The Twonky - 1953

The Twonky - Released June 10, 1953. Directed by Arch Oboler

A living television takes over the life of a University Professor (Hans Conried) when his wife leaves on a trip and he is left alone to care for himself. As the television set takes on household duties and consumes the decisions and actions of the increasingly frightened man, it also lectures him and sends electrical "zaps" at him if he smokes or drinks alcohol.

Laced with a lot of humor and a Twilight Zone sense of unreality, The Twonky is an early jab at describing the totalitarian results from lighted electronic entertainment devices. To emphasize the power being expanded by the TV set in The Twonky, this sentient machine marches about listening to martial music, can literally generate money when needed, fights away distracting people from the professor's life, and most worrying of all believes itself entitled to rule everything within its reach.

A low budget and a lack of cinematic structure hurts the film, but Hans Conried and the rest of the cast (including William Lynn, Janet Warren and Gloria Blondell) make it work efficiently and quickly with their funny character portraits. The writing is the high point of The Twonky, and though it is sometimes is like a comedy sketch that goes on a bit too long, there is an actual horror and sci-fi mentality down among the words about a future in which technology runs amok and challenges the limits put upon it by human beings struggling to stay dominate.

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