Episode no. Season 5
Episode 13 Written by Earl Hamner, Jr. Production code 2623 | Directed by Alan Crosland, Jr. Featured music stock Original air date December 27, 1963 | |
"Ring-a-Ding Girl" is episode 133 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on December 27, 1963 on CBS.
Contents
Plot
Bunny Blake is a movie star. Her hometown fan club sends her a ring, in which she sees her sister imploring Bunny to come home. Though she has been hired to make a movie in Rome, Bunny takes a plane from Los Angeles and arrives at her hometown, Howardsville, Virginia. She tells her manager that her loyalty is still to her town since they all chipped in to help her go to Hollywood. She surprises her sister, Hildy, and Bud, her nephew, by this impromptu visit. After seeing a vision of an old friend, the town doctor, Bunny seems weak and the same doctor is called upon. He is also the chairman/organizer for annual founder's day picnic, which happens to be on the same day of Bunny's visit. Bunny requests that he postpone the entire event so that she can see her friends in more personal settings, but he refuses and interprets her request as a sign that she has been spoiled by her Hollywood lifestyle.
Against the doctor's orders that she rest, Bunny insists upon accompanying Bud when he goes to get her prescription. On the way they stop by her old school to meet the keeper, who she asks to leave the school gates open. She then goes to the local TV station for an impromptu interview. In the interview, she announces a one-woman show in the high school gymnasium for the same time as the picnic. When the host points out the conflict, she flippantly says the people will enjoy her show more. Both the keeper and host appeared in visions in her ring, asking her to save them. She also sees images of a jetliner and its passengers, including her manager.
Hildy accuses Bunny of "showing off" by forcing the town to choose between seeing her or attending the annual founder's day picnic. Bunny insists that she loves the town and its people and is using her show as a way of thanking them. Hildy first says that she and Bud are going to the picnic, but on reconsideration sees that the matter is genuinely important to Bunny and agrees to attend her show instead. As they are about to leave for the performance, it begins to rain. They hear sirens and rush to look out the window. Bunny sees herself in the ring, on the jetliner. She hugs her slightly bewildered sister. A breaking news flash comes on over the radio, and while Hildy and Bud are listening to the first reports of an airplane crash, Bunny goes outside in the rain and disappears.
A police officer calls to inform Hildy that Bunny is among the deceased passengers on the plane. The radio news anchor confirms that Bunny was on the plane, while stating that several townspeople claimed to have seen her that day. The anchorman notes that many of the townspeople were in the auditorium waiting to see Bunny's show, and that they would have died had they gone to the picnic, on the grounds of which the jetliner crashed. Hildy finds Bunny's ring, which had fallen to the floor, is now chipped and charred.