The Changing of the Guard
- Episode aired Jun 1, 1962
- TV-PG
- 25m
After being forced to retire, Professor Fowler contemplates suicide when he doesn't feel he's made a difference in the world.After being forced to retire, Professor Fowler contemplates suicide when he doesn't feel he's made a difference in the world.After being forced to retire, Professor Fowler contemplates suicide when he doesn't feel he's made a difference in the world.
- Dickie Weiss
- (as Buddy Hart)
- Graham
- (as Bob Biheller)
- Narrator
- (uncredited)
- …
- Boy
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe final Twilight Zone episode where the ending shot rose upward, seeing the setting's higher point replaced by a starlit sky.
- GoofsWhen Professor Fowler is looking out the window listening to the singers, he is wearing glasses in some angles and not wearing glasses in others.
- Quotes
Professor Ellis Fowler: [looking through school yearbook] They all come and go like ghosts. Faces, names, smiles. The funny things they said or the sad things, or the poignant ones. I gave them nothing. I gave them nothing at all. Poetry that left their minds the minute they themselves left. Aged slogans that were out of date when I taught them. Quotations dear to me that were meaningless to them. I was a failure, Mrs. Landers. An abject, miserable failure. I walked from class to class, an old relic, teaching by rote to unhearing ears, unwilling heads. I was an abject, dismal failure. I moved nobody. I motivated nobody. I left no imprint on anybody. Now, where do you suppose I ever got the idea that I was accomplishing anything?
- ConnectionsFeatured in American Masters: Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval (1995)
- SoundtracksIt Came Upon The Midnight Clear
(uncredited)
Lyrics by Edmund Hamilton Sears
Music by Richard Storrs Willis
Performed by Christmas carolers
Donald Pleasence, already one of my favorite actors of all times, is truly genius here. He plays an old man, and yet I think it's the first time - ever - I've seen him with hair. His character, Fowler, supposedly has 51 years of experience as teacher. So, that must make him at least 70 years of age, and yet Pleasence was only 42-year-old when this episode got aired on television. Still, I wouldn't want anyone else to play the lead role in this intelligent, thought-provoking and mesmerizing "Twilight Zone" Christmas Carol.
"Changing of the Guard" made it into my personal top five of the third season, at #4, together with "The Shelter" (#1), "One More Pallbearer" (#2), "To Serve Man" (#3), and "Deaths-Head Revisited" (#5).
- Coventry
- May 24, 2021
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1