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Oh yes, I did forget something, didn't I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster. This is the monster. His name is Anthony Fremont. He's six years old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes. But when those eyes look at you, you'd better start thinking happy thoughts, because the mind behind them is absolutely in charge.
~ Anthony's presentation during the introduction speech by Rod Serling.
You're a bad man!
~ Anthony as he turns Dan Hollis into a jack-in-the-box.

Anthony Fremont is the main antagonist of the short story It's a Good Life, its adaptation in the television series The Twilight Zone in 1961, and the 2003 sequel episode "It's Still a Good Life" which is part of the 2002 second revival series.

He is a three-year-old (six-year-old in the TV adaptation) child with unlimited powers, which he uses to dictate his law to his entire town. He is referred to as a “monster” in the episode’s introduction, highlighting the contrast between his innocuous appearance and nightmarish abilities.

He was portrayed by Bill Mumy in both the original and 2002 series, and by Jeremy Licht in the 1983 movie.

History[]

The short story explains that when Anthony Fremont was born, the obstetrician who helped his mother to give birth screamed and tried to kill him, only for Anthony to kill him by reflex. He was born in the little town of Peaksville, Ohio. Anthony soon displayed unexplained god-like powers, making the life of everyone there a living nightmare.

First, he isolated the entire town and its immediate surroundings from the rest of the world. (Whether the town was removed or the entire world around disappeared is not explained.) Then he banished automobiles, machines and electricity itself, simply because he did not like them, forcing every citizen to work and live in a nearly pre-industrial way. The radios and TV sets still exist but they work only when he wants them to and broadcast only what he wants them to, unleashing his wrath on anyone who does not follow the broadcast with the utmost attention.

He controls the weather and decides everyday what goods are available at the grocery, with goods from before his birth becoming increasingly scarce. Anything and anyone who displeases or annoys him either suffers an awful transformation or is "wished away to the cornfield". In the original story, this meant death and burial in a literal cornfield on his parents' farm. In the Twilight Zone adaptation and sequel, the term is treated as a euphemism for exile to some mysterious other realm, or perhaps simpler and scarier complete erasure from existence.

Powers and Abilities[]

The short story describes Anthony with an "odd shadow" and a "bright, wet purple gaze", hinting a supernatural origin. The worst of all being that how and why he is this way is never explained, to keep the mystery and focus on his monstrosity. In the adaptation, dogs keep barking at him, as if they could sense how eldritch he is.

Anthony is nothing short of omnipotent. He can do absolutely anything, even resurrecting the dead or bending the laws of physic to his will. Apparently, the only things he cannot do is to revert something he did, or make something he does not understand. Whether he would gain better control of his powers by growing up and learning more is left ambiguous, but hinted.

To put it simply, Anthony controls everything, he decides everything, and disapproving or just thinking of something he dislikes is nothing short of a death warrant. Even worse, he automatically reads the minds of everyone around him, forcing anyone coming close to act positive, praise what he is doing and think they are happy all the time, concealing their true feelings as much as they can when this is not the case (which means almost always).

Despite Anthony's nearly absolute power, it is hinted that he is as vulnerable as any child and could be killed, as one of his soon-to-be victims exhorts the crowd to gang up on him while he is focusing on him alone, but people are so terrified that they never dare to. And with his permanent mind-reading, a surprise attack is out of question. The adaptation’s sequel shows him aging like anyone else, hinting that he might die of old age, but whether his reality-warping will be undone after he is gone remains unknown.

The adaptation's sequel shows that Anthony's mind-reading abilities have some limits, as his mother explains that a "mental shield" must be put up in order to ward him off Anthony. In other words, this likely means that Anthony can only read the foremost thoughts in a person's mind, but no further.

Personality[]

Anthony is not malevolent, but rather a capricious and short-tempered boy, who never realizes the full extent of his actions. He is a child, with the same mood-swings and limited grasp of the world than anyone his age. As such, he tends to follow his whims, to consider things from his perspective alone without accounting for anyone else's, to lose interest quickly and to hold childish grudges. But given his incredible power, his whims, grudges and tantrums have much direr consequences than any other child's.

He genuinely likes the townspeople though, and loves his relatives. As long as he is in a good mood, and even when angry sometimes, he does listens to them. In the short story, he earnestly wants people to be happy and tries his best to help them. But since he does not fully understand how the world (let alone other people and society at large) works, it always ends badly. Something atrocious but never described happened when people convinced him to create some goods for the town to use. Even when he does regrets what he has done, he cannot fully undo it, and whenever he tries to, things go awry. The adaptation, however, focuses solely on his worst aspects.

Anthony likes to play with other children, but he often wishes them away when he is done, so no child in town will come near him. He also entertains himself by creating strange creatures, like a three-headed gopher, or more often by transforms existing things or animals to give them a "funnier" appearance. He prefers animals to humans, for they are not scared of him.

