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 :]
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 :]
This has to have featured in more than one Twilight Zone episode (and in preceding short stories).
On preview: holy cow, sharksandwich!
posted by Songdog at 9:17 AM on March 8, 2006
On preview: holy cow, sharksandwich!
posted by Songdog at 9:17 AM on March 8, 2006
The brilliant (at least in my mind) Australian Kids TV series "Round the Twist" featured an episode with the TV remote that could pause/rewind/fast forward time. Must have been aired in the UK in the early-mid nineties.
posted by godawful at 9:19 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by godawful at 9:19 AM on March 8, 2006
A related, though not identical phenomenon occurs in the Twilight Zone episode "A Matter of Minutes", which was based on Theodore Sturgeon's short story "Yesterday Was Monday." In this one a couple finds themselves suspended in the interval between ticks of the clock, where workers in blue uniforms use blue tools to dismantle one instant and construct the next. This episode only date back to 1986, though.
posted by Songdog at 9:22 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by Songdog at 9:22 AM on March 8, 2006
There was an SNL skit about a guy who took the rubber mat from in front of an automatic door (back when they were controlled by rubber pressure mats) and used it to open all kinds of doors just by putting the mat in front of them.
In the end he used it on an elevator door and fell down the shaft.
The skit was probably a decade or more ago, but it was so funny I've never forgotten it.
posted by GuyZero at 9:22 AM on March 8, 2006
In the end he used it on an elevator door and fell down the shaft.
The skit was probably a decade or more ago, but it was so funny I've never forgotten it.
posted by GuyZero at 9:22 AM on March 8, 2006
Here's the link. The episode description is hidden by that stupid scrolling list interface.
I quote: "Series 1, Episode 5- Spaghetti Pig Out
Chaos reigns after a bolt of lightning hits the video remote control - it works on people! Pause, rewind and fast-forward have amusing consequences, particularly at the spaghetti eating competition."
posted by godawful at 9:23 AM on March 8, 2006
I quote: "Series 1, Episode 5- Spaghetti Pig Out
Chaos reigns after a bolt of lightning hits the video remote control - it works on people! Pause, rewind and fast-forward have amusing consequences, particularly at the spaghetti eating competition."
posted by godawful at 9:23 AM on March 8, 2006
Well, in that vein of multiple simultaneous instances, you would have to consider "It's A Wonderful Life." Not presented as stoppiing time specifically, but the instant is frozen as George live his alternate life and then as the instant is unfrozen, he returns to face his previously unpalatable consequences, finding Zuzu's petals as final confirmation of God's good graces. I guess.
posted by beelzbubba at 9:24 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by beelzbubba at 9:24 AM on March 8, 2006
What was that old tv show with the girl that could stop time? She did it by putting her two index fingers together.
Also, didn't Jeannie (I Dream Of Jeannie) have this ability?
Or, are you focusing on the scenario where time's really only frozen so they can address the audience, and then restart time where it was?
posted by inigo2 at 9:25 AM on March 8, 2006
Also, didn't Jeannie (I Dream Of Jeannie) have this ability?
Or, are you focusing on the scenario where time's really only frozen so they can address the audience, and then restart time where it was?
posted by inigo2 at 9:25 AM on March 8, 2006
"The Girl, the gold watch, and everything" was a 1980 movie which was based on a 1962 John D. MacDonald novel of the same name. It involved an heirloom watch that could freeze time.
The idea has been used in countless movies and fiction. The Star Trek epsiode Wink of an Eye involves Kirk being accelerated to such a speed that time around him seems to stand still.
The grandfather of all these is probably The New Accelerator by H.G. Wells. It involves a scientist developing a formula that allows the imbiber to move so fast that the world around him seems to be standing still.
posted by notbuddha at 9:33 AM on March 8, 2006
The idea has been used in countless movies and fiction. The Star Trek epsiode Wink of an Eye involves Kirk being accelerated to such a speed that time around him seems to stand still.
The grandfather of all these is probably The New Accelerator by H.G. Wells. It involves a scientist developing a formula that allows the imbiber to move so fast that the world around him seems to be standing still.
posted by notbuddha at 9:33 AM on March 8, 2006
Who was the first to "freeze time"?
You specify TV and movies, but the concept of the action stopping while a single character delivers a monologue goes back further than both. I know it appears in the American playwright tradition, but I'm having trouble remembering samples in British or Greek.
