The Bewitchin' Pool

"**The Bewitchin' Pool**"
"The Bewitchin' Pool"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 5; Episode 36
Directed by	Joseph M. Newman
Written by	Earl Hamner Jr.
Featured music	stock cues by; Bernard Herrmann; Jerry Goldsmith; Lucien Moraweck; Nathan Van Cleave; Lyn Murray
Production code	2619
Original air date	June 19, 1964
Guest appearances
	Mary Badham as Sport Sharewood; June Foray as Sport Sharewood (voice, outdoor scenes); Kim Hector as Whitt; Dee Hartford as Gloria Sharewood; Jeffrey Byron as Jeb Sharewood; Georgia Simmons as Aunt T; Tod Andrews as Gil Sharewood
Episode chronology
← Previous; "The Fear"	Next →; —
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 5)
	List of episodes

"The Bewitchin' Pool" is the 156th and last episode of the first incarnation of the American anthology television series The Twilight Zone. ("Come Wander with Me", however, was the final episode to be filmed.) It originally aired on June 19, 1964 on CBS.

Opening narration

Right before the end of the introduction, as in a typical episode, Rod Serling appears on-screen and says:

A swimming pool not unlike any other pool, a structure built of tile and cement and money, a backyard toy for the affluent, wet entertainment for the well-to-do. But to Jeb and Sport Sharewood, this pool holds mysteries not dreamed of by the building contractor, not guaranteed in any sales brochure. For this pool has a secret exit that leads to a never-neverland, a place designed for junior citizens who need a long voyage away from reality, into the bottomless regions of the Twilight Zone.

After the opening credits are finished rolling, Serling, in voice-over, says:

Introduction to a perfect setting: Colonial mansion, spacious grounds, heated swimming pool. All the luxuries money can buy. Introduction to two children: brother and sister, names Jeb and Sport. Healthy, happy, normal youngsters. Introduction to a mother: Gloria Sharewood by name, glamorous by nature. Introduction to a father: Gil Sharewood, handsome, prosperous, the picture of success. A man who has achieved every man's ambition. Beautiful children, beautiful home, beautiful wife. Idyllic? Obviously. But don't look too carefully, don't peek behind the façade. The idols may have feet of clay.

Plot

Sport Sharewood and her younger brother Jeb live in a large, expensive house, but their parents are cold, ill-tempered, self-centered, and constantly bickering with each other.

While Sport and Jeb are sitting beside their swimming pool, Whitt, a young boy in a straw hat, pops up from the deep end of the pool and invites them to follow him. The children dive underwater only to come back up in a swimming hole bordering a rustic, simple homestead, with an assortment of children playing in the yard. In contrast to their lavish home of neglect and insults, they are welcomed and loved from the moment they arrive at this humble children's paradise. There is only one adult there, "Aunt T" (pronounced "auntie"), a kind and patient elderly woman who loves children. She explains that she has many children there who came from parents who did not deserve them.

Sport and Jeb go home, for fear that their parents will be worried. "Aunt T" advises them that they likely will not be able to return as few children can find their way back. But Jeb later returns to Aunt T's, and Sport is sent by her mother to go and find him because she has something to tell them about some decisions that are made that will make all their lives better. Sport finds Jeb at Aunt T's but he refuses to go back. Sport convinces him by telling him that their mother has promised everything will be better; he reluctantly agrees to return with her. Back home, their parents inform them they are planning to divorce and they must decide which parent they will live with. The children refuse and run back outside and dive back into the pool; when they do not reemerge, their father jumps in to rescue them, but discovers they have disappeared.

Sport and Jeb are able to escape and are now happily living with Aunt T. Sport hears the distant voice of her mother but ignores it and focuses on her new life.

Closing narration

A brief epilogue for concerned parents. Of course, there isn't any such place as the gingerbread house of Aunt T, and we grownups know there's no door at the bottom of a swimming pool that leads to a secret place. But who can say how real the fantasy world of lonely children can become? For Jeb and Sport Sharewood, the need for love turned fantasy into reality; they found a secret place—in the Twilight Zone.

