The Last Night of a Jockey

Infobox Television episode
Title = Last Night of a Jockey
Series = The Twilight Zone


Caption = Mickey Rooney in The Last Night of a Jockey
Season = 5
Episode = 125
Airdate = October 25, 1963
Production =2616
Writer = Rod Serling
Director = Joseph M. Newman
Guests = Mickey Rooney : Michael Grady
Music = Stock from "The Big Tall Wish" (by Jerry Goldsmith)
Episode list = List of Twilight Zone episodes
Prev = A Kind of a Stopwatch
Next = Living Doll

"The Last Night of a Jockey" is an episode of the American television anthology series "The Twilight Zone".

Opening Narration

ynopsis

A jockey named Grady is sitting alone in his room after he's found out he's been banned from horse racing for life for fixing races by horse doping. All he ever wanted was to be respected. He argues with his alter-ego, trying to justify his life and his actions, but the alter-ego knows better. Grady is offered the chance to change his life with one final wish. Grady says his greatest wish is to be big. After Grady wakes from his nap he finds his wish has been granted - he is now ten feet tall. He's "big".

Ecstatic, Grady calls his ex-girlfriend over the phone just to prove to the alter-ego that size actually does matter. She rejects him, but Grady remains undaunted. He boasts that he can find more girls that will actually appreciate him because of his size. The alter-ego remains unimpressed.

Grady however is confused, and asks the alter-ego what he really is, and what his business is all about. The alter-ego tries to explain it to Grady in the most simple way possible. He's "the last gasp." The alter-ego then criticizes Grady for his dumb and "cheap" wish, and gives him better ideas and suggestions for what Grady would've really wanted. The ego implies that Grady could've wished to win the Kentucky Derby, or perform a heroic act, but as it stands, Grady wished to be a "big man." Grady objects, defending his wish.

A telephone call from the racing commission informs Grady that he has been given another chance - he has been reinstated and can jockey again. But now it's too late: unbeknownst to Grady, he has grown even larger--he is now not only too tall to ride a horse, but barely fits in his own apartment! Devastated, the now-giant Grady wrecks his room and pleads with the alter-ego, "Please! Please! Please make me small, please! I'll never ask for anything again. Please make me small!"

The alter-ego replies, "You "are" small, Mr. Grady. You see, every time you won an honest race, "that's" when you were a giant. But right now, they just don't come any smaller."

Closing Narration

Preview for Next Week's Story

Trivia

*With exactly one performer appearing—either in image or voice (not counting Rod Serling)—this episode features the smallest cast of any "Twilight Zone" episode. Close runner-ups include “Where Is Everybody?”, “"King Nine" Will Not Return”, “Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room”, “The Invaders” and “Two”.

*CBS's Program Practices department criticised this episode for use of the word "dwarf" in a negative context, suggesting that instead the terms "half-pint" or "shrimp" could be used. [Hal Erikson. “Censorship: Another Dimension Behind the Twilight Zone”, published in the October 1985 edition of "The Twilight Zone Magazine"]

*For the second part of the show, the full size furniture in the first scene has been replaced by ¾-scale models, and even smaller props are used for the finale. While Grady is trashing his apartment in the finale, he throws a tiny prop dresser across the room, inadvertently revealing it to the camera as a hollow box decorated with fake "drawers" on the front.

References

*DeVoe, Bill. (2008). "Trivia from The Twilight Zone". Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
*Grams, Martin. (2008). "The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic". Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090
*Zicree, Marc Scott: "The Twilight Zone Companion". Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

*imdb title|id=0734652|title=The Last Night of a Jockey