Professor Kerry West (Hans Conried) is a philosophy teacher. His wife Carolyn (Janet Warren) has purchased a television set on a payment plan. The set was delivered the same day that Carolyn was leaving to be with her sister who was having a baby. Carolyn gives Kerry last minute instructions on how to take care to the house while she is away.
After Carolyn has gone Kerry sits at his desk to write his lecture for his next class. He puts a cigarette in his mouth. Before he can light it an electric charge emanates from the television and lights it for him. Unaware that this has happened he puts the cigarette down and picks up his pipe. Again a flash from the television and the pipe is lit. This gets his attention. Astonished at the event he tries an experiment. Standing in front of the set he puts a cigarette in his mouth and again the television lights it. Then he notices that the set is not plugged in.
When the delivery man for the set comes to the door to collect the first down payment Kerry doesn’t have it. The television manufactures a hundred dollars. Now totally rattled Kerry sits in the kitchen and watches as the television walks around the house performing household chores.
Kerry calls his neighbor Coach Trout (Billy Lynn) to come over. With the coach as witness Kerry has the television walk into the kitchen. After theorizing for awhile, and getting drunk, the Coach calls the television a “Twonky”. He says a Twonky is something that you have no explanation for.
The next day Coach Trout decides that the Twonky is a robot. He also determines that the Twonky serves only one master, Kerry. The Twonky is servant and bodyguard to only Kerry. Kerry just finds the Twonky annoying. Coach tries to demonstrate his theory by trying to kick Kerry. The Twonky freezes his leg. Coach further determines that the Twonky is from the future and has fallen backward through time.
The Twonky is not done creating havoc in Kerry’s life. Besides doing chores and deciding what music Kerry is allowed to listen to the Twonky dabbles in mind control. Anyone that tries to harm the Twonky is temporarily turned into a mindless zombie. An attempt to get the television dealer to take the Twonky back doesn’t work either. Since Carolyn ordered the set, only Carolyn can cancel the deal. Kerry’s life is turned upside down by the Twonky that has invaded his home. Kerry decides that only desperate actions can rid him of this menace.
“The Twonky” was released in 1953 and was directed by Arch Oboler. It is a science fiction/comedy based on a story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. The story was published in “Astounding Science Fiction” magazine under the pseudonym Lewis Padgett. The film was made in 1951 but it wasn’t released until 1953.
The movie is a satirical look at television and its influence on people. Done with a comic flair it still has undertones that bring out questions concerning the disruption of individual freedoms, dependency on technology and manipulation by commercialism. Even in the fifties there were suggestions that television had a negative effect on people. Are you being influenced by what you watch on TV instead of deciding for yourself what you believe and what your values are? Mind control is only one aspect that people point to. The deterioration of the family is another hot button. Is the television your babysitter? Do families not communicate anymore? Does it affect children’s developing brains? Does it promote violence? Does it make you dumber?
These are the same tropes that are brought out for every new technological change or advancement. From comic books to television, to computers and computer games, smart phones and smart everything computerized, each new development or innovation brings on the same old questions. Our dependence on each new gizmo has been a concern since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Coach Trout theorized that the Twonky came from the future. How far in the future? Is the Twonky really your smart phone that communicates with your house and your car? Does it turn on your dish washer, order your groceries and e-mail you to let you know when you need air in your tires? There are over fifty things you can do with your phone. Perhaps most people already have a Twonky.