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This episode is a bona fide claustrophobic nightmare. 'It's A Good Life' will never lose it's impact. Future viewers will be as unable to look away from this crazy, compelling piece of horror as I was. Without doubt one of the great episodes. If you have not seen this one I suggest you do something about it at the first opportunity. The cast are excellent at maintaining the vice-like gripping atmosphere. Chloris Leachman plays the little monster's mother well, but I particularly liked Don Keefer as Dan Hollis. One of the many strengths of The Twilight Zone was the fact that such a weird scenario as this one can convey such a sense of truth. The message here is enigmatic, but I take it to be about dictators and an evaluation of life under a tyrant's regime. See what you think?

I certainly cannot agree with the previous poster who found this episode partly humorous-- in fact, this is one of the few almost unbearably frightening Twilight Zone shows. A young boy's power to control his community through his childish whims is an excellent allegory of the power of any dictator. I imagine that office holders in North Korea spend most of their day saying something similar to "it's good that you did that." This episode powerfully portrays unchecked narcissism. I do agree that the "special effects" version in the Twilight Zone movie is inferior, not only because it is overproduced but because the little boy is presented as brilliant and perhaps even redeemable.

For my money, Bill(y) Mumy was the best child actor of all time. His performance here is flawless. He was no more than 7 years old at the time, and he's as good or better than all the adult actors. My initial exposure to Mumy was Will Robinson on Lost in Space-where he was always good and noble. In this TZ episode, he makes me genuinely dislike his character. He plays a "monster" who can read minds and invoke any kind of havoc at will. But, it's good that he can do this...it's real good.

Top shelf episode for sure. Billy Mumy was quite the child actor. I've been rewatching Lost in Space as well, and was amazed to see him in an early episode with a minute plus dialog heavy scene all by himself. But that would be at least five years later.

This is remarkably effective horror that remains absolutely effective.

I do wonder if Mumy fully understood the script. The line about having to make someone "go on fire" is subtly horrific.

Update: there's a copy of the script online, and indeed the "go on fire" bit was written longer and speaks of the man on fire running through the fields screaming. I wonder if they shortened because just how young Mumy was, or maybe it was thought too horrific for TV.

Whatever the reason, I think the short version they used was more effective because it seems more ominous.

I guess the decade you were born in also plays an important role to determine the time frame of your first acquaintance with this downright legendary & monumental "Twilight Zone" episode. People born in the fifties & early sixties had the pleasure of witnessing the original. People born in the seventies might had to settle for the revised version in the 1983 homage/anthology film. Then, there's people born in the 1980s, like me, and we first got acquainted with the bizarre tale via The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror special! I remember first seeing that odd episode, with Bart as a paranormally gifted child and Homer turning into a Jack-in-the-Box, and thinking it was the most unusual thing. Back then, I had no idea it was a giant tribute to "The Twilight Zone", but the atmosphere and the nature of the plot was already remarkable enough to qualify as one of the more unsettling and thought-provoking TV-moments of my youth.

"It's a Good Life" isn't necessarily the greatest TZ-episode, or at least not in the humble opinion of yours truly, but the atmosphere of creepiness and dread are unequaled, for sure! The fear in the adults' eyes and voices when confronted with the unpredictable 6-year-old Anthony Fremont and his mental powers is palpable. Even the parents are terrified of their son who can unleash horrendous "punishment" upon those who disapprove of his policy of exclusively expressing happy thought, or even THINK differently. Jerome Bixby's short story is uniquely fit for the "Twilight Zone" treatment, and the competent cast (including the always-reliable Cloris Leachman) do the rest.

The lack of wisdom of a child with great power is, indeed scary.

I first watched this as a six year old and it scared me, I watched it again as a 60+ year old and it is more scary because I feel it reflects some of the recent behaviors of 20+ year olds. Even at my young age I recognized the horror. To see something so scary now reflected in real life is beyond scary. This is one of the few episodes that I never forgot and that is definitely meaningful in a horrifying way.

No need to recap the plot. As I recall, this oddball episode created a stir from the outset. It's a tricky premise, making a kid the demonic villain. I'm guessing that had not The Bad Seed (1956) been a movie success with its wicked little girl, this premise would never have flown. Credit the cast for making it fly despite the questionable material. Little Mumy is perfect with his impish face and searing glare. I expect the role has followed him for a lifetime. Then too, there's the bevy of adults cowering in his presence, where everything evil he does is "good". Seeing the brawny John Larch quaking in his son's presence is especially unnerving. On the other hand, I wish they had held the Jack-in-the-Box frame a little longer so it could soak in. Still, having it flit by has its own brand of nightmarish impact. Anyway, the premise was a daring one for its time, as Serling's extended prolog suggests. Nonetheless, as the half-hour's lasting reputation shows, the effort succeeded, and in spades.

This series is the best show to ever air on television. I have seen every episode many times over the years and I never tire of them. I was born 3 years after the series ended so I was never able to have the thrill of anticipating the new episode that would air every week. Cable reruns and marathons over the years were cherished and now I have the luxury of having it any time on Paramount+.

This episode frightens me to this day. The more I see it (well, any episode), the more it ingrains itself into my psyche. It creates more and more existential thinking which makes it all the more unsettling.

Imagine your life depending on having ONLY "good" thoughts about someone. Our brains do not work that way. We couldn't function if we had to think this way. Our entire life would have to revolve around us obsessively chanting the good thoughts. Whether you did it in your mind or verbally, it's impossible!!! Even if we are concentrating on a task, our mind still wanders and is constantly processing, thinking, planning, daydreaming, etc. We are not computers. No human, especially those in Anthony's universe, could do this. While you are telling yourself to think a certain way, you are alternately screaming all the bad things you are NOT suppose to think about, plus what you need to pick up for dinner and trying to remember if you paid the electric bill. In Anthony's world, you would be burned alive or in the cornfield before you went insane.

