Enter the comedy zone with Carol Burnett as she discovers it's a wonderful life after all ... once she meets her guardian angel.
The Twilight Zone, Episode #101: "Cavender Is Coming" (original air date May 25, 1962)
The Plot: Bent over, Agnes Grep (Carol Burnett) gets her behind slammed by a door as the episode begins. Moving to a celestial setting, we meet cigar-smoking apprentice angel Harmon Cavender (Jesse White), who is given "one more chance" to earn his wings by an older angel called Chief. Cavender must 'improve the lot' of Agnes, put on Earth with "two left feet," and he has just 24 hours to accomplish his mission or face the prospect of reclassification.
Agnes has begun a new job as an usher at a movie theater, where she must learn a bewildering array of hand signals. She fails, which isn't good, since she's behind on her rent. Enter Cavender, who materializes on the bus on the seat next to Agnes, and offers her whatever she desires. At his urging, he solves her employment troubles and her housing situation by installing her in a beautiful mansion on Sutton Place.
But a huge, glittering party filled with well-dressed guests doesn't make up for the friends Agnes made in her more modest surroundings, and she yearns for her old life ...
The Goods: The penultimate episode of Season 3, "Cavender is Coming" is a rehash of a theme explored in the Season 1 episode "Mr. Bevis," both written by Rod Serling.
But "Cavender is Coming" is more directly indebted to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, what with Cavender needing to earn his wings, and finally telling Agnes, "You are the richest woman I know," which sounds like a direct reference to a line in Wonderful Life, when the younger brother of George Bailey (James Stewart) describes him as "the richest man in town."
Nowadays, the episode plays as a showcase for the slapstick comic abilities of Carol Burnett, featuring her facial mugging and vocal slingshots, accompanied by 'wacky' music cues. Actually, the episode reportedly functioned as a "backdoor" pilot for a comedy series that would have starred Jesse White as Cavender, and it originally played with a laugh track.
Like most of the intentionally comic episodes of TZ written by Serling, the humor is quite broad, though fans of Burnett should have a field day. All others may have their patience tried!
The Trivia: Burnett was on the cusp of full-fledged stardom after years of featured comic performances on The Garry Moore Show. (Before that, she starred on Broadway in "Once Upon a Mattress.") Barely more than two weeks after this episode aired, she teamed with Julie Andrews for the TV special Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, which won two primetime Emmys.
Jesse White became a familiar face (and voice) on TV in a series of commercials for a washing machine, playing the Maytag repairman.
If you look quick, you might recognize Donna Douglas as a debutante at the grand party Cavender throws for Agnes. Douglas gained her own measure of fame as Elly May Clampett on the long-running TV show The Beverly Hillbillies, which began airing less than four months later, in the the fall of 1962.
On the Next Episode: A college professor becomes suicidal after being forced into retirement, feeling that he hasn't made any difference in the world ... until his eyes are opened.
Catching up: Episodes covered by Twitch | Episodes covered by Film School Rejects
We're running through all 156 of the original Twilight Zone episodes, and we're not doing it alone! Our friends at Film School Rejects have entered the Zone as well, only on alternating weeks. So definitely tune in over at FSR and feel free to also follow along on Twitter accounts @ScreenAnarhcy and @rejectnation.