And, of course, it is a staple of Opera of all stripes.
posted by tkolar at 9:34 AM on March 8, 2006
You specify TV and movies, but the concept of the action stopping while a single character delivers a monologue goes back further than both. I know it appears in the American playwright tradition, but I'm having trouble remembering samples in British or Greek.
And, of course, it is a staple of Opera of all stripes.
posted by tkolar at 9:34 AM on March 8, 2006
This question intrigues me, so I've been searching in the IMDB. The earliest example I find there is the 1925 film Paris qui dort ("Paris Asleep?"), by French director René Clair. The story concerns multiple people who find themselves in a Paris where nearly everyone else is frozen/asleep in time, though other physical processes continue. Has anyone here seen the film?
posted by Songdog at 9:36 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by Songdog at 9:36 AM on March 8, 2006
Wasn't there a tv show where one of the main characters could touch her(?) right and left index fingers together and everything would freeze?
posted by richardhay at 9:36 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by richardhay at 9:36 AM on March 8, 2006
Nobody has mentioned Out of This World yet?
Not the first to freeze time, but the gosh darned cutest.
posted by jozxyqk at 9:38 AM on March 8, 2006
Not the first to freeze time, but the gosh darned cutest.
posted by jozxyqk at 9:38 AM on March 8, 2006
Borges wrote a story called The Secret Miracle in 1943 in which a Jewish playwright facing a Nazi firing squad finds that time has been stopped by God so he can finish is masterpiece.
He edit, revises and performs the whole piece in his head, until a year later it's complete, and the bullet finally finishes it's path and kills him.
I've always thought it would make an amazing movie.
posted by empath at 9:55 AM on March 8, 2006
He edit, revises and performs the whole piece in his head, until a year later it's complete, and the bullet finally finishes it's path and kills him.
I've always thought it would make an amazing movie.
posted by empath at 9:55 AM on March 8, 2006
What was that old tv show with the girl that could stop time? She did it by putting her two index fingers together.
inigo2: Was it this one?
Luriete: Thank you for reminding me of that book... it's in my little personal library, I'm going to reread it again... (did you know that it has been regarded by some as the most sexually explicit novel released by a mainstream publisher??)
posted by Emperor Yamamoto's Eggs at 10:01 AM on March 8, 2006
inigo2: Was it this one?
Luriete: Thank you for reminding me of that book... it's in my little personal library, I'm going to reread it again... (did you know that it has been regarded by some as the most sexually explicit novel released by a mainstream publisher??)
posted by Emperor Yamamoto's Eggs at 10:01 AM on March 8, 2006
I vaguely recall there being an H. G. Wells story in which someone has hugely speeded himself, with the effect that everyone else seems to be moving verrrrry sloooowly (though not actually stopped, as in your question).
posted by Aknaton at 10:03 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by Aknaton at 10:03 AM on March 8, 2006
The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a movie from 1962 based on an Ambrose Bierce story from 1891. It's a stunning little movie that details a miraculous escape from a hanging, only to reveal that
SPOILER in rot13:
gur "rfpncr" nyy gbbx cynpr va gur zna'f zvaq va gur vafgnag qhevat juvpu gur ebcr jnf gvtugravat.
posted by jasper411 at 10:15 AM on March 8, 2006
SPOILER in rot13:
gur "rfpncr" nyy gbbx cynpr va gur zna'f zvaq va gur vafgnag qhevat juvpu gur ebcr jnf gvtugravat.
posted by jasper411 at 10:15 AM on March 8, 2006
All right, if we're going to invoke Wells and Baker then how about Amrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," adapted to film several times and the basis for countless other stories. It's not quite the same thing, but definitely a related theme.
On preview: beaten by jasper411!
posted by Songdog at 10:18 AM on March 8, 2006
On preview: beaten by jasper411!
posted by Songdog at 10:18 AM on March 8, 2006
I can at least add this: the 1962 film was French, and entitled "La Rivière du Hibou". And Bierce apparently wrote his story in 1886, though it wasn't published until 1890 (in the San Francisco Examiner!).
posted by Songdog at 10:23 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by Songdog at 10:23 AM on March 8, 2006
"The Secret Miracle" by Borges is from 1943, fwiw.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:37 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:37 AM on March 8, 2006
H.G.Wells, The Time Machine
There's no time freezing in that book, just time travel. But if we're including that too, an early story is Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."
