What You Need

Encyclopedia : W : WH : WHA : What You Need

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'The Twilight Zone'' original series Season one (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5)' Fall 1959 – Summer 1960 List of The Twilight Zone'' episodes

Episodes: Where Is Everybody? One for the Angels Mr. Denton on Doomsday The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine Walking Distance Escape Clause The Lonely Time Enough at Last Perchance to Dream Judgment Night And When the Sky Was Opened What You Need The Four of Us Are Dying Third from the Sun I Shot an Arrow Into the Air The Hitch-Hiker The Fever The Last Flight The Purple Testament Elegy Mirror Image The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street A World of Difference Long Live Walter Jameson People Are Alike All Over Execution The Big Tall Wish A Nice Place to Visit Nightmare as a Child A Stop at Willoughby The Chaser A Passage for Trumpet Mr. Bevis The After Hours The Mighty Casey A World of His Own

“What You Need” is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.

Details Episode number: 12 Season: 1 Production code: 173-3622 Original air date: December 25, 1959 Writer: Rod Serling adapted from the story of the same name by Lewis Padgett (pseudonym for Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore), first published in the October 1945 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction Director: Alvin Ganzer Producer: Music: Original score by Nathan Van Cleave

Cast

• Fred Renard: Steve Cochran
• Pedott: Ernest Truex

Synopsis

Pedott, a salesman, has the curious ability to give people exactly what they need before they need it. The old peddler enters a cafe where he first gives a woman a vial of cleaner. Then, he gives a down-on-his-luck ex-baseball player bus tickets. The ball player receives a job offer in the city the tickets are for; and the ball player needs his jacket cleaned, which the woman just happens to have. Renard, a two-bit thug, asks Pedott to give him what he needs, and the peddler gives him a pair of scissors which save Renard's life when his tie gets caught in an elevator's doors. Renard shows up at Pedott's apartment asking for another thing he "needs," and the peddler comes up with a leaky pen that predicts a winning racehorse. But Renard then starts threatening Pedott to give him more. Sensing Renard will eventually kill him, Pedott gives him a pair of new shoes. When a car suddenly heads directly toward Renard, he tries to run, but the new soles are so slippery he cannot escape on the wet pavement. He is struck and killed. The shoes were what Pedott needed.

Trivia

• Original story featured a machine that could foretell an individual's probable future. Serling replaced this science-fiction element with a street peddler who could magically perform the same function.

• The last scene before the first commercial is actually shot backwards, as one can see the smoke returning to Renard's cigarette.

• Difference between one's wants and needs -- what Renard "needed", Pedott cannot supply: "serenity, peace of mind, humor, ability to laugh at one's self".

External link

• [TV.com episode page]

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

Twilight Zone links

• The Twilight Zone
• Episode List
• Season 1

 

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