The Shelter
- Episode aired Sep 29, 1961
- TV-PG
- 25m
A dinner party for Bill Stockton's birthday is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare, they turn against the Stockton's, the o... Read allA dinner party for Bill Stockton's birthday is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare, they turn against the Stockton's, the only family that installed a bomb shelter.A dinner party for Bill Stockton's birthday is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare, they turn against the Stockton's, the only family that installed a bomb shelter.
- Boy
- (uncredited)
- Narrator
- (uncredited)
- …
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaEarly in the story, Paul tells the adults that their TV set has gone blank and that the viewers have been told to tune into the CONELRAD stations. CONELRAD - which stood for Control of Electromagnetic Radiation - was a Civil Defense radio system that went into effect on December 10, 1951. Under CONELRAD, most AM radio stations and all FM radio and TV stations in the United States would go off the air in the event of a national emergency. Selected AM stations would then air official information and instructions to the public on the 640 and 1240 frequencies on the AM dial. Radios sold in the United States from 1953 to 1963 were required to display the triangular Civil Defense symbol on their dials at those frequencies. Effective August 5, 1963, CONELRAD was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), under which most AM, FM, and TV stations would remain on the air in the event of an emergency, but would switch over to official news and information. On January 1, 1997, EBS was replaced by the current Emergency Alert System (EAS), which is essentially EBS plus cable TV and satellite TV and radio.
- GoofsThe large jug Bill carries is full of water, then empty.
- Quotes
Jerry Harlowe: Hey that's a great idea, block party, anything to get back to normal, huh?
Dr. Bill Stockton: Normal? I don't know. I don't know what normal is. I thought I did once. I don't anymore.
Jerry Harlowe: I told you we'd pay for the damages, Bill.
Dr. Bill Stockton: Damages? I wonder. I wonder if anyone of us has any idea what those damages really are. Maybe one of them is finding out what we're really like when we're normal; the kind of people we are just underneath the skin. I mean all of us: a bunch of naked wild animals, who put such a price on staying alive that they'd claw their neighbors to death just for the privilege. We were spared a bomb tonight, but I wonder if we weren't destroyed even without it.
I really like the protagonist Bill as he is doing everything he can to keep his own family safe while feeling a little of the pain of his inability to save anyone else. We see slowly but surely the whole neighborhoods civility just crumple as most of them act in fits of desperation even almost resorting to murder.
This is sort of the dark side of humanity but also based on our fear of how little we know about our fellow man, how our own enemy can be our own next door neighbor. There are moments when we here some of them spout out toward each other a few make some racist remarks which I'll admit I found sickening, or even seeing most of them just vandalize Bill's house for no reason not even caring that may'be certain things in the house had some sacred value to them. It just goes to show once again how little we can know about the person living in our neighborhood and talk to; may'be this crisis is what brought out what that person is on the inside all along.
It also shows how heroism has it's limitations. it's true Bill has built a shelter but the Shelter isn't big enough nor have enough provisions to support 30 or even 100 people so he's not Noah. Bill isn't being selfish as he does think about all the others but he has to think about protecting the people he loves even more and making sure that his own son at least has a future. And it's mentioned Bill is a Doctor but even Doctors lose patients sometimes; it's true that his job is to save lives but it's not to save every ones lives because logically it's impossible, you can try but it most of the time but usually it does no good.
It's not going to be the bombs that will strike first it's going to be ourselves.
Rating: 4 stars
- hellraiser7
- Jan 10, 2017
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1