I imagine what happens in the cornfield, (even worse than what Stephen King came up with and I'm sure the Chicago Black Sox won't be meeting up to have a pick up baseball game!), eventually running out of food and supplies and having to prepare to live off the land, the stress of helping others to be mindful of the rules, etc.

The actors did an amazingly convincing portrayal of their characters. The agonizing fear and dispair was palpable. Dan Hollis's tyrade should have caused them all to be punished because you know they instinctively agreed with him in their mind. The parents likely were emotionally and psychologically tortured by the thought that their child was evil and wished they could send him to the cornfield. Horrifying things to think about!!!!

I did see someone mention the TZ Movie version. The only part about that vignette I liked was the irony that Nancy Cartwright is banished into the TV to be tortured by a cartoon monster!!!!!

This episode is based on a short science fiction story by Jerome Bixby. When I started watching the episode, I immediately recalled having read the story in a collection of classic science fiction short stories. It is based on the premise that a baby with powerful mental powers is born in a small farming community. In the original story, the physician attending the birth immediately recognizes the baby's power and tries to kill him. However, the baby also has enormous instincts for self-preservation and kills the doctor and somehow isolates the community from the rest of the world and perhaps universe. It is never resolved whether the baby simply deleted the rest of the world (universe) or somehow transported the community away from the rest of the world. The boy (Anthony Fremont) is now six years old and there are apparently few people left in the community. Everyone, and that includes his parents, is terrified of him. He has the normal inability of a six-year-old in separating his wishes from the reality of others. He can, with a simple thought, end a life, change the weather or make a television work without electricity. The community is completely cut off from everything else, so they must produce their food and make do with the other diminishing resources. Anthony is capable of reading thoughts and detecting disapproval, so everyone must always tell him that what he has done is good, even when someone is killed. Other than his incredible power, Anthony is a normal six-year-old with the emotional immaturity and impulsiveness. It is a powerful episode with the moral ambiguity of perhaps killing a dangerous child. Fans of the original Star Trek series will no doubt recognize the seeds for the episode, "Charlie X." When Charlie is being taken away, Captain Kirk is told, "He would destroy you or force you to destroy him in order to save yourselves." It is clear that the people around Anthony are in the same position, for it is likely he will get worse if they survive until he reaches adolescence.

It's a Good Life is one of the best known episodes of The Twilight Zone - and for good reason, as it's easily one of the best episodes of the classic TV show. Of course, the great parody that The Simpsons did of it contributes to its well-known status, but there's far more here than merely a base for a 'Treehouse of Horror' segment. We are introduced to a little town; a town with no cars, no machines and it's in a world with no cities or other settlements. We are told that this town is the victim of a monster who controls it with his mind - and just wait until you see who the monster is! The best episodes of The Twilight Zone are the ones that combine mystery with intrigue and ingenuity; thus making this one of the best episodes. It's a Good Life is also very humorous, and when the characters say everything is 'good', it's hard not to at least crack a smile. There isn't a great deal of 'bite' in this episode, as it mainly concentrates on the implications of the storyline, and it's mostly dialogue based; but it doesn't matter because the words uttered are always entertaining and overall; this is a major success.

Bill Mumy plays Anthony Fremont, an ordinary-looking boy who in reality is anything but, since little Anthony is in fact a monster, a kid with omnipotent powers who has removed his town of Peaksville Ohio from the world, and re-located somewhere else, holding the residents in a state of perpetual fear, as they must think happy thoughts and say good things that Anthony likes, or he will send them to the cornfield, which is presumably death. Even his parents(played by John Larch & Cloris Leachman) are terrified of him, and await the day someone has the courage to kill him... Famous episode is certainly distinctive and memorable, though also nihilistic, with little point behind it, other than this is perhaps the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone...

This brilliant, outlandish plot shows a small, goofy faced boy terrorizing a town with supernatural psychic abilities. He can cook, maime ," jack n a box" a man ,simply with his thoughts. How outrageous.... What in the world ?...Everyone afraid of damage by a small child.... That's insane, ,,or is it ...??....... Thats the genius aspect of this piece, it's not just a regular story, but an allegory, and shows a parallel to the power a kid can get if we let him, if we "empower " him , if we believe him in a "kids never lie" no matter what social milieu. The brat is played well by a larval Billy Mummy, who went on to puzzle and annoy audiences alike with such cheezenoids as "Lost in Space" later in the 60s. . In this piece he lives in a little hick town, and his parents and everyone else is afraid he is going to put them in his sites, and cook them into a briquette, or worse.....He doesn't like noise or singing or a lot of things, so they walk on eggshells trying to keep him happy. I give this episode a ten, and I don't even give tens. It's not so much that the boy is a pariah, but in a way, he is also a profit...... I think Rod Serling had a little look into the future in this one. The way people tiptoe around the kid was filmed in 1962, but is SO 2019. In an era when an adult male coach is likely to hear from a six year old : "I can get you in trouble by just saying you touched me, NA NANA NA NA..." It looks exactly like parents, teachers and adults today who coddle and cater to kids, for fear oof getting sued, accused of abuse or worse. The way they tell Mummy "oh you are wonderful, everything you do is great " will ring familiar to anyone who has observed parent/child interaction in this day and age. In the age of paranoia an fear, in the "For the Children" era...Isn't it a good life ?

A well written episode in that its interesting and authentic. However, the kid is annoying and the problem could be solved if everyone got together and did something about him.