Cast

Mary Badham as Sport Sharewood
June Foray as dubbed voice of Sport Sharewood, in outdoor scenes only
Jeffrey Byron (as Tim Stafford) as Jeb Sharewood
Kim Hector as Whitt
Georgia Simmons as Aunt T
Dee Hartford as Mrs. Gloria Sharewood
Tod Andrews as Mr. Gil Sharewood

Episode notes

This was the final original episode of the original Twilight Zone series to be broadcast, though not the last to be filmed. (The last episode filmed was "Come Wander with Me", while, according to Marc Scott Zicree's "The Twilight Zone Companion", the reediting of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (including the addition of new footage of Serling) was the last episode "produced" before cancellation.^[1] The last episode broadcast during the original run – as a repeat – was "The Jeopardy Room".)

Numerous production problems delayed the premiere of this episode, which was originally scheduled for March 20, 1964. Most noticeably, back-lot noise rendered much of the outdoor dialogue unusable – only the indoor scenes with Aunt T were considered audible. The entire cast (except Aunt T) consequently re-dubbed their outdoor dialogue in September 1963, but Mary Badham's voice was still deemed not right.^[2] Unfortunately, by the time this decision had been made, Badham had returned to her home in Alabama, and the cost of flying her back to Los Angeles to re-record her lines yet again was ruled to be too expensive. Eventually, voice actress June Foray, best known as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel in the Bullwinkle cartoons, and who had voiced Talky Tina in the episode "Living Doll" earlier in the season, dubbed Sport Sharewood's lines for all the scenes that take place outdoors. In the finished episode, the change in Sport's voice is noticeable when she moves indoors, and Badham's own deeper voice and more authentic accent are heard in place of Foray's overdubbed voice characterization.

Another production peculiarity is that "The Bewitchin' Pool'" is the only episode of The Twilight Zone to open with a teaser scene that is repeated in its entirety later in the episode. This opening teaser scene (which is well over two minutes in length) was not included in Earl Hamner's original episode script; it appears to have been included to lengthen the episode after some other footage was dropped. Note that actor Harold Gould is listed in some sources as a cast member for this episode, but does not appear in any capacity in the finished production. (In one account, Gould is given credit for having played a radio announcer, but there is no radio announcer in the actual completed episode.)^[2]

Other re-used footage in the episode includes an identical 10-second shot of Sport and Jeb swimming up to the foot of a tree on two occasions; Sport and Jeb's mother twice telling them in the space of a minute "Darn you loudmouth kids" – using exactly the same footage of her dialogue, as well as of the kids' reaction; and the first and final shots of various children playing in front of Aunt T's house.

Earl Hamner, Jr., got the idea for "The Bewitchin' Pool" while living in the San Fernando Valley region of California and witnessing an alarming divorce rate and the effect it had on children. The episode was one of the first shows on television to really address the problem of divorce and bad parenting, and in part it represents wish fulfillment or escapism for children in such situations.^[2]

References

^ Zicree, Marc Scott (1992). The Twilight Zone Companion. Hollywood, CA: Silman-James Press. ISBN 978-1879505094.
^ ^a ^b ^c Presnell, Don; McGee, Marty (2008). A Critical History of Television's The Twilight Zone, 1959-1964. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-7864-3886-0.

Bibliography

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
Presnell, Don and Marty McGee. (2008). A Critical History of Television’s The Twilight Zone, 1959–1964. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3886-0

External links

"The Bewitchin' Pool" at IMDb

[The_Twilight_Zone_Companion-1] Zicree, Marc Scott (1992). The Twilight Zone Companion. Hollywood, CA: Silman-James Press. ISBN 978-1879505094.

[Critical_History-2] Presnell, Don; McGee, Marty (2008). A Critical History of Television's The Twilight Zone, 1959-1964. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-7864-3886-0.

[1]

[2]

v t e 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"