Ring-a-Ding Girl

"Ring-a-Ding Girl" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Synopsis

Bunny Blake is a movie star. Her hometown fan club sends her a magic ring, in which she sees the faces of her friends and family from the small town in which she grew up. They implore her to come back home.

Bunny returns to her hometown of Howardville, where she spends quality time with family (especially her sister, Hildy, and Bud, her nephew) and friends. The annual town picnic is on that day. She tries to get the event postponed, but to no avail; she then arranges a one-woman show at the high school auditorium. All the while she sees crystal ball-like images in the ring of a jetliner encountering severe weather. We see that it indeed becomes a rainy day in Howardville.

Concerned about her sister's odd behavior at first, Hildy then accuses Bunny of "showing off" by announcing her one-woman show at virtually the last minute, forcing the town to choose between seeing her or attending the traditional picnic. After insisting that she and her son Bud are going to the picnic, Hildy inexplicably has a change of heart (due, presumably, to the strong bond she shares with her sister), and agrees to attend Bunny's show instead.

As Bunny, her sister and nephew are about to leave for the performance, Bunny finally sees herself in the ring on the doomed jetliner. Bunny then says a goodbye of sorts to her sister, who is slightly bewildered as Bunny cannot tell her she is really on the airplane and will soon be dead. A breaking news flash on the radio comes on, and while Bunny's sister and nephew are listening to the first reports of the crash, Bunny says a final goodbye, which the others do not hear, and goes outside in the rain - and disappears.

Just then, a police officer calls the house to inform Hildy that Bunny is among the deceased passengers on the plane. Of course the sister does not believe the officer, since Bunny was right there in the house, but the radio news anchor confirms that Bunny was indeed on the plane, while also stating that several townspeople saw her that day as well. The anchorman notes that since all the townspeople were in the auditorium waiting to see Bunny's concert, their lives were saved, since they would have been at the picnic, on which grounds the jetliner crashed.

Bunny was only in town in Howardville in spirit through the magic of the ring, while her real body was on the plane. "Until the mystery is unraveled," the newscaster adds, "Only one thing is certain: Bunny Blake is dead." The final scene shows Hildy finding Bunny's magic ring, which had fallen to the floor; it is now chipped and charred, presumably because of the fiery plane crash, she stares at it, wondering...

The episode ends with Rod Serling's narration: We are all travellers. The trip starts in a place called birth--and ends in that lonely town called death. And that's the end of the journey, unless you happen to exist for a few hours, like Bunny Blake, in the misty regions of the Twilight Zone'

References

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090
• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

• "Ring-a-Ding Girl" at the Internet Movie Database
• TV.com summary