Anthony loathes bad thoughts. In the story, he genuinely dislikes people being upset and wants them to feel better, in the adaptation he just cannot stand negativity. He dislikes contradiction, violently lashing out when anger gets the best of him, no matter how much he cared for the person he "punishes". He loved his aunt Amy, who was said to have more control over him than anyone else, but after she got angry that the turned her cat into a monstrosity, he turned her into a mute and nearly vegetative woman. (In the adaptation, he did it when he heard her singing carelessly, as he cannot stand songs.) He later banishes all dogs one by one, as they keep barking at him and he hates their open hostility.

No one is safe from him, even his own family. As such, no one ever dared to scold him, or simply to set some limits or rules for him to follow. Because of this, he always did as he pleases and his development was rather stunned, resulting in a selfish, self-centered and uncaring behavior.

It's a Good Life[]

The Short Story[]

The first part of the short story presents the settings, and the townspeople suffering Anthony Fremont’s tyranny. Later, the Fremonts throw a surprise birthday party for their neighbor, Dan Hollis in their farmhouse. Dan is given a bottle of whisky (from before Anthony's birth, given that he banished alcohol) and a rare record, but they advise him to wait until he is back home, away from Anthony, to play it. At first, Anthony is away from the party, but the guests are still too afraid to play the record and to sing "Happy Birthday", not wanting to attract his attention.

Dan gets drunk and exhorts them to sing, before ranting curses about Anthony and angrily pleading his parents to get rid of him. An angry Anthony then teleports in, having perceived Dan's "bad thoughts" and turns Dan into an unfathomable and indescribable horror, which he then wishes away at the request of the attendance. He then makes it snow because Aunt Amy complained about the heat, which will kill half the crops and risk a famine.

The hapless citizens can only resign themselves to enduring Anthony's tantrums for the rest of their lives.

The Adaptation[]

Anthony monopolizes Dan Hollis' birthday, forcing everyone to watch dinosaurs fighting on the television. Everyone but Anthony finds it boring, but no one dares say so and they congratulate him for making it so much better than before. Anthony then requests that someone play the piano, much to Dan's displeasure.

Punition

"You're a bad man! A very bad man!"

Dan starts drinking and singing "happy birthday" alone, indifferent to Anthony's mounting fury. Unable to silence his thoughts any longer, he openly calls the boy a "monster" and a "murderer". He implores people around to do something and kill Anthony, who is too outraged to register them, but while tempted, Aunt Amy even starting to reach for the fireplace poker, no one dares to make a move.

Livid, Anthony turns Dan into a hideous jack-in-the-box retaining his face, and wishes him to the cornfield upon his father's pleas. In his rage, he causes a snowstorm that destroys most of the crops, much to the townspeople's despair. Everyone is horrified and grieving, but resigned to endure Anthony's rule for the rest of their lives, with his father praising him and adding that "tomorrow's gonna be a... real good day!"

The Twilight Zone sequel[]

I've been around people like you all my life. People who pretend to be my friend - pretend to like me. But you don't like me, do you George? ...Well I don't like you either!
~ Anthony before setting a former friend on fire, then sending him to "the cornfield".
Père et fille tout-puissants

Almighty father, almightier daughter.

In 2002, the revived The Twilight Zone featured a sequel called It's Still a Good Life, with the same actors. It shows a forty-six-years-old Anthony Fremont still dictator of Peaksville, and his even mightier daughter Audrey, played by Bill Mumy’s daughter Liliana. Audrey is able to bring back who and what he erased, although her powers are only revealed near the end.

The three of them live in Anthony's mother Agnes' house. Anthony had wished away even his father, and Agnes understandably grew to loathe her son for taking away everyone and everything she loved.

Even as an adult, Anthony remains capricious, emotionally and socially stunted, controlling and self-centred, being unable to vent out frustrations in a healthy way, though he is a good father to Audrey. Audrey on the other hand is well-adjusted enough, having a loving relationship with Agnes. She strongly wishes to see the outside world that Anthony erased, after Agnes showed her pictures.

Audrey is torn between her father, her friends and her grandmother, whom she all loves dearly. But Anthony is far too protective, setting ablaze her friend Timmy's father after he accidentally made her fall. At the bowling venue, Anthony gets mad at the villagers for always losing on purpose and no longer pretending, but spares them upon Audrey's pleas. Agnes tells her friend Cynthia of her hopes, but he gets suspicious and erases Cynthia's mind.

Anthony gathers everyone at the bowling and erases four people at random to dissuade dissent. Eventually, Agnes vents all her pent-up rage at Anthony and exhorts people to kill him as he is distracted, as Dan Hollis did forty years ago, but Audrey erases someone who was sneaking on him. Agnes tries to push Audrey to vanish her father, but distraught by this betrayal, Audrey erases her and everyone, leaving only herself and Anthony. However, Anthony soon starts feeling lonely, only now realizing the loss he inflicted on people for the first time in his life and ironically learning to fear Audrey like everyone feared him. (Which might be what Audrey intended all along.)

Audrey returns Peaksville to the normal world, though whether everyone and everything Anthony erased is back once again unexplained. She convinces her father to travel around the world with her, starting with New York City, ominously saying that people have better be nice to them or else... Whether Anthony will be able to better reign in his temper remains unknown, but his daughter's influence apparently mellows him out. In addition, whether the two will interact peacefully with the restored world or unleash greater terror is left open to interpretation.

