A Penny for Your Thoughts (The Twilight Zone)

"A Penny for Your Thoughts"
	The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 2; Episode 16
Directed by	James Sheldon
Written by	George Clayton Johnson
Featured music	Stock
Production code	173-3650
Original air date	February 3, 1961
Guest appearance(s)
	Dick York; June Dayton; Dan Tobin; Hayden Rorke; Cyril Delevanti; James Nolan;

"A Penny for Your Thoughts" is episode 52 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone, written by George Clayton Johnson. It originally aired on February 3, 1961 on CBS.

Opening narration

Mr. Hector B. Poole, resident of the Twilight Zone. Flip a coin and keep flipping it. What are the odds? Half the time it will come up heads, half the time tails. But in one freakish chance in a million, it'll land on its edge. Mr. Hector B. Poole, a bright human coin - on his way to the bank.

Plot

Hector B. Poole is a sensitive, insecure bank clerk. On the way to work he tosses a coin into a vendor's open box to pay for a newspaper, and it miraculously lands on its edge. Suddenly he can hear other people's thoughts, but at first does not understand that they are not speaking. Distracted, he is nearly hit by a car, and is confused when he hears the driver expressing concern while thinking angrily about Hector's carelessness.

At work, he hears his boss, Bagby, thinking about a weekend affair he is planning with his mistress. Hector also hears the thoughts of Helen Turner, a co-worker who admires him from afar and wishes he would be more assertive. While finalizing the paperwork for a $200,000 loan to a businessman named Sykes, he hears Sykes thinking about using the money for a run at the horse track to win back money he has embezzled from his company. Hector challenges Sykes, who accuses him of lying and withdraws his business from the bank, to Bagby's annoyance. Despite this embarrassment, Hector finally summons the courage to talk to Helen. When one of Poole's coworkers thinks inappropriate thoughts about her, Hector pours water on his head.

Next Hector hears an old, trusted employee, Smithers, thinking about how he will steal cash from the bank and escape to Bermuda. He takes Helen fully into his confidence; she doesn't believe in his powers, but urges him to tell Bagby about Smithers. Hector does, saying he overheard Smithers talking about the theft; incredulous at first, Bagby decides the story is plausible enough to try catching Smithers in the act. Smithers proves to be innocent, and Bagby fires Hector. Smithers then privately admits to Poole that he has fantasized for years about just such a theft as an escape from his dead-end job, but is too set in his ways to go through with it.

Hector vents his unhappiness to Helen: being able to read minds has taught him more than he wanted to know about the disconnect between people's thoughts and their actions. Bagby learns that Sykes has been arrested for gambling with company money, and offers to reinstate Hector. At Helen's telepathic prompting, Hector says he deserves to become accounts manager instead, but Bagby resists. Hector then blackmails Bagby using his knowledge of the man's adultery; he gets his promotion and also insists on a Bermuda vacation for Smithers at the bank's expense.

After work, as Hector returns home with Helen (for the first time calling her by her first name), he returns to the newsstand, where his coin is still standing. Buying an afternoon paper, he knocks it over, and then finds his mind-reading ability gone. However, he doesn't need it anymore, as he is a man changed for the better, with a new job, a girlfriend, and a new-found confidence in himself.

Closing narration

One time in a million, a coin will land on its edge, but all it takes to knock it over is a vagrant breeze, a vibration, or a slight blow. Hector B. Poole, a human coin, on edge for a brief time - in the Twilight Zone.

Cast

Dick York as Hector B. Poole
June Dayton as Helen Turner
Dan Tobin as Mr. Bagby
Hayden Rorke as Mr. Sykes
Cyril Delevanti as Mr. Smithers
James Nolan as Mr. Brand
Frank London as The Driver
Anthony Ray as The Paperboy
Patrick Waltz as The Security Guard

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

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The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"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"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"