[Theme music playing]
(Narrator) You're tra vel/ng through another dimension...
A dimension not onl y of sightand sound, but of mind,
a journey into a wondrous land
whose boundaries are tha t of ima Gina tion.
Your next stop, the twilight zone.
(Male voice) I understand how you feel, nedra.
(Female voice) Well, George,
I'm going to tell you this,
and I want you to hear me out
I'm not going to repeat/t.
Bab y-sitters and nurses
are not the same thing as parental care.
It's beena year since their mother died,
and little Anne has become more sickly
and hostile every day.
She's unhappy and she's insecure.
Well, you're right about Anne, nedra,
but Tom and Karen are happy enough.
Oh, nonsense.
They're only covering up.
They're sad, unhappy children.
They have no base, they have no anchor.
They have no direction.
They're like little flotsam and jetsam.
Nedra, it takes time.
Anne needs more time.
So do I.
You've had time.
This is ridiculous.
Anne's problem is a kind of sickness,
and it's getting worse and worse
and without guidance,
she isn't going to be any better
two weeks from now or a month from now.
Nedra...
(Nedra) Where are m y DEA rs?
Your father and I have had a very probing talk.
A very revealing one.
And I told him,
and I see no reason
why I shouldn't tell you.
I'm not at all pleased
with the way things have gone in this house
since your poor mother died...
Not at all pleased; Not at all pleased.
I'll be in touch with you.
George, you can be sure
I won't lose touch.
I'm sure of that, nedra.
Well, good-bye for now, then.
Good-bye, Anne, dear.
Oh, you poor, poor little dears.
Poor, unha pp y little dears.
Good-bye, children.
(Children) B ye, a un7' nedra.
She wants to take us away,
doesn't she, dad?
Does she, daddy?
Is that what she was here for?
She doesn't approve
of the way I'm bringing you up.
She says I'm too busy.
Perhaps I am.
She says that your sitters and nurses have been, uh,
well, too mean or too nice...
Or too young or too old.
She says that you're unhappy.
Are you unhappy?
(Children) Oh, of course not.
Well, love you don't need.
Love I can give you.
But guidance...
How do you buy guidance for your children?
(Father) Someone here all the time.
Someone around who cares.
What do you do, advertise?
"Wanted: Some kind, gentle soul who will care."
Dad?
Hmm?
Listen to this:
"I sing the body electric."
What does that mean?
"Sing the body electric"
is the motto of facsimile limited.
"I sing the body electric"?
Let me see that, Tom.
"Inventors and makers of electrical shadows,
"effigies, mimics, mannequins. Dr. Cheyney.
"To parents who worry
"about inadequate nurses and schools,
"who are concerned
"with the moral and social development of their children,
"we have perfected
an electronic data processing system."
An electric...?
Well, what does that mean, daddy?
"An electronic data processing system
in the shape of an elderly woman built..."
A woman?
Yeah. Sort of a robot.
"A woman bu/I t with precision.
"With the incredible ability
of giving loving supervision to your family."
(Anne) Can they build a ma chine
like a human?
I don't know.
It doesn't... it doesn't sound so good.
But maybe we ought to investigate.
I sing the body electric.
They make a fairly convincing pitch here.
It doesn't seem possible, though,
to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother
in order to seem half as good,
except, of course, in the twilight zone.
Are they going to make her out of wicker?
Well, I-I don't know.
Let's wait and see.
[Loud whirring]
(Male voice over intercom) Won't you come in, pl ea se?
We've been expect/ng you.
[Loud whirring]
[Click]
Just to convince you that facsimile limited
can do everything that it claims that it can.
This way, please.
[Clicks]
Eyes... soft brown, vivid blue.
Any color you choose.
[Click and whirr]
Hair... white, grey, red, brown.
Aren't they beautiful?
[Click and whir]
Ears... all sizes, all shapes.
Slender or sturdy.
Short or tall.
This can't be...
Oh, no.
These are just the bits and pieces.
Just the eyes, the lips, the limbs
from which you will choose the elements
which will become your, uh...
Grandmother?
You mean we get to pick out the color
of eyes she'll have?
And how tall?
Exactly.
You will pick them out...
