The Little People

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Twilight Zone original series
Season three (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5)
Fall 1961 – Summer 1962
List of The Twilight Zone episodes

Episodes:

  1. Two
  2. The Arrival
  3. The Shelter
  4. The Passersby
  5. A Game of Pool
  6. The Mirror
  7. The Grave
  8. It's a Good Life
  9. Deaths-Head Revisited
  10. The Midnight Sun
  11. Still Valley
  12. The Jungle
  13. Once Upon a Time
  14. Five Characters in Search of an Exit
  15. A Quality of Mercy
  16. Nothing in the Dark
  17. One More Pallbearer
  18. Dead Man's Shoes
  19. The Hunt
  20. Showdown With Rance McGrew
  21. Kick the Can
  22. A Piano in the House
  23. The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank
  24. To Serve Man
  25. The Fugitive
  26. Little Girl Lost
  27. Person or Persons Unknown
  28. The Little People
  29. Four O'Clock
  30. Hocus-Pocus and Frisby
  31. The Trade-Ins
  32. The Gift
  33. The Dummy
  34. Young Man's Fancy
  35. I Sing the Body Electric
  36. Cavender Is Coming
  37. The Changing of the Guard

“The Little People” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

[edit] Cast

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Astronauts William Fletcher and Peter Craig--each of whom happens to be the chief thorn in the other's side--set down in a canyon to repair their ship. While scouting around, Craig finds a city populated by people no bigger than ants. He begins terrorizing the population by crushing their buildings, and he proclaims himself a god. Fletcher comes to inform him the repairs are done and they can depart, but Craig pulls a gun on him and orders Fletcher to leave alone; there's no room for two gods. Fletcher leaves disgustedly, and immediately another ship lands. Two spacemen, big as mountains, emerge. One of them picks Craig up and accidentally crushes him. The Little People rejoice at the death of their bullying "God."

[edit] Trivia

  • The towering two spacemen are wearing uniforms from the MGM film Forbidden Planet.
  • Spoofed in a Simpsons Halloween episode, Treehouse of Horror VII, in which Lisa accidentally creates an entire civilization in a small tub (a science experiment consisting of one of her baby teeth (which just fell out) in a tub of soda, which then got electrocuted). Lisa peacefully studies this wonderful civilization through her microscope; they advance faster than we do, and in a matter of a few days progress from pre-historic man up to an advanced futuristic society with a religion centered around Lisa as their benevolent god...however, Lisa's irresponsible brother Bart casually, heartlessly smashes much of their world with his fingers, and he becomes their Devil. Eventually, they build a massive (to them) "spaceship" fleet to attack Bart (resulting in wounds no bigger than mosquito bites) and Bart vows revenge. To communicate with Lisa, the tub-inhabitants use a shrink-ray to bring her into their world ("debigulation"). With Lisa trapped inside with no way of being "rebigulated", Bart steals the tub, claims it as his own, and wins a science fair with it (though Lisa orders the inhabitants to built a ray to bring her to normal size, their chief scientist (bearing a striking resemblance to Professor Frink) dismisses the idea as laughably impossible).
  • This was further spoofed by the South Park episode, Simpsons Already Did It, which involved the characters creating a "Sea-ciety" by combining semen and 'sea people'. According to the commentary, Matt Stone and Trey Parker had not originally intended to use the idea as a parody of the Simpsons (as they were not aware of the episode in question), but it was combined with another idea when the writing staff saw the similarity. The episode highlighted its similarity to the Simpson's episode, and Chef adds that the Simpson's episode was indeed based on an episode of the Twilight Zone.
  • Spoofed in Futurama: While lost floating in interstellar space, a tiny civilization lands on Bender the robot and begin living on him, taking him for their god. As Bender's power cells are alcohol-fueled, his only "Commandment" as their God is to grow barley and produce enough alcohol to keep himself functional. Unlike the astronaut in the original episode, Bender is generally well meaning at first, but hoplessly inept. Creating an alcohol-based economy led to a society filled with gang warfare. Bender's attempts to reflect sunlight onto crops to make them grow causes them to burst into flames, and trying to give a quarter to a poor microscopic village crushes the entire town. Distraught, Bender resolves not to interfere with the lives of his followers in any way, because he ended up hurting them when he tried to control them all the time. However, without his guidance things get out of hand; the microscopic people living on his behind can't see Bender or communicate with him, and eventually "lose faith" with him. These heretics eventually go to war with the religious faction that does follow Bender that lives on his chestplate. Before Bender can react, the two sides gain access to his nuclear fuel reserves, and fight an atomic war to the point of mutual destruction.
  • In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin (as spaceman spiff) discovers a tiny civilization, and behind him is a big monster. Also in another Calvin And Hobbes strip, Calvin makes a normal sized snowman chasing a ton of tiny snowman.

[edit] Reference

[edit] External link

[edit] Twilight Zone links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/h/e/The_Little_People_9288.html"