"A Game of Pool" is episode 70 of the

American television Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. , household ownership of television sets in the country is 96.7%, with approximately 114,200,000 American households owning at least one television set as of August 2013. ...

anthology series ''

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, sup ...

''. It originally aired on October 13, 1961, on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. According to

Rod Serling Rodman Edward Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator/on-screen host, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series ...

, it is "the story of the best pool player living and the best pool player dead."

Opening narration

Plot

Pool shark Jesse Cardiff stays after hours at Lister's Pool Room in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, practicing. Jesse bitterly muses that he would be considered the greatest pool player of all time, if it were not for the memory of the late James Howard "Fats" Brown overshadowing him. He says he would give anything to play one game against Fats, prompting Fats himself to wearily rise from a pool table in the afterlife. He appears in the pool room and offers to play against Jesse, with a wager attached. If Jesse wins, he will be acknowledged as the greatest pool player ever; if he loses, he forfeits his life. Jesse accepts these conditions and the two begin to play. Throughout the game, Fats laments that Jesse has done nothing with his life but play pool, explaining that he himself lived a full life in addition to becoming a great player. Jesse ignores Fats, convinced that he is just trying to distract him. With one ball left on the table and both men needing to sink it in order to win, Fats misses his shot, and he warns Jesse that he may get more than he bargained for if he wins the game. Jesse sinks the ball and revels in his victory, now secure in his status as the best pool player of all time. Fats thanks Jesse for beating him, leading Jesse to angrily call him a sore loser, before Fats disappears. Long after his own death, Jesse is summoned from the afterlife to travel to Mason's Pool Hall in

Sandusky, Ohio Sandusky ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Erie County, Ohio, United States. Situated along the shores of Lake Erie in the northern part of the state, Sandusky is located roughly midway between Toledo ( west) and Cleveland ( east). Accor ...

, to play against a challenger.

Closing narration

Remake with alternative ending

George Clayton Johnson's script originally featured an ending in which Jesse loses the game and yet finds himself still alive. Seeing this, Fats explains that he will die "as all second-raters die: you'll be buried and forgotten without me touching you. If you'd beaten me, you'd have lived forever." Fats disappears, while Jesse vows to keep practicing until he is good enough to face the champion again. The episode was remade in the 1980s version of ''

''. The remade version featured

Esai Morales Esai Manuel Morales Jr. (born October 1, 1962) is an American actor. He has had notable roles in the films '' Bad Boys'' with Sean Penn and '' La Bamba'' with Lou Diamond Phillips (1987). His television roles include the PBS 2002 drama series '' ...

as Jesse Cardiff and Maury Chaykin as Fats Brown. This version used the original alternate ending that Johnson intended for the original 1961 version.

References

*Zicree, Marc Scott: ''The Twilight Zone Companion''. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition) *DeVoe, Bill. (2008). ''Trivia from The Twilight Zone''. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. *Grams, Martin. (2008). ''The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic''. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Game Of Pool, A 1961 American television episodes The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series season 3) episodes Cue sports on television Television episodes written by George Clayton Johnson Television episodes set in Chicago