And put them down this chute
where they will be conveyed to our factory.
I think she should have blue eyes.
(Anne) These eyes here.
(Boy) No, these.
They're like the brown aggies I play marbles with.
Look! Those hands are nice and plump.
(Girl) I want thin fingers.
Hey, her voice.
Listen.
(High pitched female voice) "I sing the body electric."
From Walt Whitman's poetry.
Her voice is too high.
(Deep bass female voice) "I celebra te myself and sing myself."
Again, Walt Whitman.
Too low.
(Medium female voice) "The arm/es of those I love eng/rth me,
and I eng/rth them."
That's just right.
That's it.
Could you build her like my mother?
If you wish.
Exactly like her?
Yes.
(Anne) Then I don't want her.
Anne.
I don't want her to be like my mother. I'd hate her.
Anne, pl ea se.
Excuse me.
[Whirring]
Tom, you want her to look like mother, don't you?
Sure.
Then we don't care what Anne thinks.
Nah, she's crazy.
I can win any game of marbles with those,
and if she had eyes like these... gosh.
Oh, if she only had long hair.
[Whirring]
Hey, aggies.
Brown aggies.
I can win any game of marbles with those.
You must be Tom and Karen,
and tha t's Anne, of course.
Who are you?
Give me any name.
Melissa, lavinia, melvina...
What would you like?
Grandma.
Say it a few times. It'll sound fine.
I know you're thinking I'm not a robot,
but I'll prove it.
Here.
Wind me up.
A key.
You don't wind robots up.
They run on electricity.
But you do want proof though, don't you?
(Tom, off) And if she had eyes like these...
(Karen, off) Oh, if she onl y had long hair.
I see you have a kite.
Get it.
But I'm all out of string.
No, you're not.
There.
It's flying!
What did you say my name was?
Grandma!
Hey, Anne, look what grandma's done! Look!
How high shall we fly it?
The moon.
The moon it is.
Oh, grandma!
Dad! Dad!
Grandma, is that a new car out front?
Ask your father.
Dad, is that our car?!
It sure is. I came home early to surprise you.
Can we take a ride in it?
Well, of course we can.
Where's Anne?
She wanted to stay in this afternoon.
You children go on out and play for a little while.
I'll be out in a few minutes.
Then we'll run down to the soda fountain,
how about that?
(Karen) Wonderful! Come on, Tom.
I'm sorry about Anne.
You've been good to us,
and for us.
Now, don't worry about Anne.
She'll accept me... eventually.
You see, Mr. Rogers,
children are the most complicated things in the world.
I could be the greatest cook in the world,
the finest, most exciting playmate,
the most incredibly interesting companion,
but those are very tiny niches...
A shelf in the stomach, a very small ledge in the brain.
It's the heart I have to enter...
The child's heart...
And this is a deep place, difficult to reach.
But that too will come.
Anne, we're going for a ride.
Will you come with us?
I want to stay home.
I don't want her here.
Anne, you mustn't say that.
I don't want her here!
(Grandma) Do I bother you, Anne?
I never wanted you here.
It was them... father and Tom and Karen.
They wanted you, but I didn't.
They needed you, but I never needed you.
(Father) Anne.
But it's true.
You sit and you talk to her,
and you eat the food she makes,
and you make bel ieve, fa ther.
Tha t's what? t you do.
You make bel/eve
as if it werea game.
As if she were real.
But she's not real.
She's a machine.
Nothing but an old machine!
Anne. Anne, you'd be surprised, my dear,
how much a machine can do
besides playing and cooking.
This machine, for example... This machine can love.
Love? Love who?
You, Anne.
I can love you, and I do.
I love you more than...
More than tongue can tell.
You don't love me.
You can't.
She said she loved me.
She?
My mother.
She said, "I love you,"
but she lied.
She lied!
And you're like her.
I hate her, and I hate you!
She's run away before.
I'll go after her.
There's no place for her to go.
No place to go, except to me.
Anne.
Get away.
You're just old junk.
Anne, why do you hate me?
Because you're like her.
Your mother.
I hate her!
Why do you ha te her, Anne?
Because.
Because?
Because she lied.
She said she loved me.
Didn't she?
