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Over the course of its legendary run, The Twilight Zone (airing regularly on SYFY) brought us all manner of strange creatures and effects, from gremlins on plane wings to miniature spacemen to, of course, pig-faced surgeons. It’s a show full of inventive visual and auditory effects, and that was part of the show almost from the beginning.
In Season 1, you can find all sorts of fun Twilight Zone creatures lurking to toy with creator Rod Serling‘s human characters, but one in particular stands out for our purposes right now: a talking slot machine. So, how did the show’s crew pull it off? It has to do with a police escort, a couple of speakers, and a talented voice actor. Let’s take a closer look.
How The Twilight Zone made a talking slot machine for “The Fever”
In “The Fever,” Everett Sloane stars as Franklin, a penny-pinching man who’s reluctantly dragged along after his wife (Vivi Janiss) wins a trip to Las Vegas. Determined to avoid gambling at all costs, Franklin is nevertheless tempted when a stranger gives him a silver dollar and points him toward a classic “one-arm bandit” slot machine. When he pulls the lever, Franklin is surprised to find he’s won a little money, and tries to make that the end of things. Then the slot machine starts calling his name, tormenting him in the night, and turning the money he’s won into a sickness from which he can’t escape.
It’s a simple metaphor for gambling addiction, but it works quite well because of Sloane’s performance and, of course, because of the conceit of a talking slot machine. According to Marc Scott Zicree’s book The Twilight Zone Companion, the first challenge in pulling the effect off was simply getting a slot machine in the door, because at the time they were illegal in California. Things were so particular when it came to acquiring one that the crew had to get it from a police impound, and a police officer had to be present the entire time the machine (and its brothers, also loaned out to complete the casino set) was on loan, lest anyone make off with it and try to set up their own illegal gambling operation.
But how to make the machine start talking? The production team, headed by Buck Houghton, decided the best effect would be to mimic the sound of coins clinking as they came out of the machine’s pay slots, so they recorded audio of “hundreds of dimes and quarters” sliding down a metal chute to mimic the slot machine’s natural sound.
Then, the machine had to actually talk, which presented another challenge. To pull it off, Houghton and the crew strapped a pair of speakers around the neck of a voice actor (who goes unnamed in Zicree’s book), facing in, then played the sound of coins through them. This meant that the speakers would pour the coin sound into the actor’s throat, and when he opened his mouth, that same sound would come out of his mouth. The actor could then form words with his lips and tongue, and the sound coming from the speakers would do the rest. The effect is undeniably creepy, especially when Franklin starts to hear the machine screaming his name from outside his hotel room door.
The Twilight Zone airs regularly on SYFY. Check the Schedule for listings.
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