Who was the first to "freeze time"?
March 8, 2006 9:09 AM 
Subscribe
Who was the first to "freeze time"?
With
Click coming out, I started wondering about who the originators of this idea were. I remember in
Saved By the Bell Zack used to do it when he was about to get in trouble or had something poignant to say... I think there was a moment in
Wierd Science and
Zapped!...well just curious to see how back this goes. Films and TV shows only please, no music videos :]
"A Kind of Stopwatch"
Originally Aired: 10.18.1961
The episode starts by introducing McNulty, a genius in his own eyes who has always been misunderstood by the rest of the world in general. Mr. Cooper, his employer, asks to talk to McNulty concerning all of the notes he has dropped into the suggestion box recently. McNulty is convinced that his work is finally going to pay off.
We listen to Rod's narration:
"Submitted for your approval or at least your analysis: one Patrick Thomas McNulty, who at age forty-one is the biggest bore on Earth. He holds a ten-year record for the most meaningless words spewed out during a coffee break. And it's very likely that, as of this moment, he would have gone though life in precisely this manner, a dull, argumentative bigmouth who sets back the art of conversation a thousand years. I say he very likely would have, except for something that will soon happen to him, something that will considerably alter his existence and ours. Now you think about that now, because this is the Twilight Zone."
Mr. Cooper, in fact, doesn't want to reward McNulty for his great pains however. Cooper is quite angered by the fact that all of McNulty's suggestions have absolutely nothing to do with the company's actual product, and summarily fires McNulty.
That night, McNulty goes to the local bar and annoys everyone in the bar so badly by his constant talking that they all leave (an event that Joe the bartender mentions is quite common). After almost everyone is gone, McNulty sits down with an older man by the name of Potts. The old man gives McNulty a perculiar family heirloom, a stopwatch. Although McNulty doesn't know exactly what he is to do with it, he thanks Potts. After Potts leaves, and McNulty is playing with the stopwatch, he realizes that he can in fact stop time with the watch! Upon clicking the timer button, everything and everyone around McNulty freezes in time, yet he is still able to move around.
Excited by this new watch, McNulty rushes home and tries it on his pet fish. Suprisingly enough, it does in fact freeze them as well. Convinced that he's had one too many beers, McNulty goes to bed to get some rest.
In the morning, as McNulty gets up and remembers the watch, he leans out his window to try it on the traffic outside. He learns then that he truly is able to stop all time. Anxious to gain something from his discovery, he rushes to work with the watch in hand, and barges in on one of Mr. Cooper's meetings to share his finding with him. Uninterested and unbelieving, Cooper kicks McNulty out of the office again. When the secretary calls the police to take McNulty away, he simply clicks the stopwatch and makes his getaway.
McNulty then goes back to the bar and attempts to show the rest of the uninterested individuals the watch, but is unable to convince them of the truth. Finally, after driving the rest of the customers off, McNulty sits down to a beer with Joe the bartender. When McNulty sees Joe operating the cash register, he gets an idea. He plans to use his stopwatch to rob the bank!
Acting on his plan, McNulty enters the bank, clicks his stopwatch, and summarily grabs the money out of the vault, and begins to leave the bank. Suddenly, McNulty drops his stopwatch onto the ground, shattering the glass and breaking the watch. When he picks the watch back up and attempts to restart time, he learns that the watch is completely broken beyond repair.
Frantically, McNulty tries to wake everyone up and runs from place to place attempting to find someone who is unaffected by the stoppage of time, but is unsuccessful.
We listen to Rod's ending:
"Mr. Patrick Thomas McNulty, who had a gift of time. He used it and he misused it, now he's just been handed bill. Tonight's tale of motion and McNulty, in the Twilight Zone."
posted by sharksandwich at 9:15 AM on March 8, 2006