Sh e ran away.
Ran away?
[Weeping] She left me!
You mean... she died.
No!
You mean she died.
Yes.
But she let herself die.
She shouldn't have done that to me!
She shouldn't! She left me!
She left me.
Anne!
Anne, darling, don't cry, don't cry.
Take it easy, take it easy.
Anne. Anne, look!
Look, she's...
(Anne, off) You 're just old junk.
Old junk!
Getaway. Getaway.
Old junk.
Old junk!
That's my voice.
Your voice, Anne.
Grandma. Grandma, you're alive!
Alive.
But the car.
Nothing can hurt me.
Then you're not like mother?
In this way, no.
You can't run away?
I can't. I won't.
You'll never die?
Never.
Oh, grandma.
Your mother died too
when you were young.
How did you know that?
Did you ever forgive her for running away like that
and never coming back?
No, I never did.
Anne...
Now, she'll be all right.
She had nowhere to turn.
She was afraid that aunt nedra and everybody would run away
and Lea ve her alone.
Everyone except you.
That's my job: To live forever.
Now, let us all go home
and fin/sh our lunch.
(Grandma) Last one home is an old maid.
(Both girls) An old maid?
[Chuckles]
Hey, dad, are we going to be old maids?
Not on your tintype.
(Narrator) As of this moment,
the wonderful electric grandmother
moved into the lives of children and fa ther.
She became integral and important.
She became the essence.
As of this moment,
they'd never see lightning,
never hear poetry read, never listen to foreign tongues
without thinking of her.
Everything they would ever see, hear, taste, feel
would rem/nd them of her.
She was all life, and all life was wondrous, quick, electrical...
I ike gra ndma.
Thank you, Tom.
We're going to miss you, grandma.
And I you.
More than tongue can tell.
Why do you have to leave?
You're going off to college now,
you won't need me.
That's the way it should be.
I'm not the world.
The world's out there, and it needs you.
What's gonna happen to you now, grandma?
[Sigh]
I'll go back to...
Facsimile limited, "I sing the body electric",
and be sent out to help raise another family like yourselves
or perhaps... I'll be taken apart, redistributed.
They won't des tro y you?
Oh, no, darling.
My mind... my soul,
you might say, will go for a while
into a room of voices.
A room of voices?
A great, dim room where the minds and souls
of all the other mechanical grandmothers
are brought and stored for a month or a year.
And in that room, we'll talk to each other,
and we'll tell what we learned from the world
and from the families we lived with.
And I'll tell what I learned from Anne...
And Karen... and Tom.
But you taught us.
Do you really think I learned nothing
from you in return?
Everything you ever said or did,
everything you ever laughed or cried about,
I'll share with the other machines
in the room of voices, and someday...
Someday what, grandma?
For a reasonable creatu re,
I have an unreasonable dream.
Someday, after 300 years,
if I'm very wise and very good,
perhaps I'll gain the greatest gift of all: Life.
Oh, grandma, you don't have to wait.
You've always been alive to us.
I'll get it, grandma.
No, no, no, now.
Do me a favor, would you?
Go on upstairs.
I've never been one for good-byes.
I'm a silly, sentimental, old grandmother,
but I want to take with me the past.
Now, go ahead. Quickly.
But, grandma...
Darling, go on. That's fine.
Quickly. There.
Run on.
Go on.
(Narrator) A fable? Mostassuredl y.
But who's to say a t some distant moment,
there might be an assembl y line producing a gentle product
in the form of a grandmother, whose stock in trade is love.
Fable? Sure.
But who's to sa y?
(Male presenter) Rod serl/ng, crea Tor of the twilight zone,
will tell you about next week's story
after this message.
And now, Mr. Serl/ng.
Next week on the twilight zone, two incredibly talented people
join forces to show us what happens
when an accident-prone, discombobulated lady
with six thumbs and two left feet
meets a hapless guardian angel
who knows more about martinis than miracles.
Miss Carol Burnett and Mr. Jesse white.
They're the chief ingredients to a very funny stew.
Next week, ca vender is coming.
(Male presenter) For america to fl 0 wer in spirit and intellec t,
we need more and better college facilities.
Help the college of your choice.