Twilight Zone: The Movie[]

It's a Good Life was re-adapted in the third segment of the 1959 anthology film. Anthony is about nine years old, and he can go outside, limiting his tyranny to a house, and is powers appear to have no limit. Truer to the short story, he is more immature than malevolent, though more collected and insightful, and even portrayed somewhat sympathetically, wanting to make people happy and to be loved. Unfortunately, he horribly mishandles it, imposing his own tastes without being able to fathom that people could have their own.

Anthony Fremont in the movie

Anthony Fremont shows Helen his creepy house.

On the road to a new job, Helen Foley, a young, bored and world-weary schoolteacher meets a boy called Anthony Fremont playing an arcade game in a pub, defending him from an adult bully (whom Anthony never punishes, oddly enough). After accidentally wrecking his bike with her car, she offers to bring him back home.

Anthony lives in a secluded house with his parents, his uncle Walt and his older sisters Ethel and Sara, the latter being crippled and recluse… (In truth, Anthony vanished her mouth for yelling at him.) It soon becomes clear that something is wrong. The house seems normal, but every room has a TV set showing endless cartoons. The upper floor is colourless, maze-like and bigger that it should be, and displays an ominous picture of a faceless family, in fact Anthony's real family he erased after they tried to dispose of him. Just like the original, Anthony's family cannot express bad thoughts, lest he perceives them and punishes them. They are his prisoners, too afraid of his awful temper and powers to try and rein him in.

Helen is invited to dinner, consisting in junk-food and sweets which she mistakes for a birthday, but Ethel blurts out that all meals are, prompting Anthony to fling her plate to the floor without touching it. Anthony demands Uncle Walt to do magic tricks with a hat that was not there seconds before, producing a hideous rabbit-like monster. Horrified, Helen grabs her purse to escape despite Anthony's pleas, and finds a written SOS that was placed in her purse.

Furious, Anthony demands to know who did it, and his "relatives" cowardly throw Ethel under the bus. Knowing that she is doomed, Ethel vents out her pent-up frustration, like Dan Hollis in the original, daring Anthony to punish her. She reveals that he abducted them as a replacement for the family he killed, and tells Helen that she is his next target, like any poor schmuck he took a liking to before.

Anthony sends Ethel in the cartoon, in which she dies devoured by a monster. Terrified, Helen tries to flee, but cannot because of a giant eye behind the door. Anthony teleports before her, ranting that he is giving people what they want and boasting that he can do anything. He proves it by creating a nightmarish toon-like being from the TV, but Helen collects herself and politely asks him to wish it away.

Anthony erases the entire world, leaving him and Helen alone in a void outside reality. He explains that he sent his "family" away from him like they wanted, lamenting that he merely wants to be a good family boy, and give people what they want, but everyone hates and fears him. Helen offers to teach him to reign in his temper, to control his god-like powers and find use for them, promising him to always be there for him. Overjoyed, he restores everything back to normal.

Once again, whether Anthony's victims were restored as well is left ambiguous, though more likely than in the other versions. The two depart in her car through a desert which a smiling Anthony fills with flowers, towards a much brighter future than in the original.

References in Other Media[]

It's a Good Life, (and especially its Twilight Zone adaptation) inspired many other works. Among which:

In The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror II, Springfield and Bart are presented exactly like Peaksville and Anthony Fremont. Bart uses his powers to bend reality (and school programs) to his will, dictate his rule to Springfield, and transform anyone with bad thoughts. Pushed too far, Homer tries to kill Bart with a chair while he watches the TV, only to get turned into a Jack-in-the-box. A therapist later tells Bart to spend quality time with the still sentient Jack-in-the-Box Homer, which considerably mellows him out.

In the Episode Johnny Real Good, from the cartoon Johnny Bravo, Johnny babysits Timmy, a nasty, all-powerful, six-year-old brat, who punishes everyone having bad thoughts and tyrannizes his parents. Timmy make Johnny live one hell of a night and often teleports him to the nearby cornfield. (In this parody, "sending someone to the cornfield" is literal, rather than a term for banishment to an unknown location.)

On an episode of Lost In Space, Young Will Robinson's family and friends, start disappearing one by one. Will eventually finds the culprit: an entity who describes itself as a "bad little boy", who tapped into his resentment of being the youngest aboard. By fighting against his fears, Will defeats it and restores his family. Will Robinson was played by Bill Mumy, who played Anthony Fremont in The Twilight Zone.

The Collector, one of the main antagonists of The Owl House, seems to be at least partially based on Anthony Fremont. Only instead of being a child with god-like powers, he is a god with a child-like personality and appearance. In "For the Future", he turned Hooty into a Jack-in-the-Box, just like what happened to Dan Hollis.

Trivia[]

  • It's Still a Good Life isn't the only thing that Bill and Liliana Mumy starred in together. There were also Bud and Amy Morris on Holly Hobbie & Friends and Timothy McCole and Leni Loud on The Loud House.

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