The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

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"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"

The Twilight Zone episode

Episode no.

Season 1
Episode 22

Directed by

Ronald Winston

Written by

Rod Serling

Production code

173-3620

Original air date

March 4, 1960

Guest actors

Claude Akins as Steve Brand
Barry Atwater as Les Goodman
Jack Weston as Charlie
Amzie Strickland as Woman
Burt Metcalfe as Don

Episode chronology

← Previous
"Mirror Image"

Next →
"A World of Difference"

List of Twilight Zone episodes

The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street is the twenty-minute episode from the first season (1959–60) of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The episode was written by Rod Serling, the creator-narrator of the series. In 2009, TIME named it one of the 10 best Twilight Zone episodes.^[1]

Plot summary

Maple Street is full of playing children and adults talking, when a shadow passes over, accompanied by a flash of light, but no sound. The residents soon discover that their electricity has been cut off. They gather together in the street to discuss the matter. Pete Van Horn volunteers to walk out of the neighborhood to discover the extent of the problem and he goes to check the station. His neighbor Steve Brand wants to go into town but Tommy, a boy from the neighborhood, tells him not to leave the street. Tommy has read a story of an alien invasion causing similar phenomena, and he predicts Steve will probably not be allowed to leave. Furthermore, in the story, the aliens are living as a family that appears human. The power outage is meant to isolate and contain the neighborhood. Meanwhile, another resident, Les Goodman, tries unsuccessfully to start his car. He gets out and begins to walk back towards the other residents when the car starts all by itself. The bizarre behavior of his car makes Les the object of immediate suspicion. One woman begins to discuss his late nights spent standing in the garden looking up at the sky. Les claims to be only an insomniac. Later that night, Steve tries to defuse the situation and prevent it from becoming a witch-hunt. Charlie, one of the loudest and most aggressive residents, pressures Steve about his hobby building a radio no one has ever seen. Suspicion falls on Steve as he sarcastically remarks that he talks to monsters from outer space on his radio. Steve and the other neighbors continue to argue.

Panic builds when a shadowy figure is seen walking towards them. Charlie, now hostile, grabs a shotgun and immediately shoots the shadow, thinking it to be the alleged "monster." When the crowd reaches the fallen figure, they realize it is Pete Van Horn, returning from his scouting mission. The shot had hit him in the chest, killing him instantly.

Suddenly the lights in Charlie's house come on and he panics as the crowd begins accusing him of being both a murderer and the monster responsible for the power being out. He makes a run for his house while the other residents chase him, throwing stones. Terrified, Charlie attempts to deflect suspicion onto Tommy, the boy who had originally suggested alien infiltration. Lights begin flashing on and off in houses throughout the neighborhood; lawn mowers and cars start up and go off for no apparent reason. The mob becomes hysterical, with terrified residents smashing windows, and taking up weapons, as the situation devolves into an all-out riot. Some of the residents take up fire-arms and shoot anyone they can.

The scene cuts to a nearby hilltop, where it is revealed the mysterious meteor that had flown overhead is indeed an alien spaceship. Its inhabitants, two alien observers, are watching the riot on Maple Street while using a device to manipulate the neighborhood's power. They comment on how easy it was to create paranoia and panic, and conclude that the easiest way to conquer Earth is to let the people of Earth destroy themselves as their own worst enemy.

Production

The aliens are wearing uniforms left over from the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. Also, the mockup set of the retractable stairway, leading into the lower half of the C-57D cruiser from the same film, is reused for this scene. At the end of the episode, a stock footage effects shot of the cruiser in space can be seen. (The same shot was also used in "Third from the Sun".) Note that the cruiser is shown upside down when compared to its orientation in Forbidden Planet.

Cast

Claude Akins as Steve Brand
Barry Atwater as Les Goodman
Jack Weston as Charlie Farnsworth
Amzie Strickland as a Woman
Burt Metcalfe as Don Martin
Mary Gregory as Sally
Jason Johnson as a Man
Sheldon Allman as the First Alien
William Walsh as the Second Alien
Robert McCord as the Ice-cream Vendor
Jan Handzlik as Tommy
Ben Erway as Pete van Horn

Remake

Main article: The Monsters Are on Maple Street

A 2003 remake of the episode was created in the latest re-adaptation of The Twilight Zone, but it was renamed "The Monsters Are On Maple Street." The difference between the two is that the remake is more about the fear of terrorism. When the power surge happens in the remake, it is caused, not by aliens, but instead by the government, specifically the United States Army, experimenting on how small towns react to the fear of terrorism. In the end, the neighborhood takes out its anger and frustration on a family who never left their house after the power surge occurred, thinking that they caused it since they still have power.

Other media

A radio dramatization of this episode was produced in the mid-2000s, featuring Frank John Hughes as Steve Brand. It was included in The Twilight Zone: Radio Dramas - Collection 12 collection.

A graphic novel version was published by the Savannah College of Art and Design partnered with Walker & Co.

This episode served to be a major influence on science fiction in the decades that followed. Among the films that drew their inspiration from this episode include The Trigger Effect, directed by Akins' nephew, David Koepp,^[2] and The Mist.^[3]

Early Industrial Music band Skinny Puppy made heavy use of samples from this episode in the track Monster Radio Man on their 1984 debut album Back and Forth.

In the supernatural TV series Angel episode, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been," the main protagonist, Angel, is mobbed, in a similar way to the characters in this episode, while under the influence of a paranoia demon controlling a hotel. Executive producer David Greenwalt admitted he got the idea and way of being mobbed after watching this episode.

References

↑ "Top 10 Twilight Zone episodes". Time. 2009-10-05. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
↑ Maslin, Janet (1996-08-30). "Movie Review - The Trigger Effect (1996) - Urban Jitters Going Critical". New York Times. Retrieved 209-10-09.
↑ Edward Douglas (2007-11-16). "An Exclusive Interview with Mr. Frank Darabont!". ShockTillYouDrop.com. Retrieved 2009-10-09.

External links

"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" at the Internet Movie Database
TV.com episode page
"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" – script

v t e Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander With Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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