In Praise of Pip

"In Praise of Pip"
The Twilight Zone episode
Jack Klugman as Max Phillips
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 121
Directed by	Joseph M. Newman
Written by	Rod Serling
Featured music	Rene Garriguenc, conducted by Lud Gluskin
Production code	2607
Original air date	September 27, 1963
Guest actors
Jack Klugman: Max Phillips Billy Mumy: Young Pip Phillips Bobby Diamond: Private Pip Phillips Connie Gilchrist: Mrs. Feeney Ross Elliott: Doctor Gerald Gordon: Lieutenant Russell Horton: George Reynold S. John Launer: Moran Kreg Martin: Gunman Stuart Nisbet: Surgeon

"In Praise of Pip" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

This was the first episode of The Twilight Zone to be 30 minutes long since The Changing of the Guard.

Plot

Max Phillips is a bookie who finds out via telegram that his son Pip, a soldier, has been seriously wounded fighting in Vietnam and will likely die. He is regretful that he did not spend more time with Pip when he was younger. With that in mind, he returns $300 to an unlucky customer and gets into a fight with his boss and the boss's hitman. Max is shot by the hitman. Wounded, he stumbles into an amusement park and is surprised to see Pip, who is now a child again. After having some fun, reliving and expanding on enjoyable outings in the past, Pip runs away into a house of mirrors. When Max finds him, Pip explains that he is dying and vanishes. Max prays to God and offers to trade his own life in exchange for Pip's, then collapses and dies on the midway. Some time after, the full-grown Pip - walking with a cane due to his war injuries - visits the amusement park's shooting gallery and recalls some of Max's advice as he begins to play.

Episode notes

The episode was filmed on location at the Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica, California. It is often incorrectly cited as the first American television drama to mention the growing Vietnam War, or the first to show a Vietnam veteran. However, starting in March 1963, actor Glenn Corbett had become a regular on the series Route 66, playing returned Vietnam soldier Lincoln Case. The Vietnam War and its effects on Linc were crucial plot points in several Route 66 episodes, including his debut, which was broadcast six months before this episode.

"In Praise of Pip" actually opens in Vietnam, though, with a wounded Pip being brought into a front-line mobile hospital. This makes it possibly the first American television drama to have a scene set in the midst of the Vietnam War. Interestingly, Rod Serling originally wanted the episode's opening to take place in Laos; it was CBS who asked for the change to Vietnam.

Jack Klugman appeared in four episodes of the original series. In addition to this episode, he appeared in Death Ship, A Game of Pool, and A Passage for Trumpet. In addition to this episode, Billy Mumy appeared in two other episodes of the original series: It's a Good Life and Long Distance Call. Bill Mumy also appeared in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and the updated Twilight Zone TV series in 2003, in the episode It's Still a Good Life.

This was the first episode sponsored by American Tobacco (on alternate weeks), on behalf of Pall Mall cigarettes, who suggested that Rod and some of the guest stars and supporting players "light up" during the episodes. Unlike previous sponsor Liggett & Myers, American Tobacco did not have Rod plug their products at the end of the program.

Trivia

One of only three Twilight Zone episodes to feature the line "Submitted for your approval" during Rod Serling's opening narration, which is probably the phrase most closely associated with the show that comes from those monologues.

The script originally had Pip stationed in Laos, but the network had Rod Serling change it to Vietnam.

Though both young actors in the episode played the same 'self-titled' character 'Pip' in the classic episode, Bobby Diamond and Billy Mumy did not actually meet in real-life until 46 years after the program first aired, September 27, 1963. Diamond and Mumy shot their scenes separately at the (now-defunct) Pacific Ocean Park in the summer of 1963. But they did not meet face-to-face until October 10, 2009, at a 'Twilight Zone Convention' in North Hollywood, CA.

References

Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)
DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

The 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"