posted by grumblebee at 10:39 AM on March 8, 2006
There's no time freezing in that book, just time travel. But if we're including that too, an early story is Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."
posted by grumblebee at 10:39 AM on March 8, 2006
Not exactly the same, but might qualify as prior art:
Joshua 10:12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. (KJV)
posted by callmejay at 10:44 AM on March 8, 2006
Joshua 10:12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. (KJV)
posted by callmejay at 10:44 AM on March 8, 2006
Well, if you're talking about stopping time, addressing the camera (breaking the fourth wall, Woody Allen did it in 1977 in Annie Hall.
posted by filmgeek at 10:57 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by filmgeek at 10:57 AM on March 8, 2006
With Click coming out, I started wondering about who the originators of this idea were
I doubt the origins of that idea are in modern times. You may be able to find the earliest instance of it in TV or Film but they were probably just borrowing from a book or an older mythology. Someone has already dug up a Bibilical reference here and I am sure there are probably referents in other mythologies (e.g. Did Zeus stop time when Hercules was conceived?)
posted by vacapinta at 11:03 AM on March 8, 2006
I doubt the origins of that idea are in modern times. You may be able to find the earliest instance of it in TV or Film but they were probably just borrowing from a book or an older mythology. Someone has already dug up a Bibilical reference here and I am sure there are probably referents in other mythologies (e.g. Did Zeus stop time when Hercules was conceived?)
posted by vacapinta at 11:03 AM on March 8, 2006
I was going to say Out of this World, but jozxyqk beat me to it. That is the quintessential time-freezing show of my childhood, much moreso than Saved by the Bell (since SbtB used it pretty rarely).
posted by TunnelArmr at 11:13 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by TunnelArmr at 11:13 AM on March 8, 2006
Not TV or movie, but doesn't this harken back to the very earliest of plays? Zack is just monologuing. Characters in plays often speak directly to the audience without the characters around them being any the wiser, and under some directors, will actually freeze in place.
posted by team lowkey at 11:17 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by team lowkey at 11:17 AM on March 8, 2006
Yeah, what vacapinta said. Shakespeare, for example, makes extensive use of the convention -- a peculiar example arising in the Winter's Tale, Act IV, when a character named, oddly enough, Time, addresses the audience:
I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom. ...
Theater directors, no matter what the piece (and no matter how poor the choice is), will often use a freeze-conceit to isolate action or soliloquy -- cf. Apu Nahasapeemapetalon as the Delivery Boy in Streetcar! The television version of the conceit arises from its dramatic forbears, though with obvious technical differences. It's been around as long as theater has.
posted by milquetoast at 11:21 AM on March 8, 2006
I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power
To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o'erwhelm custom. ...
Theater directors, no matter what the piece (and no matter how poor the choice is), will often use a freeze-conceit to isolate action or soliloquy -- cf. Apu Nahasapeemapetalon as the Delivery Boy in Streetcar! The television version of the conceit arises from its dramatic forbears, though with obvious technical differences. It's been around as long as theater has.
posted by milquetoast at 11:21 AM on March 8, 2006
The original film to use the idea of stopping time was quite likely a turn-of-the-20th-century project that has been lost to history, since most of the earliest films haven't survived for viewing. As noted, the concept of stopping time in a story predates any films by hundreds or thousands of years, so there's no reason early film-makers wouldn't have grabbed the idea for their version of the SciFi movie. The Georges Méliès film "A Trip To The Moon" is, of course, the most famous and culturally referenced science fantasy of that time.
Although released later, here's a short blurb of a 1913 silent film called "How They Got the Vote" on the topic of women's suffrage in England, which uses the idea of stopping time. I can't find out much more information on the movie, but it's almost certainly not the first such film. It just gets harder to find out about lost or forgotten films the further back in time you go. Find an old-time movie buff with knowledge of silent film archives, I bet he or she could pull something up from the late 1890's or early 1900's which uses the idea.
posted by mdevore at 11:29 AM on March 8, 2006
Although released later, here's a short blurb of a 1913 silent film called "How They Got the Vote" on the topic of women's suffrage in England, which uses the idea of stopping time. I can't find out much more information on the movie, but it's almost certainly not the first such film. It just gets harder to find out about lost or forgotten films the further back in time you go. Find an old-time movie buff with knowledge of silent film archives, I bet he or she could pull something up from the late 1890's or early 1900's which uses the idea.
posted by mdevore at 11:29 AM on March 8, 2006
There was an episode of Duck Tales about this, I'm pretty sure that's where the Bible got it from.
posted by samh23 at 11:54 AM on March 8, 2006
posted by samh23 at 11:54 AM on March 8, 2006
Damn, can't find it anywhere online, but there's the exceedingly old tale about Mohammad (PBUH) being visited by an angel. The angel lifts him into the heavens to show him God's works, and brushes a pot of water with its wings on the way up. They take the grand tour, and return in time to catch the pot before it spills... Any more coherent recountings of this?
