The Twilight Zone: Stopover in a Quiet Town (1964)

Source:IMDB- Barry Nelson & Nancy Malone appearing on Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. And waking up with 1 "whale of a headache".

"The morning after a wild night of partying, a hungover married couple awaken in an unfamiliar and artificial place." 

From IMDB

"Stopover in a Quiet Town" is a simpler episode yet it entertains all the same. Join Walter as he continues to journey deeper into The Twilight Zone." 

Source:Channel Awesome witb a look at Stopover in a Quiet Town.

From "Channel Awesome". 

I'm just going to start this by giving you a little background about why I'm so into this episode and then I'll give you some what I believe are perfectly placed, perfectly timed, comedic lines from it and then hopefully that will give you an idea why I'm talking about it today. 

Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest (1959) is my favorite movie of all-time. That movie is 65 years old and came out even 15 years before I was born. And I'm 50 today. But I've probably seen this Twilight Zone episode more times than North By Northwest. It's a lot shorter, obviously. 22 minutes (not including commercials) versus NBN which is around 140 minutes without commercials. So time wise it's a lot easier to watch. But that's definitely not the only reason why I've seen This Twilight Zone episode so many times. Or why I personally recorded on a DVD with what I believe are other great Twilight  Zone episodes. 

I saw Stopover in a Quiet Town again this week, for at least the 20th time. Saw it Monday night thinking I might be writing about it late this week, but also because I wanted to see it again. This episode similar to my favorite Alfred Hitchcock Hour episodes, is dramatic comedy at its best. You take a serious issue like drinking and driving and perhaps alcoholism as well and you don't make fun of it. But you make fun of the characters in it to give show the audience that this is not what you want to be. You don't want this to happen to you. And that's what you see in this episode with all the great comedic exchanges that you see between Bob and Millie Frazier, that were played by Barry Nelson and Nancy Malone, two excellent comedic actors. 

I disagree with 1 thing that the guy from "Channel Awesome" said and even contradicted himself in his own video. He said there was no moral to this story. But Rod Serling ends this episode with: 

"The moral of what you've just seen is clear. If you drink, don't drive. And if your wife has had a couple, she shouldn't drive. You might both just wake up with a whale of a headache in a deserted village in the twilight zone".

Just to give you an idea of some of the great comedic moments in this Stopover in a Quiet Town: 

Bob and Millie not just wake up in a strange, unfamiliar house, bedroom, and bed, at the beginning of the episode. But they're both completely dressed. Bob (played by Barry Nelson) is still wearing the same suit from last night from the party in New York. He still has not just his jacket and tie on, but is still wearing his shoes. And they're both in bed together under the covers. He gets up and sitting on the bed and his wife notices that he's still completely dressed. And Millie (played by Nancy Malone) says: 

"Well, I knew you were swacked, but really". 

And then Millie gets up, but she's still completely dressed as well and still has her shoes on from last night as well. 

So they're out of this strange, artificial house, perhaps 1 of those places you might see in a sitcom episode, but even more artificial, where all the objects in it, are nothing but props. And they're walking on the sidewalk going to try to find someone who can help them and tell them where they are: 

Millie: "Boy, I wish I could remember how we got here. Reminds me of the coney island spook house." 

Bob: "Does it strike you that, um, it's just as spooky out here? There's not even a bird singing". 

Millie: "Maybe they're just being considerate of your hangover, darling". 

Bob: "Stop needling me". 

Millie: "I'm not needling. But if you'd been sober enough to drive maybe we'd be home now instead of wherever this is!" 

So after they go to and then leave the empty white church, they're back outside and trying to figure out where to go from there. And Bob sees what looks like a car with a guy in it. So he runs to this supposed car, with his wife following him. And he says: 

"Hey! Hey, hey! Boy, am I glad to see you! We've been wandering around here all morning. You're the first person...

The thing that Bob sees in this supposed car, is not a man. It's just another plastic drop, a really big doll, that you might see on a fictional TV show. But Bob notices that there's a key in the ignition of the car and tells his wife to get in, thinking this is how they get out of this artificial ghost town and tells his wife to get in with a great funny exchange coming: 

Bob: "Come on, baby, come on, let's go." 

Millie: "Bob, stop, you're going to flood the motor stomping on it that way." 

Bob: "What, yeah, you want to drive? You're the one who drove us into this nuthouse in the first place.

All these quotes are from Forward Dreaming

When I was a kid in the 1980s, I had a toy Matchbox city, that I would run my Matchbox cars through. That's what Centerville from Stopover in a Quiet Town looks like to me. Bob and Millie Frazier were essentially toy action figures in this episode, which was a nightmare, that was induced by a hangover for them, but they didn't know that. The guy that Bob found, was basically an action figure, in a car that could've been a toy, Matchbox car, in this toy city. 

I think Rod Serling closed out Bob and Millie Frazier's nightmare perfectly when he said: 

"The moral of what you've just seen is clear. If you drink, don't drive. And if your wife has had a couple, she shouldn't drive. You might both just wake up with a whale of a headache in a deserted village in the twilight zone".

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