1960)
Master of the World (1961)
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
"The Invaders" (1961)
"Once Upon a Time" (1961)
Night of the Eagle (1962)
Tales of Terror (1962)
"Little Girl Lost" (1962)
"Young Man's Fancy" (1962)
The Raven (1963)
"Death Ship" (1963)
"Mute" (1963)
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963)
"Steel" (1963)
The Comedy of Terrors (1964)
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
"Night Call" (1964)
"Spur of the Moment" (1964)
Fanatic (1965)
The Young Warriors (1966)
"The Enemy Within" (1966)
The Devil Rides Out (1968)
De Sade (1969)
Duel (1971)
The Night Stalker (1972)
The Night Strangler (1973)
The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973)
The Morning After (1974)
Scream of the Wolf (1974)
Trilogy of Terror (1975)
Dead of Night (1977)
The Martian Chronicles (1980)
Somewhere in Time (1980)
Jaws 3-D (1983)
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
"Button, Button" (1986)
Loose Cannons (1990)
The Dreamer of Oz (1990)
Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994)
Trilogy of Terror II (1996)
Adaptations
by others
"And When the Sky Was Opened" (1959)
"Third from the Sun" (1960)
Cold Sweat (1970)
The Omega Man (1971)
The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Stir of Echoes (1999)
"Dance of the Dead" (2005)
"My Ambition" (2006)
I Am Legend (2007)
I Am Omega (2007)
The Box (2009)
"The Splendid Source" (2010)
Real Steel (2011)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)&oldid=848012243"
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1986 American television episodes
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The Twilight Zone (1985 TV series) episodes
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