Also, of course, Clockstoppers. I mean, it certainly isn't the orginal... but I felt it should be mentioned.
Which reminds me of a philosophic question I've had with these sorts of movies (like Out of This World). It looks like just a silly little power that wasshername (Evie, apparently) can use to do her homework in a split second... but when she pauses time, she's freezing the whole universe right? I mean, it isn't just a localized effect, really, because otherwise it would be a pretty bad scene as the other galaxies come crashing into the "frozen" Earth... Wouldn't everything get really, really cold, though, without molecular motion?
posted by Squid Voltaire at 12:33 PM on March 8, 2006
Also, of course, Clockstoppers. I mean, it certainly isn't the orginal... but I felt it should be mentioned.
Which reminds me of a philosophic question I've had with these sorts of movies (like Out of This World). It looks like just a silly little power that wasshername (Evie, apparently) can use to do her homework in a split second... but when she pauses time, she's freezing the whole universe right? I mean, it isn't just a localized effect, really, because otherwise it would be a pretty bad scene as the other galaxies come crashing into the "frozen" Earth... Wouldn't everything get really, really cold, though, without molecular motion?
posted by Squid Voltaire at 12:33 PM on March 8, 2006
It makes more sense if you think of the empowered character's personal timeframe being sped up dramatically with respect the rest of the universe, but don't get bogged down in the details because they don't make sense. If the universe is stopped then no light will reach human eyes. If the universe is moving so slowly that it appears stopped then the apparent wavelengths of the light will be stretched beyond what human eyes can perceive, etc., etc.. This is about magic, not physics (or at least about the supernatural, not the natural).
posted by Songdog at 12:43 PM on March 8, 2006
posted by Songdog at 12:43 PM on March 8, 2006
milquetoast, I don't think Shakespeare is freezing time -- he's time traveling.
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years...
Time is saying that he's not going to leap over the next 16 years to show us what will happen in the future. Freezing would be the opposite of that. If you freeze time, you hang around in the current instant for much longer than an instant. Everyone is frozen in mid action except for you.
posted by grumblebee at 12:54 PM on March 8, 2006
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O'er sixteen years...
Time is saying that he's not going to leap over the next 16 years to show us what will happen in the future. Freezing would be the opposite of that. If you freeze time, you hang around in the current instant for much longer than an instant. Everyone is frozen in mid action except for you.
posted by grumblebee at 12:54 PM on March 8, 2006
Ooo, ooo, there was a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode about this, too. (You'd think that time freezing tech and the accompanying armbands woulda came in handy at Wolf 359.)
posted by Skwirl at 1:48 PM on March 8, 2006
posted by Skwirl at 1:48 PM on March 8, 2006
A short story from 1944: Murray Leinster's "The Eternal Now." I saw it in the Damon Knight-edited 1967 anthology The Shape of Things.
The bad guy has invented a mass nullifier, which if invert some of Einstein's equations, allows you to speed up millions of times compared to normal. The world around you is gray, motionless and solid. Waves in the harbor are rigid slopes of glass.
The hero gets thrown into this mode, along with a damsel in distress, but everything turns out OK.
posted by kurumi at 2:02 PM on March 8, 2006
The bad guy has invented a mass nullifier, which if invert some of Einstein's equations, allows you to speed up millions of times compared to normal. The world around you is gray, motionless and solid. Waves in the harbor are rigid slopes of glass.
