| “ | Franklin... | „ |
| ~ The slot machine ominously calling out to Franklin Gibbs, its only line |
The slot machine is the main antagonist of "The Fever", the 17th episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone, the episode airing in 1960. It is a seemingly living Las Vegas slot machine that goads people into wasting all their money on it, and then kill them, able to project images of itself and call the name of its victims. Physically, it is a Rol-A-Top slot machine with a somewhat ornate covering, mounted on a wheeled platform and bearing a sign labeled "Special Jackpot $10000.00". Additionally, it has a glowing circle on its top component, and a smile-shaped glowing line on its money-depositor, giving it an incredibly loose resemblance to some sort of smiling cyclops.
The slot machine was portrayed by a prop, and the actor for its voice is uncredited. Based on the opening and closing narration, slot machine serves as a representation of gambling addiction.
Biography[]
The slot machine was present in Las Vegas by the 1960s, where many people would play it and lose large amounts of money. One day, an elderly couple, Franklin and Flora Gibbs, won an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, staying in the casino that the machine was located. While Franklin detested gambling, Flora wanted to play at least once, and put a nickel in a machine as Franklin berated her. Flora convinces him to let her play just once, and pulled the machine's lever, but wins nothing. Franklin then tried to go to his room, but a drunk man then went up to him and practically coerced him into putting a coin in the slot machine before stumbling off. As his coin was already in the slot machine, Franklin begrudgingly pulled the lever, but to his surprise, he won. After collecting his winnings, Franklin decided to go back to his room as to not get roped into losing all his winnings on other machines. However, the drunk man then tried to play the same machine, winning some money, but as the machine spat out his winnings, it called out "Franklin..." in a raspy, mechanical voice, only heard by Franklin.
As Franklin tried to sleep, the slot machine kept calling out to him, and made Franklin see his stack of winnings grow taller and taller, presumably to entice him to earn more. Franklin finally got up, leaving with the excuse that he could not keep the 'tainted money' that he won, planning to give it all back to the machine by playing it. However, the machine's goading made Franklin keep playing it for hours after he already gave it back all his winnings, starting to spend and lose his own money on it. Three hours later, Flora came down and tried to pull him away from it, but Franklin refused, believing that the machine was mocking him by not letting him win. After almost five hours, Franklin had spent an excessive amount of money, and got angry at Flora when she tried to protest again, saying that the machine was some sort of monster that was sucking him in, but he still believed that he had to earn something back from it.
As the hours went on, Franklin kept obsessively playing the machine, enraged by the fact that it took so much yet gave so little back, but was fixated on winning the slot machine's $10,000 jackpot. Eventually, he inserted his last dollar into the machine, only for it to seemingly malfunction, its lever getting stuck when he tried to pull it. Franklin then threw a tantrum, screaming that the machine owed him his dollar as he pushed it over, forcing security to take him away. Employees then straightened the machine and stuck an 'out of service' sign on it.
Sometime later, back at his room, Franklin, who had now been awake for 24 hours, kept insisting that the machine purposefully broke itself to deny him the jackpot, also believing that the machine was some sort of intelligent malevolent being. Then, he suddenly heard the machine calling his name again, getting up and searching for the source, although Flora still couldn't see it. When Franklin looked out the room, he saw the slot machine down the hall, rolling itself towards him, but Franklin closed the door on it. However, when he went to the nearby mirror, he saw the door open for the machine in the reflection, letting it roll in, unseen by Flora, who snapped Franklin out of the machine's illusion by making him look back and see that nothing had got in. Franklin then turned back to Flora, but instead saw the slot machine manifest in her place, calling his name while advancing on him. Franklin attempted to run out of the room, only to run into another apparition of the machine at the door, closing the door on it as Flora tried to insist that there was nothing there. However, Franklin appeared to no longer be able to see or hear her, instead seeing the machine manifest in the room again and begin repeating his name while closing in on him. The machine backed Franklin up against the window, flashing its lights brightly while still calling his name, making Franklin fall out the window to his death. Shortly afterwards, when police and onlookers left, the slot machine manifested near Franklin's corpse, and spat out a single silver dollar that rolled into his hand, flashing its 'smile' at him for a few seconds before going dark.
While the slot machine's apparitions may appear to be nothing more than Franklin's delusions, the fact that it kept manifesting after his death implies that it truly was an entity with a mind of its own.
Trivia[]
- The slot machine appears among numerous other props from the show, including the Invaders' spaceship, in the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney's Hollywood Studios. It can occasionally be seen at the end of the ride, when the elevator lands in the basement of the hotel, depending on which drop shaft the riders were in.
