An Original Prop From The Twilight Zone Had Bill Mumy Cringing In Disgust
"I'll make him dead now. I'm tired of playing with him. Be dead. Gopher, you be dead!"
This is maybe one of the most chilling lines of dialogue to come from any episode of "The Twilight Zone." The line is spoken by the young Anthony Fremont (Bill Mumy) in the episode "It's a Good Life" when he is discovered playing with a gopher outside of his house. He plays with a gopher, then kills it when he gets bored. The adult witnessing Anthony's violence merely says that what he did was just fine and that everyone loves him. It seems that Anthony, through some cosmic twist of fate, has been blessed with godlike powers. And what would the world look like when an eight-year-old is not beholden to any rules and can kill without consequences?
Of course, Anthony doesn't kill out of spite or rage, but out of a childlike need to keep everything happy and beatific. Anyone expressing unhappy thoughts is wished away "into the cornfield." The adults in his life, meanwhile, live in mortal fear of Anthony's caprices, doing everything they can to keep him content and distracted. It's hell.
The gopher appears in the very first scene of the episode, and Anthony proudly announces that he idly made a gopher with three heads. The gopher doesn't get a glory shot from the episode's director James Sheldon, but one can briefly see Mumy holding its tail. In a 2019 interview with the New York Post, Mumy admitted that, back when he filmed the episode, the gopher prop was utterly revolting. From the description, it was hairy in a disturbing sort of way.
Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Props
Mumy, of course, had a prolific career as a child actor having appeared in three episodes of "The Twilight Zone," not to mention a regular role on the sci-fi series "Lost in Space." He also appeared on "Bewitched," "The Munsters," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and many others. As an adult, Mumy was a regular on "Babylon 5," and has played over a dozen notable voice roles besides. Fans of novelty music will know him as one-half of the musical duo Barnes & Barnes.
In the Post interview, Mumy said he recalled having a good time on "The Twilight Zone." Rod Serling, he remembered, was a light presence on the set who didn't interfere with production too much. "You caught him in that black suit," he said, "but he didn't feel like a black suit kind of guy." He remembers Serling re-writing a key monologue in the episode "Long Distance Call" at the last minute, improving a scene right in front of his eyes.
Mumy, however, was not so keen on the rubber gopher he had to handle on the set of "It's a Good Life." One can kind of see Mumy's disgust on camera. It might be safe to say that was not one of Mumy's happier "Zone" memories. He said:
"There's a scene at the beginning of 'It's a Good Life' where Anthony has made a three-headed gopher and he's holding it up and playing with it. It was so repellent to me — it was a legitimate prop; it was rubbery and had skin peeling off of it and was a disgusting prop. I remember shooting that [scene] and just grimacing, like 'Oh God, do I have to hold this!'"
Gross.
Otherwise, it was a good life.