The hero gets thrown into this mode, along with a damsel in distress, but everything turns out OK.
posted by kurumi at 2:02 PM on March 8, 2006
There was a kid's show on Australian TV during the 80s. I can't remember the title, but the main characters, Harry and George (George was female) were trying to rescue their father who was frozen in some kind of time limbo. They could freeze time, though I can't remember how exactly - some kind of rod or crystal? Can't remember much else except the theme song:
Let's go Harry and George
We're ready (willing?) to help you
You've got to pull through
(something something) Harry and George
The three of you (?) can win, must win, will wiiiiiiin!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:09 PM on March 8, 2006
Let's go Harry and George
We're ready (willing?) to help you
You've got to pull through
(something something) Harry and George
The three of you (?) can win, must win, will wiiiiiiin!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:09 PM on March 8, 2006
Response by poster: that's great, thank you so much everybody
posted by andrewyakovlev at 4:14 PM on March 8, 2006
posted by andrewyakovlev at 4:14 PM on March 8, 2006
It looks like Click could have been inspired by The Magic Thread or The Thread of Life.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:54 PM on March 8, 2006
posted by betweenthebars at 7:54 PM on March 8, 2006
obiwan, was that the one where they held the crystal up in the air, and everything stopped?
posted by tomble at 8:49 PM on March 8, 2006
posted by tomble at 8:49 PM on March 8, 2006
Some movies in which time freezes:
"All About Eve"
"A Matter of Life and Death" (a.k.a. "Stairway to Heaven")
"Goodfellas"
Nicholson Baker wrote a novel based around this idea called "The Fermata". The hero freezes time and then walks around and does all sorts of naughty things to the immobile women.
posted by grumblebee at 9:06 PM on March 8, 2006
"All About Eve"
"A Matter of Life and Death" (a.k.a. "Stairway to Heaven")
"Goodfellas"
Nicholson Baker wrote a novel based around this idea called "The Fermata". The hero freezes time and then walks around and does all sorts of naughty things to the immobile women.
posted by grumblebee at 9:06 PM on March 8, 2006
See: Nearly every ancient play with monologues, no matter what the culture. It's a common trope in Japanese and Chinese dramas, puppet shows, Greek tragedies and comedies, Moliere, African drama (most often when the trickster is up to something).
It's kind of like asking who first had the idea of putting a couple of round things underneath a sledge in order to make it easier to pull. Someone did, but their name has been lost to time (unless it was 'Wheel').
posted by klangklangston at 9:59 PM on March 8, 2006
It's kind of like asking who first had the idea of putting a couple of round things underneath a sledge in order to make it easier to pull. Someone did, but their name has been lost to time (unless it was 'Wheel').
posted by klangklangston at 9:59 PM on March 8, 2006
Response by poster: haha klangklnagston, i'm sorry if it didn't come across clearly in the original question. i meant film and television and not cavemen playing mime during a monologue made entirely of grunts describing the location of a downed mammoth :]
posted by andrewyakovlev at 8:49 AM on March 9, 2006
posted by andrewyakovlev at 8:49 AM on March 9, 2006
Response by poster: by the way, already ordered Fermata -
posted by andrewyakovlev at 8:50 AM on March 9, 2006
posted by andrewyakovlev at 8:50 AM on March 9, 2006
By the way, I didn't like "The Fermata." I got bored with it halfway through and quit reading it. So I'm not recommending it (though many people DO like it), I'm just mentioning it, because it's an example of freezing time.
Another type of time freeze involves reliving the same events over and over -- time is "frozen" in a loop. Examples: the movie "Groundhog Day", the book "Replay" (which is like a more profound version of "Groundhog Day"), and -- in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", Oliver Sacks writes about a guy who has no permanent memory -- so he's always stuck in the present.
posted by grumblebee at 11:19 AM on March 9, 2006
Another type of time freeze involves reliving the same events over and over -- time is "frozen" in a loop. Examples: the movie "Groundhog Day", the book "Replay" (which is like a more profound version of "Groundhog Day"), and -- in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", Oliver Sacks writes about a guy who has no permanent memory -- so he's always stuck in the present.
posted by grumblebee at 11:19 AM on March 9, 2006
obiwan, was that the one where they held the crystal up in the air, and everything stopped?
Yep.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:35 PM on March 14, 2006
Yep.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:35 PM on March 14, 2006
I'm surprised nobody has yet brought up The Matrix, with the whole world freezing around Neo as he pays attention to the woman in the red dress.
posted by cgc373 at 9:20 PM on March 19, 2006
posted by cgc373 at 9:20 PM on March 19, 2006
« Older Interesting, meaningful, profound short fiction... | Will I kill us all? How do I estimate the strain... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
"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