Classic Horrors Club

Written by | Richard M. Simon
Director | Don Medford
Air Date | July 4, 1952

Bruce Calvin (Darren McGavin) has been out of a job for three months after working eight years with the Dunhill Engineering Company and unexpectedly losing his job. When he answers an ad in the newspaper, a potential employer, Dr. Johnson from Atomic Energy Control (Cameron Prud’Homme), tells him he’s been waiting for his call.  He wants him to volunteer for an experiment that, when concluded, will allow him to live in comfort for the rest of his life.

Bruce is suspicious, but Dr. Johnson is insistent, explaining that in a few weeks they expect to establish contact with a parallel planet where every particle of life has an exact duplicate. There’s evidence that the planet is also aware of the other and its similarities and Johnson wants Bruce to travel there via a special ship to break the pattern of duplication, preventing the planets from destroying each other. After a fade-to-black, Bruce returns home to tell his wife about the top secret job…

Future life on Jupiter depends on it.

I anticipated such a twist but thought it would come later. After the commercial break, Jupiter-Bruce prepares to leave. An ordinary looking rocket launches, but the “automatic atomic speed control” propels him forward so that he’ll be back home in 24 hours. On Earth, he accidentally meets his wife, Frances (Patricia Ferris), while placing poison inside Earth-Bruce’s whisky. I’m guessing when Jupiter-Bruce returns home, he shouldn’t have a drink to celebrate his windfall…

Add to the list of sci-fi tropes we recently discussed the shrewish wife who henpecks her husband into action. In this case, Frances reminds me of Angie Fulbright from “The Little Black Bag.” She doesn’t do anything to encourage her husband to get a job and support him when he does; she nags him until he does and then scoffs at his decision. Nothing comes of it in “The Duplicates” as far as she’s concerned, but during an argument, Bruce says…

Someday you’re going to push me too far.

Despite the early twist and predictable ending, it’s an excellent episode of Tales of Tomorrow. McGavin is terrific and one of the show’s regular directors, Don Medford, uses the camera to slowly zoom into his face as he first refuses to take the job, then finally agrees. The simple movement adds suspense to the scene.

Writer | Paul Tripp
Director | Paul Tripp
Air Date | July 18, 1952

Mild mannered Sam Whipple (Paul Tripp) breaks the fourth wall to tell us he invented a crude but effective time machine. He shares the story of whast happened 100 years from “now” in 2052, when the whole world stood on the edge of doom. There (or then), Doctor Jarvis (Theo Goetz) wonders how they failed and asks his daughter, Mary (Ruth Enders), how one gives the world the facts about its imminent destruction. He tells the truth: that 100 years ago one small mistake started a chain reaction of radioactivity.

It’s an ironic fate because during the last century, the world has finally reached a peaceful existence. Mary recommends one more check and they witness the mistake before it’s made on June 30, 1952. She suggests traveling back in time to prevent the mistake. The past can’t be changed, but for some reason they think they can manipulate Sam Whipple’s time machine to achieve their goal. Sure enough, Sam arrives in 2052 to meet Jarvis and Mary.

He likes the advancements so much in 2052 that he asks if he can stay. The Jarvises tell him what’s happening and he replies…

If only I’d known.

…and say now that he does know, he can go back and prevent the end of the world. In 1952, he has only 20 minutes and interrupts doctors Thorn (Arthur Tell) and Adams (Rex Marshall.) They don’t believe him. So Whipple destroys their notes, causing them to start over. Afterwards, he tells his sister, Sara (Joy Hathaway), that he’s going back to the future. Little does he know that she destroyed his time machine because she feared he was obsessed with it.

I’m not sure it’s exactly the moral of the story, but Sam learns a lesson for himself:

A fella can have his future in his own lifetime, too.

Sam is a happy-go-lucky delight in “Ahead of His Time.” Paul Tripp would be great in a kids’ show. In fact, he was. Before Tales of Tomorrow, he created Mr. I. Magination (1949-52) for CBS. He was subsequently responsible for the Emmy-winning On the Carousel (1955) and other family shows through the years. His crowning achievement, though, may be Tubby the Tuba (1975), which he wrote, produced, and narrated for HBO. Others may argue that statement, though. He was also the creative force behind The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t (1966), where his character was named… Sam Whipple.